Good Spells for Dragons?

[Allegro]

How about?

• Disguise Self: look like a silver dragon
• Shatter: to collapse part of the ceiling on the party or destroy the key stone in a dam holding back a wall of water
• Gust of wind if the party has small creatures in it or cast behind a table full of acid flasks and alchemist fire
• Silent image: to hide behind or to cover traps

 

[Runestar]

An old dragon is cr16. By that time, a party certainly isn't going to fret over 7d6 of unresisted damage (especially if they are expected to make their save for half or no damage). Forget about direct damage and focus on buffs instead.

However, I do like the idea of maximizing its action economy, so you may want to give it some swift/immediate action spells. PHB2 has quite a few, such as energy aegis (while more limiting, is also more versatile in that it lets you determine the element on the fly).

 

[pawsplay]

An old dragon is cr16. By that time, a party certainly isn't going to fret over 7d6 of unresisted damage (especially if they are expected to make their save for half or no damage). Forget about direct damage and focus on buffs instead.

If the average party level is 14, and you throw in Practiced Caster for CL 11, that would be a 10d6 fireball, and the picture is potentially a lot more interesting. It's also nice being able to wipe out webs, wall spells, summoned monsters, and so forth with very little effort.

 

[Runestar]

Practiced spellcaster....can't believe I overlooked that option altogether...

Though I am thinking its spells should complement the dragon's full attack, rather than compete with it for that precious standard/full attack.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In terms of just nasty tactics, I once had a dragon in its lair use a tail sweep to half-bury the party in piles of coins...which it then breathed on and targeted with fire spells.

In an aerial combat, I had a huge adult blue grapple the party's sky-craft from below, reaching up to the deck with random body parts while shielding itself with the ship's bulk. It would bite, breathe, claw or sweep the deck with its tail depending upon the moment. And sometimes, it even flapped its wings to make the ship unsteady in the air...

 

[Aran Thule]

Be nasty- choose damage spells with an energy type different from the dragon's breath weapon. They'll prep their anti-Fire protections against a Red...and be surprised when he casts Ice Storm. And so forth.

I remember a long time ago when fire shield protected you from one type but you took double damage from the other.
One party member created a variant of it but for acid/electricity instead of fire/cold.
Facing a black dragon he smugly cast the acid protection version, only for the dragon to hit him with a chain lightning... his face was a picture.

 

[Eloi]

Practiced Spellcaster feat is very useful. Spells like Haste, Blink and/or Heroism for yourself, then Slow, Crushing Despair, and if you see multiple arcane casters, use that scroll of Chained Feeblemind. Shield and Mage Armor are time-honored favorites. Decide for yourself if this Dragon was able to get his claws on the Stoneskin spell - and if he considers this fight important enough to use it. (250 gp of diamond dust - not cheap.) Be sure you include at least three doses of the diamond dust in the hoard.

If your Dragon likes Snatch-augmented flybys, Spectral Hand and a few Shocking Grasp spells can ensure that guy digging through his pack gets love taps even when your breath is recharging and you're "out of range". Also plays hob with the notion some folks have of "let the Dragon come to us".

Sometimes you get lone Heroes who think that charging the Dragon with no obvious backup is the best thing ever. Having a Hypnotic Pattern on hand to keep him standing there, gazing at the pretty colors and doing nothing, will often lure the sneaky (but delicious) Cleric or Druid out to heal him. Two rounds is plenty of time to snatch your morsel and take to the skies. Especially useful if your target happens to look like a Barbarian who hasn't decided to Rage yet.

 

[Rechan]

Though I am thinking its spells should complement the dragon's full attack, rather than compete with it for that precious standard/full attack.

Does the dragon have time to buff? What action is drinking a potion? Or maybe even use Extend spell.

True Strike + Shocking Grasp or Vampiric Touch or Touch of Idiocy; the dragon hits with a natural attack and the touch spell goes off. Haste. Mage Armor + Shield. See Invisibility. Mirror Image. Displacement. If you want to fudge things, give the dragon access to Greater Magic Fang.

Actually, if I were a bastard, I'd have the dragon wait til the PCs get there, al buffed up... and then cast Resilience Sphere or Wall of Force from a scroll on itself. Then as the PCs' buffs start to wind down (or waste a dispel/disintegrate), it buffs up and dismisses the spell, then goes after them.

Displacement is a biggie. A 50% miss chance is infuriating.

 

[Runestar]

Touch spells can work. If the dragon needs to move, it can't make a full-attack, so may well add in a little bit of extra damage/healing via vampiric touch and such. Works with flyby attack as well.

Just curious, if a dragon casts chill touch, can it make a full attack against the same PC and affect it with chill touch 6 times (one from each natural attack)? Granted, resist cold5 and a crummy DC14 fort save makes this unfeasible...

I think we can typically assume that long-duration spells such as mage armour and false life to be up prior to combat. However, because a dragon's buffs typically won't last long vs dispel magic (and as it is such a pain to have to readjust its stats in the midst of combat), I would prefer to shy away from buffs and rely more on swift/immediate action buffs such as nerveskitter.

 

[Shin Okada]

Even with Practiced Spellcaster feat*, the caster level of a true dragon is much lower than it's CR. So, you should expect that one casting of Greater Dispel Magic (or Chain Dispel) will strip off all the buffs the dragon have. If you want to buff the dragon, Ring of Enduring Arcana (Complete Mage) will be your friend.

*... Well, it is debatable if a dragon can take this without actually having some levels of spellcaster class. After some consideration, as a DM I have translated that a true dragon does need at least 1 class level to take this feat.

Or, let the dragon mainly use swift spells such as Wraithstrike, breath-related spells and even Swift Haste.

Regarding different type of energy. If the dragon is not old enough to use Breath Weapon Substitution spell, let it use some wand or staff. Say, a white dragon holding a caster level 10 wand of Fireball. True Dragons can learn Use Magic Device skill as one of their class skill.

#Rather long note regarding Wraithstrike

I am not sure if Wraithstrike is that "broken" in that level of campaign. As per PCs using that spell, well, if you throw enough creatures who don't rely on Armor/Natural Armor/Shield bonus to AC, it is fine. Yeah, the measure part of dragon's AC is coming from it's natural armor bonus. But it can use Scintillating Scales and it should.

On the other hand, dragons using Wraithstrike + Power Attack could be one of the worst nightmare for PCs. But I have actually let dragons do this in my previous dragon-heavy campaign, which started from 4th-level and finally reached to 21st-level. And PCs survived. If your play group is using various supplements, especially Spell Compendium, PCs can have a lot of ways to withstand huge full-attack damage output per turn. Trust me, a 21st-level Duskblade augmented by various buffs from fellow cleric and sorcerer survived full attacks of Great Wyrm + (age category 13) for 2 rounds. The wyrm was converting 30 of his BAB into damage.

Also, there are several (if not many) ways to counter Wraithstrike. As this is indeed a spell, a character can ready an attack or spell to distract it. Grove of Invulnerability and Otiluke's Suppressing Field will prevent the spell from working. Enervation is another good spells to be used against a dragon, as it will suck up their precious spell-slots while damaging it and lowering it's attack bonus.