A DM's Dragon tactics (my players, please stay out!)

First, if you play in my game, please don’t read this. It contains (minor) spoilers in addition to requests for tactical advice.

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Forgive me if I ramble. I have one general question, and one specific one, regarding dragons. I’ll admit up front that I’m a lousy tactician. My monsters are seldom as tough as I intend them to be, dragons included.

Last session I attacked my party with a pair of monsters:

- an Adult dragon that’s a slightly modified version of the MM’s Bronze Dragon
- a creature loosely based on, and about as powerful as, that sneak-attacking rakshasa variant in the MM3

Now, admittedly, that’s not a very difficult encounter for the party, which consists of 6 PCs and 3 NPC’s all in the 14th-16th level range. (In other words that’s two CR 15-ish critters against a party of NINE PC’s of equivalent level.)

Even so, the dragon was particularly ineffectual. When the combat started, the party was already spread out, and a few of them were flying. I decided that the dragon’s primary goal was to find a cluster of ground-based PC’s and breath on them. (While the dragon can be a damage-dealing machine with a full attack, it would have to land to do that, and once on the ground, I figured the party would surround it and hack it to pieces.)

The dragon admittedly wasted one round casting dispel magic, just to knock down some of the flyers. And it spent another round escaping from a maze spell cast by the newly-15th-level wizard. It got hammered by a round of attack spells on the turn it finally came in for its “bombing run,” and the final insult-plus-injury was a surprise wall of force placed directly in its path. Thus knocked to the ground, the fighter-types did, in fact, surround it and chop it to pieces.

My specific question is: is there anything a swooping about-to-breath dragon can do about a wall of force placed suddenly in its path? It can’t see the wall, and can’t detect it, as far as I can tell. The dragon’s maneuverability is poor enough that, even if it sees that its breath is getting deflected, it can’t turn aside fast enough to get out of the way. And the cone-length of the breath itself (50’ in this case) is shorter than the range of wall of force, so it couldn’t have flown high enough to be safe.

My general question is: faced with a scattered group of adventurers out of doors, how would a dragon best fight? I thought about having it grab a PC at random and fly away, but it was reluctant (for fictional reasons) to leave the rakshasa character behind.

Maybe the answer in this case is: get a bigger dragon. J

Thanks!

-Sagiro

First impression, after a quick glance at Dragons in the SRD is that they have Blindsense, allowing them to pinpoint creatures within 60 ft. That should allow it to veer off a little bit, with luck. If not, I'd have had it grab the wall in reflex, anything to avoid falling.

Second impression: Wow, Wall of Force doesn't specify that it needs to be anchored to anything does it? Most Wall spells need to be stuck the ground or some surface. Hmm.

As for tactics, I like the Swoop/Grab/Drop from 200 ft tactic, though a Dragon must do what it can to make itself hard to target. Invisibility is good, even at that level, because Detection spells tend to be effective only out to 60 ft or so. Fly low over trees, etc.

Who started the fight? Both the Bronze and the Kitty are good at hiding. If they decided to attack the party, they picked one of the worst ways to do so in using a frontal assault out in the open. If the party started the fight, why can't the bronze just grab the kitty and fly away, and come back to attack at their leisure?

Corsair said:

Who started the fight? Both the Bronze and the Kitty are good at hiding. If they decided to attack the party, they picked one of the worst ways to do so in using a frontal assault out in the open. If the party started the fight, why can't the bronze just grab the kitty and fly away, and come back to attack at their leisure?

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The fight broke out after a failed negotiation (by which I mean: the party decided not to get taken prisoner). Hiding wasn't really a choice. (Plus, the evil duo had no real sense of how powerful the party was, and didn't expect that kind of resistance.)

Also: it was not actually a bronze dragon -- I mostly just used its stat block. I don't have the MM in front of me, but how would the dragon have hid? It didn't have spells like invisibility, for instance. (I think it had dispel magic and slow, IIRC).

-Sagiro

Being a good Tactician...

I see your problem.

First, you should have picked a dragon with a cone breath weapon. Second, any flying PC is easy game for a dragon. I know the book says thay have poor manueverability, but I never follow that.

Most of my bigger dragons have the swallow whole feat, improved grapple and grab. And a dragon one on one with anyone of equal CR should shred the crap out of them. Period.

In your particular circumstance, I would have well equipped the Rak with some nice damaging wands. While he was busily engaging the ground PCs, I would have had the dragon tackle the flying ones. First with his breath weapon, secondly in personal combat. A dragon does not need to land to do the full attack option. Most things cannot outfly a dragon, nor the reach of it's breath weapon. A dragon will also target the most powerful looking member of the party. In your parties makeup, that would probably be the wizard. Once he's down, everyone else can be picked off at leisure. A greater dispelling, followed by a BW, then a full attack should do enough damage that it drops a wizard. So three rounds, keeping out of everyone else's reach. Take on the next biggest threat (either spellcaster or archer). While the Rak is fireballing up a storm, making everyone else keep their heads down.

Kill NPCs outright. The party is too big for your encounters.

They are also smart. If they feel they can't win an encounter, they are going to retreat. Higher level dragons have access to higher level magic. So D-Door, teleport, etc, are not out of the question.

Try this, create 8 troll barbarian frenzied berserkers with rings of fire and acid resistance. Max out their hit points. They'll need about 4 levels of each class. Have the party try that on for size. Once they start to frenzy, they can't die...and since they regenerate and have immunity or resistance to most energy damage...well, you get the picture...

Why did the Dragon not have spells...Most have a lot of them. My favorite tactic is to have the Dragon Anti-Magic field itself, then crush the party.

