Status Effects/Saving Throws: Tactics - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Status Effects/Saving Throws: Tactics

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
aethelas
Apr 27, 2009 8:07:46 I am soliciting the aid of more-experienced players in how to, as a party, deal better with status effects. Feel free to just answer the question based on that; what follows is just information/a story on why I'm asking, in case anyone cares. Oh, and party makeup: healing-oriented cleric (he's awesome), Vestige Pact warlock, Barbarian (off-tank and striker), Assault Swordmage.

I started playing D&D in September. In Heroic, there aren't really very many status effects (or at least, our DM didn't pick monsters with all that many). An occasional immobilize (very unimportant on ranged strikers, and not a huge deal for the other party members, all of whom could teleport (at the time)) and an occasional Daze/Stun, which we'd take care of either on our own, or with Sacred Flame's granted saving throw. However, we are now level 12, and in the past few weeks have had 2 status-effect-heavy encounters that went very poorly for us.

The first was against a party of enemies including 2 who had what we referred to as "nerfed, save ends"--no daily or encounter powers until save. This was especially bad for the Cleric, because even his basic heals are, technically, encounter powers. Unfortunately, those 2 enemies recharged on their first 3 rolls--so the entire party was nerfed for a few rounds (bad luck with saves), and then they recharged again. We wound up losing 2 party members that day [for the record, we wound up fighting the identical set of enemies at our next session (which made sense plot-wise, it was an under-boss and his entourage) and utterly crushed them due to different rolling].

I had been going to pass the lethal encounter off as a fluke (seriously, 3 consecutive recharges on a recharge 6, it averaging something like 3-4 rounds for us to save, and me (striker) only having one attack roll above 10 in the encounter?!?!)....but the same problem came up yesterday. The fight SHOULDN’T have been that hard. It was against a level 12 solo, 4 level 10 guys (melee, not certain on role but they whacked us with swords but for not much damage) and 4 level 8 minions (angels). Doesn’t sound too bad, right? However…the solo was a purple dragon. It’s breath weapon is Daze and Ongoing 10, save ends both. Top of the second round, it did that and hit I think all but one of us. He then recharged it either 3 or 4 more times in a 9ish round fight (and there was also an attack that stunned for a turn), which was extra-dangerous since he could dominate one dazed opponent. I had a sequence of turns of: dazed (and dominated), dazed (and dominated) [then I made my save!], stunned, dazed (and dominated). So I took a bunch of damage from the ongoing, I couldn’t move away from the melee enemy hitting me, I could do NOTHING to help my team, and I dealt around 65 damage to my allies [which, along with ongoing damage, brought the cleric to 0].

During that period, I do not think there was any round that more than one of my allies was not dazed. The status just before the end of game session: we took out the last of the 8 enemies accompanying the dragon, I had 27 hp, cleric was unconscious but stable, 1 party member dead, barbarian was bloodied, and swordmage was at 17 hp. Dragon had only taken about 20 damage, and had another 620 to go.

Because I could FINALLY act, I put the dragon in feast of souls and hunger of hadar, and immobilized it (staff of winter) so it couldn’t move, didn’t have line of sight to us, and would have taken d8+2d10+2d6+23 damage at the top of every turn—which sounds pretty badass, but it still had over 600 HP. The DM called the session (it was late) and CLAIMED that we definitely had the dragon (he kept saying that it would actually be easy to kill)…but honestly, my bet is that if we had played out the combat, we would have all died. I’m not really a fan of that; so I’m hoping for some input on how more experienced parties deal with status effects.

I know what I’ve written is a bit long; but I figure it couldn’t hurt to give lots of info on the party’s situation (especially since anyone who wants to can just answer the question without reading the background). I also know that both sessions had significant bad luck (enemies recharging, us not saving [last night, cleric failed his saving throw for I think 7 straight rounds], and so forth)—but that can happen and I need to know how to deal with it.

Thank you for any suggestions you have!
#2
endarian_dup
Apr 27, 2009 8:58:04 I thought for a moment you were asking about how to keep track of all the marks and such, but reading a bit deeper shows you are wondering about how to deal with these things from a player perspective.

I'll answer both in reverse order.

