Brains vs. Brawn when Faerie Dragons Square off With Ogres in D&D

September 8, 2022

Sometimes an idea hits you and you have to do something with it for fear of losing something interesting. Such an idea hit me like this and who better to share it with than all of you out there? I found a pair of D&D monsters that are as opposite as you can get but are on almost the same power level exactly as one can be. An ogre and a faerie dragon (older) are both a challenge ratting 2 monster, though I would have to say it would be a different fight going against one than the other.

Brute force vs. crafty cunning

Ogres are large, dumb and brutish. Any fight against an ogre is going to be a straight up brawl. Adventurers must survive the swings of its massive weapon while they pick away at its pile of hit points. It is too dumb to use tactics and strategy. It will not be cunning in a fight. Even its motivations are easy to predict. An ogre is either hungry and wants food or something gains its attention and it wants to claim it for its own. The only upside with ogres is they think they can take on any foe unless it is bigger than them, which means it won’t fight other giants. Given this it can be easy to deal with an ogre should adventurers encounter one.

Faerie dragons are just about as opposite of ogres as one can get. They are tiny and agile. They are intelligent, with a score of 14 that is well above average, and very often smarter than most adventurers. Their Wisdom is only a 12, though I would be willing to let this go higher for a specific NPC I might be looking to use. Depending on the color of the faerie dragon they get access to various spells, gaining more and more spells as they get older. Most of what they get are illusion type spells — the perfect thing for affecting ogres. Ogres have a -2 Wisdom saving throws, which mean they would need a 13 or higher on the die to save against a faerie dragon’s Breath Weapon and a 15 or higher to save against their spells. The little dragons can turn invisible and talk with each other telepathically too. Is this enough set up?

Ogres as statted and stated are dumb and faerie dragons love playing practical jokes. What happens when either ogres move into an area already hosting a bunch of faerie dragons or the dragons move into an area inhabited by ogres? Insert the feud. This of course starts with some good natured pranks by our lovely little dragons. The ogres, too dumb to catch on, recognize something odd is happening but probably blame the other ogres as they would not see the invisible dragons. After enough pranks perhaps the dragon, by chance having lost concentration on their invisibility, spills out of a tree in laughter. When this happens enough times the ogres eventually catch on. Remember — ogres have a 5 Intelligence and a 7 Wisdom. Not too bright, those.

To be perfectly frank this idea came to me when I saw some recently released minis from our friends over at WizKids. Within their Icons of the Realms line two great sets easily let this idea play out. Pride of the Faerie Dragons comes with one of each of all seven colors of faerie dragon you would need to be able to pull this off. Who does not want seven adorable little dragon minis? They are great for a lot of fun games. The other set is the Ogre Warband. This fabulous set comes with four ogres all armed and armored differently. One even has a howdah you can use to stack on the two enclosed goblins for more chaos. Go to your local game store or visit WizKids’ site and add these great sets to your collection today!

Adventurers caught in the middle

Now we insert the adventuring party. There are so many ways of using this set up. Either the ogres defeated the party and they’re so fed up with these dragons that they command their new captives to stop the dragons or be eaten by the ogres.

The party could stumble onto the scene of pranks currently going, giving them the chance to stop the torture of the stupid ogres. If this is not enough perhaps the party is approached by the dragons as one of their own is captured by the ogres. Now the quest becomes sneaking into the camp and rescuing the captured faerie dragon without rousing the ogres — a great scenario for low level parties. An assault poses much more danger for tier one adventurers. After all a 1st or 2nd level party even against one ogre would very likely result in death for at least one character. A stealthy approach, or perhaps even bartering or negotiating with the ogres, feels much more appropriate for the release of the Tiny dragon.

If you have a fey themed party or The Archfey warlock in the group perhaps the dragon has been taken and the party must endure mediating for the two groups in order to stop the ogres from eating it. Of course the most direct route would be the party charging on in and killing the ogres but I find this far less fun and more deadly depending on party level.

I hope you find this encounter set up fun and inspiring and you too want these great minis for use at your own table. On a similar note in our own Crones and Their Cravings encounter heroes hope to rescue a group of baby dragons from a grisly feast in a cottage of hags and their mephit chef. You can find this along with lots of other dynamic encounters to drop right into your games from Out of the Box.

Thanks for reading. Until next time, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — Depiction of faerie dragons of different ages from Domains of Delight, a module to help you create Domains of Delight and the archfey who rule them, building on the information about the Feywild that appears in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. All proceeds from Domains of Delight go to non-profit Extra Life, an online grassroots movement working to save sick and injured kids through the power of play. Learn more about Domains of Delight here.