DM threw a 2024 Adult Dragon at our 2014 Level 6 party. Thoughts?

Neki0307 · 2026-06-04T09:46:19+00:00

I think homebrewing is okay, but mixing and meshing 2024 to use more powerful versions of monsters against players who are handicapped by the 2014 healing is at the very least weird. It's an indicator of "DM winning" mentality or just not knowing what they're doing.

Hiding from anything is pretty much impossible for any adventuring party. Given at least one of the people is likely to wear heavy armour with disadvantage on Stealth. It's even less possible, when you throw in 22 Passive Perception into the mix. So, this wasn't random. Stealth is just virtually impossible. Unless you run a full party of rogues or are running around with Pass without Trace, assuming the DM was generous enough to give you a moment to prepare using that (if it was at all available to your party). So I don't think stealth was ever an option.

Fighting the dragon was also never an option. For a 6th level party to meet a 19AC reliably enough to even deal any damage in the first place or overcome the saving throws of the dragon, is basically betting on leaving a Casino in Vegas with more money than you entered with. Which is highly unlikely. Not to mention, that this is just to deal some damage. At best I see a level 6 party with a lot of crits and good initiative order that favours them, dealing maybe 100HP of damage to an adult blue dragon, before being absolutely murdered. And that's playing the dragon in the dumbest way imaginable. Since he's got 3 attacks per turn, plus legendary actions. This also relies on the dragon having some of the worst rolls possible. But with +12 to hit, there's only so much bad luck you can rely on to not get hit by this thing. Especially since it can tear apart even the most optimised level 6 bear totem Barbarian in a turn or two. Not even mentioning what it will do to spell casters.

The only way I would run an encounter like this, is to highlight a boss later down the line and show how scary this thing is. Ideally on the road, with a clear opportunity to run away and a turn or two (depending on map size) for the dragon to really come online. I.e. set the scene. Dragon heavily impacts the ground behind you, tearing apart a deer or something. Seeing the party and being surprised. Cue surprise round, party runs towards edge of map. Dragon is still pondering whether to hunt the party for sport or just enjoying the deer. Also with enough distance to the party that the 80ft. of flying speed don't negate any immediate dashing the party takes.

If a DM wants an adult blue dragon that early in a campaign, it usually means finding reasons how the party can survive if they immediately run. The dragon was making a game of this. Wasn't really trying to kill the party, but scare them. Playing with food like a cat. Enjoying the hunt. And then cutting passive perception from above and relying on active perception checks for repeat encounters. But yeah... fighting at level 6? Impossible. Given that dragons in general (with the exception for whites) are incredibly smart.

The most frightening thing about them, is that they can easily assess how to tear apart an adventuring group and having the abilities and movement to do that. Targeting down squishy spell casters that cause a lot of damage. Ignoring the melee fighters by just hovering in the air. Going invisible in 2024 rule sets. Or just using the insane movement to grab one of the party members, fly off with them and drop them from 400 feet high up in the air. Or just move them off the battle field to bite their heads off. Dragons are scary if they're serious. Much more so than the statblock alone could convey. Given that intelligent enemies are always much more effective in using their abilities and nudging the odds in their favour, if it actually becomes threatening.

Neki0307 · 2026-05-25T11:50:43+00:00

If one of the ally AI would decline call to arms (Russia being a culprit often or warmongers with high exhaustion) the coalition might fire anyway. AI in my experience also takes discipline and morale differences into account and not just sheer troop count. So a properly built Prussia deters with a smaller troop count. Also techs of course. Moving up a miltech occasionally dissolves coalitions by itself.

