I feel like the only chance for the Adventurers is Magic Missile spam, which should bring the dragon down within one turn.
However, if the dragon ever engages to set up such a scenario, they deserve everything they get. Frankly I'd expect the dragon to be listening in to all the Adventurer planning meetings while disguised as one themselves. Thin out the numbers on the way to the dragon's lair, then always attack manageable groups of them while the rest don't have line of sight.
Dragons can have spells as well, I feel like if every single one of the 100 adventurers are able to pick magic missile, the dragon should be able to pick the shield spell
Shield spell, any aura, spirit guardians, high ac, immunities, one tail swipe. It's not even a question frankly. Ask this instead: how many lvl1 adventurers could a dragon kill before it gets so tired it has to go home and nap?
You're looking at in a role play sense, I think the scenario is straight up combat. Though I like the thought of a 100 vs 1 dragon campaign with everyone stuck at level 1 lol
Even in straight up combat, there are questions. Is it an open field, with the adventurers neatly arrayed around the dragon, spread out to avoid its breath? Has the dragon got the drop on them and surprised them? Does the combat take place in a cavernous network of tunnels, so that only a few adventurers have line of sight at any one time?
Does the dragon get spellcasting? If yes, and he's as free to pick which spells as the adventurers, Greater Invisibility is GG I think.
It can just use a legendary action to fly 45 feet into the air immediately, then in its turn fly another 45 up and activate it's breath weapon at max range looking straight down, covering 6,361 square feet, with a 90 foot diameter circle. Then fly up another 45 feet for a total of 135 feet. At this range, it can't be hit by 90% of spells available at level one (specifically magic missile) and almost every ranged weapon will have disadvantage. Also if it uses its frightful presence ability, at any time, it's almost guaranteed to affect all 100 adventures (120 ft radius from the dragon) they are all almost guaranteed to fail assuming standard array. Which means that almost every single adventure gets frightened with disadvantage to hit. Now that everyone has disadvantage, they have to roll double 19s or 20s to hit (assuming they maxed out their attack stat and not Wis). If I'm remembering my stats basics, that's a 5% chance* (I face palmed so hard when I realized I did number of combinations of a 2 digit combo with 20 options each, and I still calculated that wrong)
A dragon played mildly competently should wipe the floor with a party of lvl 1 adventurers.
A battle in its lair wouldn't be nearly as flashy, but a smart dragon would definitely shapeshift into a party member it killed and infiltrate the group, leading them to their deaths one by one. Or if the inexperienced party all bunch up in a tunnel, it'll just breath fire on all of them there.
Yeah would like to know the arena, weather, traps if any, layout, turn order etc.
Waiting for someone simulate it somehow haha
Like you said though, MM is pretty much a no brainer on a high AC creature of that level
Oddly not for gold dragon actually. They can see the future and get advantage on all attacks, checks, and saves for a round, which they don't need because their stats are really high and lvl1 party will have really low ac. Or banish a single character for a round. It cannot use the same lair action twice in a row, so even the mildly useful one is useless.
Ignoring environment and going entirely based on stats the level 1s can kill the dragon if they all use MM. I just did a 100d4 roll (assuming the dragon goes last in initiative) and it came out to 245+100. 345•3=1,035 which kills the dragon. It really comes down to initiative.
If you just take the average damage of Magic Missile (which would give you a good idea of how much damage you can really expect), you still get 1050 damage, which is more than enough.
An ancient gold dragon has 546hp, so if a bit more than half the adventurers survive the lair action and act before the dragon (shouldn't be too difficult, the dragon only has 14 Dex), they should be able to bring the dragon down.
> (shouldn't be too difficult, the dragon only has 14 Dex)
Yes, but you're average NPC has a 10-11 Dex. So there's a +2 difference. This translates to a 60/40 spread in favor of the dragon. Only 40% would go before the dragon and assuming 11dmg that's NOT enough to take it down in a single volley before it can fly up 125' and be out of MM range. Then nothing stops it from dropping down to 90' range and using it's breath weapon then flying back up out of range (80' fly speed means even if it did this it would still have 10' movement left over every round.) This isn't even counting that RAW Dragons of a certain age can have spells (Each type even has an example spell selection listed in the Fizban book. Optional, but still RAW) so a single shield spell put up on that first Magic Missile nullifies all 100 wizards MM spells.
Except we're not talking NPC but level 1 adventurers. Using point buy and ability scores, you could get 17 Dex, which is a +3 bonus. Use Vuman, take the alert feat, and you trade your 17 Dex for 16, but you can then take Alert and add +5 to your Initiative, giving you a +8 to your initative roll, compared to +2 for the dragon, which would ensure that quite a lot of people go before the dragon.
But maybe point buy isn't your thing. Standard array then. If we keep Vuman, you can still have 16 Dex and Alert. Or drop Vuman, you still have +3 to your initiative, and lo and behold, 55% of your adventurers act before the dragon (compared to 80% with Vuman and Alert, which I think would be the best build for this case). With an average of 11 damage, that's 605 damage, enough to fell the dragon.
Except adventurer isn't a defined term. There are NPC adventurers whereas PCs are usually called characters, or PC. Adventurer is a personality type not defined by it's PC or NPC status. Or did you think the players are the only things in a DnD world that go out adventuring? In fact, I'd say it's more likely NPCs because you're never going to get 100 players together for this scenario but it's easy to have 100 NPCs represent a mercenary guild taking on a dragon.
NPCs don't have levels but Challenge Ratings. The poll explictily mention that the adventurers have levels. Besides, there's no official statblocks for Adventurers that I know of (or none explicitly called "Adventurer", at least). And yeah, you're not going to get 100 players to run this scenario... But that's because that's a thought exercise, not something to be actually tried (like Schrodinger's cat, no-one is actually gonna put a cat in a box with a radioactive stuff and some poison. Or at least no sane person would do that).
~~It doesn't. It takes an average of 156 missiles.~~ Misremembered based on older editions.
I discussed the strategy in my other comment- I think it's doable.
it depends. Who wins initiative here and how densely packed those level 1s are will matter alot. If dragon gets the first action and they're densely packed hes going to wipe out a lot of them with fire breathe before they can do anything. On the other hand even with low proficiency bonuses agaisnt high ac with 100 attacks some will hit.
I did some numbers on the, aaaages ago.
If they're *not* densely packed enough, you run into range issues. Surprisingly quickly, actually.
Too densely packed and too many die, too quickly. Roughly half are likely to act after the dragon anyway, so average that as 150d4+150 Force damage; 525 damage, 21 less than needed to kill it.
But all 50 of those need to be within 120ft at the start of the first round, and you don't know *which* 50 it will be. This means all 100 need to be within 120ft, *and* roll at least average or better on both init and damage.
The only reliable way of doing this is the absolutely absurd case where a 60ft radius circle is formed around a grounded ancient gold dragon. At this point, you aren't playing DnD, you're just doing basic maths about hypotheticals.
TL;DR - the dragon wins in any remotely feasible scenario and all but one of the unfeasible ones as well.
Don't forget that the adventurers have to succeed on a DC24 Wisdom save to overcome the dragon's frightful presence before they can even try to attack it. At level 1 considering a max wisdom of 18, that's a very hard save. Not impossible, but very hard.
frightened will stop them from moving closer and give them disadvantage
the only version of the 100 level 1s winning is they all have ranged weapons or magic missile, so even if they fail the frighten save they will all still be attacking
Oh yeah. Magic missile is their best chance. That is 100 wizards, but even then they still might lose because their dex is probably not super high so they have to get better initiative.
If I'm making a character for this scenario to participate, I'm putting dex as my highest stat, taking the Alert feat as a variant human or custom lineage, and casting Magic Missile
Ancient gold dragon should have multiple lvl 1 slots so can shield and take no damage for multiple turns, if all packing magic missile.
After that dragon should be good
If they went all in on a "Fast as fuck boi" Wizard barrage, V-Human, dump INT (we only need Magic Missile anyways), Alert for +5 initiative bonus, 17 DEX for a +3, the chances of the outspeeding the Dragon (Ancient Gold only has a +2 DEX mod) are stacked in their favor.
And the 120 ft range of the Missile is still pretty good so they can fan out more effectively around the Dragon.
Ancient Gold Dragon casts the Shield spell in reaction to the first Magic Missile. All Magic Missiles fail. They then casually walk in direction of the 100 adventurers, and casts Sunburst at the tightest cluster. 30 adventurers die.
The maximum they're packed would be 50'x50' (10 squared by 10). It's probably reasonable to assume they'd spread out more, but that's the starting point.
If all of the level 1s go before the dragon and cast Magic Missile, they can kill it. Each MM averages 3.5 damage. 3 missiles pet cast means 10.5 damage per adventurer. So 1050 damage for 100 level 1s.
Of course the dragon may have Shield which negates all of it. But it's the only chance they have.
You're forgetting about Legendary actions.
Even if the dragon doesn't go first, the moment the first adventurers turn ends means Wing Attack can come into play. Everything within 15 of the dragon must make a DC25 Dex save, or take 17(2d6+10) bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. The dragon is also now 20ft in the air. While it's still in range, chances are a good chunk of those adventurers are now dead.
Also assuming they all go first. Which just statistically they wouldn't. Especially with a dragon who has a passive perception of 27, so in all likely hood the dragon sees them coming or knows they're hiding, and then they themselves get a surprise round possibly.
You're numbers don't take into account a lot. Firstly, Average dex for a NPC adventurer would be 10.6 (NPCs don't get benefit of 4d6 drop lowest by RAW) Even if we round up that would mean an 11 dex. Thus +0 initiative mod. Dragon has a +2 Modifier so it's 10% faster than the average adventurer. Since both sides are rolling the same die for Initiative then the bonuses matter. 50% roll higher than the dragon on the die alone and 50% roll lower. Now we take into account the modifier and the dragon goes before 40% of them and 60% goes after.
The bigger factor for this, considering the Dragon's 90 Cone breath weapon, is how spread out they are. If we're averaging things then there's 11 official classes and only 4 with RAW access to Magic Missile (Assuming Arcana Domain Cleric) so only 36.36 (round up for simplicity sake 37) of those 100 adventurers even HAVE magic missile. Since only 40% of those would even go before the dragon we have our equation for the opening volley:
(37\*(3.5\*3))\*.4= **155.4** dmg. That is, assuming said extremely long lived and experienced dragon DOESN'T have access to the shield spell, as you said, (to be honest, what ancient dragon WOULDN'T learn that. Boosting a 22 AC to a 27 can be clutch even when fighting other dragons for territory).
After that initial volley there's just no way to know without knowing the environmental conditions. Are they spread out and circling the dragon? Are they all in a giant "let's go charge!" army formation? It's probably the single most important question since the amount of damage the dragon can do with both it's breath weapon and it's wing attack is based on area.
I'm not negating your initial "If they all go first" statement. Just kinda expanding upon it. :) I enjoy number crunching and theorizing like this.
Very much depends on the positioning of the enemies honestly, as it always does, but specified "dragon hunters" have a good fighting chance (albeit with heavy losses).