Too many of us - and myself as well - tend to overlook the powers that help with saving throws. They aren't sexy and are situational. However, having played/DMed paragon and epic tier games, these effects happen all the time. Relook those powers that help against these effects. Also, try hard to avoid area of effect stuff - get back into using tactics of having your group sneak up in something other than a 2 by 3 block of folks. (a beautiful Area of Effect target)

As far as keeping track of them - I have bought things that look like round plastic game pieces on a base. I found them at a convention. I can write on them with a dry erase pen a simple letter, number to indicate what is happening. (-5 for ongoing damage, I for Immobalized, etc). I have two of each primary color and put one on the mini and one on the char sheet of the person who is affected...that way they know they have an effect they have to deal with.

Prior to these, I used flat beads with letters on them I got from an craft store. (Girls make bracelets out of them). They worked well as they already had a letter on them, but being flat sometimes were overlooked.

I also have cool blood drops from G FORCE NINE to represent my bloodied status. Same company sells cool icons for fire, ice, poison and other conditions.

Good luck
#3
dark_lambo
Apr 27, 2009 9:32:43 Hm, my only suggestion is to at least pair up.
In a case like this, have adjacent allies toss the cleric saving throws via Heal.

I'm mainly posting to ask - they have purple dragons now? The only mention of purple dragons in previous editions was the purple dragon of Cormyr, which was supposedly just a black dragon that's so old she/he is purple...
#4
SYB
Apr 27, 2009 9:47:19 Actually, that second encounter sounds like a murder-fest. It was a 5850xp encounter. For a 4-person party, that is the equivalent of a level 16 encounter. Your party is level 12. That is a +4 level encounter. In short, it is a VERY HARD encounter and you should expect PCs to die (possibly all of them).

I would seriously talk to your DM about that. I don't know what the encounter level of the first encounter was, but if your DM is spending that much XP budget on your encounters on a regular basis, you are going to get smashed. It isn't the status effects that kill parties, it is when the status effects don't miss that parties die.

-SYB
#5
rovin
Apr 27, 2009 10:02:26 As you reach paragon level, the number of really crippling or even fatal "save ends" conditions starts to climb, which means powers that grant saves or save bonuses become more important. Retraining to pick up that sort of thing is a good way to get ones you skipped on earlier in your career, especially for leader types. Many of the worst effects are also AoEs, which makes spreading out vital.

And yes, there are purple dragons in the Draconomicon. Nasty mind-bending psychic types that live in the Underdark and take damage from direct sunlight.
#6
aethelas
Apr 27, 2009 10:03:20 Clarification (especially for Syb): it was a five member party as of the beginning of the encounter, we had a sorceror who died during last night's battle. Sorry, I think the way that I had written it wasn't clear.

Thank you for the thoughts so far. Endarion--I personally have 2 abilities that help with saving throws (a level 2 utility, and Fortune Binding); I will check to see if the other members of my party have things that they can take. I don't think they do; so that might be something that can help us out. Staying out of easy blast/burst formation is something that I will definitely keep in mind. It unfortunately wouldn't have helped yesterday; I believe the dragon's breath weapon was a blast 10.

Dark Lambo: that's sort of what I had settled on as being the main thing I could do, but it really would have been frustrating last night--I'm a striker, my job is to take out the enemies; so (while dazed) spending 1 turn to move to the cleric and then another turn to help him getting a saving throw just seems like a high cost. I guess I'm hoping there are some tactics or methods that I haven't thought of, that can help with this.

Again; thank you to everyone for taking the time to help me out here.
#7
deadmanwalkingxi
Apr 27, 2009 10:52:55 The Cleric's Sacred Flame should be extremely helpful in this sort of situation, I mean you target the easiest foe, and grant an extra Save. And it's an At-Will, so it's an unlimited resource (though one that limits his Daily and Encounter power usage).

And on the encounter: It was a Level 15 Encounter, those are supposed to be dangerous to a Level 12 party. Unless modified, the Dragon's actually Level 13 and a higher level encounter than the party by itself. Adding backup/meat shield to that is likely to be a really nasty encounter by any measure.
#8
aethelas
Apr 27, 2009 12:03:17 To DeadManWalking—I’m not surprised it's a hard encounter (though I'm curious about the dragon actually being a 13 solo not a 12…that’s an important difference). Our DM typically has HAD to make the encounters harder than normal (we had a generous starting array, play well together and are a bit damage-heavy) or we just tear through enemies without a challenge. I wonder if I should advise him to not do that in encounters with status effects….hm.

I have high hopes for Sacred Flame in upcoming encounters; but it didn't help last night because he was dazed the whole time--on several turns he HAD to use his action to heal because people were in danger of going down. It’s also too bad that it’s on a hit, not just an effect—but I’m greedy.

