Why would a dragon NOT take Antimagic field?

[Dark Dragon]

My epic campaign is currently quite dracocentric, and I wondered why a dragon with a sufficiently high caster level would not select Antimagic Field as one of his level 6 spells.

Give a dragon this spell, and play him properly as a DM, i.e., according to the dragon's high intelligence score, the creature would kill even an epic party in most encounters. I am asking because my group of 6 epic PCs (level 25) will encounter a very old dragon with potential access to Antimagic Field soon...

The chance to dispel an Antimagic Field for a caster with CL 25 is just a mere 25 %, and only possible with Mordenkainen's Disjunction when cast OUTSIDE the Antimagic Field!

Take a very old red dragon: CR 21, size G, CL 13, grapple +56, attack +40, maybe it has taken the standard dragon-related feats which are snatch and fly-by attack.

Antimagic Field is an emanation with a radius of 10 ft, duration 10 min/CL. A gargantuan creature like the very old red dargon covers a space of 20x20 ft, and would fit into the AF (using common sense by assuming that the dragon is not a Borg cube...).

In the open field, the dragon attacks the party after casting AF, aiming his attack to the guy who is not obviously heavily armored or carry big keen weapons. The chance of failing in the attack is just 5% (rolled a 1), the same holds for a failed grapple attempt... In the next rounds, the dragon just circles away with one adventurer in his grasp, who is now waiting to be eaten. Once this is done, the dragon returns...
Rinse, repeat... until the remaining party either fled by magical means or was killed.

In tight spaces where the dragon cannot fly, AF still takes out the party casters, and the dragon would focus all attacks on the fighter types: attack, grapple, chop suey (because the cleric can't heal the grappled guy because of the AF).

The only reason for NOT giving AF to old dragons is probably gameplay and fun... unless the DM wants to force a TPK.

Any ideas for other useful and/or appropriate spells, but that make old dragons not deadly outright?

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

"The only reason for NOT giving AF to old dragons is probably gameplay and fun..."

And the best reason, possibly. Though you could handwave it internally by thinking that this super-high level dragon is so magical that they can't cast anti-magic field. This solution may not work for some playstyles, but it really isn't any more contrived and arbitrary than saying that wizards cannot cast healing spells.

 

[Nagol]

Because the old dragon doesn't fit inside the 10' diameter sphere?

 

[RangerWickett]

Eh, I think it's fair if you rule that dragons cannot fly without magic. So the dragon is ground-bound.

And clearly dragons have magic weapons, so impose a -5 penalty to its attack and damage rolls, its AC, and its saves.

Basically, no, antimagic is dumb. The dragon casts the spell and then dies because its heart bursts into flame since its innate fire resistance is gone. The creature combusts from within and serves as an object lesson of why dragons shouldn't try to cheat. They're already G**D*** dragons!

 

[Jester David]

A dragon, with 37 strength, could also pick up big rocks (1,000 lbs or so, unless you count it as a quadruped in which case it could carry a 12,000 lbs stone as a light load) and drop that from a high altitude, flattening an entire party.
A 1,000 lbs weight deals 5d6 damage and if dropped from 100 feet deals another 10d6. Round 1, pick up two rocks. Round 2, fly up 100 feet. Drop rocks as a free action dealing 15d6 damage. Repeated infinitely. (Or, again, a 12,000 lbs rock, dealing 60d6 + falling damage.)

Given enough time, you can think of all kinds of unfair tactics that genius monster might employ. But often it's best not to use them.

 

[NewJeffCT]

My epic campaign is currently quite dracocentric, and I wondered why a dragon with a sufficiently high caster level would not select Antimagic Field as one of his level 6 spells.

Give a dragon this spell, and play him properly as a DM, i.e., according to the dragon's high intelligence score, the creature would kill even an epic party in most encounters. I am asking because my group of 6 epic PCs (level 25) will encounter a very old dragon with potential access to Antimagic Field soon...

The chance to dispel an Antimagic Field for a caster with CL 25 is just a mere 25 %, and only possible with Mordenkainen's Disjunction when cast OUTSIDE the Antimagic Field!

Take a very old red dragon: CR 21, size G, CL 13, grapple +56, attack +40, maybe it has taken the standard dragon-related feats which are snatch and fly-by attack.

Antimagic Field is an emanation with a radius of 10 ft, duration 10 min/CL. A gargantuan creature like the very old red dargon covers a space of 20x20 ft, and would fit into the AF (using common sense by assuming that the dragon is not a Borg cube...).