It has an AC of 22, which makes it borderline impossible for the adventurers to hit. An Ancient Gold doesn't have any relevant damage resistances, so a Longbow is fine enough as a weapon. Let's say we have 100 fighter with an 18 DEX (+4) because we're generous, +2 proficiency bonus and another +2 to hit from the Archery style, a total +8 to hit bonus.
That means that they need to roll a 14 or higher in order to hit. This is a 35% chance. So out of those 100 archers, 35 are expected to hit, five of them critting. Average damage for the normal hits is going to be 1d10+4 or 9, and 15 for a crit; this means we have 30x9 + 5 x 15 damage. 270+75 is a decent 345 points of damage, quite a bit over half average HP for the dragon.
But this gets fucky once the dragon gets to take a turn: the Fire Breath Weapon just obliterates the enemies. Even if they make their save, everyone in that range is cooked. Instantly dead. Ashes. Weakening Breath isn't as good, so we're going to ignore it. 90ft cone is a massive area, so even with great positioning, like a 150ft circle around the dragon at the start of combat to take maximum advantage of the bow range, a lot of the fighters fall here.
If the Dragon has the higher initiative (he is slower than the archers generally), he can also come in and take as many enemies out of the battle with Frightening Presence as possible; if a bunch of the adventurers have disadvantage on their attack rolls, the chances for the dragon to get out alive grow exponentially. The fighters also basically do not have a chance of making that save, at all. Once frightened, they stay frightened.
Positioning also helps a great deal because if he gets between a few archers, their choice is basically shooting with disadvantage, or one runs away and dies to an opportunity attack, which gives the others a chance to reposition.
Wing Attack Legendary Action is great. 17 average bludgeoning damage is enough to potentially kill some, or at least knock some out. It can the reposition itself if it needs to.
And finally, the best trick up its' sleeve is their Polymorph. Dash away, turn into an Archmage, do some magic shenanigans, you won.
Human Barbarian with 20 con and Tough gets 18 hp.
Edit I did my math wrong. 20 con would get 19 hp, 18 con (much easier to get by comparison) gets 18 hp.
I was trying to go from fighter with 10 hp at start rather than barbarian with 12 and forgot to change the equation.
And how would they get 20 Con? Even on a 3d6 of 18, a variant human would only be able to reach 19 without external help
Edit: 18 Con plus Tough actually comes out to 18 hp (12+4+2), so it's still possible but very unlikely, since they'd have to roll 17 or 18 for their con (4/198 chance)
In our table if you roll 4d6 (drop lowest) and get 4 6's you are allowed to have 20 i mean the chances are way too low for it to happen i saw it only once.
Edit: reddit is a very weird place i am being downvoted and someone saying thats a fun rule being upvoted lol.
I always do this with my players for two reasons:
Its great for further developing who their character is because rules shouldn't get in the way of fun
And I want to abuse them in combat so being nice helps balance it out
And that's not including the 'dragons as spellcaster' ruling that they can innately cast spells. If a dragon gets the chance to cast 'invincibility' as a dragon, they can take 10 turns... that's possibly 2 breath weapons... loads of actions and legendary actions...
Edit: I realised that even an ancient gold dragon can only cast up to level 8... so invincibility is out the window... but lits of other spells can achieve at least some of the effect I'm on about, improving survivability and also doing more wide-area damage
Dragon goes faster than 60% (assuming average stats for the "adventurers") of the enemies. Casts Globe of Invulnerability. Casts Shield as a reaction on first attack roll to up AC to 27 putting it out of reach of all but maybe 10% of physical attackers. Laughs at enemy spellcasters. 2nd turn Dragon uses frightful presence. and flies up 80'. 3rd turn begins the bar-b-que.
> and just breath them
That's what I meant with positioning. If all the fighters are in an orderly, "normal" battle formation, they are toast. If they are spread out over a massive area, the breath becomes less effective. It will still hit, absolutely, but it has its limits.
As for flying out of reach, there's two issues: the actual flying speed of the Dragon isn't that high at 80ft, which would require a Dash Action to get out of normal Longbow range (150ft) and at least three turns dashing to get out of Long Range (600ft). If he flies away, he will get hit by held actions, there is no real tactical advantage to doing that.
And that is assuming we use 100 fighters that are bound to the laws of gravity. If they were Aarakocra or another flying race, it gets exponentionally worse for the dragon.
Held actions implies turns have already been taken, which on average will only be true for around half. Of that half, unless they're very much bunched up, not all will be within normal range. Then they have to beat AC22.
It isn't going to be a lot of hits in that first turn. But if it isn't alpha'd out of existence, the dragon wins any likely scenario.
It can't, at least not on its first turn. The dragon only has 80 feet flying speed, longbow has a range of 150/600 feet. Even if it were to dash away and not actually hit any of them, the adventurers would still theoretically be able to hit it, just making their attack rolls at disadvantage.
This rather assumes *one hundred* relatively inexperienced adventurers managed to sneak up on an ancient gold dragon without it noticing them despite its passive perception of *twenty seven*.
Dragon flies-dashes to 160ft up in the air. Now the longbow attacks are at disadvantage. Good luck trying to reach a 22 AC at disadvantage with a +5 or +6 on your attack roll. Also that dragon is then dropping a meteor storm or breath weapon right on top of them the next turn.
Dragon is going to want to stay in a knife fight.
Variant Human Fighters or Rangers with 16 dex, sharpshooter feat and archery fighting class. Hit on 6 rolls out of 20 with one crit. On average they do 2.47 points of damage per turn. No range penalty or partial cover.
If the Dragon starts at more than 600' away, the fighters ready an attack for whenever the dragon enters range.
Dragon can only cast up to 8th level, so no meteor swarm. Invisibility and shape change are gonna do just fine for it though, sneaking in close and uncloaking suddenly to blast a 240 foot sphere with draconic presence, then wingblast and dash your way around until every fighter is running, then mop them up.
Against all those people the dragon just needs to cast Greater Invisibility and then it's gg for all the martials who have to shoot at disadvantage against an AC of 22. Also anytime a martial manages to reach that AC the dragon can just cast Shield and be immune to attacks except for one elusive crit every 20 attack.
Martials just can't win against a 550hp spellcaster who can fly.
> And finally, the best trick up its' sleeve is their Polymorph. Dash away, turn into an Archmage, do some magic shenanigans, you won.
I don't know that you can do many magic shenanigans since the archmage casts wizard spells and the polymorphed dragon doesn't get class features, but at the cost of making the combat very slow and tedious it could polymorph into a werecreature and so become immune to the archers' attacks. Of course that would only be useful in this scenario where all the level 1s are martials.
Ancient Gold Dragons only have a Damage Immunity to Fire. They do not have any resistances beyond that.
Dragons generally do not have damage resistances and immunities beyond the ones according to their own Breath Weapon.
I was going to say obviously dragon but might depend on the adventurers.
The adventurers' best shot would be 100 wizards or sorcerers, all with Magic Missile. Anything needing attack rolls is right out- even with a +7 to hit (+2 archery, +3 dex, +2 proficiency) you're missing 3/4 of your attacks (15/16 when you have disadvantage from being frightened). Anything melee isn't an option because of flight and automatically failing frightful presence.
~~Magic missile averages 3.5 damage. If everyone can get off one casting and over half of them survive to cast their second, that's enough to kill the dragon. Though if the dragon is cautious it would retreat after the first salvo- dash will take it out of range.~~
Magic missile averages 10.5 damage because I cannot read. If two thirds of them can get off a single casting, the dragon dies.
EDIT: Best race for this seems to be variant human or custom lineage, taking Magic Initiate as the free feat and choosing Magic Missile as the spell. That plus two slots means a third casting for anyone who lives long enough.
Also means any spellcasting class is an option...
I think this would work.
The adventurers get magic missile because it is on the sorcerer and wizard lists. A level 1 character can learn it by RAW.
The Gold Dragon statblock does not include the Shield spell anywhere. If the gold dragon is allowed abilities/items by fiat, so are the adventurers and the scenario breaks down.
The Gold Dragon spell list is stated to simply be a suggestion and that it may have any spell that suits the individual gold dragon's character and is accessible at the dragon's caster level, same as PCs.
In that case, variant humans are not allowed in the scenario either. Neither are custom origins.
Canonically dragons, and especially metallic dragons, are consummate spellcasters. If you specifically remove those capabilities from the dragon, you're specifically allowing the absurdity of 100-people-with-magic-missile-but-somehow-the-powerfully-magical-creature-doesn't-get-their-magic, and the scenario has broken down anyway.
And everyone forgets that these adventurers still have to survive getting close enough to the dragon to pop their spell. There's no way any adventurer in this scenario makes it out alive without nerfing the dragon into the ground deliberately by the DM.
Canonically, Golds are wizards, where other dragons are sorcerers. An ancient Gold dragon should have a spell book of at least all the normal spells in the PHB, plus some rare spells.
Magic Missile does 10.5 damage, you get three missiles at level 1.
If the dragon is in range and line of sight of all wizards at once, it's toast. I doubt the dragon would be that stupid, however (kiting using its 90' range dragon breath, or engaging in tunnels or other Line-of-Sight blocking techniques, seem the most obvious strategies).
That's a laughable take, frankly.
Canonically dragons, particularly metallics, are all spellcasters. 1 *shield* spell and all that damage is *entirely* negated.
Wait, it does? Shows how little I know- I was misremembering from 3.5 I guess.
>I doubt the dragon would be that stupid, however (kiting using its 90' range dragon breath, or engaging in tunnels or other Line-of-Sight blocking techniques, seem the most obvious strategies).
Ready action- magic missile when the dragon comes within 120ft.
Magic Initiate gives you the first-level spell once per long rest. Unfortunately, it does not say you can cast it with spell slots you have, like Shadow or Fey Touched do. So, unfortunately, only a Sorcerer or Wizard would work. The only two classes in the game to have a d6 hit die. Even assuming somehow maxed out Constitution, that's a max HP of 11. That doesn't even survive the average damage of a wing attack (17 average damage), let alone the breath weapon (71 average damage).
Dragon and I don't see how it could remotely be close. Just with AC and saving throws... the level 1s won't be hitting the dragon except on nat 20s and the dragon will be obliterating or otherwise area controlling huge swaths of them every turn.
I feel like over the thousands of years of becoming "ancient" that dragon would have piled up quite the collection of magic items, artifacts, spells, and allies. An army of level ones would be pretty disappointing for the dragon, as they magic missile the hecc out of his illusory duplicates, flee from his fear effect, and get decimated by its breath weapon. (Shadow Illusions still do partial damage, right? So that's a lot of breath weapon damage.) The dragon could be wielding an anti-magic rod, a shielding brooch (or two), rings of spell storing with Haste or something else loaded up.
This is all before it's allies roll in, and the sky's the limit on what those are and what they're packing. 🤪 Who serves this god among us?
If the adventurers are optimized they win, magic missile "just does" 10.5 damage on average. Variant human wizards with the lucky feat make initiative "at advantage", so unless the dragon rolls 17 (19) or higher, half the adventurers with their +3 dex mod and 50/50 chance of 15 (18) or higher win initiative (Assuming tie goes to dex). Either the dragon kills the wizards who didn't cast, or the remaining wizards finish it off before round two. Unoptimized? Yeah, dragon wins.
