Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Undercover 08-04-04, 05:29 PM	What you think of this spell list and feats for a dragon? Feats: 11 – Flyby Attack, Hover, Adroit Flyby Attack, Power Attack, Wingstorm, MultiAttack, Improved Multiattack, Draconic Knowledge, Snatch, Combat Reflexes, Spellcaster Harrier. Spells: 1st— Grease, Feather Fall, Mage Armor, Ray of Enfeeblement, Doom; 2nd— Fog Cloud, See invis, Scintilanting Scales, Wings of Air, ;3rd—Bestow Curse, Remove Curse, Clairaudience/vidence, Major Image; 4th— Locate Creature, Wingbind, Polymorph, Dimensional Anchor; 5th— Ethereal Breath, Dominate Person, Commune, Wall of Force; 6th— Heal, Aura of Terror, Greater Dispel Magic; 7th- Greater Restoration, Antimagic Ray, Greater Teleport; 8th— Breath Weapon Admixture, Greater Planar Ally, Discern Location. updated v1.1
Derren S. 08-04-04, 06:37 PM	Are you going for power or is there a story behind it? If only for power I would switch out improved bull rush for something else. Metabreath feats are your friend, try to to get some of them. Also try to get Wind Wall and a cure spell and/or (lesser) restoration. Also think about changeing Doom to Mage armor. Alarm is also a very good spell for dragons to know when enemies enter their lair. Depending on the dragon, Protection from energy is a must. If the dragon can't get spells from other sources and has to cast all spells by itself think about forbiddance, its imo a must cast spell to secure lairs. (remember that dragons don't need material components. That also means that, if you are open for crazy, unlogical munchkin stuff give it fabricate because the dragon can fabricate everything without having raw materials) Also, there might be a better 8th level spell than discern location. Maybe Mind Blank, Greater Spell Immunity or maze. Clone would be usefull too.
Undercover 08-05-04, 05:22 AM	Nice suggestions! Just intrigued why you feel a cure spell or a restoration is needed, since heal and greater restoration are there. Improved Bull Rush I think is a prerequisite for some other feat (awesome blow?). Yes, there is a story behind this dragon, it's a sapphire gem dragon master strategist. Her lair is not a problem since the protections inside are quite simple, anyone getting near it she knows exactly where and who is there. Besides that there are 8 runic guardians to protect it (it was 10 but...), and no entrances (she teleports to get in and out). I was going to choose mind blank, but perhaps an item always on on her ;) But traded greater wings of air for dominate person and mass suggestion for antimagic ray. Damn thing her breath is in d4s... too weak IMO.
Derren S. 08-05-04, 06:06 AM	A cure spell is way lower level than heal, so it might be more usefll for charging up after battle than heal. Same fro lesser restoration. Blinding Breath is good, try to get that spell. Also some kind of anti-summon spell would be nice. Either protection from alignment or dismissal. I can't find awsom blow so I don't know. And don't forget that a dragon can take epic feats starting at old age. And whyn you are also using equipment, don't forget the gem of heavy fortification.
