Dragons, in the hands of a competent DM, are terrifying in tabletop. A humble level-appropriate dragon can absolutely demolish an overconfident party simply by keeping to the air, strafing the party whenever its breath recharges, and using its spells and abilities intelligently. It is unfortunate that there's no way to translate this to a pc game, and dragons are barely mobile brutes.
Because if you play smart monster like Generally a DM play the BBEG people will scream in frusttation.
you notice that attitude in many post here.
Stuff like “magic is useless in 5e not like older edition”
they consider the “evil mage” only a guy with 120 HP and 17 AC that will die in a round in the small room where they think he will wait the party.
while instead the “evil mage” will never face directly the party because the DM is going to play him like a 20+ int character.
the evil mage will not going to cast a spell and deal pointless 30 damage aoe to the party, but it’s going to blow up the bridge with the same spell while the party is traversing a river and similar stuff, because he is evil and have 20+ int and the party should try to mantain a low profile and sabotage evil mage plan before he manage to notice them.
this is why low level d&d is better, because at some point character have powers and capacity similar to the evil mage, and can counter fast and easily the bad guy.
At high level spellcasters will be capable of do what they want and the DM can’t stop them unless he force some raiload.
in pc games caster are always castrated and nerfed, not in damage, but in approach and problem solving: the same for the bad guy, he can’t be a real menace to the party only a scripted evil guy.
