Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rerednaw 02-27-07, 10:07 AM	Reading the Tanglefoot bags really nerf dragons (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=798359) gave me the idea for this thread. Black Dragon, young adult Size: L Space/Reach: 10/5 (10 with bite) HD: 16d12+48 (152 hp) AC: 24/9(touch)/24 (flat-footed) Str19 Dex10 Con17 Int12 Wis13 Cha12 Atk:Bite+19 2d6+4 Full Atk: Bite +19 2d6+4/Claw +14 1d8+2/Claw +14 1d8+2/Wing +14 1d6+2/Wing +14 1d6+2/Tail +14 1d8+6 Grapple:+24 Breath: 10d4 Ref:21 80 foot line F:13 R:10 W:11 SR:17 DR: 5/magic Frightful presence 150 foot range, will 19 negates. <=4HD panic 4d6 rounds 5 HD+ shaken 4d6 rounds. Blindsight (pinpoint) 60 feet. Darkvision 120 feet. Feats (6): Wingover? Multiattack? (add +3 to all atks other than bite if this taken) Improved Natural attack (bite 3d6/claw 2d6, wing 1d8, tail 2d6)? Hover? Fly-by attack? Spells: Sorceror 1st (Shield?) Now what tactics could a party use to fight this? Mind you in LG you could be a full table of 4th level characters. Assume no surprise and encounter distance of 3d6x10 feet. (I'll take an average and say 110 feet). By the same token, what tactics would you use as the dragon? Flying up, hovering and breathing to start sounds like a good idea. Follow by a full attack action against the arcane squishie (if present and if he survived the breath). My thoughts: Initiative makes a big difference. If the party is mounted and the horses fail the fright check, it could cost the party a round or two. Certainly they won't stay in any kind of formation, would could be a blessing considering the breath weapon is a line. The party won't know much about the dragon. The knowledge DC is 26. So the party cannot plan based upon foreknowledge. Metabreath feats could be really unpleasant. The dragon should target foes wearing light or no armor, hoping to disable casters first.
trollbill 02-27-07, 11:20 AM	Hmmm...now where have I seen a dragon with those stats before...OH YEAH, I FOUGHT ONE LAST FRIDAY!!! For the PCs: If you think you can get away with it, flee, prepare, then come back. Seeing it breath is enough to know what type of energy to protect yourselves' from and what kind will likely not work on it. As mentioned previously, use Tanglefoot Bags to reduce its phenominal maneuverability. A Gnome Calculus (Open), even if you aren't proficient with it, and the Launch Item spell (NONC) can help alot with this. Use ranged touch attacks, either with spells or alchemical items. Touch AC is a dragons big weakness. Don't engage in melee with it unless you can mob it. It is capable of dropping most APL appropriate characters in a single round, especially if it has softened them up with a breath weapon first. Engage it at a range and keep it that way if you can. It can only use it's breath weapon every 2-3 rounds on average and you can fill it with arrows during that time. It's breath weapon is nasty, it's full attack action is devastating. Use Spring Attack A Slow spell can nerf a dragon greatly, but it gets both a save and SR and if it is smart, will fly off until the spell wears off. Don't use spells with the same energy descriptor as the dragon's breath weapon. Don't cluster and make an opportune taget for the breath weapon Use protective spells that give you concealment. The dragons attack bonuses will likely hit any AC you can get at an appropriate APL, but even though they can pinpoint invisible creatures they still suffer the Conceal miss chance. For the Dragon: Cast Shield or Mage Armor up front, making it hard for power attackers to land a blow (and protecting from Magic Missiles with Shield) Soften them up with Breath Weapons while hovering. Target spellcasters and other low HP creatures that you might be able to actually take out with a breath weapon. Avoid breathing on anything you witnessed has Evasion or resistance to your breath weapon. Fly away until your beath weapon regenerates. If your opponents prove strong with ranged attacks, engage in melee immediately. They will likely win a ranged duel. Engage the enemy in narrow openings so that only one or two of them can get to you at a time. One on One you are more than a match for any appropriate APL PC. If struck with a temporary debilitating effect, fly away and wait for it to wear off before re-engaging If you have a large body of water nearby, use it to avoid ranged attacks while you wait for you breath weapon to recharge or debilitating effects to wear off, and to close with the enemy safely.