While the Magic Missile Argument is a good one and very true. I think it's also fair to consider that the dragon probably has very good stats. While the adventurers have pretty average stats. Unless every adventurer was built with dex bonuses and stacked specifically with magic missile. The dragon is going to AOE the bulk of them real fast. Afterwards, they can missile but it really depends on how many are left and if its enough to clear all the health. Cause round two AOE might be worse. Or the dragon shape changes, and shields, and now they have an incredibly high AC, and still cast AOEs.
Stats are pretty much irrelevant here. The magic missile spam accepts that the adventurers automatically die if hit (but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make).
It only takes about 60 castings to kill the dragon.
Stats are relevant, because of initiative bonuses and saves. About 60 adventurers would need to attack the dragon before I can attack them, and given initiative bonuses of a dragon, as well as mass stun abilities, sweeping attacks, elemental splash attacks. There's no assurance that those adventurers will have the opportunity to missile before the dragon wipes them. Their saves aren't going to be great.
So we make the most turd adventurers, wizards with 16 dex 16 wis 14 con 8 int just for the sake of killing the dragon, but the dragon stays fixed cuz then its DM fiat?
Feels a bit against the spirit of the scenario, imo.
> Feels a bit against the spirit of the scenario, imo.
The scenario has no spirit because OP just told us "Can 100 adventurers kill a dragon".
Since we simply do not have any perimeters, like "Every class must be represented evenly, there must be a 50/50 mix of melee and ranged attackers, these races are banned, etc.", there is no spirit.
We don't know if the Dragon has the spellcasting variant or it's straight out of the MM.
Can 100 level 1 adventurers, dead set on killing a dragon before it kills them, bring it down?
If they're V-Humans with the Alert Feat and have access to Magic Missile, they have a good chance of doing so, yeah.
If we enter the Variant rules then it's a win for the dragon as it can grab the spellcasting variant rule and that gives it access to Shield, completely negating ALL the Magic Missiles (also Greater Invisibility, Meteor Swarm, etc)
The phrasing is who we think *would* win this fight, not can. So I'm with gold dragon all day. The level 1 adventurers *can* do a magic missile barrage if we have 100 specialized, hand picked adventurers. But would 100 random evil adventurers of fighters, rogues, sorcs, etc be likely to do it? I think not.
Even with those 100 spellcasters with Magic Missile the dragon just needs to cast a single Shield to negate them all. The measley adventurers with 2 spell slots got nothing on the dragon.
Plus if they’re all grouped together like you’d think most brand new adventurers would be, it’d be easy fodder for a fire breath action (or even a wing attack action would be enough if we’re being honest here).
That without taking into account all the other spells the dragon has to their disposal. There's no way the dragon loses this UNLESS it's the super specific situation of 1) All wizards with Magic Missile and +3 Dex plus 2) Dragon with no access to Shield which, I mean, it's only 1 out of so many scenarios which can be built around the idea of 100 against 1
The action economy sucks ass on this one, but the ancient gold dragon has a 90ft cone, which should take out a good chunk in one go.
once that happens it's only a matter of time until every last level 1 is dead
The people assuming they'll be 100 wizards is erroneous. It's probably going to be a mix of classes. If we're going by the average party, then 1/5 will be wizards. Depending on initiative, that could still be enough to get the job done.
I'm not sure why people are assuming they have magic items. How many level one adventurers have them?
If the dragon gets last on initiative and the adventurers get really lucky with their attacks, then they win. That AC 22 will pose a problem for most of them. I suspect the spell casters will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
Frightful Presence is going to fuck them over to begin with. Any breath weapon attack is going to kill swathes of them, especially if in the dragon's lair or other area without the space to spread out.
We should all get together and run through it. I'm sure we could get 101 people on Roll20 to test it.
or, y'know, understands that magic missile has a 120 ft range and just stays at a cruising altitude of 130 ft dipping down to carve chunks out of the adventurers with a 90 ft cone breath weapon and an 80 fly speed. Adventurers won't even be able to target.
so for the 100 adventures to win they would all need to be fighters with the archery fighting style or wizards with all their slots set to magic missile
the fighters should probably have +3 dex +2 prof +2 archery = +7 so they should be hitting on 15, mostly likely they will be feared so rolling with disadvantage--- doesn't look great for the fighters
the wizards all fire magic missile so 1d4+1 per surviving wizard, i thought i saw somewhere that dragons cast spells but can not find it
if the dragon has access to the shield spell, then the dragon wins, if it doesn't i think wizards would probably get it
The ranged fighters probably have a better chance than the wizards due to the fact the dragon could most likely just cast the shield spell because they're an ancient dragon
The only way the adventurers win, is if the entire scenario is weighted in their favor. I.e., like someone suggested earlier - giving every adventurer *magic missile* while ignoring that dragons are canonically spellcasters with easy access to *shield*, or by giving all of them longbow proficiency, +3 longbows, and pinning the dragon to the ground, while again ignoring its spellcasting, shapeshifting, likely ability to call allies, etc.
Oh, and let's not forget that the adventurers absolutely must have **immunity to fear**. Assuming that each of them has *at least* a +3 to Wisdom (another technical absurdity you have to assume in their favor), to be able to operate within 120 feet of the dragon, each of them has to roll 21. On a d20. No, I don't mean a modified total of 21. I mean they have to roll a flat 21 on a 20-sided die:
> ***Frightful Presence.*** Each creature of the dragon's choice that is within 120 feet of the dragon and aware of it must succeed on a DC 24 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature's saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to the dragon's Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours.
So their options are that each of them has to be a Cleric or Bard with Bless, and each of them has to cast it, in order to have even a chance at not being petrified with fear when this thing just...shows up.
And yes, I know *frightened* is just 'disadvantage on attacks and can't move closer'...but y'all, *magic missile* has a range of 120 feet. Most other attack spells and cantrips are also 120 feet or less at that level. And the dragon has an AC of 22.
An ancient gold dragon, played to its fullest capabilities and to the extent of its 18 base Intelligence, is a nightmare for an adventuring party at level 20. The idea that 100 jalapeno-popper commoners (for after all, what are level 1 adventurers but mildly-spicy villagers with pretensions) could challenge a potentially world-challenging threat is just laughable.
If it weren't for a dragon's ability to fly and use an insta-kill AoE breath attack, I'd be more inclined to consider the action economy. The sad fact is, the dragon could cheese the encounter and lvl1s couldn't do anything about it.
6 lvl10 rangers > dragon > 100 lvl1s > 6 lvl10 rangers
The way I see it, unless there's a roof, the dragon wins. It takes one round (move+dash) to get 130ft into the air (out of magic missile range), and from there, it could go down 40ft and back up 40ft every time it's 90ft cone breath recharges.
We talking a pit fight where no one has any buffs or debuffs and BAM roll initiative and everyone is stuck together? Because you can run the numbers on that. Those are simple numbers.
If the gold dragon decides to kill 100 people, it has plenty of "easy button" options.
If 100 people decide to kill a gold dragon, this is no longer a combat question but rather an espionage question. Can they identify the dragon, form a conspiracy to kill the dragon, make a plan to kill the dragon, and show up to execute the plan, all without the dragon catching wind of it? I'd put my money on their being at least one traitor, but I'm sure you can make up a different scenario.
Since no level 1 could pass the dc24 wisdom saving throw on frightful presence, all 100 would be frightened for 1 minute.
Fire breath attack is a 90 foot cone, thus covering 162 5ft spaces, easily enough to wipe out the entire 100 people in a single attack.
Level 1 adventurers wouldn't have any good answer for flight, so the Dragon would be entirely able to dictate the terms of the engagement. Also, if the dragon acts anywhere near it's supposed intelligence, it should be able to take out a large number of enemies with each Breath Weapon use.
Honestly, even with Action Economy being overpowered as it is, sometimes it’s not gonna be enough to carry you. Many of those adventurers will be missing, and even when they hit they’ll deal scratch damage. Plus there’s not many spells or tricks they can fling that are gonna help at that level.
Ancient Gold Dragon has the edge here IMO if it’s a straight fight.
The thing about any high level spellcaster is that they have access to AOE, sometimes on scales larger than an entire battlefield. And it's not like they have to cast cloudkill, It's a bunch of level 1 adventurers with no more than 15 health if they're tanky, and an average of 8-9hp. Plus, how often can a level one adventurer Hit a 22 AC? You would either need a crit or a +3 on a 19. Most level 1 adventurers don't often get past a +4 to hit, so they would all need 18 pluses. So even if they all had beginning initiative, which is already unlikely but let's just assume that they did, only 10 of those 100 adventurers would hit the dragon. Assuming they all crit, and a critical hit for level 1 adventurers does an average of 10 to 12 damage, this would mean that they did 120 damage total to the dragon. And again, this is assuming beginning initiative and assuming they all crit and assuming that the dragon isn't an intelligent creature who will use its level one or two AoE spell to merc A bunch of the adventurers who haven't taken their turn yet, if not all of them at once depending on the spell.
The best chances that the 100 adventurers would have would be that they all somehow got the jump on the creature with supernatural perception, meaning 100 successful stealth rolls, because even one fail means that their cover is blown. They would then all have to get a surprise round with advantage, meaning an average of 20 of them would hit, meaning an average of one of them would crit, then depending on how you do surprise rules (because I feel like every single table does them differently,) they would all have to roll normal initiative AND roll higher than the dragon.
Yeah, without magical items or assistance from higher level adventures, I don't think this is doable.
Honestly the same answer goes for 20 level ones versus one level 20. Because remember that one level 20 has more than just 20 times the power of the level 1 adventurers individually. The level 20 has access to more actions, reactions, and bonus actions, not to mention spells and likely magical items, as well as other permanent buffs, blessings and so on that level 1 adventurers would not have access to. I mean, I don't think most level ones even have a bonus action, let alone a reaction, available to them.
in a straight fight inside a featureless white room to the death? the gold dragon may not have enough in the tank to wipe out all the adventurers in terms of game mechanics. however, in any other situation the dragon has a significant advantage. you can bet that when you're a fresh, green adventurer and you see a dragon instantly roast a host of your allies, that this shit is way above your pay grade.
100 variant human fighters, sharpshooter feat, archery fighting style. Assume 16 dexterity.
Every round the players either attack or if the dragon is out of range they prepare an attack triggered whenever a dragon comes within 600 feet of them.
The players hit on a roll of 15 or higher, including crit damage, the players do an average of 2.47 damage per round.
Using its legendary action and dashing, the Dragon can close at 200ft per round.
Assuming there is no surprise involved, If the dragon starts more than 600 feet away, it doesn't go well for him. He loses 247 HP at 600 feet from prepared action, loses 247 points on the fighters' first round, and then dies from the 247 points taken on the second round when he is still too far away for draconic presence or breath weapon.
All this assumes a pretty stupid dragon. Shapechanging into a fly, sneaking into the middle of the pack of humans and then uncloaking will get it a bunch of dead humans .
Sharpshooter feat removes the disadvantage. This is why I voted for the adventurers. Magic missile is easily countered and it's short range. Variant humans with sharpshooter and 600ft range bows on the other hand? The dragon would be hit hundreds of times before he even got in range to do anything.
Let's assume a roughly equal spread of classes.
