Running a dragon vs a high level party

[Aran Thule]

Originally Posted by Invincible Overlord

Just a few things not touched upon yet:

1) Minions:

Just when the party thinks they are to set upon the dragon, they instead set upon his flunkie minions. What's the DM upside to this? Spells start ticking away... tick tick tick tick... PC's get really anxious when all their buffs start to fade away...

2) Dragons have magic items in their horde, And They Can Use Them:

Why can't that dragon use that ring of protection +4 in his hoard (I guess that would be a house rule on wether or not magic rings still shrink/enlarge to the size of the user, or is that an older rule...).

He can have clutched in his hand a metamagic rod of Maximize or Quicken.

He can have ioun stones surrounding his head.

That was just what i was going to mention, only had one fight with a big dragon and he was played smartly.
Was a long time ago but i remember it doing the following.
Potion of human control was used on an npc, polymorthed a kobold to look like a dragon to take the initial spells.

A couple of ideas that might work.
Disguise Self to make it look like a brass (or red) dragon.
Destroy water to corrupt potions and their water supplies.
If there is a natural hazard nearby it could lure them to it, a nest of bulettes for example

[Ogrork the Mighty]

There's also a low-level Draconomicon spell called razorfang (IIRC) that doubles its threat range with a bite or claw attack, which is nice to have.