Help a party of five 20th level PCs defeat an Ancient Red Dragon

Two things. One, I need a stat block for an Ancient Red Dragon. I suppose I can take the Elder Red Dragon in the Monster Vault and update it, but I'm out of practice (it has been almost a year since I've played) and I'd rather have someone else (you) do it for me.

Two, I need to figure out a way that a party of five 20th level PCs can defeat an Ancient Red Dragon.

Let me back up for a moment. The PCs are 17th level now I'm about to start them on a mega-adventure that will take them to about 20th when they'll face an Ancient Red Dragon (after first getting by her Elder Blue consort). Without going into the details of the adventure too much (maybe another post), an earlier part of the adventure involves seeking out the blood of a Star Dragon that will help them defeat said Ancient Red. So what I need to figure out is: What will the effects of this blood (on their weapons, armor, etc) be so that it allows them to face this Ancient Red and potentially defeat her?

I can also tone the Ancient Red down a bit because she's really old - tens of thousands of years, as she'll tell them - and getting a bit decrepit. But she's old, in pain, and angry - so shouldn't be too toned down.

So, in summary:

1. What are the stats for an Ancient Red Dragon (updated to MM3/MV era 4E)?
2. What sort of magical enhancement would be required for a party of five 20th level PCs to defeat her?

Thanks!

Well, what are your experiences so far with your party facing solos? I've found that, especially at paragon-tier or higher, the number of status effects simply thrash solos. So if you're going to design stats, you need to do it with an eye for what your players will be hitting her with. You don't want the epic confrontation to involve a constantly prone and dazed villain.

Also, do you have a style in mind for the big fight? A venue? Crumbling underground ruin she can smash PCs into? Volcanic caldera that allows her to strafe and occasionally wing buffet lava into the party? Her treasure hoard, scattered with mighty magic that either side can wield against each other?

Is she a big meaty claw/claw/biter, or more tricky with spells that divide the party and let her face them one on one, or an opportunistic manipulator, sending minions to distract the party while she circles overhead, waiting to dive down, pluck one PC up, carry him into the sky, and drop his dead body amid his allies?

First off, I'd make the blood a consumable item they can use on their weapons. Since they had to undergo a quest to gain it and it's in limited quantity don't be afraid to make it wildly overpowered; +25 damage and daze (save ends) on the next hit against her isn't in any way out of line.

I would back away from using the red dragon in the books as a template. For one, red dragons are soldiers, which means they work best (and really only work at all) when paired with a more dangerous threat. This is a tier-ending battle so it's best to start from the ground up and make the monster how you'd like it. I'd go with a level 20 brute or skirmisher base and then, instead of multiplying HP by 5 to get a flying brick multiply it by 10-12 and make it a three stage fight. Just throwing out ideas but you could do something like this:

Stage 1: After entering her lair the PCs are in a massive cavern with sulfur vents strewn about blasting poisonous fumes everywhere. The dragon sits on a high ledge up above the battlefield with only a narrow path leading up to her near the back of the battlefield. A few dozen kobold minions block the way backed up by a shaman or two. At the end of every round more minions spawn (2 to 4 is good) from holes in the wall. The dragon should sit back on her ledge and shoot fire or perhaps swoop in for a flyby attack every now and then. When reduced to 2/3ds of her max HP she leaps backwards into a seemingly bottomless pit behind her circling down into the darkness. The only way for the PCs to follow will be a narrow staircase circling the pit.

Stage 2: As they descend suddenly the dragon flies up breathing fire and attacking briefly, then retreats. Schedule the attacks every three rounds or so. Two rounds of fighting, one round of safety. Now here's where it gets fun: When she arrives each time she can use her fire to destroy some of the staircase as a free action, so if the PCs don't move fast they can be stranded and killed. Create platforms and ledges every so often that are large enough to hold the dragon and the party but not much else for those fighting rounds. When reduced to 1/3rd of her max HP she retreats down into the darkness of the pit and does not return.

Stage 3: Following the dragon down further to the bowels of her lair they encounter her atop a massive pile of gold, jewels, magic items, and the like. The hoard should be about 6x6 squares (big enough for the dragon and a few creatures to surround her) and is surrounded by a moat of molten lava narrow enough to jump across but wide enough for the jump to be scary. Here there is no escape and the dragon fights to the death. Gouts of flame burst out of holes here and there. It's so hot everyone's taking 10 fire damage a round. Whenever someone scores a critical hit or a critical miss the cavern shakes and rocks fall on everyone except the dragon. Let it all hang out.

