Dragon Encounters

How to Use – Combat Encounters (difficulty 8)

As mentioned in the Monster Manual, what the white dragon lacks in size, strength, and intelligence, he makes up for in natural instincts. He also has the most beneficial terrain, as far as he’s concerned.

You can use the following ideas separately, or you can thread several of them together as being the way the dragon fights.

Attack 1: Ambush. The dragon burrows into a snow bank and approaches them carefully. When ready, he pokes a small hole in the snow bank, and hits them with a blast of his breath weapon, which also freezes around the hole and prevents easy retaliation.

As this is quite sneaky, the players might not even realize what happened (especially if they weren’t already expecting a dragon), and will attribute it to environmental hazard or some king of magic trap. Even if they move, the dragon won’t have much trouble following, and hitting them again and again.

The big saving grace is that the dragon won’t aim carefully to catch all of them, as he isn’t intelligent enough for that. He won’t even aim to always catch the same one, as he’s whittling away at their strength at this point, not going all in for the kill.

If they retreat, going faster than the dragon can follow stealthily, you can have the dragon decide that they’ve been weakened enough and emerge to fight them in the open. Or you can have the dragon decide not to, forcing them to figure it out later. For the second option, you probably want to have something forcing them to return and spend time in the area (searching for a hidden dungeon/treasure, perhaps.)

Even once they figure it out, or you decide to give them the answer via knowledge check, they still have to figure out how to get the dragon out. That won’t be easy. First, they have to figure out which snowbank the dragon is hiding inside.

Second, they have to find a way to dig down, and to break past layers of frozen snow. And they have to do this knowing that the dragon might attack at any moment. The dragon won’t wait for them to break all the way through, he’ll wait for a decent chance to take them by surprise, and to hit them hard.

Attack 2: Hunting. When attacking, one of the dragon’s best moves will be to fly away from them, circle around, and move toward them. By flying low, he’ll be hard to detect, especially since the background will also be white. Even though they know that the dragon is coming, I might consider giving him the advantage of surprise, should they fail to make a perception check. The white dragon has stealth proficiency.

(When rolling such a perception check, if they’re insisting that they’re all watching all directions, give them disadvantage. You can’t effectively watch all directions at once, not when your adversary can blend in with the background. The other choice is to have one player watching each direction. Of course, then only one of them gets to roll perception.)

A benefit of this strategy is that it will let the dragon use its breath weapon a lot. This isn’t why I’m doing it, however. If the dragon’s breath weapon proves slow to recharge, there is no reason for it not to use its claws and teeth, even if it has to endure an attack of opportunity as the price of moving away. The benefit is in the surprise and the fact that the PCs can’t mob it, as much as it is in the breath weapon.

Attack 3: Encaged in Ice. One of the most deadly moves the white dragon can use if it uses its breath weapon while they are standing in loose snow. The cold of the dragon’s breath will cause the snow to freeze together, and render the target(s) unable to move until they can spend an action and make a STR check to break three of the ice. Depending on how deeply they’re buried, they may be unable to fight at all, and need others to help break them out.

Setting this situation up will unfortunately be kind of hard. The dragon doesn’t have the intelligence to do it on purpose, although if they dig the dragon out of an ice bank, as mentioned above, it could cause a large amount of loose snow.

It’s also possible that the players will end up causing loose snow by throwing around spells like Fireball and Shatter, which will melt and break up the ice, respectively. (Even after they break out of the trap, having to avoid getting using these spells so as not to get caught again will make stuff not easy for them.)

If the dragon is a minion of another, though, then you might be able to use the idea more directly. Just because the dragon won’t think of it doesn’t mean the dragon’s master won’t. You could also pair the dragon together with remorhazes. They have both burrowing and fire, the two ideal abilities for this idea.

Attack 4: The players are climbing a mountain, or at the side of a crevice, when the dragon drops itself on them. The dragon should have surprise, [it was effectively hiding until then], and shouldn’t have trouble grappling onto any PC of its choice, pulling them off the mountain or into the crevice, and landing on top of them.

The PC being targeted will take falling damage, and will find themselves prone, grappled, and separated from the others. (The dragon will not take falling damage, opening its wings just in time to mostly break its fall, but not that of its victim. Also, its landing on its feet, while the PC is landing on their back.)

As the dragon will naturally land fairly close to the rock wall, the rest of the party won’t be able to shoot or cast spells from right where they are. They’ll need to figure out a way to lower more members down, and fast.

Notes of using: I would personally use this idea when they knew that there was a dragon in the vicinity, but didn’t know where and when they’d meet it. Knowing it’s there beforehand makes it seem more significant, less like a random encounter, even if it has nothing to do with their quest.

I might have the dragon take on the PC with the most HP, just to make the encounter easier. In any case, he’ll be the one with the most meat on him, and therefore the best target in the dragon’s eyes.

Summary… 6 Ways to Use

1. The dragon is hiding in a snowbank and hitting them with its breath every time it recharges. Even when they realize what’s happening, they have to get it out, as it can tunnel after them.
2. The dragon will fly low, and rely on its blending in with the surroundings to ambush them again and again.
3. If the PCs are in loose snow, the dragon’s breath will freeze the snow around them, possibly locking them in place. Fire spells and earthquake spells will leave the snow loose, as will certain dragon allies, such as a remorhaze
4. As the PCs are climbing a mountain, the dragon drops in on them, prying one of the PCs loose of the mountain, dropping him, and thereby separating him from the others.
5. The dragon hunting results in panicking beasts (winter wolves, mammoths) crashing into the PCs and attacking. The dragon will wait and see if anyone seperates from the pack or otherwise looks vulnerable, and will await the right moment to attack.  
6. If the PCs seem too strong for the dragon, have the dragon be there in the background. How to pursue other quests when if they leave you weakened you’ll become dragon food?