Mortepierre 02-27-07, 11:26 AM	By the same token, what tactics would you use as the dragon? Flying up, hovering and breathing to start sounds like a good idea. Follow by a full attack action against the arcane squishie (if present and if he survived the breath). No can do. If he flies up, that's a move. Hover is another move. Round over. Next round, full attack action against the arcane, yes, but only if the latter is within reach. Since the dragon just flew up, that's unlikely (unless the mage was flying too) Seriously speaking, dragons are smart creatures but, unless they're old and with lots of experience under their belt (so to speak..), they're not going to know in advance every trick the players will use against them (unless it's a rematch, of course). Likewise, just because a dragon can cast a few spells and has ranks in Spellcraft doesn't mean he knows the whole Spell Compendium by heart. When I play a dragon (and the mod doesn't contain specific instructions on "how" to use it), here is what I do: 1st round: flyby attack or hover + breath (catch as many PC as possible) 2nd round: gain altitude (to avoid short range spells and missiles) and observe how the PC are handling themselves. If some appear not to have suffered damage from the breath, mark them as priority targets. If one of them is healing the others, mark him as #1 priority target. (take out the healer first and the PC's chances decrease drastically) 3rd round: fly (down towards the PC) + spell (dispel magic or entangle or web or glitterdust) At this stage, if we're talking low-level PC, most of the team should be in bad shape. 4th round: land near healer or suitably squishie PC + bite attack 5th round: full attack on healer or squishie (if the latter isn't dead yet) OR move + either bite attack or breath (if the dice favored you) Of course, tactics would be much different with older dragons confronted by more powerful (lvl 8+) PC. But at low APL, the above works rather well, usually (depending on the environment and how much prep time the PC had, of course)
trollbill 02-27-07, 11:53 AM	Oh, I forgot. One more trick. Try to find a Wymling Black Dragon (4HD) and do a Knowledge (Arcana) on it first. A 25 will get you 3 pieces of useful information. The same check against the Young Adult won't even identify it as a dragon. When your DM complains that this is Metagaming Cheese, tell him it is only in response to a poorly implemented rule that won't be fixed for true dragons until they republish the Monster Manual.
Munkwunk 02-27-07, 12:54 PM	A dragon's biggest weakness is its low Dexterity score. If you can manage to quickly drop it to 0, you've won. It's hard to do at APL 4 due to having a limited number of spells which can damage Dexterity, but a Ray of Clumsiness (NONC) and Entangle or Bands of Steel may be all it takes to drop his Dex to 0, if only temporarily. Bestow Curse (if you can get lucky and get it to fail its save) and Ray of Exhaustion (again, getting lucky and makign it fail its save) should also do the trick.
Rerednaw 02-27-07, 01:04 PM	Hmmm...now where have I seen a dragon with those stats before...OH YEAH, I FOUGHT ONE LAST FRIDAY!!! ...[/LIST] You did? I picked the color because he's the first alphabetically in the SRD. I picked the age category because it's when he gets the frightful presence goodness. Wait, wait, don't tell me...I'm sure I'll run into him sometime this year or next. Unless (hopefully) it's not in my region. :D
Rerednaw 02-27-07, 01:24 PM	A dragon's biggest weakness is its low Dexterity score. If you can manage to quickly drop it to 0, you've won. It's hard to do at APL 4 due to having a limited number of spells which can damage Dexterity, but a Ray of Clumsiness (NONC) and Entangle or Bands of Steel may be all it takes to drop his Dex to 0, if only temporarily. Bestow Curse (if you can get lucky and get it to fail its save) and Ray of Exhaustion (again, getting lucky and makign it fail its save) should also do the trick. Don't have the SpC on me, but I think Bands of Steel, while open, won't work on L or bigger. As for Ray of C, is it damage or a penalty? It's NONC anyway, I'm not counting on parties having this spell. If you are a 6th level caster, I'm thinking spells you use at the dragon hopefully have SR: None. Ray of Enfeeblement seems to be a good choice. Too bad a wand isn't core. And I hate the idea of getting that close, but at least it isn't a melee touch spell. Bestow Curse? It's great if it works. Factors to consider: 1) touch, 2) will negates 3) has to bypass SR as well. Plus it's clr3/wiz4. I can see how grounding the dragon would help immensely...how? TF bags allow a reflex to negate the anti-flying. With a Ref of +10, I dunno. I'd ready a strike after a hit with a net first (assuming someone got within 10 feet). Because then he gets a -4 dex penalty. Better chance for the tf bag to stick, literally.
