How to kill a blue dragon?

[Plane Sailing]

I have to agree with the general sentiment that this is a pretty harsh approach. Remember that saying "yes" is a skill! Why punish a player for choosing and using a power? I think it's fair to ask them to describe the illusion so that it properly affects a flying creature (the sensation of a great weight suddenly being applied to them, for example). Laughing at them for trying to use such a power only serves to satisfy your desire to make a player feel stupid.

I don't see this as harsh at all - any more than if someone in any previous edition of a game said "Hey, can I use this spell that makes imaginary chasms bring down the flying dragon".

I think there is plenty of room for using spells in an interesting way when the spell is considered for what it is, not just for a handful of game rules that have been associated with a spell name.

Cheers

 

[Praesul]

We're getting a little off-topic here, but I think your approach of interpreting the effect of a power would open up a can of worms if you *really* started looking at a lot of the names of powers in 4e. I'm just surprised you'd want to step onto that Greased slope.

I'm one to adopt the "Say yes" mentality, so I guess we're just in different ballparks. Thankfully, we don't have the misfortune of ruining the game for one another.

 

[Herschel]

That is because Spells, Dragons, Psionic Power, and Realism all go together, right?

"One of these things... is not like the other... One of these things..."

This is maybe the dumbest debate point I see, and it occurs from time to time.

Why does fantasy=stupid? Why does logic not belong in a game? A dragon is not stupid. A dragon is flying. Why would a chasm bother it? It can fly through mountain ranges at will with hundreds of feet below, fly over a tidal wave, avalanche, volcano and earthquake and you're telling us a 100-foot chasm is going to mentally break it down?

There's a number of things that can be done. Trying to argue an idiotic POTENTIAL rules loophole just shows a lack of creativity and meaningless rules-lawyering.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Check this out (from Dragon):
<snip>
Is there a rule that specifically deals with flying creatures that are immobilized? In my opinion they fall like a rock unless they are magically flying. And a dragon flies with his wings.

This is a good example of why you need to be careful when allowing additional content into your game. As you can see from this thread, it's not easy finding a (core) way to bring down creatures that can fly. Should you allow the above (per the rules in the power), it will have a potentially enormous impact on your game.

I agree with Plane Sailing's sentiment, but the approach should be to revise the power at the very beginning rather than trying to nerf it at the table.

 

[boolean]

Actually this encounter comes from a DM collective group in NYC where we experiment with stuff.

One of our members, Nicolas, came up with this strategy:

Unfortunately, most of those don't work. For most flying creatures, if the creature doesn't use a move action to fly at least 2 squares it crashes, so yes, immobilizing the flyer would bring it to the ground. However, this restriction does not apply to creatures with fly (hover). Most dragons, including the level 6 blue, can hover.

 

[IanArgent]

As far as powers (especially at-will powers) go, mechanics trump the flavor text IMC; with a very important caveat - you still have to come up with flavor text to apply the mechanic. In this case, what illusion can you apply that will cause a flying dragon to be immobilized and prone on a hit, and immobilized on a miss? (Answer: a magical net appears entangling/partially entangling his wings).

If this tells you I'm not terribly happy with Illusory Chasm's dependence on the flavor text, you're right. I would have called it Illusory Doom and reworked the flavor text a bit. (Or changed the Target block to specifically say it only worked on non-flying/non-swimming creatures).

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

(Answer: a magical net appears entangling/partially entangling his wings).

I'd say this is probably one of the best ways to reflavor it IMO. It accomplishes the same goal - that is, the target thinks "ooohhhh @#$% I'm gonna fall to my death" - and isn't anything so crazy it's unbelievable.

 

[FireLance]

I had a very frustrating fight with a young red dragon in the last game session, and I'm seriously considering making all young dragons clumsy flyers when I DM, in order to give them an incentive not to fight while flying. The young black dragon is already a clumsy flyer, and almost all other monsters in the Heroic tier with a fly speed are either clumsy flyers or have only melee attacks. An opponent as iconic as a dragon (especially a solo opponent, like a dragon) should be an opportunity for everyone in the party to shine. It shouldn't have an incentive to adopt tactics that would make characters with good ranged attacks significantly better than characters who are primarily melee-focused. This is particularly true at the Heroic tier, when most parties would not have access to abilities that would allow them to bring the fight to the flying opponent, or cause the flying opponent to come to them.