Raelcreve said:

I see your problem.

First, you should have picked a dragon with a cone breath weapon.

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It did have a cone weapon. The cone has a range of 50', and when it got that close, smack! Wall of force.

Second, any flying PC is easy game for a dragon. I know the book says thay have poor manueverability, but I never follow that.

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Well, if I'm willing to discard everything the book says about dragons, I can have them breath 300' cones of spheres of annihilation.

A dragon does not need to land to do the full attack option.

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Given that a dragon doesn't have the maneuverability to hover, could you (or anyone else) explain how this works, logistically? Unless a PC is foolish enough to end his/her turn within attack range of the dragon, I can't figure out how a flying dragon gets a full attack.

Most things cannot outfly a dragon

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Very true.

nor the reach of it's breath weapon

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Maybe I misread the MM, but I thought the typical cone of an adult dragon was only 50'.

Loading down my monsters with magic items (like the wands you propose) is a possible take, though it usually ends up adding another heap of said items to the party's already-formidable arsenal.

Kill NPCs outright. The party is too big for your encounters.

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I'd rather make the encounters tougher. Not that I have compunctions about killing NPC's, mind you. But my players like the NPCs in the party, and go to great lengths to keep them alive.

They are also smart. If they feel they can't win an encounter, they are going to retreat. Higher level dragons have access to higher level magic. So D-Door, teleport, etc, are not out of the question.

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Alas, this dragon, being "adult," didn't have access to spells over 3rd level. (It did, with it's dying action, cast dispel magic on the rakshasa, who had been dimensional anchored, so that the rakshasa could escape via refuge.)

Try this, create 8 troll barbarian frenzied berserkers with rings of fire and acid resistance. Max out their hit points. They'll need about 4 levels of each class. Have the party try that on for size. Once they start to frenzy, they can't die...and since they regenerate and have immunity or resistance to most energy damage...well, you get the picture.

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I want to challenge my party, not slaughter them!

-Sagiro

Sounds like you have a heck of a battle coming up with 9 PCs/NPCs of 14th-16th level. If you really want to challenge them, you have to toughen up the dragon. Do you have the Draconomicon?

Feats on all Large+ dragon should be snatch, wingover, flyby attack, and hover. Hover is a brutal feat since it creates total concealment for everything, meaning only a creature with blindsense (aka dragons) know what the heck's going on. A cruel DM will also reference the DMG's tables on extreme wind conditions and begin applying modifiers to all ranged weapons used in the dust cloud. This is a great time for the dragon to use their breath weapon (no specific aiming required) and/or cast invisibility.

Use fly-by in conjunction with snatch; you grab someone and just keep going. Few things can outrun a dragon in full-on movement mode and the whole time he's chewing someone to shreds. Oh, and breathing on them. No save, being restrained and all. Alternately use snatch's "spit" option to hurl opponents away.

Give dragons weapons. Maybe not on their person, but nearby. Nothing makes a party start cussing like a dragon using a ballista as a crossbow and using a shield or called armor. I'm fond of dragons using nets as well, Adamantine nets nearly 30' in diameter.

Oh yeah, dragon-sized tanglefoot bags; 20 gallons of glue can ruin a day. Draconic smokesticks are equally mean since many can just lob a few dozen across an area and ignite them all with breath weapons.

All dragons should know Reduce, Enlarge, mage armor, disguise self and shield. You reduce yourself when you want to be understimated, enlarge when you want to intimidate. Disguise self lets you be a different color dragon; just keep the PCs more than 60' away so true sight doesn't go through it. Watch the wizards wet themselves when they dispel the dragon's spells and he gets bigger and changes to a color they weren't expecting. Shield & mage armor are great AC bonus, even better in 3.0 when dragon flight helps them control directionality of incoming attacks.

Hi Sagiro,

There was a long thread some months ago about the dragons vs wall of force tactic that would be worth searching up. I think this was it:

How would you aducate this anti-dragon tactic?

One of the special feats that dragons often take is Hover, which does allow them to hover in place, create concealment and unleash full attacks, all despite their poor manouverability. Wingover could be adjudicated to allow them to make one rapid course change during a strafing run.

Another option for dragons is to remember that they don't have to breath in the direction they are facing, because they've got long bendy necks. Plus they've got very good eyesight, and readied actions can normally be noted. If I was running a dragon and someone was readying a spell when it got close I'd give the dragon a standard spellcraft check to identify the spell was and take action appropriately (e.g. if it saw that someone was readying a wall of force spell it might decide to fly past them rather than at them and breathe from the side rather than in front? Or change his mind about the attack run and fly out of sight to disengage and then make several 'feint' attacks on the party over the next hour or so to drain them of buffing spells before arranging for the actual attack.

One of the problems that dragons face against parties is the sheer number of actions that can be unleashed against them, so in order to survive dragons must attempt to turn combats into a series of one-on-ones. The best way of doing this is grabbing someone and flying off with them at high speed in order to deal with them some distance away, then coming back and doing the same for someone else.

Some Draconomicon feats like enlarge breath, clinging breath and lingering breath are excellent additions for the tactically minded dragon, although at this level breath weapons are normally a sub-optimal way of doing damage. Dragons really kick ass and take names by using Power Attack since their attack bonus is normally hugely greater than what they need to hit someone.

When they get Crush attacks is when they get truly fearsome, because a well timed crush can cause an entire party serious problems. Sunder is a nasty feat for dragons to use though, and you'll perhaps remember how tricky they are if they use improved disarm.