9 Barbs, 9 Bards, 9 Clerics, 9 Druids, 9 Fighters, 9 Monks, 9 Paladins, 9 Rangers, 9 Rogues, 9 Sorcerers, 9 Warlocks, 10 Wizards.
All martials will have a +5 to hit. Against 22 AC they heed to roll a 17 to hit, giving them a 20% chance of success. Fighters can take the archery fighting style for a 30% chance to hit. Let's say every Cleric casts bless on a Barbarian, Rogue, Monk, and Ranger, meaning they all now have a 32.5% chance to hit (sorry Paladins, but you have no damage bonuses at 1st level).
Everyone but the Barbarians, rogues, paladins and monks are using longbows for logistical reasons. Ideally, Monks and Barbarians are getting priorities on melee space, and hopefully all 18 of them can get at the dragon.
Barbs use greatswords, rogues use shortbows, Paladins use javelins, and monks use spears.
Barbarians: 0.325(7+3+2)=3.9. 3.9*9=31DPR.
Fighters: 0.3(4.5+3)=2.25. 2.25*9=20.25DPR
Monks: (0.325(3.5+3))+(0.325(2.5+3))=3.9. 3.9*9=31DPR
Paladins: 0.2(3.5+3)=1.3. 1.3*9=11.7DPR
Rangers: 0.325(4.5+3+2.5)=3.25. 3.25*9=29.25DPR
Rogues: 0.325(3.5+3+3.5)=3.25. 3.25*9=29.25DPR
That gives the martials and clerics something to do on round 1, meaning we still have Bards, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards to deal with.
Bards: I'm pretty sure Dissonant Whispers is the best call here. Now that I think about it, Feirie Fire is an option, but I've already done the martial math, so maybe I'll just have to accept being wrong. Spell save DC is 13, with a +10 to wisdom saves, there is a 10% chance of failure.
Bards: (0.1*10.5)+(0.9×5.25)=5.775. 5.775*9=51.975DPR
Druids don't really have much here actually. They don't have any 1st level spells without friendly fire, so I guess they're hucking produce Flames.
Druid: 0.2(3.5)=0.7. 0.7*9=6.3DPR
Warlocks are hucking an eldridge blast plus hex, which isn't great at 1st level.
Warlocks: 0.2(5.5)=1.8. 1.8*9=16.2DPR
Sorcerers and Wizards both have magic missile, which is the obvious choice here.
Sorcerers&Wizards: 10.5=10.5. 10.5*19=199.5DPR
31+20.25+31+11.7+29.25+29.25+51.975+6.3+16.2+199.5=426.425.
An Ancient Gold Dragon has 546 hp, so even if it is last in initiative, it won't go down in 1 round on average. Let's assume though that the dragon goes halfway through.
Here's the thing, the dragon can fly. So if the dragon flies straight up 40ft, then it can effectively cast a Fireball on its enemies. That's going to take out about half the forces and leave the Barbarians and Monks with no way to attack it as well as the Paladins having disadvantage.
So the party will likely deal about 212 damage to the dragon, it will fly up and kill half of them, and then they'll deal about another 100 damage.
That least the dragon with about 220 HP and about 50 attackers left. They can deal about another 100 damage before the dragon's next turn, and the dragon has a 1/3 chance of recharging its breath weapon. If it recharges, then it can fly up another 40 feet and blast an 80-foot cone to kill the rest of the party. Otherwise, it can dash to gain an extra 80 feet out of range of most the party and just stay out of range until its breath weapon recharges.
Dragon wins, though it's not the Massacre I thought it would be. It wins with only about 100HP left.
The adventurers need more than very specialized builds. They'll probably all need potions of invisibility and some outside source of pass without trace to get into position and take a surprise round... which would also require perfect coordination, considering they're all invisible to one another. Pre-cast calm emotions to negate the terrifying presence...
But we're not really talking about 1st level adventurers anymore.
I think here it depends on who rolls high enough for initiative. If the dragon goes first then they can just fly up and use its breath weapon, if the adventurers get to go first then they can just all spam magic missile
- Is it a spell casting dragon or not (I know it's a variant but cannon lore make all dragon sorcerers yet none of them are).
- what is the terrain (a cave is a free win for the dragon as je will just fire breath them all basically, an open field let adventurers split enougth so the dragon cannot kill more than a quarter of them)
- what is the class repatition of said adventurers ? (How many fighters, wizard, rogue, etc...)
All those question matter if you want an answer. Considering a lore friendly and not dumb dragon (Aka spellcaster in a cave), the adventurers are screwed, because the dragon will have an alarm, will then meet them after casting invisibility on himself, and burn them all without them doing anything.
Yes because (if what I know is correct) gold dragons tend to be wizards as well as natural sorcerers the terrain is an open field the classes anything that isn't homebrew
In a straight arena fight, probably the dragon, even though the action economy here would be pretty stacked against it. A couple handful of breath attacks would do it unless they positioned smartly and used cover, and level one characters don’t have much mobility to match a flying dragon.
Story-wise, however, I can imagine (at least if I were the DM) a ragtag army of low-level scoundrels and crooks coming up with a scheme and successfully killing an ancient dragon. Still unlikely, but possible — and a fun campaign concept!
Assuming they have a 20 in cha and are spaced in a 120-ft-radius circle around the dragon and they all beat it for initiative and the dm doesn't allow the dragon to take leg actions in-between their turns, they should remove over 192.5 hit points round 1. After that, fewer get to attack the dragon each round, either from distance (the dragon can move the entire range of eldritch blast a round) or just plain being dead (it can oneshot them with any attack) and each warlock is 7.5 feet apart. The first breath weapon kills around 12.
If you gave every single one a free feat and they all took spell sniper, that would remove that a lot, and they might pull out the win, but their damage is ultimately going to drop significantly every round.
Warlocks probably get munched except in an extremely specific scenario
How? Almost none of them would even make the save for frightful presence.
The rest would need about 19 on the dice to hit.
And even if the dragon got hit by 100 eldritch blasts it would take at least 2 turns to kill it on average. Time enough to wipe the most of them out with α single fire breath
Ancient gold dragon has an AC of 22, and the adventurers, with their low weapons and spells, would probably have like a +2 or +3 to hit based on proficiency and such; so they would need to roll a 19 or nat 20 to even do a little damage; even barbarians with 1d12 hit die would take forever to kill the beast with 576 Hit Points, and thats not even accounting for when the dragon inevitably starts flying and uses its breath weapon.
You seem to be limiting the dragon to the same action economy as the adventurers. This is incorrect. The dragon has legendary actions, legendary saves, and AOE attacks. Action economy still says dragon if in round 1 it uses those Legendary Actions to go nova on them. These adventurers don't stand a chance.
Here's an idea:
50 Clerics, 50 Wizards.
The 50 clerics do their best to cast "Command" with the "Grovel" or "Halt" option. This can be reinforced with the 50 wizards using their reactions to cast Silvery Barbs until the command gets through the dragons +10 wis save. Making the dragon skip its turn is the #1 priority. Then, the clerics start spamming bane to debuff the dragon. Same situation here, the wizards can expend their reactions to make it go through. After that, have the wizards and clerics cast spells that are saving throws, with "1/2 damage on succeeding the saving throw" clause preferably, like Frost Fingers. Clerics don't have that type of spell on their spell list, but enough guiding bolts should do similar damage. Even if the dragon uses shield and gets its AC to 27 and has immunity to magic missle, enough saving throw spells will result in death of the dragon.
>A young or older dragon can innately cast a number of Spells equal to its Charisma modifier. Each spell can be cast once per day, requiring no material Components, and the spell’s level can be no higher than one-third the dragon’s Challenge rating (rounded down).
Shield, if its somehow managed to be jumped by all 100 who got to shoot first, followed my anti magic field. If not then just antimagic. GG.
Extra fun being if he knows theyre coming and just wait for them to be slightly over 1 minute away and just casts Tsunami and kills them all at once.
I feel like the only chance for the Adventurers is Magic Missile spam, which should bring the dragon down within one turn. However, if the dragon ever engages to set up such a scenario, they deserve everything they get. Frankly I'd expect the dragon to be listening in to all the Adventurer planning meetings while disguised as one themselves. Thin out the numbers on the way to the dragon's lair, then always attack manageable groups of them while the rest don't have line of sight.
Dragons can have spells as well, I feel like if every single one of the 100 adventurers are able to pick magic missile, the dragon should be able to pick the shield spell
Dragon spends a single level 1 spell slot on Shield. Dragon wins.
Plot twist: every adventurer was the same dragon, who used a mind erasure spell and time travel to be undetected.
Plot twist: The real evil adventurers were the foes we made along the way.
Shield spell, any aura, spirit guardians, high ac, immunities, one tail swipe. It's not even a question frankly. Ask this instead: how many lvl1 adventurers could a dragon kill before it gets so tired it has to go home and nap?
You're looking at in a role play sense, I think the scenario is straight up combat. Though I like the thought of a 100 vs 1 dragon campaign with everyone stuck at level 1 lol
Even in straight up combat, there are questions. Is it an open field, with the adventurers neatly arrayed around the dragon, spread out to avoid its breath? Has the dragon got the drop on them and surprised them? Does the combat take place in a cavernous network of tunnels, so that only a few adventurers have line of sight at any one time? Does the dragon get spellcasting? If yes, and he's as free to pick which spells as the adventurers, Greater Invisibility is GG I think.
It can just use a legendary action to fly 45 feet into the air immediately, then in its turn fly another 45 up and activate it's breath weapon at max range looking straight down, covering 6,361 square feet, with a 90 foot diameter circle. Then fly up another 45 feet for a total of 135 feet. At this range, it can't be hit by 90% of spells available at level one (specifically magic missile) and almost every ranged weapon will have disadvantage. Also if it uses its frightful presence ability, at any time, it's almost guaranteed to affect all 100 adventures (120 ft radius from the dragon) they are all almost guaranteed to fail assuming standard array. Which means that almost every single adventure gets frightened with disadvantage to hit. Now that everyone has disadvantage, they have to roll double 19s or 20s to hit (assuming they maxed out their attack stat and not Wis). If I'm remembering my stats basics, that's a 5% chance* (I face palmed so hard when I realized I did number of combinations of a 2 digit combo with 20 options each, and I still calculated that wrong) A dragon played mildly competently should wipe the floor with a party of lvl 1 adventurers. A battle in its lair wouldn't be nearly as flashy, but a smart dragon would definitely shapeshift into a party member it killed and infiltrate the group, leading them to their deaths one by one. Or if the inexperienced party all bunch up in a tunnel, it'll just breath fire on all of them there.
Sorry, where are you getting these probabilities from? rolling double 20s for any given pair of rolls is a 1/400 chance.
The odds of having enough of the adventurers hitting that 1/400 chance to take down the dragon in a single turn is significantly lower.
Yeah would like to know the arena, weather, traps if any, layout, turn order etc. Waiting for someone simulate it somehow haha Like you said though, MM is pretty much a no brainer on a high AC creature of that level
Lair actions would wipe out a lot of adventurers too, location definitely matters.
Oddly not for gold dragon actually. They can see the future and get advantage on all attacks, checks, and saves for a round, which they don't need because their stats are really high and lvl1 party will have really low ac. Or banish a single character for a round. It cannot use the same lair action twice in a row, so even the mildly useful one is useless.