The dragon should have abilities tailored to each of these fights and be heavy on the damage to make up for it's short amount of HP. If you ever get to thinking "Man, this thing is killer. I don't know if they can beat this." Add about 25% more and then call it quits. Level 17 PCs are tough. VERY tough. They are also very very deadly. Let them surprise you.

[MENTION=59082]Mercurius[/MENTION] I can post an updated stat block later, but the biggest issue is going to be the high defenses of the level 30 solo compared to the attack bourse uses of the 20th level party. For that reason alone I would design the red not as a soldier but as a brute instead, and would have the star dragon blood grant attack bonuses.

Also, I would strongly recommend customizing/tweaking the heck out of the statblocks of solos, even those in MV. Personally, I like AngryDM's boss monster blog about phased fights.

Give the dragon (and any other solo that qualifies) "Superior Will" feat for free. Otherwise an at-level solo is toast in 2-3 rounds unless it has minions or other support. We just ran a lvl25 beholder vs a lvl22 party, and killed it by the end of round 2, even with help from a dragonborn elite lurker and minions.

Wait, you're putting a lvl 30 solo vs a lvl 20 party? Why? um, allow me to rephrase. You're putting the players against a lvl+10 encounter? WHY?!?!?!?!

My best suggestion is to build a skill challenge that will give the party a chance to use minor actions as skill challenges to help out a bit, maybe by lowering defenses? I wouldn't use regular, non-consumable magic items because then they will have them for the rest of their careers.

I like the idea of using the monster builder to turn the level 22 solo elder red into a brute and level it up to say level 26, for your decrepit ancient red. It should have damage output at least equivalent to a level 30 soldier, but lower attacks and defenses. The star dragon blood could give them DR and/or attack and defenses boosts, but the main thing will be to have it inflict a lot of extra damage on the red, so the fight doesn't take forever.

sabrinathecat said:

Give the dragon (and any other solo that qualifies) "Superior Will" feat for free. Otherwise an at-level solo is toast in 2-3 rounds unless it has minions or other support. We just ran a lvl25 beholder vs a lvl22 party, and killed it by the end of round 2, even with help from a dragonborn elite lurker and minions.

Wait, you're putting a lvl 30 solo vs a lvl 20 party? Why? um, allow me to rephrase. You're putting the players against a lvl+10 encounter? WHY?!?!?!?!

My best suggestion is to build a skill challenge that will give the party a chance to use minor actions as skill challenges to help out a bit, maybe by lowering defenses? I wouldn't use regular, non-consumable magic items because then they will have them for the rest of their careers.

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Umm the OP did talk about changing the dragon a bit.

RangerWickett said:

You don't want the epic confrontation to involve a constantly prone and dazed villain.

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This is exactly what I want to avoid.

RangerWickett said:

Also, do you have a style in mind for the big fight?

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Perhaps I need to back up a bit and explain the adventure as a whole and then the lead-up to the final confrontation. The following is from my Adventure Synopsis in Masterplan:

Part 1: The Oracle - The PCs are "hooked" - Dred's cousin pays him a visit, dying, handing Dred a map, saying "No mortal weapon can slay her!" The PCs (probably) consult various contacts. They're eventually led to consult the Oracle and set off to find her. Once there, they enter her Sanctum and face the glass spiders, then climb the web to get to her inner chamber. The Oracle tells them that only weapons dipped in the Blood of a Dragherru, or Star Dragon, can harm X'zillarioth. She says they must go "Beyond the World" to find a Star Dragon, that only the Elder Kindred, the Zhalar, can take them through a Star Pool.

Part 2: Starblood - the PCs seek out the Zhalar, finding one who leads them through a Star Pool (for a cost?). They travel through various gates along the Silver Road, and reach the Eternal City, the Great Wheel. They are told there that a Star Dragon sleeps in an asteroid not far away. They hire an asral skiff (githzerai?) and travel there through the Astral Sea and land on the asteroid where a great Star Dragon sleeps, and must find a way of extracting some of its blood.

Part 3: To the Mountain - They return to the world and set off for the Burnt Mountain. Once there, they are attacked by an elder blue dragon (who they take to be X'zillarioth, perhaps, but is in actuality her consort, Abbradhurithar). After slaying him, they enter the mountain and travel through the Upper Halls, facing the undead king and his army.

Part 4: Into the Depths of Hell - They find a gate that leads into the Lower Halls, which has been transformed into a kind of demi-plane of Hell. They face various demons (Abishai?) and finally reach the lair of X'zillarioth, an Ancient Red.