In the open field, the dragon attacks the party after casting AF, aiming his attack to the guy who is not obviously heavily armored or carry big keen weapons. The chance of failing in the attack is just 5% (rolled a 1), the same holds for a failed grapple attempt... In the next rounds, the dragon just circles away with one adventurer in his grasp, who is now waiting to be eaten. Once this is done, the dragon returns...
Rinse, repeat... until the remaining party either fled by magical means or was killed.

In tight spaces where the dragon cannot fly, AF still takes out the party casters, and the dragon would focus all attacks on the fighter types: attack, grapple, chop suey (because the cleric can't heal the grappled guy because of the AF).

The only reason for NOT giving AF to old dragons is probably gameplay and fun... unless the DM wants to force a TPK.

Any ideas for other useful and/or appropriate spells, but that make old dragons not deadly outright?

I can't see a CR:21 dragon being a match for a party of 6 PCs that are level 25 unless the dragon has several advantages working in its favor:

1) If you're insistent on using Anti-Magic field, make it an ancient dragon or a wyrm and give the dragon Widen Spell as a feat. That way, it makes it a 20' radius field instead of 10'.
1a) Ranged touch spells that conjure something outside the AMF will still damage the dragon (all of the Orb spells, Meteor Swarm, Crystal Shard psionic power, etc)
2) If that's dispelled, the dragon will maybe have Scintillating Scales as a contingency spell. That gives the dragon his natural armor bonus as a bonus to his touch AC... touch AC can be the death of a dragon, as most casters would likely miss the dragon's regular touch AC only on a natural 1 at that level. (As a player of mine once said, "what dragon wouldn't have that spell ready?")
3) As an alternative, have the dragon Gate in a Fiendish Beholder and the beholder can use its anti-magic ray on the party, leaving the dragon free to do its attacks, including ranged touch spells.
4) Even if the AMF works, you still have six high level PCs that can attack the dragon and still do a good amount of damage to it. (If this epic level party has artifacts, they would not be affected by the AMF)

(I had a party of 8 PCs that were level 13 take out a CR:16 dragon almost in one round - even after the dragon flattened 2 PCs with its Crush power on its surprise round...)

 

[NuSair]

It is a common tactic of my more intelligent dragon to use anti magic stuff. I even have one Ancient Black whose entire lair is rigged with an anti magic trap.

Dragons live a long time...and they want it to stay that way. Slaying a dragon should be an accomplishment. If the dragon realizes the party has a lot of magic, then use it liberally. It's about survival.

A party of that level should be ready and know how to deal with anti magic.

 

[NewJeffCT]

A dragon, with 37 strength, could also pick up big rocks (1,000 lbs or so, unless you count it as a quadruped in which case it could carry a 12,000 lbs stone as a light load) and drop that from a high altitude, flattening an entire party.
A 1,000 lbs weight deals 5d6 damage and if dropped from 100 feet deals another 10d6. Round 1, pick up two rocks. Round 2, fly up 100 feet. Drop rocks as a free action dealing 15d6 damage. Repeated infinitely. (Or, again, a 12,000 lbs rock, dealing 60d6 + falling damage.)

Given enough time, you can think of all kinds of unfair tactics that genius monster might employ. But often it's best not to use them.

We had a DM insist that every dragon would do just that - just drop giant rocks like bombs from beyond spell range. However, most dragon lore from literature has dragons as vain, egotistical creatures, and I can't imagine an arrogant dragon resorting to cowardly tactics like that.

 

[Cadence]

A dragon, with 37 strength, could also pick up big rocks (1,000 lbs or so, unless you count it as a quadruped in which case it could carry a 12,000 lbs stone as a light load) and drop that from a high altitude, flattening an entire party.
A 1,000 lbs weight deals 5d6 damage and if dropped from 100 feet deals another 10d6. Round 1, pick up two rocks. Round 2, fly up 100 feet. Drop rocks as a free action dealing 15d6 damage. Repeated infinitely. (Or, again, a 12,000 lbs rock, dealing 60d6 + falling damage.)

Given enough time, you can think of all kinds of unfair tactics that genius monster might employ. But often it's best not to use them.

This is a great example of why I really don't like DMing high level games... The next step for me is trying to either come up with a reason the obvious tactic is never used, or to figure out how the game world would have evolved if it was regularly used and then I bog down. Trying to convince myself to just let it go never seems to work.

