BADD to the Bone

Have a good chunk of the floor made of Bronze, Gold, or something with ya, a low melting point. Then the dragon hits it with his breath, and it melts. People standing on top of it sink down into it. Treat it as the Mud from the Transmute Rock to Mud, as well as doing 8d6 fire damage per round, and some damage the following rounds they get out, unless they scrape it off. Then when it hardens, treat as Transmute Mud to Rock.

If it's in a cave (I don't advise most of it to be; allow the dragon to fly), have parts of the ceiling carved outward, or wittled down. Think of a big slab of the ceiling hanging by very little, because the dragon has gnawed and clawed a deep groove behind the slab. It flies up, *Yanks*, and this big, enormous chunk of the ceiling falls.

Uneven floor. PCs can't charge, must make balance checks to move at full speed, and get a penalty to their dex, maybe. THe dragon doesn't need even floor; imagine it if it's broken and jutting everywhere.

Perhaps it has a smaller dragon mate. Not a red, though (The party would Expect a red). Imagine their horror when they are attacked from BEHIND by an old Black dragon female. They don't have acid protection. This allows you to do some other stuff, like have the Black dragon drop Gelatinous Cubes on the PCs, or some other ooze; Black dragons are immune to both acid and paralysis.

In addition to all the fun ideas upthread, how about if the dragon gates in a few pit fiends?

Have the dragon pretend to be someone helpful at exactly the critical juncture when the party needs some help. She pretends to be a princess who's escaped from the evil dragon, and can tell them about the wyrm's lair so they are prepared when they meet it.

What she describes is the illusion she's cast on the lair, though, covering the uneven floor, caltrops, deadfalls, tar pits, etc.

When the party stumbles into her chain of Greater Dispelling and Mordenkein's Disjunction trap, she's right behind them, bathing them in a blast of flame.

Then she shouts a command word, and the nice smooth platform they're standing on shatters, dumping them into a circle of iron golems who'd been holding it up.

-- Nifft

Oooo, if you have Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might II: Songs and Souls of Power, there's a very nasty feat in there called Unravel, and an equally evil one called Spellripper. If said dragon has the wizard cohort, or has lots of wizard levels himself, that could be really nasty...

Since I would like tp see a few more suggestions.

Anti-magic field on the ground; dragon flying above breathing fire & dropping rocks.

Scalding water / molten lava / flaming jets / grain silo type effect ("fuel-air explosive").

Pools of tar / pine sap / oil which the adventurers must crawl through to get to the dragon, who then ignites the stuff.

Ceiling of cavern is illusionary; dragon flies out if injured.

Teleporation circle for dragon to escape -- leads into heart of a volcano, which doesn't hurt the dragon at all, but can't be traversed by the players.

Alternately, a Teleportation Circle which leads 1 mile above the surface of the planet. Dragons can fly after all.

Rope bridges which burn easily.

Poisonous gas.

Thick smoke (dragons have blindsight).

The dragon has bred with ogres, and has 6 half-dragon ogres which serve in its cave. They've taken 5 levels in a class each: one Sorcerer, two Barbarians, two Clerics and one Druid.

The dragon has 11 levels of Cleric (deity Tiamat, domains Evil and Trickery) and has crafted a fire-immune type of skeleton.

10 Half-Dragon, Half-Trolls.

-- Nifft

Make use of the dragon's range and mobility. Don't forget that the flying maneuverability class does not affect the jump skill, and reds get a bunch of free ranks in Jump.

Negate the PCs mutliple attacks and reduce the value of haste spells by using the "pop up, blast, drop prone as free action" trick.

Divide and conquer. Consider combining wall spells with means of preventing their circumvention (i.e. antimagic field, curtain of dispelling). Note that instant walls cannot be dispelled!

Teleport and flight barriers: Invisibility on a few objects (stalactites & stalagmites) + Permanency. An invisible wall of iron or two can soak up some spells by making careless PCs think they have line of effect when they don't.

Antimagic field + sunder. That +5 sword has the resistance of a normal weapon? Ouch. Flyby attack and targeting ranged weapons makes this even nastier.

Stoneskin gives +5 DR. It won't stack, but the overlap is likely to be useful.

Even the odds: use allies who can immobilize or occupy opponents. Minions with Improved Grab are valuable.

Take advantage of sensory differences. If you want to use fire, use the smoke, too. Concealment is deadly against a dragon someone who has the ability to detect you anyway.

If you plan to rely on buffs, counterspell their targeted dispel. Ring of counterspelling is especially helpful for this.

Target the healer first, and for massive damage. Alternately, divine and target their means of escape.

Flee for ~20 rounds before facing the party, but return to the lair after that. Try to waste their short duration buffs. Hold off on your own short duration buffs until just before the actual confrontation.

Full attack is incredibly powerful, but only worth it if there is little chance of all opponents being able to attack you afterward (i.e. grappled, held, physically separated by walls).

. . . . . . . -- Eric

PS -- I may add more ideas to the end of this post, so you might want to glance over it again later.

As for an alternate to the invisible wall of Iron, a Wall of Force is delicious.

One paticular trick that's Cruel to do is to have a mage cast two walls of force that look like <. At the crux of the joint, there's a foot wide hole. This hole the mage casts through. Anyone charging him rams into the wall. He has a good 9/10ths or 3/4ths cover.

got the book Path of the Sword? Throw in some of those Dragon Soliders at them. Fighting humans one on one that are imbued with the power of the dragon is nasty, tends to tie the PC's down quite a bit and allow the dragon to languish and watch the chaos.


Polymorph the iron golems or permant illusion them to look like small school children. Have your lawful good PC's chew on the moral dilema of attacking helpless looking kids while they dish out but loads of damage to them. Take Annie and make her have the power of the Incredible Hulk...

Dragons need room to swoop and or swim, having the dragon have mutiple lava pools to swim to and pop up behind or in front of PC's will sow confusion amongst the ranks. Never know where he is going to pop up..


Have the dragon have a familar, something wicked and crazy, like a half-dragon, fiendish medusa or something. Something odd ball and wacky that goes along with the whole crafting theme that looks solid so far.

anti-magic proof his chamber so that nothing that doesn't have a rune of his on it doesn't work. That will stop those pesky teleports...

Nifft said:

10 Half-Dragon, Half-Trolls.

-- Nifft

Click to expand...

fiendish 1/2dragon trolls with rings of free action...