Part 5: The Ancient Beast - They face off against X'zillarioth and after (hopefully!) defeating her, gain her horde.

(Alternate ending: The PCs figure out that X'zillarioth was actually calling great heroes to her, hoping that their blood would unlock the Blood Seal to her master, the Adversary deity, Sheharûn
, who has been imprisoned in the depths of the earth for 20,000 years. But in fact it is <i>her</i> blood that will unlock the Blood Seal and unleash Sheharûn - that he has been encouraging her to call great heroes in the hope that someday a group would come that would be great enough to spill her blood on the Seal. Sheharûn is unleashed and begins his quest for world domination! If the PCs survive, this can lead to an epic tier campaign. If not, the world falls into darkness for years and a new group of heroes rises up and this leads to a new campaign....5E?)

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So as you can see, there is quite a lead-up and the PCs will probably go from 17th to 20th level by the they face the ancient red. My plan is that if they defeat her, they reach 21st level.

As for some of the other comments, the red doesn't have to be an level 30 creature - but she is ancient. She is one of the oldest creatures of the world, born tens of thousands of years before.

Ranger Wickett, the fight against the blue dragon will be more aerial - he will meet them at the entrance of the dwarven city and fly over them, attacking them with lightning, swooping tail and claw attacks. That fight is meant to be level appropriate.

Once they get to the ancient red, she will be resting on a platform which, if I go with the alternate ending, is the Great Seal that imprisons the adversary. The Great Seal exists within a great hellish cavern complete with magma flows, falls and lakes, and perhaps some sort of minor demon minions - abishai? - flying around and attacking them. I like the idea of the dragon employing spells, perhaps psychic attacks, and then blasting them with fire. If and when they get to her, she may be easier to dispatch. She will be tough, but she is decrepit and not quick anymore.

This could help solve the problem of knocking her prone - maybe she is already; or maybe her body is already partly fused to the Seal.

We plan on starting this up next weekend and then play five-hour once a month sessions, so it will take some time to actually get to the Ancient Red - so I have time to figure it out. Just thinking ahead a bit. I figure that Part 1 will take one session (Feb), Part 2-3 will take 2 sessions each (Mar-June), Part 4-5 will take one session each (July-August). So I won't get to Part 5 until August, maybe July at the earliest or possibly September.

Will all the PCs have the Starblood? And does it help against anything other than this dragon? If the answers are "yes" and "no" respectively, then you don't need to add the starblood into the PCs' stats - just stat up the dragon at the appropriate challenge level, and add an additional effect like "anyone attacking her without starblood takes a -2 to hit and is considered weakened for that attack". The PCs in my game are 20th level at the moment, and to provide a serious challenge to them an encounter has to be at least 23rd (unless there are multiple PCs with no surges left - if the PCs will not be able to trigger healing during an encounter, it becomes much more dangerous in my experience). I would probably make the dragon a level 22 or 23 solo, and then use other creatures to bring the whole thing up to level 24 or level 25. (I really wouldn't recommend using just a solo for an epic encounter unless the circumstances will be very unusual - you'll almost certainly have an action-denial fizzer. When I ran Calastryx against a party of five 15th level PCs with several quite short on healing surges between them, and without a full rest following a level 16 encounter, it was epic but the PCs won via action denial and still had enough juice in the tank for a few more encounters.)

As for ideas about terrain, accompaniments etc - here is a link to two fairly recent upper paragon encounters that I ran, one involving a solo beholder (which uses no action attacks to circumvent action denial) and one a solo hydra (which uses multiple heads to circumvent action denial) plus plenty of lava.

Thanks, Pemerton - I'll check out the link.

I really want to avoid action denial and may just say that the dragon has a powerful magic item, or artifact, that prevents it (or is there something like that already, a "brooch of free action" or something like it?). Actually, action denial is one of my least favorite parts of 4E, but that's another matter.

I'm imagining a huge cavern with lava flows and flying demons of some kind - any recommendations? The flying demons would mainly attack the PCs before they reach the red dragon, but would at least serve to bring their total number of healing surges down. I haven't thought of any actual minions to fight alongside her, although am considering salamanders that come up out of the lava.

Oh yeah, to answer your first questions - you are right, the answers are "yes and no." But I prefer the idea that it accents their weaponry more. I really want them to face a foe that is well beyond their capabilities but that they can conceivably help defeat with magical aid, which in this case is starblood.