Japangirl 02-27-07, 01:33 PM	I hope a party of level 4s isn't fighting this dragon! It's CR 9, so it could be at APL 6, but you'd need six level 5s to get there. Six 4s is 4+1 is 5, and at that weak they'd better be playing down to APL 4. This is still a really nasty fight for an APL 6 table, of course, at EL +3 encounter and dragons are always scary anyways, but at least it's not quite as bad as against a table of level 4 characters. You can have fly and protection from energy as a level 6 char.
Mortepierre 02-27-07, 02:13 PM	Try to find a Wymling Black Dragon (4HD) and do a Knowledge (Arcana) on it first. A 25 will get you 3 pieces of useful information. The same check against the Young Adult won't even identify it as a dragon. When your DM complains that this is Metagaming Cheese, tell him it is only in response to a poorly implemented rule that won't be fixed for true dragons until they republish the Monster Manual. While logical dictates you're right, the powers that be seem aware of that problem given this article starts giving info from DC 15 http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20061114a
Rerednaw 02-27-07, 02:19 PM	I hope a party of level 4s isn't fighting this dragon! It's CR 9, so it could be at APL 6, but you'd need six level 5s to get there. Six 4s is 4+1 is 5, and at that weak they'd better be playing down to APL 4. This is still a really nasty fight for an APL 6 table, of course, at EL +3 encounter and dragons are always scary anyways, but at least it's not quite as bad as against a table of level 4 characters. You can have fly and protection from energy as a level 6 char. Yeah, I agree it could be very unpleasant. I'm come to expect them as an integral part of LG. I'm sure we all have been in EL+4 fights for that matter in LG. (I played up once and got into an EL+7 fight...not fun). Um fly and protection from energy? If your casters are tossing them that's their heavy hitter spell slots (3rd). Otherwise if it is potions that's 1500 gp...for one fight. I must admit, it's cheaper than dying though. :D My wizard has a couple of scrolls. In his experience energy attacks and the need for flight have been very rare. And he saves both his high level slots for his main spells (he's a summoner). I'm sure that will change as he levels up though.
Japangirl 02-27-07, 02:53 PM	My wizard is weird, I am perfectly willing to admit that. Abjurer with Spell Focus (Abjuration) and generally takes battlefield control/utility spells, even in the highest level spell slots. Glitterdust, Grease, and Slow are mainstays so far, at level 6. And since I have to have abjuration spells prepped, Prot Energy is generally available to me if I don't have Dispel Magic, and sometimes I'll do both.
Jay_Ibero_911 02-27-07, 02:58 PM	Just a note, even if the dragon makes the save against a tanglefoot bag, he is still entangled, just not stuck in one spot. Entangle reduces movement to half, and given a dragon's crappy maneuverability, it would have to double move in a straight line just to remain flying, meaning it HAS to land it wants to engage in any sort of effective combat...
mlund 02-27-07, 05:44 PM	I always kind of feel bad for the "Line of X" Draconic Breath Weapons. They aren't nearly as useful for softening up groups of PCs while keeping out of reach in the air. Cones are better at this by leaps and bounds. - Marty Lund
DerekSTheRed 02-27-07, 07:23 PM	A dragon's biggest weakness is its low Dexterity score. If you can manage to quickly drop it to 0, you've won. It's hard to do at APL 4 due to having a limited number of spells which can damage Dexterity, but a Ray of Clumsiness (NONC) and Entangle or Bands of Steel may be all it takes to drop his Dex to 0, if only temporarily. Bestow Curse (if you can get lucky and get it to fail its save) and Ray of Exhaustion (again, getting lucky and makign it fail its save) should also do the trick. Ray of Clumsiness works just like Ray of Enfeeblement. It creates a penalty to dex that brings it to a minimum of 1 after the penalty. All that does is give him a -4 or -5 to his AC, touch AC, Reflex Saves and his init. The orb spells are touch attacks that bypass spell resistance and work wonders as long as they aren't immune to the relevant energy of the orb. Derek
DerekSTheRed 02-27-07, 07:27 PM	Um fly and protection from energy? If your casters are tossing them that's their heavy hitter spell slots (3rd). Otherwise if it is potions that's 1500 gp...for one fight. I must admit, it's cheaper than dying though. :D Every character at apl 4 NEEDS to have a potion of fly. They have so many uses like getting away or at least getting out of reach. Derek
gomeztoo 02-28-07, 09:02 AM	Does ' negotiate' count as a tactic?