Kurama Youko 08-05-04, 12:31 PM	Feats: 11 – Flyby Attack, Hover, Adroit Flyby Attack, Power Attack, Wingstorm, MultiAttack, Improved Multiattack, Draconic Knowledge, Snatch, Improved Bull Rush, Awesome Blow. Spells: 1st— Grease, Feather Fall, Identify, Ray of Enfeeblement, Doom; 2nd— Fog Cloud, See invis, Scintilanting Scales, Wings of Air, ;3rd—Bestow Curse, Remove Curse, Clairaudience/vidence, Major Image; 4th— Locate Creature, Wingbind, Dispelling Breath, Dimensional Anchor; 5th— Ethereal Breath, Greater Wings of Air, Commune, Wall of Force; 6th— Heal, Aura of Terror, Contingency; 7th- Greater Restoration, Mass Suggestion, Greater Teleport; 8th— Breath Weapon Admixture, Greater Planar Ally, Discern Location. Here's some suggestions I'd like to make 1.) Instead of focusing on fighting on the wing and only making one attack around then running, which boggles me as to why you'd want to do that as a ancient dragon considering the power your boistering. Drop Flyby Attack and Adroit Flyby Attack, keep Hover because you need it for Wingstorm but replace those other two feats with Fast Healing, and Dire Charge. 2.) Drop Improved Bull Rush and Awesome Blow, Awesome blow is good for creatures whos options in way of combat are more limited like a Bear or Hill Giant with no class levels. Your a Dragon Combat is vast in your department the options you have even before special feats is vast and you should take your terrain into consideration. No reason to Bull Rush opponents who you easily just claw claw bite, wing buffet, wing buffet and tailslap all in one round. Instead think about this, Combat Reflexes and Spellcasting Harrier make it harder for the Clerics and Wizards to get those spells off that the party needs to help them stay alive by making their concentration checks to cast while casting defensively even harder. 3.) Draconic Knowledge, if your the DM and your playing the Dragon in a Story scenerio it doesnt matter if you have this feat or not. If you want the dragon to tell the player about something related to something then its very well within your power to do so regardless wither or not you have this feat or not. I would suggest using this feat slot to improve combat so more so there is a actually reason as to how this dragon has not be killed by some party yet. a good suggestion is Shockwave or Rend. You have the qualifcations to take either by having Power Attack and Snatch. Thats all when it comes to the feats. Spellwise some minor corrections, you dont need See Invisibility if your a Dragon because you have Blindsense. Instead consider Entice Gift, a Fighter or Rogue who willingly gives up their weapon is one less potiental dragonslayer and a fighter without his prized weapon is little more than a meaty snack. A Sorcerer does not take Feather Fall or Identify when they can simply purchase a scroll or wand of it, the same applies to a Dragon. I would suggest dropping both and taking Shield and Mage Armor dragons are very much prone to Touch attacks and Wizards/Sorc and Clerics tend to try and captialize on that. Remove Curse/ lose it, The Dragon doesnt care if it curses a person if its letting the person live the person should be happy to walk away alive and not in the dragons belly thus it will more than like expect the person to find its own means of removing the curse. Instead consider Dispel Magic. (The Dragon at somepoint had to have taken this spell to counter magical affects it came across or to even counter spell opposing spellcasters.) Dispelling Breath is very limiting, why would you want your dragon to be so limited, it cant breath every round meaning when you cast this spell and then breath the targets should gain new spell ups on the next round you will be at a lose. Spells that affect breath weapons are good but only if the affects add additional crippling benefits. Try Voice of the Dragon if you plan on parlaying with your opponents or Enervation if you want to make sure you getting your targets attention by reducing their chances of making your saves or even hitting you. Do it enough times and kill them outright. Even Fire Shield can be potientally better depending on your color and the version of the spell you use. Ethereal Breath/ Drop it, if you have wall of force then the Ghostform wizard cant by pass it anyway directly and spells with the range of touch or range touch cant be used by incorpeal casters on you. Again the benefit its minimal unless your a breath weapon focused dragon being you took breath recovery feats tolower the recharge time of your spell casting. Your a Dragon your innate Damage reduction means you have a 50/50 chance of hitting incorporeal targets anyway use that if nessesary. Greater Wings of Air/ Drop it, you have the lower version and unless the entire battle is taking place in mid air i dont think this is nessesary. Even if the battle does take to the air for more than 2 rounds you already have wingstorm which will pretty much make them take it to the ground anyway. Teleport would be better just in case the dragon needs to escape. Commune/ drop it, again if the dragon needs to know something then you as the DM just say the Dragon knows it. The Dragons don't have the same relationships Clerics do with their Dieties they would reframe from doing any planar contact with such beings out of worry that it might cost them something they dont want to part with. Like some of their hoard if Tiamat is the person their gonna get. Prehapes Burning Blood if would be a good choice since the fighter will mostly try to running in and get some early hits even if he has energy resistance up as a Anicent Dragon your caster will go above the energy resistance limit he/she has anyway. Or prehapes Draconic Polymorph a very nice spell indeed if the Dragon is chromatic and doesnt have the alterform ability of metallic dragons. I dont think Contingency is a optimal choice here, consider Blade Barrier or True Seeing just incase some one is packing a Stalking Spell Scroll. Animate Object wonderfully useful since it can affect anything within the Lair and make it into a fighting minion. Every Spell not used on you as the Dragon is one less thingy they could have used against you. G Teleport/ nah, normal teleport is all you should need, doesnt matter where you go just so long as its not here. Besides your caster level is good and your stats are impressive unless you roll crappy you should pretty much get to somewhere generally safe. Try Holy Word, Blasphemy, Dictum or Word of Chaos depending on the Dragons Alignment vs the parties. Drop Greater Planar Ally, a Dragon is generally always more than enough and DMing can be a handful as it is if your mind is open enough, replace it with Maze. Someone is making the Dragons Life Diffcult they wont be once they return from the maze to see their allies dead or dying and they are the only one left. this has been fun, Kurama- The Dragon worshipping fanatic.