I want to recap what I think people have suggested so far, in case I’m missing anything:
1) Have the cleric use Sacred Flame a lot
2) Make sure we have all taken abilities that help with saving throws
3) Avoid being bunched so that AoE attacks easily hit bunches of us
4) Be willing to use First Aid to grant saving throws

Does anyone have any other tips/ideas/techniques that they use for dealing with status effects?
#9
Hocus-Smokus
Apr 27, 2009 13:05:04
I'm mainly posting to ask - they have purple dragons now? The only mention of purple dragons in previous editions was the purple dragon of Cormyr, which was supposedly just a black dragon that's so old she/he is purple...

2E had purple dragons. I'm just sayin'.
#10
dark_lambo
Apr 27, 2009 18:20:30
2E had purple dragons. I'm just sayin'.

Hm. I only have an amethyst or somesuch gem dragon that's purple in my MM. But eh, tons of material I probably don't have or never came across. :P

Was there really a grey magic-absorbing dragon in 2e?
#11
arelia
Apr 27, 2009 22:21:32 Status-heavy fights can be a huuuuge problem without the right party members. Paladins, Clerics, and Wardens are all *excellent* status-fighting classes to have along- Paladins have a number of powers that grant themselves/their team saves, Clerics have Sacred flame, among other great save-givers, and Wardens can give their allies Cover and Marks so that foes are better off aiming their shots at the extremely status-resistant defender.

Now, as a completely crazy DM, if I were planning to have a real status-heavy tough encounter for my players, then some time before them I'd give the party one "Scroll of Deus Ex Machina". Not actually the name I'd use, but basically a one-use item that grants one instant auto-successful save to all allies in 20 squares as a free action (and possibly lets em burn a healing surge as well). Suffers from Too Awesome To Use syndrome, but man, one of those would give the party a MUCH bigger chance of survival while still keeping the fight super-hard.
#12
Hocus-Smokus
Apr 28, 2009 7:48:06
Hm. I only have an amethyst or somesuch gem dragon that's purple in my MM. But eh, tons of material I probably don't have or never came across. :P

Was there really a grey magic-absorbing dragon in 2e?

I vaguely remember a grey dragon, but I don't remember if it absorbed magic or not. I do know that there were tons of dragons that never made it into the MM, but were released in the various Monstrous Compendiums over 2Es lifespan (especially the Kara-Tur one). If I'm not terribly mistaken (it has been many years), the purple dragon was an Underdark creature, and I think its breath weapon was either poisonous or hypnotic gas.
#13
JayM
Apr 28, 2009 9:33:33
Does anyone have any other tips/ideas/techniques that they use for dealing with status effects?

Potions of Vitality. Might be a bit expensive until you gain a few levels. But once you get above 15 you will want to have a few on hand all the time. The combination of moderate healing and a bonus save is very useful for people locked in status traps.

Look for items that give bonuses to saves or let you reroll. Armor of Sacrifice can be useful for freeing the cleric from effects. Give it to somebody who already has save bonuses and it can be very effective.

Also, look at improving your NADs in general, as a way of making it harder to hit you with status effects. Above heroic, the neck slot becomes very important.

Jay
#14
aethelas
May 01, 2009 10:23:23 Potions of Vitality are a very good point. We unfortunately don't have very many at the moment (our last chance to purchase items, I hadn't really processed the importance of a at-will saving throw, and 1000 seems like a lot for 25 HP). I will very very definitely be getting more of those.

Unfortunately, from some hints from the DM, I'm worried that our next fight will be very status-effect heavy as well.

Thank you all for your comments (and I am of course still open to more)!
#15
nowiwantmydmg
May 01, 2009 22:35:34
I vaguely remember a grey dragon, but I don't remember if it absorbed magic or not. I do know that there were tons of dragons that never made it into the MM, but were released in the various Monstrous Compendiums over 2Es lifespan (especially the Kara-Tur one). If I'm not terribly mistaken (it has been many years), the purple dragon was an Underdark creature, and I think its breath weapon was either poisonous or hypnotic gas.

Purple dragons were called deep dragons and they could spawn other dragons if memory serves.

As to the save issue, I believe there is a warlord feat that allows you to grant a save with a bonus = to cha mod whenever you spend an AP. Might be worth a MC to get. Human Preserverence and the paragon tier human save feat(Action something) are also excellent for humans/half-elfs.