 

[Turtlejay]

I had a very frustrating fight with a young red dragon in the last game session, and I'm seriously considering making all young dragons clumsy flyers when I DM, in order to give them an incentive not to fight while flying. The young black dragon is already a clumsy flyer, and almost all other monsters in the Heroic tier with a fly speed are either clumsy flyers or have only melee attacks. An opponent as iconic as a dragon (especially a solo opponent, like a dragon) should be an opportunity for everyone in the party to shine. It shouldn't have an incentive to adopt tactics that would make characters with good ranged attacks significantly better than characters who are primarily melee-focused. This is particularly true at the Heroic tier, when most parties would not have access to abilities that would allow them to bring the fight to the flying opponent, or cause the flying opponent to come to them.

This. 4e has a pretty player friendly design philosophy, and throwing an impossible fight at your party just because you are god of their world is not fun for anyone but you.

Some posters have mentioned various strategies that would have to have DM fiat to use, such as throwing javelins with ropes attatched or hiding in a cave. If your DM is doing this to be a jerk, then none of these is going to work. In fact, your characters should immediately start basting themselves in barbeque sauce since no matter what, a dragon is going to eat them.

Now, if you are fighting a dragon because your DM wants to challenge you, some of these ideas are cool. I reject all tactics that have some sort of expectation of foreknowledge (ie specific magic items or prepared spells or party makeups), and embrace the more creative suggestions like:

- Intimidate: Dragons are notoriously prideful creatures and I think attempting to scare one into leaving should be tough. However, using your bravado to shame/trick a dragon into trying to take a bite out of you should be reasonable.

- Bluff: If the player can roleplay or describe a sufficiently clever scenario that is followed up by a good roll, the dragon could be tricked into descending.

- Ranged attacks: Any character (except small ones) can use any weapon, they just don't get to apply the proficiency bonus to the roll. Having your characters all carry ranged weapons is a good idea anyways, but situations like this highlight it.

- Run and hide: The DM should allow a Nature or Dungeoneering roll to attempt to locate a good piece of shelter. At least good enough that the dragon has to descend to get line of sight for his attacks.

- Die: And roll up some twinky characters to teach your DM a lesson.

I guess that were I to run a situation like this the first bit might play out like a skill challenge, with successes giving the players progessively greater advantages, and failures costing surges. After a bit of theis set up the battlemat and get rolling. If I were a player, I would cry, since my paladin has only handaxes for his ranged weapon, currently. I think I should fix that asap.

Jay

 

[WOLead]

@Opening Post

There is one way to bring that Dragon down to ground level with a Warlock...at level 5.

Say the young blue dragon flying around 20 squares up raining down Lightning Bursts. Just hope your party has a Half-Elf Warlock with stats of at least 14 Int and 18 Cha after Racials and has the Pact Bow +1 from Dragon #369 and has Fury of Gibbeth for his level 5 Daily attack power. Yes, it needs to be that specific.

Just have the Half-elf use his Pact Bow's Daily ability to launch his Dread Star up at the Young Blue Dragon at...[10+2(Level)+2(Power)+2(Cha)+1(Enhance)+2(Proficiency)+1(Prime Shot)]
+20 vs. Ref(21). Basically on any roll but a natural 1. Then the dragon takes the 3d10+Int+1 damage and 1d6 WC damage, makes a Acrobatics check against a DC of 15 and falls prone if he fails, and takes 5d10 falling damage as it hits the grounds. If it succeeded, it has to make that Acrobatics check again at the start of its turn or fall prone. At +5 vs. DC of 15, it would need a roll of 10 or better twice. So thats roughly a 70% chance the dragon will hit the ground due the attack. Though as this effect is a Save Ends and the Solo creature has +5 on Saving Throws, it is very unlikely this effect will last to the next turn.

At first, I was going to say to use Dread Star, but Immobilizing a Hovering Creature doesn't make it fall. You have to knock it Prone to make it fall as stated in PHB p.277 in the Prone section.

@Plane Sailing
Just a note, using Phantom Chasm on the Young Blue Dragon does work.

::Wizard uses Phantom Chasm::
"The ground far below the dragon splits wide open wasn't a concern for it. The heavy downdraft that came with it flowing into the chasm though did shock the dragon. It lost lift and was plummeting down too fast. It was trying to beat its wings hard enough to give it enough extra lift to right itself but there was no purchase. Seeing the bottom of the chasm, it braces itself for the humiliating crash for one such as itself and hits. It didn't hurt as much as expected, so it was just an illusion. It really shouldn't have panicWHAM! That one hurt about right, the dragon forgot it was actually flying after the panic left."

Phantom Chasm knocks the targets Prone, so it knocks Flying(Hover) creatures out of the air.