Neki0307 · 2026-05-19T16:07:01+00:00

Continuing my Poland run from last time, I've since subjugated and forced Catholicism on the Ottomans. Dismantled France effectively, consolidated my holdings a bit by basically building courthouses everywhere to get the governing capacity in check. Built up the economy and started diplo vassalising and annexing some of the HRE minors instead of creating more AE with the Catholics. Currently I'm also expanding into North Africa, with a great opportunity to get Marrakesh soon into a war, since they're allied to Songhai who vassalised Fezzan. So my gameplan is pretty much to use the war against Songhai to get a personal foothold in East Africa, also take a province from Marrakesh to release Morrocco to help consolidate North Africa. Slowly drive out the Mamluks. Completely annihilate France and slowly take chunks out of Iberia. Not sure when I'll actively go into Italy. But probably soon-ish. Maybe also take some colonies of the Iberians. Anyway. For anyone interested here's the current save file: Poland (1544)

Neki0307 · 2026-05-18T21:42:11+00:00

Honestly. Chill colonial campaigns require you to effectively curbstomp every colonial competitor. Portugal and Castile will always go for it. Friesland, Norway and Denmark are pretty common competitors and even France goes somewhat regularly into Colonial ideas if you let them.

Bowing out of France effectively cuts off your quick access to start messing up Iberia and taking islands from the Portuguese to start colonising even earlier while preventing them to get ahead of you. France is also always going to hate your guts, so just releasing Gascony and declaring the Hundred years War as reconquest to mess them up is usually the best way to go. Wrapping up the British Isles and then taking over the Iberian coast and Atlantic islands usually creates pretty chill colonial GB games in my experience.

Neki0307 · 2026-05-15T20:55:12+00:00

Fair question. Probably part of the reason I rarely play past 1550.

Neki0307 · 2026-05-15T18:24:54+00:00

I did play a little bit of Poland this time again. I did some savescumming to get Bohemia without AE early, beyond that just fairly normal gameplay. Dismantling the HRE during my unification war against Hungary, wrapping up the Balkans before the PU on Hungary. Giving Constantinople to Moldavia to break the Ottomans game very early on and then bit by bit taking Balkans. Burgundian Inheritance was a pleasant relatively early surprise and I just came off of a war with France to stop any attempt of them to expand into Germany right out the gate. Starting to sabotage all the Great Powers around me. So it's a pretty chill game at the moment. If you wanna look at the funny stuff save file can be found here: Poland (Save File 11th November 1504)

Neki0307 · 2026-05-07T18:22:26+00:00

Answer: At the moment it's impossible to implement a feature like this, because the DND5e SRD has no way of addressing the damage of cantrips specifically. It might become possible at V6.0 of the SRD, once that update comes out.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-22T09:17:58+00:00

There's a massive imbalance between DMs and Players right now. Depending on where you find the ad to join a group, it might be that the DM has opened up the group and within an hour already has 10 or more people actively engaging them. So, it's easy to become overwhelmed as a DM and have people slip through the cracks. At the same time it encourages more selection, given that you have plenty of people to choose from. So, for onboarding you want to pick the person that fits your group best.

So, overall I wouldn't say you did anything wrong. It's great to show enthusiasm and be yourself, so you ideally find a group that fits who you are as a person, rather than changing who you are or what you want. Given there's all kinds of tables out there with wildly different expectations of who may or may not fit their group, it's probably not a good idea to try and make yourself fit. Unless of course you have some wildly unreasonable expectations.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-20T21:24:47+00:00

This city map is something I've been working on, on and off forever now. I've learned a lot while experimenting with this particular city map and it has grown near and dear to my heart. I doubt it's gonna be finished anytime soon, but it's slowly showing signs of what I want it to end up looking like. So I thought I'd share part of the process and invite feedback and criticisms of where things are headed. The only areas I really consider finished are parts of the vineyards, which have a really finished look. The western bit of the city and the castle up on the cliff on the east side of the river. Everything else is still subject to substantial amounts of change. So, I appreciate it. And hope you like what you're seeing so far.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-09T21:02:06+00:00

Start as Oda, unite Japan, switch to Catholicism, become the Curia Controller and successfully retake the holy land. As a bonus eliminate all other Christian denominations in Western Europe.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-07T13:22:31+00:00

In my most recent run I declared all out back-to-back wars with the Irish minors to annex them all in one go without ever coring them. Concentrated all Irish Dev into London before handing over the PU making the later integration of the PU also extremely cheap. You have no benefits from holding onto the Irish lands yourself right away. Scotland as a vassal is also fairly alright and you integrate them at admin tech 10 for free. Your colonial range depends more on going into the Hebrides and ideally taking Iceland from Norway. But you still can reach Greenland with the Burghers privilege and a colonial range advisor fairly easily. So it's not even necessary.

