Fighting a dragon (3.0)

[Sinjin the Rogue]

"- Some spells that will help you: Freedom of Movement (you don't want to be grappled by a dragon, do you?), Protection from Elements (for fire), Stoneskin (It will decrease the damage from the Dragon a little), everything that increases your AC. Be prepared to receive a targeted dispel magic. Get Spell Resistance (as the Spell) on you all."

I'm good in the buff department.

"- Since the offensive powers of the spellcasters will be hindered by the dragon's saving throws, they should concentrate on protecting, buffing and healing the others (and themselves). Healing is very important! Make sure that you have lots of Heal and Mass Heal spells packed."

That's what I am thinking. My wizard will spend time buffing and throwing up protections while the cleric heals. Fortunately, the cleric is good, and can therefore substitute healing spells for those he has prepared.

"- If your DM hasn't changed Harm, use it! If you get over the DR of the dragon (which might take several tries), the dragon will be done for. Usually a cheesy tactic, but against that enemy, you'll need it."

While our DM has not nerfed the harm spell, we doubt that the dragon will ever allow the cleric to get close enough to touch him. If the cleric tries that, I'm sure the dragon will grab him.

"- Try to learn as much as possible about the dragon and his tactics, and about his lair. Incorporate this knowledge into your tactics, but be prepared to change it, cause the dragon might have spread misinformation."

There's no one to gather any information from. (edited)

"- Use True Seeing - you don't want to beat up an illusion, wasting spell durations and precious spells."

Already prepared.

"- Be prepared to die! Inform someone where you are going, ideally a priest. Tell them to true ressurect the cleric if you aren't back by (insert reasonable date here). So you can cast TR on the others."

We realize this battle will be our characters' final battle, and we will either succeed and live, or fail and die. Unfortunately, telling anyone where we are going won't help. (edited)

"- Use all your resources. You have no use for that 10.000 gp you saved when you're dead (but remember to have enough cash to pay for resurrections)."

See above, but rest assured, we have all spent every CP we had in order to prepare for this battle.

- Use scrolls and staffs and potions and all other perishables for the spells if your slots aren't enough.

We are all buying potions and magical aids. I burned off quite a bit of experience in scribing a number of scrolls too, so I think we have completed all of teh preparations.

Again, thanks for the tips.

 

[Spatzimaus]

TuDogz' advice was good. Pretty much assume as a spellcaster than 90% of what you throw at him will be useless. Assume he'll make every saving throw and that half of your spells will be stopped outright by SR. Also remember that an Ancient Red casts as a 15th-level Sorcerer, except he can pick Cleric spells like Heal, so any obvious vulnerabilities will be covered by his spells. To top it off, this dragon will have INT, WIS, and CHA all in the low 20s, so the DM should play him SMART. You won't just be facing him, you'll be facing the preparations he's made, the allies he brings along, and so on.

The dragon's big drawbacks:
1> Horrendous Touch AC. In 3E this was crippling thanks to all those saveless touch spells. In 3.5E, most of those have saves and/or have weaker effects.
2> Big size. In confined areas you can use this to your advantage; in open areas it just means they have more use for Reach.
3> DEX of 10. No need to worry about Combat Reflexes or anything. Incidentally, this is the first thing I changed IMC; most of our dragons have DEX of 18 with lower STR/CON to compensate.
4> And the biggest one: no matter what he does, the dragon is only one creature, capable of making only one offensive action per turn. (Well, two in 3E using Haste, or if he uses Quicken anything). If you can endure that one attack, you're safe for a turn. He won't be Readying many actions because of this, and if you set yourself up to counterspell him you can greatly improve the group's odds.

The bigger question is, what plans are YOU making? If that dragon is flying, stoneskinned, hasted, displaced, improved invisible, with Protection from Good and a few elemental protection spells up, how exactly are you going to stop it from just strafing you to death with hit-n-run attacks? As an individual you might have True Seeing on, but what about the rest of the group?

One correction to TuDogz' advice:

6) Turn off it's magic if you can. With the aid of a MM Rod, a chained, maximized greater dispel is a great way to shut down all the dragons items for 4 rounds.

You can't Maximize a Dispel. A caster level check isn't a random numerical effect; it's like saying you can't use Maximize to guarantee an attack roll of 20 on a touch attack. This has been clarified several times, although I don't have a link offhand.
Also, if the dragon is smart he'll have Mirror Image or Displacement or something like that that adds a miss chance. If you blow your one 9th-level Chain Dispel on the wrong target, you're hosed.

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

[B
"- If your DM hasn't changed Harm, use it! If you get over the DR of the dragon (which might take several tries), the dragon will be done for. Usually a cheesy tactic, but against that enemy, you'll need it."