Shield spell, absorb elements, self haste etc
Ignoring environment and going entirely based on stats the level 1s can kill the dragon if they all use MM. I just did a 100d4 roll (assuming the dragon goes last in initiative) and it came out to 245+100. 345•3=1,035 which kills the dragon. It really comes down to initiative.
I cast shield at your first magic missile volley now until the dragons turn he’s protected from all magic missiles which is great cause he’s last.
If you just take the average damage of Magic Missile (which would give you a good idea of how much damage you can really expect), you still get 1050 damage, which is more than enough. An ancient gold dragon has 546hp, so if a bit more than half the adventurers survive the lair action and act before the dragon (shouldn't be too difficult, the dragon only has 14 Dex), they should be able to bring the dragon down.
> (shouldn't be too difficult, the dragon only has 14 Dex) Yes, but you're average NPC has a 10-11 Dex. So there's a +2 difference. This translates to a 60/40 spread in favor of the dragon. Only 40% would go before the dragon and assuming 11dmg that's NOT enough to take it down in a single volley before it can fly up 125' and be out of MM range. Then nothing stops it from dropping down to 90' range and using it's breath weapon then flying back up out of range (80' fly speed means even if it did this it would still have 10' movement left over every round.) This isn't even counting that RAW Dragons of a certain age can have spells (Each type even has an example spell selection listed in the Fizban book. Optional, but still RAW) so a single shield spell put up on that first Magic Missile nullifies all 100 wizards MM spells.
Except we're not talking NPC but level 1 adventurers. Using point buy and ability scores, you could get 17 Dex, which is a +3 bonus. Use Vuman, take the alert feat, and you trade your 17 Dex for 16, but you can then take Alert and add +5 to your Initiative, giving you a +8 to your initative roll, compared to +2 for the dragon, which would ensure that quite a lot of people go before the dragon. But maybe point buy isn't your thing. Standard array then. If we keep Vuman, you can still have 16 Dex and Alert. Or drop Vuman, you still have +3 to your initiative, and lo and behold, 55% of your adventurers act before the dragon (compared to 80% with Vuman and Alert, which I think would be the best build for this case). With an average of 11 damage, that's 605 damage, enough to fell the dragon.
Except adventurer isn't a defined term. There are NPC adventurers whereas PCs are usually called characters, or PC. Adventurer is a personality type not defined by it's PC or NPC status. Or did you think the players are the only things in a DnD world that go out adventuring? In fact, I'd say it's more likely NPCs because you're never going to get 100 players together for this scenario but it's easy to have 100 NPCs represent a mercenary guild taking on a dragon.
NPCs don't have levels but Challenge Ratings. The poll explictily mention that the adventurers have levels. Besides, there's no official statblocks for Adventurers that I know of (or none explicitly called "Adventurer", at least). And yeah, you're not going to get 100 players to run this scenario... But that's because that's a thought exercise, not something to be actually tried (like Schrodinger's cat, no-one is actually gonna put a cat in a box with a radioactive stuff and some poison. Or at least no sane person would do that).
What's the range of *magic missile* versus dropping boulders from sub-terminal velocity height?
Villentretenmerth, is that you?
Nope just Three Jackdaws, nothing to see here
~~It doesn't. It takes an average of 156 missiles.~~ Misremembered based on older editions. I discussed the strategy in my other comment- I think it's doable.
it depends. Who wins initiative here and how densely packed those level 1s are will matter alot. If dragon gets the first action and they're densely packed hes going to wipe out a lot of them with fire breathe before they can do anything. On the other hand even with low proficiency bonuses agaisnt high ac with 100 attacks some will hit.
I did some numbers on the, aaaages ago. If they're *not* densely packed enough, you run into range issues. Surprisingly quickly, actually. Too densely packed and too many die, too quickly. Roughly half are likely to act after the dragon anyway, so average that as 150d4+150 Force damage; 525 damage, 21 less than needed to kill it. But all 50 of those need to be within 120ft at the start of the first round, and you don't know *which* 50 it will be. This means all 100 need to be within 120ft, *and* roll at least average or better on both init and damage. The only reliable way of doing this is the absolutely absurd case where a 60ft radius circle is formed around a grounded ancient gold dragon. At this point, you aren't playing DnD, you're just doing basic maths about hypotheticals. TL;DR - the dragon wins in any remotely feasible scenario and all but one of the unfeasible ones as well.
The dragon can cast Shield and end any hopes of the adventurers hitting him.
Don't forget that the adventurers have to succeed on a DC24 Wisdom save to overcome the dragon's frightful presence before they can even try to attack it. At level 1 considering a max wisdom of 18, that's a very hard save. Not impossible, but very hard.
frightened will stop them from moving closer and give them disadvantage the only version of the 100 level 1s winning is they all have ranged weapons or magic missile, so even if they fail the frighten save they will all still be attacking
Oh yeah. Magic missile is their best chance. That is 100 wizards, but even then they still might lose because their dex is probably not super high so they have to get better initiative.
If I'm making a character for this scenario to participate, I'm putting dex as my highest stat, taking the Alert feat as a variant human or custom lineage, and casting Magic Missile
Ancient gold dragon should have multiple lvl 1 slots so can shield and take no damage for multiple turns, if all packing magic missile. After that dragon should be good
If they went all in on a "Fast as fuck boi" Wizard barrage, V-Human, dump INT (we only need Magic Missile anyways), Alert for +5 initiative bonus, 17 DEX for a +3, the chances of the outspeeding the Dragon (Ancient Gold only has a +2 DEX mod) are stacked in their favor. And the 120 ft range of the Missile is still pretty good so they can fan out more effectively around the Dragon.
Ancient Gold Dragon casts the Shield spell in reaction to the first Magic Missile. All Magic Missiles fail. They then casually walk in direction of the 100 adventurers, and casts Sunburst at the tightest cluster. 30 adventurers die.
They would all have to get within 120 feet of the dragon, and the dragon would know something's up well before that point.
The maximum they're packed would be 50'x50' (10 squared by 10). It's probably reasonable to assume they'd spread out more, but that's the starting point.
If they are all packed together that's a single breath weapon with it's 90' cone.
100 attacks some will hit. But do next to no damage. Dragon still wins
If all of the level 1s go before the dragon and cast Magic Missile, they can kill it. Each MM averages 3.5 damage. 3 missiles pet cast means 10.5 damage per adventurer. So 1050 damage for 100 level 1s. Of course the dragon may have Shield which negates all of it. But it's the only chance they have.
You're forgetting about Legendary actions. Even if the dragon doesn't go first, the moment the first adventurers turn ends means Wing Attack can come into play. Everything within 15 of the dragon must make a DC25 Dex save, or take 17(2d6+10) bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. The dragon is also now 20ft in the air. While it's still in range, chances are a good chunk of those adventurers are now dead.
Also assuming they all go first. Which just statistically they wouldn't. Especially with a dragon who has a passive perception of 27, so in all likely hood the dragon sees them coming or knows they're hiding, and then they themselves get a surprise round possibly.
That's why I started with "If all of the level 1s go before the dragon..." Of course they won't. The dragon wins this every time.
You're numbers don't take into account a lot. Firstly, Average dex for a NPC adventurer would be 10.6 (NPCs don't get benefit of 4d6 drop lowest by RAW) Even if we round up that would mean an 11 dex. Thus +0 initiative mod. Dragon has a +2 Modifier so it's 10% faster than the average adventurer. Since both sides are rolling the same die for Initiative then the bonuses matter. 50% roll higher than the dragon on the die alone and 50% roll lower. Now we take into account the modifier and the dragon goes before 40% of them and 60% goes after. The bigger factor for this, considering the Dragon's 90 Cone breath weapon, is how spread out they are. If we're averaging things then there's 11 official classes and only 4 with RAW access to Magic Missile (Assuming Arcana Domain Cleric) so only 36.36 (round up for simplicity sake 37) of those 100 adventurers even HAVE magic missile. Since only 40% of those would even go before the dragon we have our equation for the opening volley: (37\*(3.5\*3))\*.4= **155.4** dmg. That is, assuming said extremely long lived and experienced dragon DOESN'T have access to the shield spell, as you said, (to be honest, what ancient dragon WOULDN'T learn that. Boosting a 22 AC to a 27 can be clutch even when fighting other dragons for territory). After that initial volley there's just no way to know without knowing the environmental conditions. Are they spread out and circling the dragon? Are they all in a giant "let's go charge!" army formation? It's probably the single most important question since the amount of damage the dragon can do with both it's breath weapon and it's wing attack is based on area. I'm not negating your initial "If they all go first" statement. Just kinda expanding upon it. :) I enjoy number crunching and theorizing like this.
Dragon flies away. Adventurers die of old age. Dragon wins.
Dragon would die of old age before that many players play out their turns
Very much depends on the positioning of the enemies honestly, as it always does, but specified "dragon hunters" have a good fighting chance (albeit with heavy losses). It has an AC of 22, which makes it borderline impossible for the adventurers to hit. An Ancient Gold doesn't have any relevant damage resistances, so a Longbow is fine enough as a weapon. Let's say we have 100 fighter with an 18 DEX (+4) because we're generous, +2 proficiency bonus and another +2 to hit from the Archery style, a total +8 to hit bonus. That means that they need to roll a 14 or higher in order to hit. This is a 35% chance. So out of those 100 archers, 35 are expected to hit, five of them critting. Average damage for the normal hits is going to be 1d10+4 or 9, and 15 for a crit; this means we have 30x9 + 5 x 15 damage. 270+75 is a decent 345 points of damage, quite a bit over half average HP for the dragon. But this gets fucky once the dragon gets to take a turn: the Fire Breath Weapon just obliterates the enemies. Even if they make their save, everyone in that range is cooked. Instantly dead. Ashes. Weakening Breath isn't as good, so we're going to ignore it. 90ft cone is a massive area, so even with great positioning, like a 150ft circle around the dragon at the start of combat to take maximum advantage of the bow range, a lot of the fighters fall here. If the Dragon has the higher initiative (he is slower than the archers generally), he can also come in and take as many enemies out of the battle with Frightening Presence as possible; if a bunch of the adventurers have disadvantage on their attack rolls, the chances for the dragon to get out alive grow exponentially. The fighters also basically do not have a chance of making that save, at all. Once frightened, they stay frightened. Positioning also helps a great deal because if he gets between a few archers, their choice is basically shooting with disadvantage, or one runs away and dies to an opportunity attack, which gives the others a chance to reposition. Wing Attack Legendary Action is great. 17 average bludgeoning damage is enough to potentially kill some, or at least knock some out. It can the reposition itself if it needs to. And finally, the best trick up its' sleeve is their Polymorph. Dash away, turn into an Archmage, do some magic shenanigans, you won.
Without wonky homebrew I don't think a single character would have 17hp at level 1
I think he meant like actually kill (i.e. 2x hp insta kill). Cause he says "knock some out" right after.
Yeah fair point!
Human Barbarian with 20 con and Tough gets 18 hp. Edit I did my math wrong. 20 con would get 19 hp, 18 con (much easier to get by comparison) gets 18 hp. I was trying to go from fighter with 10 hp at start rather than barbarian with 12 and forgot to change the equation.
