A BLACK DRAGON D&D vs SMAUG Middle Earth Mythology

[JohnDiggle]

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vs. _And_do_you_now__.JPG.jpg

[StupidMoniker]

I don't like the black dragon's chances. Is this at least an Ancient Black Dragon? Standard would be an Adult Black Dragon, and that would have even less chance of winning. An ancient black dragon is gargantuan, which means it occupies a 20x20 foot space, and it has a 15 foot reach with its bite and a 20 foot reach with its tail (so around 20ish feet from nose to body and 25ish from body to tip of tail). That gives us about a 65 foot dragon, lets round it up to 100 feet. Smaug in the movie was 427 feet long. There are no exact measurements in the book, but he can't fit his head down a passage that is five foot high and wide enough for three dwarves to walk abreast. He also crushes Laketown when he dies.

[Jackalope89]

I don't like the black dragon's chances. Is this at least an Ancient Black Dragon? Standard would be an Adult Black Dragon, and that would have even less chance of winning. An ancient black dragon is gargantuan, which means it occupies a 20x20 foot space, and it has a 15 foot reach with its bite and a 20 foot reach with its tail (so around 20ish feet from nose to body and 25ish from body to tip of tail). That gives us about a 65 foot dragon, lets round it up to 100 feet. Smaug in the movie was 427 feet long. There are no exact measurements in the book, but he can't fit his head down a passage that is five foot high and wide enough for three dwarves to walk abreast. He also crushes Laketown when he dies.

And Smaug was the smallest (and last) of the great winged dragons, too. I admit, my knowledge of DnD dagons is limited to animated Vox Machina, but Smaug's size along would crush probably two of them at once (going by estimates).

[BitVyper]

Depends on edition, age, and the specific dragon. Lots of them have spells, some versions have spells that will absolutely end this fight instantly, all of them have the likelihood of knowing more spells than what's in their statblocks. They fly around 50-60 mph depending on exact age (taken from double moving as a flight speed, not a single move skirmishing speed). Not sure where Smaug rates there.

D&D editions I'm familiar with tend to just say "they have spells in this level range." Pathfinder is more specific and gives them a couple save-or-lose spells at higher age categories. I don't know what 4e and 5e say.

[Sharpandpointies]

I don't like the black dragon's chances. Is this at least an Ancient Black Dragon? Standard would be an Adult Black Dragon, and that would have even less chance of winning. An ancient black dragon is gargantuan, which means it occupies a 20x20 foot space, and it has a 15 foot reach with its bite and a 20 foot reach with its tail (so around 20ish feet from nose to body and 25ish from body to tip of tail). That gives us about a 65 foot dragon, lets round it up to 100 feet. Smaug in the movie was 427 feet long. There are no exact measurements in the book, but he can't fit his head down a passage that is five foot high and wide enough for three dwarves to walk abreast. He also crushes Laketown when he dies.

It's fair to note that he can't even get his jaws into the 3 Dwarves-wide tunnel and needs to content himself with basically snorting fire from his nostrils into it. So the Black Dragon is basically 'smol' compared to him.

As for his speed, he's noted as flying pretty quickly. HOW quickly, we don't know. However....

'Before long, so great was his speed, they could see him as a spark of fire rushing towards them, and growing ever huger and more bright.' This is him zipping from the Lonely Mountain to Laketown, a trip that normally takes days. How many? Tolkien is somewhat vague, but it's at the least three days on boats on the river and one day afoot.

Smaug manages that...like, really fast.

I would say that 60 mph isn't out of his wheelhouse. I would go as far to say that 60 mph is more close to crawling along compared to him.

[wjowski]

As mentioned previously aren't almost all DnD dragons high level-ish magic users? I don't think size is going to be the deciding factor here.

[Captain Morgan]

Depends on the spells. I'd imagine Smaug has a really good fortitude and will save, so I don't like the odds of spells landing and it should only take him one round to close.

[StupidMoniker]

As mentioned previously aren't almost all DnD dragons high level-ish magic users? I don't think size is going to be the deciding factor here.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/1...t-black-dragon
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Black_Dragon
https://adnd2e.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Dragon
In AD&D 2nd Edition, Great Wyrm Black Dragons had 9 first level spells. 3.5 and 5th Edition don't seem to have any spells. Now, a DM could give his dragon wizard levels if he chose to do so, but I wouldn't say it is standard.

[Sharpandpointies]

Depends on the spells. I'd imagine Smaug has a really good fortitude and will save, so I don't like the odds of spells landing and it should only take him one round to close.

This.

I mean, we start getting into Ancient black dragon (admittedly 3.5, I'm not familiar with stuff after that), and Smaug is getting to be in trouble based solely on primary canon (MERP roleplaying? Hahahaha, no, MERP Smaug stomps all over Great Wyrm Black Dragons in 3.5, and flat-out overwhelms the Great Wyrm's level 15 spellcasting with his own, much more powerful spellcasting). Ancient Black Dragon is at least an 11th level caster, and that should have enough to potentially tip the scales (hahaha, again) towards the D&D dragon.

Below that, Very Old Dragon? 9th level spellcaster against a dragon like Smaug? I am somewhat iffy on this being at all enough to make up for the very, very hefty physical power disparity. I figure that one is Smaug's fight to take.

Anything younger (which still includes 'Old') gets rolled up into a ball by Smaug. Too big, too strong, fast enough to catch the Black Dragon PDQ.