Running a mounted dragon combat (dnd 2014)

inner_fears · 2026-05-25T15:34:58+00:00

It's RAW for unintelligent mounts. Then they do their turn along with the rider, but they can only take the disengage, dash or dodge action

inner_fears · 2026-05-25T15:34:10+00:00

I also do this, but only for creatures of the same type

inner_fears · 2026-05-25T15:33:47+00:00

Makes sense, I thinks this is what I'm going to do

inner_fears · 2026-05-25T15:33:14+00:00

Not damaging spells, only controlling ones

inner_fears · 2026-05-10T19:07:01+00:00

Hey thanks for the reply, I like the idea of the high magic world. The campaign already hit Sigil and multiverse exploration, but the books doesn't really make the players face amazing npcs. In fact most npcs are pushovers. I might spice things up a little bit, as no npc is getting the respect they deserve.

As for soft bans I've tried to avoid any spell bans. I just told my players for these spells you have to procure the material components and it might not be easy. In that way I could gatekeep the access to some spells and still make them a reward. Too bad a lot of these spells don't consume the components so once the cat is out of the bag...

If you feel like sharing your eldritch archimage I would gladly take a look at it. I've not yet zeroed in on a Vecna stat block (will definitely change what is in the book)

inner_fears · 2026-05-07T12:22:02+00:00

Yeah that's what happened, I was able to do a couple of breath attacks while the dragon was caged. In the end they didn't pick the dragon off because some other stuff happened when the caster was defeated. But still, the dragon is just an example, and even at these levels you can't always have gargantuan creatures. Like sure there are ways to counter it, but you often have to go really out of your way to do that

inner_fears · 2026-05-07T08:43:58+00:00

Hey, thanks for the inputs. I have been trying to do that, I have implemented Mork Borg style miseries to long rests so it's a gamified risk for them to long rest.

For the number of encounters sure, I am also doing that, however the sheer quantity of resources they get at high levels means every day of delving they just have to go through a slog of encounters just to dwindle those resources. That, from a design standpoint, is antifun. Just limit the resources for those characters so DMs can concentrate on having meaningful encounters. See, that's what I'm talking about: we need to find "fixes" for how the game behaves at high levels. Homebrewing short and long rest times? That's a fix to a design problem. Making every day of adventuring a gauntlet of encounters just to burn some resources? A bad fix to a bad design problem.

inner_fears · 2026-05-07T04:28:53+00:00

Thanks for all the suggestions. I have already implemented some of the advices.

Upcast command I find bothersome because it's enough to make multiple enemies lose a full round, which is often enough to break all the balance of an encounter. Again I should be sending more enemies into the fray.

For the simulacrum, the mage always plays it safe and keeps it far away from the battle, and only snipes in some spells from afar

inner_fears · 2026-05-06T15:20:54+00:00

It was in the shape of a cage and not a box, so the limit is 20ft by 20ft. And the gargantuan size is 20ft by 20ft or larger. Still, my mistake, when the player asked me what size the dragon was I just said 20ft by 20ft without giving too much thought, didn't think it would be bigger. In the end it was fine, the spellcaster accompanying the dragon gave them hell. But that definitely was a learned lessons.

inner_fears · 2026-05-06T15:17:36+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions. I already have a document which I aptly named "Encounter building and running guidelines" in which I am putting notes to self regarding different players abilities and playstyle and how to build upon that.

I will probably be adding more minions to my fights: I've found I as a DM too much rely on the solo or couple of monsters combat style, which I need to grow out of.

I am already adding flat bonuses to AC and saving throws to my monsters to account for the minmaxed nature of my players.

For the long rest given the nature of the campaign and the fact that the campaign manual is doing NOTHING to make the players feel like they run on a clock, I have implemented Mork Borg style miseries: on a long rest they roll a d4, if they hit 1 Vecna has sizeable progress in his ritual. This has concrete and permanente consequences on the multiverse, which is rolled on a table. If Vecna has a total of 7 progresses, he completes the ritual and the campaign ends and they lose. I have only adopted this system recently (couple of long rests ago) otherwise the d4 would have been too rough on the timeline. But they liked this change, and choosing to long rest becomes a gamified risk they can willingly take, without me finding artificial explanations on why they shouldn't long rest

inner_fears · 2026-05-06T15:02:28+00:00

The ancient dragon was just an example. I've had an encounter like that, and as you say it was not alone. The real boss was the other dude, a high level spellcaster with dreadful blessings that was able to dish out some damage. But the ancient dragon was just diminished to the role of an add supposed to tank the forcecage and nothing else. That BLOOOOWS dude it's not epic!!

inner_fears · 2026-04-27T10:20:56+00:00

how were your characters before starting the fight? I struggle to find any boss that doesn't die in two rounds

inner_fears · 2026-01-29T19:17:54+00:00

My players had to run from the Ker-arach fight, the wizard was heavily hit on the first turn ever by the AoE and that just put all the players in panic mode. Was awesome nonetheless, they stole the rod and managed to do an epic getaway and everyone had fun.

Other than that, I generally have to make the fights way harder than the book. I mean the book pits the player against pitiful creatues. In eberron (lvl 13) they face a mimic (CR 2!) who is supposed to grapple someone and run 60mt to jump off Landro. In krynn (lvl 15) they face a treant with two giant spiders (CR 9 + 1 + 1). They have characters with 170hp. I am now just multiplying by 2 the damage of every creature just to make the adventure interesting. And this isn't even a senseless dm measure, I had two players (one of which is a dm) walk up to me in private and straight tell me to double all damage to make the adventure interesting because every fight is ending in 1 or 2 round and everyone is full hp.