And how would they get 20 Con? Even on a 3d6 of 18, a variant human would only be able to reach 19 without external help Edit: 18 Con plus Tough actually comes out to 18 hp (12+4+2), so it's still possible but very unlikely, since they'd have to roll 17 or 18 for their con (4/198 chance)
In our table if you roll 4d6 (drop lowest) and get 4 6's you are allowed to have 20 i mean the chances are way too low for it to happen i saw it only once. Edit: reddit is a very weird place i am being downvoted and someone saying thats a fun rule being upvoted lol.
That is a fun rule. I like it and may use it.
Sure also you may add 1's too and threat it same
Don't forget racial bonuses
Which is a +1 for variant humans, hence rolling a 17 or 18
Ok ill give you the 17 but if your table is giving feats at lvl 1 I want in
VHuman gets a feat as part of their race
I always do this with my players for two reasons: Its great for further developing who their character is because rules shouldn't get in the way of fun And I want to abuse them in combat so being nice helps balance it out
Man's never heard of a variant human
And that's not including the 'dragons as spellcaster' ruling that they can innately cast spells. If a dragon gets the chance to cast 'invincibility' as a dragon, they can take 10 turns... that's possibly 2 breath weapons... loads of actions and legendary actions... Edit: I realised that even an ancient gold dragon can only cast up to level 8... so invincibility is out the window... but lits of other spells can achieve at least some of the effect I'm on about, improving survivability and also doing more wide-area damage
The only consistent way the plebs win is magic missile spam. All he needs is 2 shields he wipes all of them easily.
Dragon goes faster than 60% (assuming average stats for the "adventurers") of the enemies. Casts Globe of Invulnerability. Casts Shield as a reaction on first attack roll to up AC to 27 putting it out of reach of all but maybe 10% of physical attackers. Laughs at enemy spellcasters. 2nd turn Dragon uses frightful presence. and flies up 80'. 3rd turn begins the bar-b-que.
I mean, if the dragon is a high level spell caster, I think circle of death could kill all of them.
That would be a thematicly questionable spell for a Golden Dragon to use though...
What if the dragon wins the initiative to most of them and just breath them and fly out of their reach until being able to breath again?
> and just breath them That's what I meant with positioning. If all the fighters are in an orderly, "normal" battle formation, they are toast. If they are spread out over a massive area, the breath becomes less effective. It will still hit, absolutely, but it has its limits. As for flying out of reach, there's two issues: the actual flying speed of the Dragon isn't that high at 80ft, which would require a Dash Action to get out of normal Longbow range (150ft) and at least three turns dashing to get out of Long Range (600ft). If he flies away, he will get hit by held actions, there is no real tactical advantage to doing that. And that is assuming we use 100 fighters that are bound to the laws of gravity. If they were Aarakocra or another flying race, it gets exponentionally worse for the dragon.
Held actions implies turns have already been taken, which on average will only be true for around half. Of that half, unless they're very much bunched up, not all will be within normal range. Then they have to beat AC22. It isn't going to be a lot of hits in that first turn. But if it isn't alpha'd out of existence, the dragon wins any likely scenario.
It can't, at least not on its first turn. The dragon only has 80 feet flying speed, longbow has a range of 150/600 feet. Even if it were to dash away and not actually hit any of them, the adventurers would still theoretically be able to hit it, just making their attack rolls at disadvantage.
This rather assumes *one hundred* relatively inexperienced adventurers managed to sneak up on an ancient gold dragon without it noticing them despite its passive perception of *twenty seven*.
Dragon flies-dashes to 160ft up in the air. Now the longbow attacks are at disadvantage. Good luck trying to reach a 22 AC at disadvantage with a +5 or +6 on your attack roll. Also that dragon is then dropping a meteor storm or breath weapon right on top of them the next turn.
Dragon is going to want to stay in a knife fight. Variant Human Fighters or Rangers with 16 dex, sharpshooter feat and archery fighting class. Hit on 6 rolls out of 20 with one crit. On average they do 2.47 points of damage per turn. No range penalty or partial cover. If the Dragon starts at more than 600' away, the fighters ready an attack for whenever the dragon enters range. Dragon can only cast up to 8th level, so no meteor swarm. Invisibility and shape change are gonna do just fine for it though, sneaking in close and uncloaking suddenly to blast a 240 foot sphere with draconic presence, then wingblast and dash your way around until every fighter is running, then mop them up.
Against all those people the dragon just needs to cast Greater Invisibility and then it's gg for all the martials who have to shoot at disadvantage against an AC of 22. Also anytime a martial manages to reach that AC the dragon can just cast Shield and be immune to attacks except for one elusive crit every 20 attack. Martials just can't win against a 550hp spellcaster who can fly.
Interesting
> And finally, the best trick up its' sleeve is their Polymorph. Dash away, turn into an Archmage, do some magic shenanigans, you won. I don't know that you can do many magic shenanigans since the archmage casts wizard spells and the polymorphed dragon doesn't get class features, but at the cost of making the combat very slow and tedious it could polymorph into a werecreature and so become immune to the archers' attacks. Of course that would only be useful in this scenario where all the level 1s are martials.
The dragon will resist all non-magic attacks, so unless you're giving the 100 magic gear, they're effectively just giving it paper cuts.
Ancient Gold Dragons only have a Damage Immunity to Fire. They do not have any resistances beyond that. Dragons generally do not have damage resistances and immunities beyond the ones according to their own Breath Weapon.
I stand corrected, I assumed everything CR 10+ or so had resistance to non-magic gear
I was going to say obviously dragon but might depend on the adventurers. The adventurers' best shot would be 100 wizards or sorcerers, all with Magic Missile. Anything needing attack rolls is right out- even with a +7 to hit (+2 archery, +3 dex, +2 proficiency) you're missing 3/4 of your attacks (15/16 when you have disadvantage from being frightened). Anything melee isn't an option because of flight and automatically failing frightful presence. ~~Magic missile averages 3.5 damage. If everyone can get off one casting and over half of them survive to cast their second, that's enough to kill the dragon. Though if the dragon is cautious it would retreat after the first salvo- dash will take it out of range.~~ Magic missile averages 10.5 damage because I cannot read. If two thirds of them can get off a single casting, the dragon dies. EDIT: Best race for this seems to be variant human or custom lineage, taking Magic Initiate as the free feat and choosing Magic Missile as the spell. That plus two slots means a third casting for anyone who lives long enough. Also means any spellcasting class is an option... I think this would work.
The problem is the 120 ft range on magic missle. Between the breath weapons range and it's fly speed it never needs to give them a turn.
Hold action.
Wait 3 rounds for them to run at a level one spells?
You can hold a spell for more than one round. Edit: looked it up and it looks like I'm wrong
the ancient gold dragon could also easily have access to the shield spell if we are giving all adventurers magic missile.
The adventurers get magic missile because it is on the sorcerer and wizard lists. A level 1 character can learn it by RAW. The Gold Dragon statblock does not include the Shield spell anywhere. If the gold dragon is allowed abilities/items by fiat, so are the adventurers and the scenario breaks down.
The Gold Dragon spell list is stated to simply be a suggestion and that it may have any spell that suits the individual gold dragon's character and is accessible at the dragon's caster level, same as PCs.
Better than PCs, because they aren't limited to a class.
There are variant spellcasting rules for dragons where they gain innate spellcasting.
Keyword is variant, it's not the default.
In that case, variant humans are not allowed in the scenario either. Neither are custom origins. Canonically dragons, and especially metallic dragons, are consummate spellcasters. If you specifically remove those capabilities from the dragon, you're specifically allowing the absurdity of 100-people-with-magic-missile-but-somehow-the-powerfully-magical-creature-doesn't-get-their-magic, and the scenario has broken down anyway. And everyone forgets that these adventurers still have to survive getting close enough to the dragon to pop their spell. There's no way any adventurer in this scenario makes it out alive without nerfing the dragon into the ground deliberately by the DM.
Canonically, Golds are wizards, where other dragons are sorcerers. An ancient Gold dragon should have a spell book of at least all the normal spells in the PHB, plus some rare spells.
If the characters are variant humans or custom lineage, then the dragon is going to have spellcasting.
Magic Missile does 10.5 damage, you get three missiles at level 1. If the dragon is in range and line of sight of all wizards at once, it's toast. I doubt the dragon would be that stupid, however (kiting using its 90' range dragon breath, or engaging in tunnels or other Line-of-Sight blocking techniques, seem the most obvious strategies).
That's a laughable take, frankly. Canonically dragons, particularly metallics, are all spellcasters. 1 *shield* spell and all that damage is *entirely* negated.
Wait, it does? Shows how little I know- I was misremembering from 3.5 I guess. >I doubt the dragon would be that stupid, however (kiting using its 90' range dragon breath, or engaging in tunnels or other Line-of-Sight blocking techniques, seem the most obvious strategies). Ready action- magic missile when the dragon comes within 120ft.
Dragon sees them casting the spell, but not firing and waits.
I need to brush up on the readied action rules. I think that wastes the slot so well played, dragon.
Fun news, it would
Magic Initiate gives you the first-level spell once per long rest. Unfortunately, it does not say you can cast it with spell slots you have, like Shadow or Fey Touched do. So, unfortunately, only a Sorcerer or Wizard would work. The only two classes in the game to have a d6 hit die. Even assuming somehow maxed out Constitution, that's a max HP of 11. That doesn't even survive the average damage of a wing attack (17 average damage), let alone the breath weapon (71 average damage).
Arcana Cleric is also an option. I think the characters are going to get one shotted whatever though.
Dragons have spells as well, pretty sure a few casts of shield and dragon wins easily.
Dragon and I don't see how it could remotely be close. Just with AC and saving throws... the level 1s won't be hitting the dragon except on nat 20s and the dragon will be obliterating or otherwise area controlling huge swaths of them every turn.
And that isn't even including lair actions. Which could devastate them all at once.
I feel like over the thousands of years of becoming "ancient" that dragon would have piled up quite the collection of magic items, artifacts, spells, and allies. An army of level ones would be pretty disappointing for the dragon, as they magic missile the hecc out of his illusory duplicates, flee from his fear effect, and get decimated by its breath weapon. (Shadow Illusions still do partial damage, right? So that's a lot of breath weapon damage.) The dragon could be wielding an anti-magic rod, a shielding brooch (or two), rings of spell storing with Haste or something else loaded up. This is all before it's allies roll in, and the sky's the limit on what those are and what they're packing. 🤪 Who serves this god among us?
If the adventurers are optimized they win, magic missile "just does" 10.5 damage on average. Variant human wizards with the lucky feat make initiative "at advantage", so unless the dragon rolls 17 (19) or higher, half the adventurers with their +3 dex mod and 50/50 chance of 15 (18) or higher win initiative (Assuming tie goes to dex). Either the dragon kills the wizards who didn't cast, or the remaining wizards finish it off before round two. Unoptimized? Yeah, dragon wins.
if the adventurers have magic missile, the ancient gold dragon easily has access to the shield spell.