Derren S. 08-05-04, 12:43 PM	Kuramas suggestion is very combat optimized with nearly no utility spells. You see unless we know what you need the dragon for it is hard to give you advises on the spells. If the dragon is a NPC or even a player commune isn't bad for example. But as a pure combat encounter the dragon doesn't need it. On the See Invisible thing, dragons have only blindsense so they need something to see invisible creatures. Glitterdust might be good because of the blinding. Also take limited wish. that solves many problems when needing non combat spells. Death ward should also be on the list.
Kurama Youko 08-05-04, 01:19 PM	I dont see it as being very combat specific I could use that same Dragon to carry out the pretty much the same scenerio for any story and though your response is flameable to me I still say I gave the Dragon everything he had but in better light. Example See Invisibility is useless especially if the Dragon has Blindsense which still gives him the opprotunity of knowing an invisible creature is in the area and thus if need be can cast True Seeing which unlike See Invisibility if i remember correctly doesnt need a caster lv check to get through the rouse of invisibility. I stand by the fact that a Dragon doesnt use Commune whether it be RP or not its just against what Dragons do in terms of interaction with others. If the Dragon doesnt know he/she will more likely tell you to see someone else who does if its a nice dragon or if its evil tell you that its of little relevance. This is one of those things that the designers in my opinion didnt take into contrast on how a dragon should be played. A Dragon is a Combat creature by sheer nature. It can get up to 6 attacks in a round before special feats. The Feats I suggest like most feats suited for Dragon are combat oriented its no getting around that. Draconic Knowledge is something for young dragons to benefit from not Ancient ones or older who by number of years and ranks in the approriate knowledge skills already know more than the most educated scholars. Im trying to show this person that he might have wasted a feat or two in terms of what feats he took. Metabreath feats are fine if you took Breath Recovery or the other Feat that reduces charge time for Breath Weapons but 1d4+ whatever the meta breath feats increase to that is a little much if your main focus is trying to breath on someone. Especially with things like Cloaks of Resistance+ whatever and Rings of Evasion on just about every character who'd dare go up against Dragons of old age or higher. And if i wanted to make it a combat machince I would have thrown it more Cleric Spells than Arcane ones. Arcane spells that are used to get around the dragons weakness to advent Wiz/Sorc who captialize on small things like dragons having no Dex and only Natural armor to protect themselves. Dragons have more access Wands/Scrolls and Staves of various spells than PC's do due to the fact if the Dragon is willing he can afford it if good or take it if evil.