While our DM has not nerfed the harm spell, we doubt that the dragon will ever allow the cleric to get close enough to touch him. If the cleric tries that, I'm sure the dragon will grab him.
[/B]

Hence the Freedom of Movement.

TS

 

[Plane Sailing]

Please put a Bastion spoiler notice in the thread title, since you reveal some key elements of the plot!

Cheers

 

[Artoomis]

I'll give you a tip or two, having just run an Ancient Red Dragon against a party of 6 15th-level characters.

1. If you are not immune to it's breath weapon, you WILL suffer character deaths. No doubt.

2. It can cast spells, and LOTS of them. Beware and be prepared for many, many spells being thrown at you - Arcane and Divine both!

3. If it is smart and advanced enough, it will have Cotingent Heal, as well as Heal spells available to heal itself up. Be prepared to fight about 4 times the number of hit points the dragon would normally have.

4. Magic will probably not work against it - the SR is too high. Focus on counterspelling, defensive magic and spells that bypass SR. Be prepared to counterspell Heal.

5. Attack it twice, if possible. Go once to scout it out and learn it's tactics. Then run away and come back better prepared.

You CAN beat it, but it won't be easy if the DM is well-prepared to run the dragon.

 

[TuDogz]

The reason to maximize is not to max the caster level check but to max the duration of 1d4 rounds of supression. I know some groups play that maximize only effects damage related variables, but we allow it to effect other variables as well to increase it's use for non-evokers.

8) Don't fight dragons in the open unless totally unavoidable. You need to keep it from fleeing so your fighters can stay engaged. I know it sounds psychotic but sovereign glue can keep you where you want to be if you can jump onto the beasts back between the wings (Prepare to receive personal attention). But there is nothing like almost killing a dragon to make any deaths pointless and give you an enemy you really don't want teleporting into your bedroom at night.

 

[Xarls Taunzund]

Touch attacks.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If you have a druid with you (and I guess you will), get him to prepare maximised quench spells (or empowered maximised quench spells). No save for fire creatures, and if the druid was about 18th level too that would be 90 per maximised quench. if using 3.0e rules then multiply-empowered would be better, since you can end up doing 30d6 each with no save.

 

[Sinjin the Rogue]

"The bigger question is, what plans are YOU making? If that dragon is flying, stoneskinned, hasted, displaced, improved invisible, with Protection from Good and a few elemental protection spells up, how exactly are you going to stop it from just strafing you to death with hit-n-run attacks? As an individual you might have True Seeing on, but what about the rest of the group?"

I'm not at liberty to discuss what we are going to try to do to defeat the dragon's defenses. I don't want to tip off the DM.

We are attempting to build a strategy, but in preparing a strategy, our question is, what will the dragon be doing to prepare and what tactics will the dragon use.

We have to assume that the DM will play the dragon as ferociously as we can imagine, therefore, I have to ask myself, "what would I do if I was playing the dragon?" I don't know exactly how old or big the dragon is, so I can't know it's abilities, but that's okay, because I am not supposed to know all of the dragon's abilities, nor do I want to. As dangerous as this encounter will be, I don't want to ruin the thrill of not knowing.

I can make a number of assumptions though:

- The dragon is probably gargantuan in size at least.
- The dragon can cast spells as a 13th level sorcerer at least.
- The dragon has a very high AC
- Even against high AC's, the dragon will probably be able to hit with every attack.
- The dragon will know that we are coming and have time to prepare.
- The dragon's breath weapon has the potential to kill all of us with one shot, maybe two shots on the two tanks who have more hit points.
- The dragon will do everything possible to keep the cleric from getting into touch range.

As far as freedom of movement goes, here's the description from the SRD:

"This spell enables the character or the creature the character touches to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement.

The spell also allows a character to move and attack normally while underwater, even with cutting weapons and with bludgeoning weapons provided that the weapon is wielded in the hand rather than hurled. The freedom of movement spell does not, however, allow water breathing."

It does not say anything about avoiding grapples. Is that something in the PHB?

 

[AuraSeer]

We have that covered with Energy Immunity.

You need more than that. If you only have one elemental protection, you could be in a world of hurt if the dragon uses quickened area dispel magic followed by the breath weapon. Set the whole party up with resist elements, protection from elements, and especially fire shield (cold version), so they'll still have some defense even if partially debuffed.

Don't worry about conserving spell slots. For one thing, you won't have time to cast much during the battle; even using Quicken, you won't use more than 6-8 of your most powerful slots. Also remember that dragons have SR and high saves, so you probably won't get much mileage out of directly offensive spells.

In fact, this is one of the few situations where it makes sense to ready to counterspell. There's several of you, and only one dragon. If your cleric and wizard both ready to counterspell with their extra hasted actions, you may be able to stop some very nasty spells before they hit you. (Countering his every attempt at heal or disjunction will make the combat much, much easier.)