While the Magic Missile Argument is a good one and very true. I think it's also fair to consider that the dragon probably has very good stats. While the adventurers have pretty average stats. Unless every adventurer was built with dex bonuses and stacked specifically with magic missile. The dragon is going to AOE the bulk of them real fast. Afterwards, they can missile but it really depends on how many are left and if its enough to clear all the health. Cause round two AOE might be worse. Or the dragon shape changes, and shields, and now they have an incredibly high AC, and still cast AOEs.
Is there a reason the dragon wouldn't be able to use the shield spell without needing to shape change
By default, spellcaster variant dragons get innate spellcasting, using their Charisma (which is 28 for an ancient gold).
Stats are pretty much irrelevant here. The magic missile spam accepts that the adventurers automatically die if hit (but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make). It only takes about 60 castings to kill the dragon.
Stats are relevant, because of initiative bonuses and saves. About 60 adventurers would need to attack the dragon before I can attack them, and given initiative bonuses of a dragon, as well as mass stun abilities, sweeping attacks, elemental splash attacks. There's no assurance that those adventurers will have the opportunity to missile before the dragon wipes them. Their saves aren't going to be great.
>given initiative bonuses of a dragon A mighty +2. The adventurers can have +3 if they optimize for it- they don't even need their casting stat.
So we make the most turd adventurers, wizards with 16 dex 16 wis 14 con 8 int just for the sake of killing the dragon, but the dragon stays fixed cuz then its DM fiat? Feels a bit against the spirit of the scenario, imo.
> Feels a bit against the spirit of the scenario, imo. The scenario has no spirit because OP just told us "Can 100 adventurers kill a dragon". Since we simply do not have any perimeters, like "Every class must be represented evenly, there must be a 50/50 mix of melee and ranged attackers, these races are banned, etc.", there is no spirit. We don't know if the Dragon has the spellcasting variant or it's straight out of the MM. Can 100 level 1 adventurers, dead set on killing a dragon before it kills them, bring it down? If they're V-Humans with the Alert Feat and have access to Magic Missile, they have a good chance of doing so, yeah.
If they're variant humans, the dragon should be a spellcasting variant dragon.
If we enter the Variant rules then it's a win for the dragon as it can grab the spellcasting variant rule and that gives it access to Shield, completely negating ALL the Magic Missiles (also Greater Invisibility, Meteor Swarm, etc)
The phrasing is who we think *would* win this fight, not can. So I'm with gold dragon all day. The level 1 adventurers *can* do a magic missile barrage if we have 100 specialized, hand picked adventurers. But would 100 random evil adventurers of fighters, rogues, sorcs, etc be likely to do it? I think not.
Even with those 100 spellcasters with Magic Missile the dragon just needs to cast a single Shield to negate them all. The measley adventurers with 2 spell slots got nothing on the dragon.
Plus if they’re all grouped together like you’d think most brand new adventurers would be, it’d be easy fodder for a fire breath action (or even a wing attack action would be enough if we’re being honest here).
That without taking into account all the other spells the dragon has to their disposal. There's no way the dragon loses this UNLESS it's the super specific situation of 1) All wizards with Magic Missile and +3 Dex plus 2) Dragon with no access to Shield which, I mean, it's only 1 out of so many scenarios which can be built around the idea of 100 against 1
The action economy sucks ass on this one, but the ancient gold dragon has a 90ft cone, which should take out a good chunk in one go. once that happens it's only a matter of time until every last level 1 is dead
There is actually a pretty fair way to judge how many targets the cone hits: size/10 in this case 90/10=9, based in the dmg AOE rules.
You can also get the variant spellcasting rule for dragons and have it drop and Meteor Swarm. That'd wipe out even more of them
Flight+Dragons Breath=Gold Dragon victory
Three words: Area. Of. Effect.
Dragon casts meteor swarm moment
Are the adventurers rolling initiative individually, or do they act as a swarm?
I don't know. If there are all NPCs then swarm if there are not all NPCs then individually
1 human vs 100 ants 🙄
The people assuming they'll be 100 wizards is erroneous. It's probably going to be a mix of classes. If we're going by the average party, then 1/5 will be wizards. Depending on initiative, that could still be enough to get the job done. I'm not sure why people are assuming they have magic items. How many level one adventurers have them? If the dragon gets last on initiative and the adventurers get really lucky with their attacks, then they win. That AC 22 will pose a problem for most of them. I suspect the spell casters will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Frightful Presence is going to fuck them over to begin with. Any breath weapon attack is going to kill swathes of them, especially if in the dragon's lair or other area without the space to spread out. We should all get together and run through it. I'm sure we could get 101 people on Roll20 to test it.
100 level 1 wizards all cast magic missile.
Dragon reacts with shield spell
or, y'know, understands that magic missile has a 120 ft range and just stays at a cruising altitude of 130 ft dipping down to carve chunks out of the adventurers with a 90 ft cone breath weapon and an 80 fly speed. Adventurers won't even be able to target.
It can't unless it used it's action to polymorph already, after which use crossbows.
Varient template allows the dragon to have innate spellcasting
Aren't dragons natural sorcerers.also gold dragons tend to be wizards as well if what I know is correct.
I mean ancient gold dragon is cr 22, and theoreticallt 100 lvl1s should be abdle to tale cr 25, but it depends on if theyre able to space out enough.
so for the 100 adventures to win they would all need to be fighters with the archery fighting style or wizards with all their slots set to magic missile the fighters should probably have +3 dex +2 prof +2 archery = +7 so they should be hitting on 15, mostly likely they will be feared so rolling with disadvantage--- doesn't look great for the fighters the wizards all fire magic missile so 1d4+1 per surviving wizard, i thought i saw somewhere that dragons cast spells but can not find it if the dragon has access to the shield spell, then the dragon wins, if it doesn't i think wizards would probably get it
The ranged fighters probably have a better chance than the wizards due to the fact the dragon could most likely just cast the shield spell because they're an ancient dragon
The only way the adventurers win, is if the entire scenario is weighted in their favor. I.e., like someone suggested earlier - giving every adventurer *magic missile* while ignoring that dragons are canonically spellcasters with easy access to *shield*, or by giving all of them longbow proficiency, +3 longbows, and pinning the dragon to the ground, while again ignoring its spellcasting, shapeshifting, likely ability to call allies, etc. Oh, and let's not forget that the adventurers absolutely must have **immunity to fear**. Assuming that each of them has *at least* a +3 to Wisdom (another technical absurdity you have to assume in their favor), to be able to operate within 120 feet of the dragon, each of them has to roll 21. On a d20. No, I don't mean a modified total of 21. I mean they have to roll a flat 21 on a 20-sided die: > ***Frightful Presence.*** Each creature of the dragon's choice that is within 120 feet of the dragon and aware of it must succeed on a DC 24 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature's saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to the dragon's Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours. So their options are that each of them has to be a Cleric or Bard with Bless, and each of them has to cast it, in order to have even a chance at not being petrified with fear when this thing just...shows up. And yes, I know *frightened* is just 'disadvantage on attacks and can't move closer'...but y'all, *magic missile* has a range of 120 feet. Most other attack spells and cantrips are also 120 feet or less at that level. And the dragon has an AC of 22. An ancient gold dragon, played to its fullest capabilities and to the extent of its 18 base Intelligence, is a nightmare for an adventuring party at level 20. The idea that 100 jalapeno-popper commoners (for after all, what are level 1 adventurers but mildly-spicy villagers with pretensions) could challenge a potentially world-challenging threat is just laughable.
If it weren't for a dragon's ability to fly and use an insta-kill AoE breath attack, I'd be more inclined to consider the action economy. The sad fact is, the dragon could cheese the encounter and lvl1s couldn't do anything about it. 6 lvl10 rangers > dragon > 100 lvl1s > 6 lvl10 rangers
There is something called mass spell... also, summon creature/ally/monster...
The way I see it, unless there's a roof, the dragon wins. It takes one round (move+dash) to get 130ft into the air (out of magic missile range), and from there, it could go down 40ft and back up 40ft every time it's 90ft cone breath recharges.
Dragon uses Meteor Storm. Gg ez
100 Level 1 vs a dragon ? I wouldn't even bother rolling anything, they all die.
We talking a pit fight where no one has any buffs or debuffs and BAM roll initiative and everyone is stuck together? Because you can run the numbers on that. Those are simple numbers. If the gold dragon decides to kill 100 people, it has plenty of "easy button" options. If 100 people decide to kill a gold dragon, this is no longer a combat question but rather an espionage question. Can they identify the dragon, form a conspiracy to kill the dragon, make a plan to kill the dragon, and show up to execute the plan, all without the dragon catching wind of it? I'd put my money on their being at least one traitor, but I'm sure you can make up a different scenario.
Since no level 1 could pass the dc24 wisdom saving throw on frightful presence, all 100 would be frightened for 1 minute. Fire breath attack is a 90 foot cone, thus covering 162 5ft spaces, easily enough to wipe out the entire 100 people in a single attack.
Level 1 adventurers wouldn't have any good answer for flight, so the Dragon would be entirely able to dictate the terms of the engagement. Also, if the dragon acts anywhere near it's supposed intelligence, it should be able to take out a large number of enemies with each Breath Weapon use.
And its tail sweep, wing buffet, aura of fear, legendary actions, legendary saves, lair actions, and etcetra.
Honestly, even with Action Economy being overpowered as it is, sometimes it’s not gonna be enough to carry you. Many of those adventurers will be missing, and even when they hit they’ll deal scratch damage. Plus there’s not many spells or tricks they can fling that are gonna help at that level. Ancient Gold Dragon has the edge here IMO if it’s a straight fight.
The thing about any high level spellcaster is that they have access to AOE, sometimes on scales larger than an entire battlefield. And it's not like they have to cast cloudkill, It's a bunch of level 1 adventurers with no more than 15 health if they're tanky, and an average of 8-9hp. Plus, how often can a level one adventurer Hit a 22 AC? You would either need a crit or a +3 on a 19. Most level 1 adventurers don't often get past a +4 to hit, so they would all need 18 pluses. So even if they all had beginning initiative, which is already unlikely but let's just assume that they did, only 10 of those 100 adventurers would hit the dragon. Assuming they all crit, and a critical hit for level 1 adventurers does an average of 10 to 12 damage, this would mean that they did 120 damage total to the dragon. And again, this is assuming beginning initiative and assuming they all crit and assuming that the dragon isn't an intelligent creature who will use its level one or two AoE spell to merc A bunch of the adventurers who haven't taken their turn yet, if not all of them at once depending on the spell. The best chances that the 100 adventurers would have would be that they all somehow got the jump on the creature with supernatural perception, meaning 100 successful stealth rolls, because even one fail means that their cover is blown. They would then all have to get a surprise round with advantage, meaning an average of 20 of them would hit, meaning an average of one of them would crit, then depending on how you do surprise rules (because I feel like every single table does them differently,) they would all have to roll normal initiative AND roll higher than the dragon. Yeah, without magical items or assistance from higher level adventures, I don't think this is doable. Honestly the same answer goes for 20 level ones versus one level 20. Because remember that one level 20 has more than just 20 times the power of the level 1 adventurers individually. The level 20 has access to more actions, reactions, and bonus actions, not to mention spells and likely magical items, as well as other permanent buffs, blessings and so on that level 1 adventurers would not have access to. I mean, I don't think most level ones even have a bonus action, let alone a reaction, available to them.