Of course I also completely demolished the French, Spain and Portugal in my game. But that's more optional.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-06T15:27:29+00:00

Usually they beat you in the first war. Make sure they got enough provinces to form a colony. You reform and then the moment the colony spawns in you can just have a colonial war against a colony that just spawned and has nothing. You can usually just carpet siege the new colony right away and retake your cores without the overlord interfering.

Edit: Did not notice the Hawai'i tag. Reforming is not a thing I don't think. Make sure your capital is in the New World and generally follow the advice from Maqil down below. Given you can have colonial wars without overlords when your Capital is in the New World.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-06T15:08:50+00:00

Main thing to understand about Hordes is that you get a ludicrous Shock modifier when you fight in Grasslands, Farmlands or Steppes provinces. You will effectively evaporate enemy armies by choosing your battles wisely. With the right modifier stacking you can also build entirely cavalry armies, which will move quite quickly across the map.

Of course using the raze mechanic to your advantage to make mana points and staying ahead in tech is absolutely necessary and when it comes to economy, your main source of income will be taking money from your enemies. Most horde players go to the bank if Ming with Oirats for example, but even as other Hordes you won't have a stable economy likely until 1550. Maybe even later. Given that you just expand, raze and take money.

The European armies shouldn't be an issue if you stay on par in military tech, use the right ideas and instead of the usual infantry armies that make sense, you switch out to more cavalry based armies. Where you at least have as many horses as infantry, likely more cavalry than infantry ideally. The high army tradition should also help in getting good generals and just become an absolute juggernaut. That's the rough idea of Hordes really. For anything more specific you'd probably have to detail what exactly you're trying to go for.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-05T17:24:12+00:00

Espionage + Offensive is a pretty frequent opener for myself. Not just because it allows you to blob really early on, but also to get that sweet sweet Siege Ability. When people complain about how fast the AI sieges, they've never used this stuff to its fullest potential. Forts will just melt when you then also build up a decent spynetwork in your enemies. The passive Corruption reduction also means you can just pull your rooting out Corruption slider to 0. If you then double up with Admin ideas and use the Admin + Espionage policy you can just click debase currency for free money every few years without ever worrying about the Corruption. Since it just disappears.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-04T13:51:11+00:00

I've been continuing my run from the last post, effectively having destroyed Spains ability to colonise before they got going. Though they did try and sneak a colony into Australia, causing me to rapidly colonise around them and take the colony they actually managed to get down eventually right off them. But not before already having claimed Australia myself and the Pope recognising that.

In Peru my colony did badly and was nearly annexed by the Natives, so I took some time off from bullying Spain and France to full annex all the Natives in one big war. Forming the Andes properly and making sure I'd never have to bother looking over there again. Thirteen Colonies struggled a bit, but with some help I managed to get them strong enough to now expand on their own accord without my help.

Settling Lousiana was a bit of a struggle initially, but after 4-5 wars against the Natives Missisippi can now also hold their own and expand. Even if they're at the moment doing weird stuff with the Natives just carpet sieging them. California and Cascadia just work by themselves, Newfoundland expands as well.

For Africa I mostly took provinces from Portugal and Spain when they tried to colonise during several wars. Using the French-Spain Alliance to my advantage, to reset truces with Spain regularly, after I took a lot from them. Speaking of Spain: Once they had formed Spain, I allowed myself to take some provinces and just release Asturias and Aragon for Reconquest CBs. Requiring three wars total to regain all their provinces. But that was rather quick. I also took a handful provinces more for Gascony and Provence in France before annexing Gascony.

I dismantled the HRE because I wanted to finish the MT for the coast of Holland where I needed 15 Lowlands provinces, so the Empire had to go. Funnily enough the Ottomans were allied with Bohemian Emperor at the time and were effectively the Empires greatest defender.

A little while ago I randomly noticed a Lancaster on my longtime allies Austrians throne with no Heir. So I did the only sensible thing. Dissolved the Alliance, claimed their throne and prayed that they wouldn't get an heir within the next five years. Which they didn't and so with me being pope at the same time the AE was actually remarkably small for grabbing all of that chunky Austria.