We had a DM insist that every dragon would do just that - just drop giant rocks like bombs from beyond spell range. However, most dragon lore from literature has dragons as vain, egotistical creatures, and I can't imagine an arrogant dragon resorting to cowardly tactics like that.

Dragon lore would be written by surviving adventurers, surviving dragons, or liars, right? ;-)

 

[Dark Dragon]

Eh, I think it's fair if you rule that dragons cannot fly without magic. So the dragon is ground-bound.

And clearly dragons have magic weapons, so impose a -5 penalty to its attack and damage rolls, its AC, and its saves.

Basically, no, antimagic is dumb. The dragon casts the spell and then dies because its heart bursts into flame since its innate fire resistance is gone. The creature combusts from within and serves as an object lesson of why dragons shouldn't try to cheat. They're already G**D*** dragons!

Hmm, that sounds like a house rule (fair enough to work like that), but going by the RAW, a dragon's flight is not magical (see MM and Draconomicon).

Same for the -5 penalty to AC and attacks. A dragon's AC and attacks are not lowered within an AMF.

While I find the idea of self combustion in an AMF a nice one to discourage the use of AMF, a dragon's immunities are Extraordinary (see SRD), and thus are not suppressed in an AMF.

I fully agree that house rules would get around excessive use of AMF by dragons, but I don't want to implement a new house roule in mid-game.

I can't see a CR:21 dragon being a match for a party of 6 PCs that are level 25 unless the dragon has several advantages working in its favor:

1) If you're insistent on using Anti-Magic field, make it an ancient dragon or a wyrm and give the dragon Widen Spell as a feat. That way, it makes it a 20' radius field instead of 10'.
1a) Ranged touch spells that conjure something outside the AMF will still damage the dragon (all of the Orb spells, Meteor Swarm, Crystal Shard psionic power, etc)
2) If that's dispelled, the dragon will maybe have Scintillating Scales as a contingency spell. That gives the dragon his natural armor bonus as a bonus to his touch AC... touch AC can be the death of a dragon, as most casters would likely miss the dragon's regular touch AC only on a natural 1 at that level. (As a player of mine once said, "what dragon wouldn't have that spell ready?")
3) As an alternative, have the dragon Gate in a Fiendish Beholder and the beholder can use its anti-magic ray on the party, leaving the dragon free to do its attacks, including ranged touch spells.
4) Even if the AMF works, you still have six high level PCs that can attack the dragon and still do a good amount of damage to it. (If this epic level party has artifacts, they would not be affected by the AMF)

(I had a party of 8 PCs that were level 13 take out a CR:16 dragon almost in one round - even after the dragon flattened 2 PCs with its Crush power on its surprise round...)

Thanks a lot, I really like some of your ideas. Others I've already used, like the one of point 1), where the dragon Balagos showed some epic PCs their true position in hierarchy.

For the conjuring spells, the orbs may work (a bit cheesy, but still they should work). But that is one reason why a dragon in an AMF would kill the caster first, if possible. And on open ground, this is quite easy to achieve: fly-by, snatch, kill...

To point 4), this only works if the dragon is somehow forced to fight on the ground. And even being epic, a caster is mostly not a good frontline guy.
Artefacts: yes, the party has an evil artefact in their possession, but its powers won't neccessarily work in an AMF, and more, because it is an evil item, the PC using it strongly risks his alignment and eventually will go insane.

Playing the dragon as a bomber using big rocks as bombs is a nice scenario, especially when employed near an active volcano (as is the case in my camapign).

t is a common tactic of my more intelligent dragon to use anti magic stuff. I even have one Ancient Black whose entire lair is rigged with an anti magic trap.

Dragons live a long time...and they want it to stay that way. Slaying a dragon should be an accomplishment. If the dragon realizes the party has a lot of magic, then use it liberally. It's about survival.

A party of that level should be ready and know how to deal with anti magic.

I fully agree, a fight against an old dragon should be a special challenge, otherwise it robs a lot of flavor from the scene...

Hm, except for Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Wish, Miracle, and possibly Gate to summon a Djinni, I don't see much to get down a dragon in an AMF before the party gets into deep trouble. The party wizard has access to Disjunction, but her chances of success are poor: a mere 35 % (she can use an item to temporarily boost her CL). Gate and Wish are options, but normally, the players IMG hesitate to spend XP for costly spells unless annihilation is imminent and retreat is not possible.