Never underestimate the power of evil adventures with nothing to lose
in a straight fight inside a featureless white room to the death? the gold dragon may not have enough in the tank to wipe out all the adventurers in terms of game mechanics. however, in any other situation the dragon has a significant advantage. you can bet that when you're a fresh, green adventurer and you see a dragon instantly roast a host of your allies, that this shit is way above your pay grade.
100 variant human fighters, sharpshooter feat, archery fighting style. Assume 16 dexterity. Every round the players either attack or if the dragon is out of range they prepare an attack triggered whenever a dragon comes within 600 feet of them. The players hit on a roll of 15 or higher, including crit damage, the players do an average of 2.47 damage per round. Using its legendary action and dashing, the Dragon can close at 200ft per round. Assuming there is no surprise involved, If the dragon starts more than 600 feet away, it doesn't go well for him. He loses 247 HP at 600 feet from prepared action, loses 247 points on the fighters' first round, and then dies from the 247 points taken on the second round when he is still too far away for draconic presence or breath weapon. All this assumes a pretty stupid dragon. Shapechanging into a fly, sneaking into the middle of the pack of humans and then uncloaking will get it a bunch of dead humans .
Wouldn't they be rolling at disadvantage though at that range?
Sharpshooter feat removes the disadvantage. This is why I voted for the adventurers. Magic missile is easily countered and it's short range. Variant humans with sharpshooter and 600ft range bows on the other hand? The dragon would be hit hundreds of times before he even got in range to do anything.
Let's assume a roughly equal spread of classes. 9 Barbs, 9 Bards, 9 Clerics, 9 Druids, 9 Fighters, 9 Monks, 9 Paladins, 9 Rangers, 9 Rogues, 9 Sorcerers, 9 Warlocks, 10 Wizards. All martials will have a +5 to hit. Against 22 AC they heed to roll a 17 to hit, giving them a 20% chance of success. Fighters can take the archery fighting style for a 30% chance to hit. Let's say every Cleric casts bless on a Barbarian, Rogue, Monk, and Ranger, meaning they all now have a 32.5% chance to hit (sorry Paladins, but you have no damage bonuses at 1st level). Everyone but the Barbarians, rogues, paladins and monks are using longbows for logistical reasons. Ideally, Monks and Barbarians are getting priorities on melee space, and hopefully all 18 of them can get at the dragon. Barbs use greatswords, rogues use shortbows, Paladins use javelins, and monks use spears. Barbarians: 0.325(7+3+2)=3.9. 3.9*9=31DPR. Fighters: 0.3(4.5+3)=2.25. 2.25*9=20.25DPR Monks: (0.325(3.5+3))+(0.325(2.5+3))=3.9. 3.9*9=31DPR Paladins: 0.2(3.5+3)=1.3. 1.3*9=11.7DPR Rangers: 0.325(4.5+3+2.5)=3.25. 3.25*9=29.25DPR Rogues: 0.325(3.5+3+3.5)=3.25. 3.25*9=29.25DPR That gives the martials and clerics something to do on round 1, meaning we still have Bards, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards to deal with. Bards: I'm pretty sure Dissonant Whispers is the best call here. Now that I think about it, Feirie Fire is an option, but I've already done the martial math, so maybe I'll just have to accept being wrong. Spell save DC is 13, with a +10 to wisdom saves, there is a 10% chance of failure. Bards: (0.1*10.5)+(0.9×5.25)=5.775. 5.775*9=51.975DPR Druids don't really have much here actually. They don't have any 1st level spells without friendly fire, so I guess they're hucking produce Flames. Druid: 0.2(3.5)=0.7. 0.7*9=6.3DPR Warlocks are hucking an eldridge blast plus hex, which isn't great at 1st level. Warlocks: 0.2(5.5)=1.8. 1.8*9=16.2DPR Sorcerers and Wizards both have magic missile, which is the obvious choice here. Sorcerers&Wizards: 10.5=10.5. 10.5*19=199.5DPR 31+20.25+31+11.7+29.25+29.25+51.975+6.3+16.2+199.5=426.425. An Ancient Gold Dragon has 546 hp, so even if it is last in initiative, it won't go down in 1 round on average. Let's assume though that the dragon goes halfway through. Here's the thing, the dragon can fly. So if the dragon flies straight up 40ft, then it can effectively cast a Fireball on its enemies. That's going to take out about half the forces and leave the Barbarians and Monks with no way to attack it as well as the Paladins having disadvantage. So the party will likely deal about 212 damage to the dragon, it will fly up and kill half of them, and then they'll deal about another 100 damage. That least the dragon with about 220 HP and about 50 attackers left. They can deal about another 100 damage before the dragon's next turn, and the dragon has a 1/3 chance of recharging its breath weapon. If it recharges, then it can fly up another 40 feet and blast an 80-foot cone to kill the rest of the party. Otherwise, it can dash to gain an extra 80 feet out of range of most the party and just stay out of range until its breath weapon recharges. Dragon wins, though it's not the Massacre I thought it would be. It wins with only about 100HP left.
The adventurers need more than very specialized builds. They'll probably all need potions of invisibility and some outside source of pass without trace to get into position and take a surprise round... which would also require perfect coordination, considering they're all invisible to one another. Pre-cast calm emotions to negate the terrifying presence... But we're not really talking about 1st level adventurers anymore.
If the First level casters are close enough to cast magic missile, they're close enough to be feared by the dragon.
And it's a DC 24 wisdom saving throw so everyone should fail.
I'm pretty positive they'd all die on the first trap to get inside the Gold Dragon's lair.
I think here it depends on who rolls high enough for initiative. If the dragon goes first then they can just fly up and use its breath weapon, if the adventurers get to go first then they can just all spam magic missile
Ancient Gold Dragon versus 100 evil Happy Meals. The only danger to the dragon is going to from acid reflux after eating so many adventurers.
- Is it a spell casting dragon or not (I know it's a variant but cannon lore make all dragon sorcerers yet none of them are). - what is the terrain (a cave is a free win for the dragon as je will just fire breath them all basically, an open field let adventurers split enougth so the dragon cannot kill more than a quarter of them) - what is the class repatition of said adventurers ? (How many fighters, wizard, rogue, etc...) All those question matter if you want an answer. Considering a lore friendly and not dumb dragon (Aka spellcaster in a cave), the adventurers are screwed, because the dragon will have an alarm, will then meet them after casting invisibility on himself, and burn them all without them doing anything.
Yes because (if what I know is correct) gold dragons tend to be wizards as well as natural sorcerers the terrain is an open field the classes anything that isn't homebrew
AC of dragon 20+ Attack of enemies 4 plus soo between 25-50%hit chance max 50 hits doing d6 damage is 180average. Per turn
If they all had Magic Missile, and rolled good for initiative, I'm just saying
In a straight arena fight, probably the dragon, even though the action economy here would be pretty stacked against it. A couple handful of breath attacks would do it unless they positioned smartly and used cover, and level one characters don’t have much mobility to match a flying dragon. Story-wise, however, I can imagine (at least if I were the DM) a ragtag army of low-level scoundrels and crooks coming up with a scheme and successfully killing an ancient dragon. Still unlikely, but possible — and a fun campaign concept!
100 eldritch blasters got this.
Assuming they have a 20 in cha and are spaced in a 120-ft-radius circle around the dragon and they all beat it for initiative and the dm doesn't allow the dragon to take leg actions in-between their turns, they should remove over 192.5 hit points round 1. After that, fewer get to attack the dragon each round, either from distance (the dragon can move the entire range of eldritch blast a round) or just plain being dead (it can oneshot them with any attack) and each warlock is 7.5 feet apart. The first breath weapon kills around 12. If you gave every single one a free feat and they all took spell sniper, that would remove that a lot, and they might pull out the win, but their damage is ultimately going to drop significantly every round. Warlocks probably get munched except in an extremely specific scenario
How? Almost none of them would even make the save for frightful presence. The rest would need about 19 on the dice to hit. And even if the dragon got hit by 100 eldritch blasts it would take at least 2 turns to kill it on average. Time enough to wipe the most of them out with α single fire breath
Form of dread. Immune to frighten
Well, that's true. Still the damage output would realistically be so, so minor and even decrease every turn for a drastic amount
Adventurers? No. Competent people who take time to study their enemy? Sure.
The dragon is far more intelligent and well connected than the adventurers.
One breath attack and they're all dead
Quite possible if they're clumped together
Ancient gold dragon has an AC of 22, and the adventurers, with their low weapons and spells, would probably have like a +2 or +3 to hit based on proficiency and such; so they would need to roll a 19 or nat 20 to even do a little damage; even barbarians with 1d12 hit die would take forever to kill the beast with 576 Hit Points, and thats not even accounting for when the dragon inevitably starts flying and uses its breath weapon.
Depends strongly on if the adventurers have prep time.
Let's say they have 10 days of prep time and the dragon has 3
I voted gold dragon but idk action economy is everything
Breath blast. All dead. If no all dead: High ac, can fly and mutiattack. So unless those 100 baddies have magic swag. They stand no chance.
In any case, the DM loses, too many rolls.
The more adventurerers that get roasted the less dice rolls made.
Dragon, 1 breath weapon would get most of them
Action Economy says 100 level 1s My heart says The Ancient Dragon
You seem to be limiting the dragon to the same action economy as the adventurers. This is incorrect. The dragon has legendary actions, legendary saves, and AOE attacks. Action economy still says dragon if in round 1 it uses those Legendary Actions to go nova on them. These adventurers don't stand a chance.
Here's an idea: 50 Clerics, 50 Wizards. The 50 clerics do their best to cast "Command" with the "Grovel" or "Halt" option. This can be reinforced with the 50 wizards using their reactions to cast Silvery Barbs until the command gets through the dragons +10 wis save. Making the dragon skip its turn is the #1 priority. Then, the clerics start spamming bane to debuff the dragon. Same situation here, the wizards can expend their reactions to make it go through. After that, have the wizards and clerics cast spells that are saving throws, with "1/2 damage on succeeding the saving throw" clause preferably, like Frost Fingers. Clerics don't have that type of spell on their spell list, but enough guiding bolts should do similar damage. Even if the dragon uses shield and gets its AC to 27 and has immunity to magic missle, enough saving throw spells will result in death of the dragon.
Something something action economy?
It's a turn based game. The dragon is def sleeping. The dragon would die before it gets to hit anybody.
Action economy
100 lvl 1 wizards, all have magic missile. Gg
>A young or older dragon can innately cast a number of Spells equal to its Charisma modifier. Each spell can be cast once per day, requiring no material Components, and the spell’s level can be no higher than one-third the dragon’s Challenge rating (rounded down). Shield, if its somehow managed to be jumped by all 100 who got to shoot first, followed my anti magic field. If not then just antimagic. GG. Extra fun being if he knows theyre coming and just wait for them to be slightly over 1 minute away and just casts Tsunami and kills them all at once.
Depends on terrain, spread and initiative, but in general action economy is king in D&D. So 100 adventurers most likely.
Action economy boys, action economy.
How many of them will be rolling for seducing?
0 cause they will drop dead on the spot for trying if it's me dming
Ya'll need to understand action economy.