GrahamWills 02-28-07, 11:01 AM	At APL 4, a CR 9 will be quite nasty. At APL 6, most characters should have good options. Your average warmage will be doing a lesser orb of cold with +5/+6 to the attack, each orb doing 3d8 + 6 (assuming standard warmagery feats) for an average of nearly 20 points, no save, no spell resistance. Call it 18 points figuring in missing on 1-3 and critting on a 20. So 4 of them in the party will kill it in 2 rounds. Decent will saves for frightful presence too.
UMiskatonic 02-28-07, 12:37 PM	As the dragon, I would BE flying. 24-7. None of this 'fly up' nonsense. The very first thing would be frightful presence. That should scare off a few mounts, animal companions, fighters, and rogues. Stick and move tactics are how a dragon -should- fight. Dragons are smart enough to count to 6, and know that they will be outgunned if they land in the middle of the group. Breathe on them if they conveniently bunch up. When they spread out (due to breath weapon, or due to fear), use your better speed to close with one PC, and crush him. Fly-by is great for this. Grapple the smallest threats (gnomes, halflings, etc.) It's an easy check, and moving the grapple will allow you to fight with a hostage, an effective tactic vs. ranged attacks. Eliminate the most dangerous threats first. And remember that you don't have to win it all in a day. Killing one and leaving is effective. You have all week.
Jay_Ibero_911 02-28-07, 12:48 PM	As the dragon, I would BE flying. 24-7. None of this 'fly up' nonsense. The very first thing would be frightful presence. That should scare off a few mounts, animal companions, fighters, and rogues. Stick and move tactics are how a dragon -should- fight. Dragons are smart enough to count to 6, and know that they will be outgunned if they land in the middle of the group. Breathe on them if they conveniently bunch up. When they spread out (due to breath weapon, or due to fear), use your better speed to close with one PC, and crush him. Fly-by is great for this. Grapple the smallest threats (gnomes, halflings, etc.) It's an easy check, and moving the grapple will allow you to fight with a hostage, an effective tactic vs. ranged attacks. Eliminate the most dangerous threats first. And remember that you don't have to win it all in a day. Killing one and leaving is effective. You have all week. Grappling is probably one of the WORST things a dragon can do. Leaves it terribly vulnerable, unless it takes the -20 to not be considered grappled if it has improved grab, and then it's lucky if it has a positive modifier. If you don't take the -20, then you have to win a grapple to move half speed, and since dragons have crappy maneuverability, it would only be able to fly in a straight line or not fly at all, since it's minimum forward speed is half of it's normal speed, so it's not going to be escaping with anyone...
MatteBlack 02-28-07, 01:49 PM	I am not sure if it will work with that level dragon but at APL12 or so we used a summoned celestial dire bear to grapple a problematic dragon to the ground. Summoning something his size to take that advantage away will work well. Lee
Qworg 02-28-07, 03:20 PM	Dragons with Snatch and Throw feats scare the hell out of me (I don't know the exact feat line). They can grab and chuck small characters, removing them completely from the combat. As for fighting dragons, I have a net-wielder. Hitting most any creature with a net that's not a good or perfect flier will ground it. If you can succeed on a strength check, even better (not going to happen with dragons). I also like the strategy of dealing massive damage in a single hit to them - 220+ points in a single strike generally puts one down.
Jay_Ibero_911 02-28-07, 03:26 PM	Dragons with Snatch and Throw feats scare the hell out of me (I don't know the exact feat line). They can grab and chuck small characters, removing them completely from the combat. As for fighting dragons, I have a net-wielder. Hitting most any creature with a net that's not a good or perfect flier will ground it. If you can succeed on a strength check, even better (not going to happen with dragons). I also like the strategy of dealing massive damage in a single hit to them - 220+ points in a single strike generally puts one down. Snatch still requires grappling, so unless it takes a -20 to it's grapple check the feat is kinda worthless...And even WITH taking the -20 it's pretty worthless....
UMiskatonic 02-28-07, 04:09 PM	Maybe for a younger, large dragon, this won't work very well. However, for any dragon that's huge-sized, the -20 will still work pretty well against any gnome or halfling, who are all at -5 to grapple themselves (size and str mods). The snatch feat makes it worth it, in my opinion, even without the feat that makes it -10 to maintain a grapple and still threaten (Imp. Multigrab?)