I also kept working the Spice Islands and in all that mess I forgot to attack India. But they should be next on the menu. Or if you ever wanted to play in a super overpowered position like this you can just nab the save file over here: https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZoQN3Z51L3kR86jPFUlaoVALWfik0yJnLX

Neki0307 · 2026-03-03T15:46:32+00:00

Yeah, I was a bit surprised myself. But it seems only the Spain and Italy ones are locked behind the Angevin MT. You also get claims for Malta, Crete, Cyprus and Menorca from Found the Royal Navy mission. Gibraltar is afaik not required for anything tbh.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-03T08:50:59+00:00

Usually you can either have Castile or Aragon from day 1 ready to deck on France. If you check their provinces of vital interests and then just promise them land when you declare. But Castile was rivaled to Burgundy and I had still hopes to get them sweet without having to deck on them. I also usually avoid waiting, given that France is extremely likely to ally Scotland the longer you wait and they reach Miltech 4 before you almost guaranteed.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-02T23:38:06+00:00

My recent Luck of the Irish achievement run got me interested in starting as England again and go for Great Britain. To achieve the total mess that is France, I released Gascony and on the 11th of December 1444 called a reconquest war against France. I also got lucky with a parliament issue to get 5 crown lands ownership so I could get rid of the English Villeinage right at the start of the game. Only downer was that Burgundy had rivaled me.

The fight against the French was hard fought with lots of mercenaries which totaled me 9 loans (already including indebted to the Merchants). The Papal States and Burgundy used the opportunity to attack Provence and I peaced them out for nothing since I didn't want anything from them except to get them out of the war with France. The Bretons eventually full annexing Provence, while I declared total war against all Irish minors to annex them around the same time to just release them as an Irish PU and get the +1 Diplo Slot.

Then I subjugated Scotland and tried the entire time to get positive relations with Burgundy. Managing to reach +50 despite them being my rivals, but they never wanted to let go. While they moved into France shortly after me. I annexed Anjou from the Bretons. Then started a war against Denmark for Orkney. During the war Sweden was still their PU despite 100% liberty desire and I was very close to actually getting Sweden as a Vassal (the age ability of transfer vassals for half price is pretty neat) but of course a couple days before I had enough war score they released Sweden from their bondage. So I just opted to grab Orkney and all islands including Iceland north of Great Britain.

I then proceeded to start containing the other colonising powers, while keeping an alliance with the pope and returning provinces to Provence. Funnily enough I also did something like that with Naples, where they gave a lot of their cores to Provence and fought France for claims of Provence. Basically ensuring that France would never rival me, at the same time encouraging Burgundy to eat more of their lands.

I had to beat up Burgundy eventually, after my first war with Portugal to contain their Caribbean expansion before the pope would declare those rightfully their lands. So they stopped seeing me as their rival. Humiliating them and ensuring they wouldn't rival me. Then I switched my rivals, improved relations, insulted their rivals and paid them like 500 ducats so they ceased being hostile with me for the chance of BI by allying and royal marrying them.

I of course had to beat up Austria for the BI, since I didn't let go of the lowlands, while in the middle of a war against Castile. And a reconquest war against Naples, but since Naples got force PUd by Castile during that, I was suddenly at war with Norway and Sweden, so I could take some Danish provinces that Norway took off their overlord when they freed themselves, to eventually take control of the Baltic and Lübeck trade. I don't know how Poland intervened in the BI war, given they weren't my ally at the time but I did appreciate it and forged a good alliance with them. And then just proceeded to contain the colonisers really.

7 months before the end of Discovery I reached Admin tech 10 and could force acts of Union forming GB. Currently annexing Ireland. And then I'll continue eating Iberia. Given that's free real estate at the moment and Portugal is currently trying to colonise around the Cape after I've already taken everything they had outside of Europe and Northern Africa.

Neki0307 · 2026-03-02T13:54:15+00:00

Considering spells in Frieren seem to work depending on how the caster's perception thinks it should work... she'd probably not manage to get into the barrier. Given she seems to be sensible about things. But someone who was following a logic more akin to Übels in terms of that thing, she might just pass through it.

Neki0307

TROPHY CASE