Also if you have(or get) a fighter there is a PP(dreadnought?) in martial power that lets you spend 10 HP to end any condition a save can end.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 aethelas Apr 27, 2009 8:07:46	I am soliciting the aid of more-experienced players in how to, as a party, deal better with status effects. Feel free to just answer the question based on that; what follows is just information/a story on why I'm asking, in case anyone cares. Oh, and party makeup: healing-oriented cleric (he's awesome), Vestige Pact warlock, Barbarian (off-tank and striker), Assault Swordmage. I started playing D&D in September. In Heroic, there aren't really very many status effects (or at least, our DM didn't pick monsters with all that many). An occasional immobilize (very unimportant on ranged strikers, and not a huge deal for the other party members, all of whom could teleport (at the time)) and an occasional Daze/Stun, which we'd take care of either on our own, or with Sacred Flame's granted saving throw. However, we are now level 12, and in the past few weeks have had 2 status-effect-heavy encounters that went very poorly for us. The first was against a party of enemies including 2 who had what we referred to as "nerfed, save ends"--no daily or encounter powers until save. This was especially bad for the Cleric, because even his basic heals are, technically, encounter powers. Unfortunately, those 2 enemies recharged on their first 3 rolls--so the entire party was nerfed for a few rounds (bad luck with saves), and then they recharged again. We wound up losing 2 party members that day [for the record, we wound up fighting the identical set of enemies at our next session (which made sense plot-wise, it was an under-boss and his entourage) and utterly crushed them due to different rolling]. I had been going to pass the lethal encounter off as a fluke (seriously, 3 consecutive recharges on a recharge 6, it averaging something like 3-4 rounds for us to save, and me (striker) only having one attack roll above 10 in the encounter?!?!)....but the same problem came up yesterday. The fight SHOULDN’T have been that hard. It was against a level 12 solo, 4 level 10 guys (melee, not certain on role but they whacked us with swords but for not much damage) and 4 level 8 minions (angels). Doesn’t sound too bad, right? However…the solo was a purple dragon. It’s breath weapon is Daze and Ongoing 10, save ends both. Top of the second round, it did that and hit I think all but one of us. He then recharged it either 3 or 4 more times in a 9ish round fight (and there was also an attack that stunned for a turn), which was extra-dangerous since he could dominate one dazed opponent. I had a sequence of turns of: dazed (and dominated), dazed (and dominated) [then I made my save!], stunned, dazed (and dominated). So I took a bunch of damage from the ongoing, I couldn’t move away from the melee enemy hitting me, I could do NOTHING to help my team, and I dealt around 65 damage to my allies [which, along with ongoing damage, brought the cleric to 0]. During that period, I do not think there was any round that more than one of my allies was not dazed. The status just before the end of game session: we took out the last of the 8 enemies accompanying the dragon, I had 27 hp, cleric was unconscious but stable, 1 party member dead, barbarian was bloodied, and swordmage was at 17 hp. Dragon had only taken about 20 damage, and had another 620 to go. Because I could FINALLY act, I put the dragon in feast of souls and hunger of hadar, and immobilized it (staff of winter) so it couldn’t move, didn’t have line of sight to us, and would have taken d8+2d10+2d6+23 damage at the top of every turn—which sounds pretty badass, but it still had over 600 HP. The DM called the session (it was late) and CLAIMED that we definitely had the dragon (he kept saying that it would actually be easy to kill)…but honestly, my bet is that if we had played out the combat, we would have all died. I’m not really a fan of that; so I’m hoping for some input on how more experienced parties deal with status effects. I know what I’ve written is a bit long; but I figure it couldn’t hurt to give lots of info on the party’s situation (especially since anyone who wants to can just answer the question without reading the background). I also know that both sessions had significant bad luck (enemies recharging, us not saving [last night, cleric failed his saving throw for I think 7 straight rounds], and so forth)—but that can happen and I need to know how to deal with it. Thank you for any suggestions you have!