GrahamWills 02-28-07, 05:09 PM	A decent enlarged grappler at APL 6 has a good chance to grapple the dragon: BAB +6 IMP. GRAPPLE +4 ENLARGED +4 SCORPION CL +4 STRENGTH +3 21 vs. 24 with two grapple checks means it's going to get grappled and a small chance of being pinned. The dragon only gets a single chance to escape (*), and if it fails, next round it's probably pinned and totally hosed. Grappling a dragon is a great move even if you are not this close. Players get iteratives (and monk flurries, but not TWF extra attacks) so a grappler at APL 6 gets 2 grapple checks per round. If you are within 10 of it, you have a 1 in 4 chance of success so close to a 50-50 chance overall. A grappling monk at 8 loves this matchup. He gets three grapple checks a round and probably has a +4 strength at this point. Three chances at close to 50-50 against the dragon's single escape chance a round? There's an excellent chance of pinning the dragon first round and then you can call the fight. It's all over bar the hacking and slashing. So for the dragon, their best strategy is 1) Take RAKE. Use the extra attacks to escape from the grapple 2) Never get in melee range. Flyby breath weapon. Take Wingover so you can get in and out as you like (*) Since the dragon does nothave rake, it cannot use its secondary attacks in a grapple.
Paul H 02-28-07, 06:53 PM	Hi My main char is Dwarf Clr 3 Warmage3 Mystic Theurge 1 Not sure how I'd handle this one, all depends on distance, initiative and party makeup. I'm quite mobile on my Tenser's Disk, (Practiced Spellcaster Warmage), but my main combat killers are short range Lssr Orb spells. Could go invis (Domain spell), but not sure that's good idea. Even though I've got Tan Bag of Tricks, that's dependent on random creature, and also short ranged. My other spells have only slightly better than even chance of getting through SR. A pure Warmage of my level might cast Leomunds Tiny Hut, negating charges, etc because we have total concealment, but become targets for dragon's darkness spell like ability in return. Ah well, but Oskar's designed as the support act, not main billing....... Cheers Paul H
awroe 02-28-07, 07:40 PM	Hi My main char is Dwarf Clr 3 Warmage3 Mystic Theurge 1 You mean your Clr 3 Warmage *4* Mystic Theurge 1?
cycloptic_squirrel 03-01-07, 02:09 AM	Does ' negotiate' count as a tactic? Along the same lines, what about 'outrun your allies'?
Southernskies 03-01-07, 03:02 AM	A grappling monk at 8 loves this matchup. He gets three grapple checks a round and probably has a +4 strength at this point. Three chances at close to 50-50 against the dragon's single escape chance a round? There's an excellent chance of pinning the dragon first round and then you can call the fight. It's all over bar the hacking and slashing. Make sure you read the FAQ, as it is now an official source for LG. All creatures make grapple checks as iterative attacks, not just weapon wielding humanoids. (D&D3.5 FAQ, pg 75) This means the dragon has +24/+19/+14/+9 as a full-round of grapple checks, replacing up to four of its normal attacks (the wording in the FAQ is a little odd, though).
Paul H 03-03-07, 06:22 PM	You mean your Clr 3 Warmage *4* Mystic Theurge 1? Hi Eeerm, well yes! Clr 3 Warmage 4 Mystic Theurge . Typing getting worse these days.... :( Cheers Paul H
Rerednaw 03-04-07, 10:33 PM	Okay read all the posts so far, appreciate the input. I am thinking unless the party has really good ranged attacks (whether via flying, archers, evokers, etc.) in the open a dragon is going to shred them. There's pretty much no reason why a dragon would close to melee (barring the rend a squishy of opportunity). With it's air superiority, a dragon could just make strafing runs. As the dragon has SR most nuking spells are going to be ignored. The SR bypassing spells don't have the range, unless the squishy wants to close to charge suicide distance.
Gallaway 03-06-07, 06:14 PM	you could try tripping it :)
Potato Weasel 03-07-07, 07:01 AM	Well, as a dragon gets larger it's maneuverability goes way down. With poor and clumsy flight ability, you have to move a minimum distance each round, and turning eats up a lot of movement (as well as having a maximum turn amount) Circling becomes extremely hard, and fly by attacks even harder, because you have maximum up/down angles, minimum distance between switching, as well as eating yet more movement if you try and go up. Dragons bigger than large are most likely going to get on the ground, if not, they're just an ice storm, or other movemnt hampering action away from being grounded anyhow.