Undercover 08-05-04, 03:11 PM	I've liked the ideas, though I should have provided some more details earlier, but here they come. As a Sapphire Dragon, she's LN, has no vulnerabilities and is immune to eletricity, her breath is sonic (wich makes it hard to work with blinding breath). She's also a genius military strategist, together with her high intelligence and commune it means any sort of preparation or trap against her is an amusement at best. No one surprises her. In fact she's just at the final stages of defeating a force much greater than herself: a group of legendary heroes of Moradin, now ghosts, called in to defend a dwarven stronghold. She's attracting an Astral Dreadnough to feed on them. (They are not the PCs, but it will impact them greatly). Since gem dragons are primarily for psionics, and I'm not using any psionic power or feat, she'll use spell points to define how many times she can cast a spell. I'm including her natural powers to the spells known list, which are: stone shape, teleport and wall of stone, besides plane shift at will. Being natural to both material and inner planes, some ethereal strategies sound reasonable for her. That being said, lets go through your ideas. The flying technics are primarily to use with snatch. Grab one, fly away, kill, go back for another snack. Exchanging IBR & Awesome blow for Combat reflexes and Specaster Harrier sounds very good. Draconic Knowledge... it felt like I was cheating if I just made her know everything relevant to her... See invis is for seeing into the Ethereal Plane. Given the ways to strip her of her flying ability, feather fall is a good spell. About Identify you're right, it'll be replaced. If she has the power to bestow a curse and is LN, remove curse seems appropriate to have as well. Since her breath is not that much damaging, using it with dispell seems ok... or not? Wall of Force can be circumvented and she has enemies in other planes. Gr Wings of Air have been dropped in favor of Dominate Person, and Mass Suggestion have been dropped for Antimagic Ray. Commune... I thought of making her a follower of Io *shrug*. In any case it's essential for her to always have the upper hand in any scenario. Contingency, you're right again. Gr Teleport, considering she can use it several times with spell points... Greater Planar Ally, sometimes she needs to be in two places at once, or she wants to perform a deed beyond her normal capabilities. A strategist knows the value of an ally. All in all, thanks a lot! Nice thoughts on the subject. Removed some ghost touch <> ethereal properties relations because they were wrong
nick012000 08-05-04, 04:45 PM	Take a look in Savage Species for some nice feats for dragons. Like the one that make them blow up after they die.
Kurama Youko 08-05-04, 05:21 PM	Well at least you put up some more insight as to what the Dragon is supposed to be doing but it sounds more like its adventurer rather than the parties primary opposition. As far as the See Invis vs True Seeing its all on you. non Ethereal Creatures (like Humans who have casted Etherealness) will require you to make caster levels checks to try to see them I believe. Not one hundred percent sure on this but I know it applies to invisibility for sure. Also whether or not they are real Ethereal Creatures of merely beings trying to make it appear that way. It Sounds like you are planning on this being a Ethereal vs Dragon encounter, in that case then sure take whatever precautionary measures that someone whos gonna be facing Ethereal/Incorporeal creatures will take. Ethereal Breath, Wall of Force and whatever else. Aniti-Magic Ray doesnt work as well as it is made out to sound. (Namely because its still has a save.) A save that people who definitely like to be subject to it, the wizard/cleric namely will probably make the save. But the choice is ultimately yours. Since I know your planning on dealing such things still Forcecage much better means off stop ethereal menances from being a problem. You said you wanted to use Dominate Person, you are aware a Dominated people are very likely do break this spell if you tell them to do something outside of what they would normally do. Things like destroy your party members will allow for a second save with a even better chance of passing it. Actually if the individuals know you or the dragon I should say particullarly well, then dominate person will never work because they would never willing do anything you asked them to do. M Suggestion is along the same lines but its affecting alot more people and you could easily make them not want to pursue combat and flee the otherway as well as affecting those members of the party who might not be of the humanoid persusation. Your ideas could work, and I do consider myself quite the strategist and i think my track record would bolster that from a player stand point as well as a DM stand point as well. Example a Wall of Dispelling could work wonders before they reach. I don't like the idea of Dragons using Spells to often during combat of spells that only target one individual in combat knowing that they could spread out alot more damage with natural weapons or spells that disable large groups of people setting them up for beat downs. (Maybe getting Righteous Might casted on the Dragon before the fight a plus)