#2 endarian_dup Apr 27, 2009 8:58:04	I thought for a moment you were asking about how to keep track of all the marks and such, but reading a bit deeper shows you are wondering about how to deal with these things from a player perspective. I'll answer both in reverse order. Too many of us - and myself as well - tend to overlook the powers that help with saving throws. They aren't sexy and are situational. However, having played/DMed paragon and epic tier games, these effects happen all the time. Relook those powers that help against these effects. Also, try hard to avoid area of effect stuff - get back into using tactics of having your group sneak up in something other than a 2 by 3 block of folks. (a beautiful Area of Effect target) As far as keeping track of them - I have bought things that look like round plastic game pieces on a base. I found them at a convention. I can write on them with a dry erase pen a simple letter, number to indicate what is happening. (-5 for ongoing damage, I for Immobalized, etc). I have two of each primary color and put one on the mini and one on the char sheet of the person who is affected...that way they know they have an effect they have to deal with. Prior to these, I used flat beads with letters on them I got from an craft store. (Girls make bracelets out of them). They worked well as they already had a letter on them, but being flat sometimes were overlooked. I also have cool blood drops from G FORCE NINE to represent my bloodied status. Same company sells cool icons for fire, ice, poison and other conditions. Good luck
#3 dark_lambo Apr 27, 2009 9:32:43	Hm, my only suggestion is to at least pair up. In a case like this, have adjacent allies toss the cleric saving throws via Heal. I'm mainly posting to ask - they have purple dragons now? The only mention of purple dragons in previous editions was the purple dragon of Cormyr, which was supposedly just a black dragon that's so old she/he is purple...
#4 SYB Apr 27, 2009 9:47:19	Actually, that second encounter sounds like a murder-fest. It was a 5850xp encounter. For a 4-person party, that is the equivalent of a level 16 encounter. Your party is level 12. That is a +4 level encounter. In short, it is a VERY HARD encounter and you should expect PCs to die (possibly all of them). I would seriously talk to your DM about that. I don't know what the encounter level of the first encounter was, but if your DM is spending that much XP budget on your encounters on a regular basis, you are going to get smashed. It isn't the status effects that kill parties, it is when the status effects don't miss that parties die. -SYB
#5 rovin Apr 27, 2009 10:02:26	As you reach paragon level, the number of really crippling or even fatal "save ends" conditions starts to climb, which means powers that grant saves or save bonuses become more important. Retraining to pick up that sort of thing is a good way to get ones you skipped on earlier in your career, especially for leader types. Many of the worst effects are also AoEs, which makes spreading out vital. And yes, there are purple dragons in the Draconomicon. Nasty mind-bending psychic types that live in the Underdark and take damage from direct sunlight.
#6 aethelas Apr 27, 2009 10:03:20	Clarification (especially for Syb): it was a five member party as of the beginning of the encounter, we had a sorceror who died during last night's battle. Sorry, I think the way that I had written it wasn't clear. Thank you for the thoughts so far. Endarion--I personally have 2 abilities that help with saving throws (a level 2 utility, and Fortune Binding); I will check to see if the other members of my party have things that they can take. I don't think they do; so that might be something that can help us out. Staying out of easy blast/burst formation is something that I will definitely keep in mind. It unfortunately wouldn't have helped yesterday; I believe the dragon's breath weapon was a blast 10. Dark Lambo: that's sort of what I had settled on as being the main thing I could do, but it really would have been frustrating last night--I'm a striker, my job is to take out the enemies; so (while dazed) spending 1 turn to move to the cleric and then another turn to help him getting a saving throw just seems like a high cost. I guess I'm hoping there are some tactics or methods that I haven't thought of, that can help with this. Again; thank you to everyone for taking the time to help me out here.
#7 deadmanwalkingxi Apr 27, 2009 10:52:55	The Cleric's Sacred Flame should be extremely helpful in this sort of situation, I mean you target the easiest foe, and grant an extra Save. And it's an At-Will, so it's an unlimited resource (though one that limits his Daily and Encounter power usage). And on the encounter: It was a Level 15 Encounter, those are supposed to be dangerous to a Level 12 party. Unless modified, the Dragon's actually Level 13 and a higher level encounter than the party by itself. Adding backup/meat shield to that is likely to be a really nasty encounter by any measure.
