Tactics for defeating a huge red dragon

[Pielorinho]

Re: Re: Tactics for defeating a huge red dragon

It does work, just not very well. Only half its damage is fire; the other half is divine power, and is not subject to fire resistance or immunity. (That half also is not doubled against cold-subtype creatures.)

Hmm -- interesting point. I have a prayer bead of karma, so I could potentially pump up my (fourth-level, since i"m a druid) flamestrike to 14d6, of which I could reasonably count on about 3.5d6 actually hitting the dragon.

Not great, but not useless, either. Still and all, I'd think an arrowhawk would be a better bet against it, reliably doing 2d6 points of damage to the dragon each round.

Daniel

 

[LokiDR]

Re: Re: Re: Tactics for defeating a huge red dragon

Not great, but not useless, either. Still and all, I'd think an arrowhawk would be a better bet against it, reliably doing 2d6 points of damage to the dragon each round.

Daniel

Untill the dragon snuffs it out in a breath weapon.

 

[Pielorinho]

Believe me: if a red dragon wants to spend its entire action breathing on my arrowhawk (whom I would of course position on the opposite side of the battlefield so that it wouldn't be in the same breath AoE as the rest of us), that'd be peachy keen by me, and a fantastic use of a fourth-level spell on my part, I think . Especially considering that an arrowhawk has a decent (not great, but decent) reflex save and fire resistance 20, and could conceivably survive one breath.

Daniel

 

[Sejs]

Summon Nature's Ally 5 - summon a Giant Constrictor Snake. (11hd, improved grab, str 25, size Huge). Then hit it with Animal Growth. It's HD will jump to 22, size Gargantuan, Str 33 (which should be on par with the dragon you're fighting.) Because it is now one size category larger than it's target, it should be able to constrict. If you can get the snake around the dragon's body before it can breathe, do so.

Find things that can do ice damage, that can get through SR easily. Don't worry about ref save for 1/2 - dragons rarely have evasion.

Dispell the crap out of the dragon. Stripping buffs helps.

Find a way to block, or restrict that breath weapon. A wall of force across 2/3 of a large double doorway is a start - gives the PCs something to hide behind, but with their smaller size, they can easily pop around and attack from.

Debuff the dragon as much as you can - Bestow Curse is good... if you can get it to stick.

If all else fails and it looks like you all will die - Otiluke's Resilient Sphere the party, then teleport or planeshift the heck out of there. Some people may need to hop in any extradimentional storage items you may have if you're near the weight limit on teleport, though.

Druid - Red dragons have the Fire subtype. Quench that lizard until it's eyes bleed. Quench doesn't allow a save OR SR when used against creatures. It does allow a save and SR when cast against an attended object.. but that's okay, because you're not looking to fight an attended object, now are ya?

^_^

 

[Pielorinho]

Summon Nature's Ally 5 - summon a Giant Constrictor Snake. (11hd, improved grab, str 25, size Huge). Then hit it with Animal Growth. It's HD will jump to 22, size Gargantuan, Str 33 (which should be on par with the dragon you're fighting.) Because it is now one size category larger than it's target, it should be able to constrict. If you can get the snake around the dragon's body before it can breathe, do so.

Holy crap -- that's nasty stuff! I've held off on summoning creatures, since my DM doesn't like how much time it takes to handle them, but given that he's nerfing wall of thorns, all bets are off.

Way I figure it, an animal-growthed constrictor will probably last about two rounds against a red dragon: it won't really be able to resist the dragon's natural attacks.

Unless, that is, it is able to pin the dragon. Hmmm...do y'all think speak with animals would enable me to command the constrictor to "pin"?

If so, that'd be fantastic: it'd give the monk/rogue and other fighter-types plenty of time to whale away on the dragon.

Daniel

 

[andargor]

You probably don't have the luxury of getting new spells, but if you could, take a look at Zone of Speed from BoEM.

It "sets" the fastest movement rate in it's area of effect to whatever you want, from 1 ft/round up. No save, no SR. If centered on it's head and set to 1 ft/round, it will be stuck there for about 10 rounds before it can get it out. This would also limit it's ability to fly and to use it's breath weapon.

Drawback: it's close range. Buff up on energy resistance, and get close...

Andargor

 

[IanB]

Ice storm is a free 7d6 points of damage with no save against a fire creature, since the cold part of the damage is doubled, and is on the druid list. Arguable if you want to use a 5th level slot on it I suppose.

Do you use splatbook spells? That creeping cold spell and the bigger version of it (forget the level, you might only have access to the basic one) could be pretty rough on a fire subtype creature as well. If your DM allows any alternate summoning, cold paraelementals from the manual of the planes (I think they're in there) could be useful, although the breath weapon will be rough on those.

Now that the thing knows you're coming, dispel magic is a necessity.

Protection from fire spells make the breath weapon a non-issue, so have those up.

If you can manage to get the dragon grappled with the snake, the rogue gets free sneak attacks, so there's a plus.

Dragons also have a crappy touch armor class, so touch and particularly ranged touch spells are preferable to spells that give a saving throw. That sorcerer have access to enervation, or have a source where he could pick up a scroll of it?

Back to druid spells, spike stones could be a good way to limit the dragon's movement, although it may impede you all as well.

 

[AEtherfyre]

First, an unfortunate warning - Summon Swarm is negated by damage reduction. It won't help versus the dragon. You'll have to use silence to keep it from casting.

Next - The most important point about taking on the dragon. If you take it on, try to take it alone.

Dragons are very nasty grapplers. Keep this in mind.

AC buffs are important. You might not keep it from hitting you, but you'll stop it from power-attacking.

Couple of spells that might be useful:

Check out Dispel Evil. It's Core, gives a nice deflection bonus, and can be discharged as a touch to automatically dispel a spell. (All against evil only, but I don't think that's in question.)

If you can get the dragon to charge through Spike Stones, you might manage to injure it pretty badly - and if you're flying, it won't bother you much. Unfortunately, you'll have to keep the dragon on the ground for this to work - and it might not want to stay there.

While it won't help much versus the dragon, Control Winds might be useful versus the wasps. I haven't seen it in use, but mechanically the higher winds look pretty nasty versus smaller critters. (See DMG for details, if you have it.) At the absolute minimum, you'll be able to blow Large or smaller critters around pretty badly - and if you have strong winds, a tornado on demand is pretty effective!

Oh, yeah. Don't forget Poison. I don't think there's a nastier touch attack in the game - short of Harm. Druid only - two hits of 1d10 Con, at a DC of 10 + Wis Mod + 1/2 caster level. Ought to be 21+ with the Bead.

Protection from Elements has been mentioned. Use it.

And don't forget about Searing Light. Yes, it's damage stinks for a single-target, 3rd level spell; but it's a no-save touch attack that deals non-elemental damage.

Hope some of that was useful.

 

[The Blue Elf]

Do y'all have other ideas that we should be thinking about? What would be good tactics for a group such as ours to use against such a massive dragon?

Daniel [/B]

That depends on what advantage you have on a Dragon you have to figure their weaknesses, here is an example Red Dragons are not a immune to Cold damage I think it saids in the Monster when they are hit by Cold Damage it deals double damage.Sure, you can kill Dragon, but you can't face them with Magic and weapons you have to use your brain.

 

[AuraSeer]

Re: Re: Tactics for defeating a huge red dragon

Sure, you can kill Dragon, but you can't face them with Magic and weapons you have to use your brain.

I did try beating a dragon to death with my brain once. I don't remember whether it worked.