Gray Dragon from Draconomicon is potential TPK with little effort

[Rartemass]

The Gray Dragon from the Draconimicon is potentially a total party killer without much effort.
I wanted a clarification to see if this was the intent or if I'm missing something.

Some assumptions:
A level 27 Fighter would have a Fortitude of 38.
*23 for half level plus 10
*assuming a +7 bonus via stats
*fortitude +2 as a fighter
*Amulet Protection +6

Penalties to Dragon
*Dragon is marked, -2 to hit.

Tactics for TPK.
Round One
*Ancient Gray Dragon uses it Breath Weapon (BW). This immobilises all characters it hits.
+35 to hit with BW normally. Taking the above assumptions the dragon would require a 5 on the D20 to hit. A 3 against the marking target. This is not that hard and should hit everyone in the party.
*Dragon spends an action point to use Stones Embrace (SE). Similar to above but needs an 8 on a D20 to hit. Again not that hard. By this stage the entire party is potentially petrified.

*The party makes saving throws during their turns to save from Petrification and become immobilised. Out of 6 party members, at least one would probably fail.
Dragon immediately uses Infectious Petrification, hitting everyone in the burst on either a 6 or an 8. This should hit the entire party as it has the same radius as Stones Embrace. Even if it misses some of them, if more than one person fails, it gets to attempt another hit at everyone.

Round Two onward
*Dragon uses Slicing Fury to focus on two characters at a time. Infectious Petrification should take care of keeping them petrified. The Dragon beats down the characters and waits for BW and SE to recharge. Once they recharge, if a character has escaped the petrifiction, the dragon simply does the above combination again.

If the party survives the initial two onslaughts and break free of the petrification, the dragon can do the combination again when it uses bloodied breath, as long as SE has recharged.

Granted I haven't looked at all abilites, feats, and magic items available to characters, however there doesn't seem to be anything to prevent the above.

Am I missing something here or is this dragon an ultimate killer?

 

[James McMurray]

Check out the sorts of things a 27th level party has access to in terms of giving themselves saving throw bonuses and hindering a solitary opponent.

Or in other words: it's scary, but nowhere near a gauranteed TPK.

 

[Psybuster]

Few things come to mind.

First, unless the terrain demands they close in, a good deal of classes are going to keep their distance. Whether you can get more targets in on the burst 5 breath weapon by moving around will depend on the circumstances. This will also affect Infectious Petrification as its centered target is the player that fails the save rather than the Grey Dragon, so a spread out party won't suffer as badly from the repetrification.

Second, petrification grants resist 20 to all damage, which should also work against ongoing damage. This makes Tail Lash significantly less useful, and will require above average rolls from Claw to do any initial damage as well. You'd have to wait for a breath weapon recharge to do any meaningful amounts of damage to petrified targets, and even that isn't guaranteed if you get some bad rolls.

Third, Infectious Petrification's wording seems kind of ambiguous. Does the opportunity to use it trigger when A) a petrified player fails the saving throw to become unpetrified, or B) when an immobilized player fails a saving throw and becomes petrified again due to the aftereffects of Infectious Petrification/Stone's Embrace? Given the wording as is, the latter seems more likely, and that grants at least one character that unpetrifies their turn, unless you successfully recharge Stone's Embrace and choose to use it.

 

[James McMurray]

Also, save bonuses at that level (or ways to automatically end effects) are somewhat common, so it's not just a 55% chance anymore. For instance, a bloodied human could be the equivalent of a solo monster, and a friendly cleric who made his save can fire off a Purify and fix everyone else.

 

[Keenath]

Third, Infectious Petrification's wording seems kind of ambiguous. Does the opportunity to use it trigger when A) a petrified player fails the saving throw to become unpetrified, or B) when an immobilized player fails a saving throw and becomes petrified again due to the aftereffects of Infectious Petrification/Stone's Embrace? Given the wording as is, the latter seems more likely, and that grants at least one character that unpetrifies their turn, unless you successfully recharge Stone's Embrace and choose to use it.

I believe it's the first, actually. When you roll a save, you're saving against the current condition, not whatever future condition comes about due to the results of that saving throw.

You're petrified by Stone's Embrace. At the end of your turn, you save against the petrification. You succeed; you lose Petrified and gain Immobilized. At the end of your next turn, you save against Immobilized and fail; you become Petrified. Next turn, you save against petrification, and you fail; this allows the dragon to use his Infectious Petrification power.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Actually, my level 27 fighter has fortitude 42 (Never actually played that level; For fun I built him at several levels; long live the character builder).

And the breath is +32, not +35

Not saying he isn't nasty, but by that level there are tons of tricks available to make this bearable, most of which we can't even think of because we have built so few character of that level.

Out of the top of my head, my fighter of level 27 has the steadfast stance which allows him to make a save as an immediate action in reaction to the attack. Hopefully it would help a bit.

I also remember a ranger power that allows you to immediately shifts out of the blast area (shifts Wis square) that would help that class quite a bit.

 

[Rartemass]

Thanks for all the points made.
I am looking at this from a DM perspective by wanting to use it in an upcoming mission. The party is only level 11 as of the end of the last session. We haven't even started Paragon yet so seeing the abilities at higher levels hasn't been a priority.
From the comments here it looks as though it will be a tough battle but not a TPK as it appears at first glance.
Thanks again.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Thanks for all the points made.
I am looking at this from a DM perspective by wanting to use it in an upcoming mission. The party is only level 11 as of the end of the last session. We haven't even started Paragon yet so seeing the abilities at higher levels hasn't been a priority.
From the comments here it looks as though it will be a tough battle but not a TPK as it appears at first glance.
Thanks again.

Hum, just to be clear, you don't intend to use the level 27 ancient Gray dragon against level 11 PCs, right?

Because it goes without saying that this would be a TPK.

The level 12 Gray Dragon would be an epic fight but it doesn't have the petrifying abilities you mentioned.

 

[Rartemass]

Hum, just to be clear, you don't intend to use the level 27 ancient Gray dragon against level 11 PCs, right?

Because it goes without saying that this would be a TPK.

The level 12 Gray Dragon would be an epic fight but it doesn't have the petrifying abilities you mentioned.

I will be waiting until the party is about level 26 before throwing them against the ancient gray. I like to plan ahead.

 

[the Jester]

Well, I got a tpk against a 1st-level party with 2 gray dragon hatchlings, but that was a very tough fight- and both hatchlings ended the fight at 7 hp. If the party had just focused their attacks- the first one was at 7 hp for about the last six rounds of the fight....