Dragon Encounters

How to Use

While the copper dragon is officially classified as good, I fail to see it in the flavor text description. Based on that description, I’d classify the dragon as neutral. This is not a dragon that will help vanquish evil, unless it is in its most direct self-interest to do so.

On the plus side, this means you don’t need to think of excuses for the dragon not fighting the players’ fights for them.

The most noteworthy feature of the copper dragon is its sense of humor. Most articles online interpret that as a fondness for practical jokes, but that is a very tricky thing to bring into a D&D game.

If they’re mild, they won’t really affect the story, and your players will ignore them, except perhaps as a sign of the dragon’s presence. Most major practical jokes will just come out as straight up mean.

Roleplaying the dragon as a comedian won’t work unless the DM also happens to be an excellent comedian (and such a DM will already have sufficient comedy characters that the dragon’s jokes will be rendered irrelevant.)

With all that said, here are two ways that should work fine at bringing the dragon’s humor into the game:

1. The players need the dragon’s cooperation in achieving something. While the dragon won’t be inclined to help them out of charity, if they can persuade the dragon that it’s a joke, that’s a very different story. Let them know this via NPC or knowledge roll, and let them figure out how to do it

To make this work, you need an NPC with some intelligence who is going to be affected by the “Joke”. Most probably, the joke shouldn’t be about killing someone or something, but you can probably get away with a joke that requires that requires them to kill some guards on the way to perform the joke, especially if the guards aren’t intelligent. (Examples: dogs, constructs).

Other than what I just wrote, there are no rules. Knock yourself out. (I read a book where they had to steal a treasure from a guardian with a similar sense of humor. Rather than tell the guardian that they were attempting a theft, the character told the guardian that he was playing a trick on the owner, by switching their valuable treasure with a banana.)

2. The other way to use the dragon’s sense of humor is as a form of riddle, if they’re negotiating with the copper dragon. Not every joke is immediately and obviously funny, especially if the joke is built around a pun. Have the dragon share one or two such stories with them. Whether they get it or not will help or hinder their persuasion tactics.

(While you might not have such jokes handy, they’re not hard to write. All you need is an overly elaborate pun, which you’ll build a small story around. You don’t have to worry about how funny it comes out, as finding it funny is their job. Knock-knock jokes in particular are notorious for horrible puns, and while I’d like even a young dragon to have a higher sense of humor than that, you should be able build on puns taken from them.)

If you take this approach, it might result in some of your players responding with their own jokes. If they do, I’d say give them points based on how clever their jokes are. You can use yourself as a base line, to decide if the jokes are funny.

(If you really want to challenge them, respond by having the dragon ask them for a joke/story about a topic of its choice. Be aware that this is more a challenge of adapting a joke to fit the topic than a challenge of coming up with a joke on the spot.)

Combat Encounter (difficulty 8)

The copper dragon is the only dragon in the Monster Manual with a climb movement. Logically, this should let it perch on the side of a wall at the end of its turn, assuming the wall is climbable.

The basic way to use this is have it land near a single PC. If you can cause the players to spread out at the beginning of the fight, all the better.

(You can do this with a fire or flood. Ideally, trick them into setting it off, as that will fit the dragon’s infamous humor. A different idea is tripwire traps that hit anybody right behind the one triggering them. Again, something that could be considered funny, and something that might make them spreading out, not realizing that was the idea. The last idea is logs over gulleys or streams that can only take the weight of one PC at a time, or that are rotten and will break after a PC crosses.)

The dragon will use its first turn to use its breath attack to slow down the other PCs, preventing them from coming to aid. You might do this even before the dragon lands on the cliffside, although it should end up there by the end of the turn, to keep the players moving forward.

On future turns, it will climb down to hit the PC, then moving back up. It will take an opportunity attack in doing so, but that’s better than taking the full weight of the PCs attacks on the PCs turn. When its breath weapon recharges, you can decide whether it’s better to have it use acid or slow.

This strategy won’t protect it from ranged attacks and spells. However, any ranged attacks that miss, and all area-of-effect spells, will hit the cliff that the dragon is holding on to. If the dragon chose its perch well, that cliff face wasn’t all that strong to begin with.

It won’t collapse on the players’ turns, because the dragon is spreading its bulk to keep the cliff together, but when the dragon moves the cliff will collapse, temporarily burying the melee PCs attacking it, and leaving the ranged attackers and spellcasters wide open.

Summary… 6 Ways to Use

1. How to use the dragon’s humor 1: The players have to get the dragon to agree to help them with something. Suggest to them via NPC that the best way to get cooperation is if they can sell it as a joke.
2. How to use the dragon’s humor 2: When talking with the dragon prior to bargaining, it will tell a story or two with a subtle joke at the end (probably a pun). How cooperative the dragon will be depends on if they can get the joke.
3. How to use the dragon’s humor 3: The players ask the dragon for something, and it answers gravely that it requires a quest first. The dragon’s quest is to bring it a good joke or two. (For a challenge, it has to be on a certain subject.)
4. The dragon can use its climb movement to grip onto the side of a cliff, where no more than one player can reach it. If they hurl spells, they will collapse the cliff. The dragon will hold it together just long enough for a PC to be under it.
5. One of the dragon’s favorite strategies will be to bait the melee into coming after him, then hit them with the slow breath and maybe collapse the path behind them before flying past to attack the spellcasters.
6. One of the dragon’s favorite traps types will be ones that affects anybody other than the one who triggered it. It finds this hilarious. Example, a tripwire that brings a scythe swinging down right behind the one who triggered it.