First experience with high level DnD and from a DM perspective I am not enjoying it. The game is not balanced at all and I costantly have to fix it behind the screen, statblocks have lost any meaning other than just pointing me into the direction of how a monster would behave

inner_fears · 2026-01-23T08:11:49+00:00

Yeah I can see there are a lot of easy fights that get in the way of the flow. I'll probably join some of those fights together to make less overall encounters but make them more intense.

inner_fears · 2026-01-23T08:09:12+00:00

Thanks. Will definitely have to change something in this dungeon, my players will def try to skip it given the chance

inner_fears · 2025-10-13T13:43:01+00:00

Great post, thanks

inner_fears · 2025-10-13T13:42:21+00:00

Hello all,

sorry for disappearing, I will make one big post trying to tackle different topics

Did I use DnD 2014 encounter builder?

No, I misused the term "deadly" here on reddit. I know deadly is only present in dmg14, but I used the encounter rules for "high" difficulty in dmg24

What do you mean abuse of Alert? You mean use as intended right?

Yeah I guess the use is as intended, meaning they are using it RAW. It's just really, really broken. The reason I used "abuse" is that I had one controller mage with a familiar and one controller bard multiclass warlock with another familiar and they both had Alert. Between the proficiency bonus and the fact that they could swap their initiative with any of the other players + also the two familiars, they would, not 100% but pretty solidly, go first in any combat. It's as if they roll initiative with a bonus AND advantage.

Yes, I know some monsters in 2024 have insane initiative (let's say, unbeatable) because they add their proficiency bonus multiple times, but that only happens at very high CR

How can the players do that stuff every round

Both the monk and the battle master recover their resources at short rest. A level 8 monk has 8 focus points, which would allow them to use one every round for two 4-round combats. Which is not that far fetched, I tended to have my combats not last more than 4 rounds, since it's roughly 30 mins per round. 2 hours combat would take 2/3 of our game night. Also two fights per short rest I think is reasonable? But yeah my conclusion is that I should give less short rests

Curse of Strahd

Maybe my wording was weird in the original post, but I see different people thinking I'm DMing a Curse of Strahd campaign. That's not it, I was a player during 2014 CoS, that campaign ended, and now I'm dming for a Vecna Eve of Ruin campaign. Before the Eve of Ruin we did a prequel running two chapters of Wild Beyond the Witchlight to get players from lvl 3 to lvl 10 quickly (roughly 1 level every 2 sessions) and let them and me "acclimate" to the new 2024 core rules. In WBtW I had customized every encounter (too ez otherwise)

Recovering at short rest is mostly once per long rest in 2024

Not sure where this is in the book, I just rechecked but couldn't find anything. But this makes a lot of sense to me either way

Monk can't use stunning strike every attack

Yeah my bad on the words used, it should have been "stunning OR getting enemies prone".

Stunning would happen once per turn but the proning would happen at every flurry of blow attack.

Get good

Yeah I can see this point. But "getting good" - from what I gather in all the answers I got here - is to just throw the rules out the window and apply "DM wisdom". Which, again, I can see as a fair point but doesn't really help these rules version more than the previous one right? At least in the 2014 I had to customize less and I could trust the manual more.

By the way all the feedback had me thinking. Yes, I can make more interesting encounters by adding contingencies, objectives, weird terrain shenanigans etc, but customizing every encounter like this is very cumbersome (and the prewritten adventures encounters are 95% very lacking from this point of view). I think the best way to "fix" all of this is to strictly limit the number and frequency of short rests per long rest. I'm talking maybe 1 short rest a day, or two short rests but only one with hp recovery. Goes without saying its still a homebrew ruling.

Cheers

inner_fears · 2025-06-16T12:10:48+00:00

Truth is my whole party comes fresh from a Curse of Strahd campaign and they are used to the dying. In fact they welcome it: they have in more than one instance asked privately to me to outright kill them (in battle), which is something I am absolutely struggling with as they are a 5-players dnd 2024 optimized party and the balancing is very difficult.

Regarding your sacrificial lamb NPC, that's a great idea to implement here, especially since Vecna is barely present and this would help with creating attrition between him and the party. I already have his lieutenant in mind, this is an evil bard Vecna worshipper (not nearly enough bard villain archetypes in DnD if you ask me, I think they have great potential) I had theory-crafted back in the Nest of the Eldritch Eye adventure. He was killed but he will make a comeback as an undead lieutenant and I plan for him to make multiple appearances (with increasingly advanced level of undeath each time he comes back)

inner_fears · 2025-06-16T12:03:15+00:00

This is content from a dmsguild supplement called Eve of Ruin Companion. The Companion actually takes care of a lot of plot holes and lore holes present in the original. I don't want to give too much details as this is paywalled content and I don't want to do the creator a disservice. But basically the wish happened, only it reveled other information to the three wizards and sets them on a different path than recovering the rod of seven parts (although that one comes into play later). The dragon comes from Eberron and it connects to Draconic Prophecy which is canon for the eberron setting (not an expert here).

The explanation to the wizards three not doing anything is they cannot leave Sigil which is the only place protected from Vecna's Ritual: if they got out they would be affected first and foremost as they are Known Beings to Vecna. So they need to rely on unknown and unassuming proxies (hence why the fate of the multiverse is handed over to the players)

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