Hi,
me and my Party are in desperate need for some advice in completing the task lying in front of us.
The setup:
Party:
BSF: Stony grimlock Fighter/ Barbarian ECL 15, wielding 2 Axes NN
Vampire Rogue ECL 15 plus his ECL 2 Spawn ( savage progression) CE
Alu-Demon healer ECL 15 LG
Me, LVL 15 Druid CN ( AC died in the previous encounter), grappler/summoner
optional members( not sure if they will show up next time):
pixie warlock ECL 13 CG
human Sorc/Sandshaper ECL 14 NE
Opponents:
An old black Dragon in his Lair, which is part of the Tunnel system under besieged City, protected /aided by a beefed up beholder, that will AMF the casters whenever possible or destroy the rest of the party with their eye rays while the Dragon will give us some serious pounding, and some minor guardians( lvl 5-10 fighters).
we have no chance to buy any magic items/scrolls/potions or acquire any support. Oh and we are currently on some layer of the abyss(117? something the like, realm of orcus)
I am well aware that protection from enegy is a must, and the we need to eliminate the beholders first, but i don't know how we shall do that. Our last encounter with 2 beholder guards ended in the immediate disintegration of the vampire, with a BSF unable to reach them (hovering 100ft above us) and my druid taking some serious pounding but managing to flamestrike one of the beholders to death before receding to some save ground.
so please, any advice for me and my party is highly appreciated.
P.S: Running away/ talking to the dragon is no option because we definitely have eliminate the dragonto get our ticket out of abyss...
What are the sorcerer's spells known like? And what books can you use?
Unfortunately, ihave hardly any information about the sorc, because he turns up only one in three times that we play.
As far as i know he generally focuses on blasting, applying some metamagic via his sandshaper abilities, i've only seen him using fireballs, magic missiles, wings of cover, benign transposition and disintegrates.
books allowed: nearly everything from all books but things not beeing out of PH and the complete series need DMs approval first. ( shivering touch is not allowed btw)
For my druid I aleready considered flamestrikes and a slime wave(spc) to get rid of the beholder, and than sending some greenbound flyers against the dragon to keep him busy, while our vampire clutches tight on him and tries to level drain him, but i don't know how i can bring the dragon" down to earth" so our BSF can chop him up ( protected by superior resistance)...
We already considered the use of harpoons and giant nets to bring him down, but this might get a little difficult against a huge dragon...
I also considered control winds to keep the dragon at bay, but i don't know wheter this will work.
Well you can solve a lot of problems by not fighting the dragon in his lair. Luring him out would be the best plan otherwise you are at an exetreme tactical disadvantage.
Other than that:
Kill the beholder in the first round. Their HP isn't that high so the barbarian and one other person should be able to take it down. Once the beholder is able to go it is very good at wrecking any semblance of strategy you might have.
Find a way to get acid immunity. Dragon's breath hurts.
You are summoner, summon things before fight. You know where lair so can prepare.
Dragon and beholder can both fly so probably most of the fight happens in air. Summon few huge air elemementals to whirlinwind beholder. It does't have good ref save so they can take it to ride and out from fight or they can grapple and pin it both should work.
Against Dragon you can summon Roc and use animal growt to it any maybe bull strenght if you don't have augmented summons so that Roc can grapple. As Colossal creature it outreach dragon so it can start grapple wihtout AOO, and it will outgrapple it too. Not automatically but easily enough. Just order it to pin that dragon and it is lot less dangerous. Of course cast speak with animals before battle.
Buffed Roc can probably ground dragon, but just to be sure you should cast airwalk to every melee member of party.
Energy immunity would be nice, but averege damage of old blacks breath weapin is only 40, so it is not really necessary. Energy resistance, mass gives everybody (including summons) energy resistance 30 so average 10 damage with failed save or nothing with with succesfull is not real threat.
In fight if you feel threatened as fight doesn't go perfectly you favor just summon more creatures. You have lot of spells to use and very good summon list. Arrowhawks can do small electricity damage as touch attacks and are immune to acid. Summon Monster VI summons d4+1 juvenile arrohaks, spread them around so is hard to kill them fast and they do damage every round.
Greater Invisiblity (or Displacement) on the Vampire ought to help. Have him go in there and beat on the dragon with his fists. Yeah, the dragon will still know where he is, even if you make him invisible, but it will have the miss chance, and that's what matters. Between the miss chance, the vampire's DR and fast healing, and the temporary hp from draining levels, he ought to be more survivable than otherwise. If he has Darkstalker, then Greater Invisibility is the way to go. If he does get beat up badly, then he won't die. In the meantime, he just put some negative levels on that dragon, making the job easier for the rest of you. Have his spawn run in there too. It probably won't do much of anything, but it's expendable and works for flanking. If it does hit, that's nice too (more negative levels). Remember that a vampire's natural weapons count sa magic for overcoming DR, so you don't need to worry about that.
Greater Invisibility is the better option because the Beholder won't detect him, plus he gets his sneak attack. You might even be able to exploit this and have him take care of the floating eyeball first (buff with flight).
The rest of you: taking out that Beholder really is your first objective. Do whatever you have to, but kill it first (Flesh to Salt is a spell your Sorcerer has and can work nicely for this, the Beholder has a pretty low Fort save). After that, work on the dragon. Remember that Reflex is its weakest save, so things like Web can be exceedingly useful.
Aren't there rules for targetting its big antimagic eye, also? That's really the worst threat against your party, I think. (Though the previously disintegrated vampire might not agree 
).