#8 aethelas Apr 27, 2009 12:03:17	To DeadManWalking—I’m not surprised it's a hard encounter (though I'm curious about the dragon actually being a 13 solo not a 12…that’s an important difference). Our DM typically has HAD to make the encounters harder than normal (we had a generous starting array, play well together and are a bit damage-heavy) or we just tear through enemies without a challenge. I wonder if I should advise him to not do that in encounters with status effects….hm. I have high hopes for Sacred Flame in upcoming encounters; but it didn't help last night because he was dazed the whole time--on several turns he HAD to use his action to heal because people were in danger of going down. It’s also too bad that it’s on a hit, not just an effect—but I’m greedy. I want to recap what I think people have suggested so far, in case I’m missing anything: 1) Have the cleric use Sacred Flame a lot 2) Make sure we have all taken abilities that help with saving throws 3) Avoid being bunched so that AoE attacks easily hit bunches of us 4) Be willing to use First Aid to grant saving throws Does anyone have any other tips/ideas/techniques that they use for dealing with status effects?
#9 Hocus-Smokus Apr 27, 2009 13:05:04	I'm mainly posting to ask - they have purple dragons now? The only mention of purple dragons in previous editions was the purple dragon of Cormyr, which was supposedly just a black dragon that's so old she/he is purple... 2E had purple dragons. I'm just sayin'.
#10 dark_lambo Apr 27, 2009 18:20:30	2E had purple dragons. I'm just sayin'. Hm. I only have an amethyst or somesuch gem dragon that's purple in my MM. But eh, tons of material I probably don't have or never came across. :P Was there really a grey magic-absorbing dragon in 2e?
#11 arelia Apr 27, 2009 22:21:32	Status-heavy fights can be a huuuuge problem without the right party members. Paladins, Clerics, and Wardens are all excellent status-fighting classes to have along- Paladins have a number of powers that grant themselves/their team saves, Clerics have Sacred flame, among other great save-givers, and Wardens can give their allies Cover and Marks so that foes are better off aiming their shots at the extremely status-resistant defender. Now, as a completely crazy DM, if I were planning to have a real status-heavy tough encounter for my players, then some time before them I'd give the party one "Scroll of Deus Ex Machina". Not actually the name I'd use, but basically a one-use item that grants one instant auto-successful save to all allies in 20 squares as a free action (and possibly lets em burn a healing surge as well). Suffers from Too Awesome To Use syndrome, but man, one of those would give the party a MUCH bigger chance of survival while still keeping the fight super-hard.
#12 Hocus-Smokus Apr 28, 2009 7:48:06	Hm. I only have an amethyst or somesuch gem dragon that's purple in my MM. But eh, tons of material I probably don't have or never came across. :P Was there really a grey magic-absorbing dragon in 2e? I vaguely remember a grey dragon, but I don't remember if it absorbed magic or not. I do know that there were tons of dragons that never made it into the MM, but were released in the various Monstrous Compendiums over 2Es lifespan (especially the Kara-Tur one). If I'm not terribly mistaken (it has been many years), the purple dragon was an Underdark creature, and I think its breath weapon was either poisonous or hypnotic gas.
#13 JayM Apr 28, 2009 9:33:33	Does anyone have any other tips/ideas/techniques that they use for dealing with status effects? Potions of Vitality. Might be a bit expensive until you gain a few levels. But once you get above 15 you will want to have a few on hand all the time. The combination of moderate healing and a bonus save is very useful for people locked in status traps. Look for items that give bonuses to saves or let you reroll. Armor of Sacrifice can be useful for freeing the cleric from effects. Give it to somebody who already has save bonuses and it can be very effective. Also, look at improving your NADs in general, as a way of making it harder to hit you with status effects. Above heroic, the neck slot becomes very important. Jay
#14 aethelas May 01, 2009 10:23:23	Potions of Vitality are a very good point. We unfortunately don't have very many at the moment (our last chance to purchase items, I hadn't really processed the importance of a at-will saving throw, and 1000 seems like a lot for 25 HP). I will very very definitely be getting more of those. Unfortunately, from some hints from the DM, I'm worried that our next fight will be very status-effect heavy as well. Thank you all for your comments (and I am of course still open to more)!
#15 nowiwantmydmg May 01, 2009 22:35:34	I vaguely remember a grey dragon, but I don't remember if it absorbed magic or not. I do know that there were tons of dragons that never made it into the MM, but were released in the various Monstrous Compendiums over 2Es lifespan (especially the Kara-Tur one). If I'm not terribly mistaken (it has been many years), the purple dragon was an Underdark creature, and I think its breath weapon was either poisonous or hypnotic gas. Purple dragons were called deep dragons and they could spawn other dragons if memory serves. As to the save issue, I believe there is a warlord feat that allows you to grant a save with a bonus = to cha mod whenever you spend an AP. Might be worth a MC to get. Human Preserverence and the paragon tier human save feat(Action something) are also excellent for humans/half-elfs. Also if you have(or get) a fighter there is a PP(dreadnought?) in martial power that lets you spend 10 HP to end any condition a save can end.