Anyone want to be a meal?

[Grave_Injustices]

I was reading a thread about some 17th lvl party going up against Asheralonden(sp?) and was requesting tactics...

Now I understand that dragons were put intot he game for the sole purpose of being killed by PC's, but don;t you think the wiz's at WotC woiuld have notices that it would take either the lickiest/weighted dice to beat a great wyrm with 4, 25th lvl PC's? if any dm wanted to throw a dragon intot the mix, he either has uber-powered his players, of wants a tpk. there should be no way the pc's should defeat it....yet this whole time i have digressed.....

The reason behind this thread is simple. I want to pick your brains for the cheesiest ways for pc's to kill a dragon, or the other way around.

to get the ball rolling...

1)hasted dragon casts prismatic wall and tail slaps all the pc's through it.

 

[Darklone]

The easiest way for PCs to kill the dragon? One smackdown level 16 character.

Example: 3.0 Paladin with Power Attack, Power Critical, Scythe, Spirited Charge, Rhino Hide, Divine Might, Holy Sword,...

 

[Joachim Pieper]

When we played the Bastion of Broken souls we had him whupped in maybe five rounds, and then the demon in another two. I seem to recall a mordenkainen's disjunction, and a fighter smacking the crap out of his head. Also, meteor swarms kept landing on his back form somewhere. Of course, that was before they made haste weaker...

Prep for its breath weapon, buff yourselves beyond all reason, make sure you can fly, and get stuck in...


Cheers.

 

[Squire James]

(Mucho Bastion of Broken Souls spoilers!!!!!!!!!!)





The dragon had a few disadvantages built in to the module that most red great wyrms wouldn't have to deal with:

1. Lack of Mobility. Ashardalon couldn't move around much in his cramped space, and the module specified an unwillingness to move. This is a dragon's #1 advantage vs the PC's snatched away.

2. Inigo Montaya. There was a way to earn 4 rounds of free buffing time where the dragon would avoid attacking a particular PC, and wouldn't attack the others unless he were attacked first. At worst, 4 rounds of buffs. At best, the "chosen one" might be the wizard that slaps down the Nasty Spells (tm) for those 4 rounds.

3. No Treasure. Absolutely no bad side effects for Mordenkainen's Disjunction. The party knows he's a red, so just Disjunct and throw in all those Maximized Cones of Cold, Empowered Cones of Cold, and plain old Cones of Cold that you prepared for the occasion.

4. Half-Fiend Template. Aside from a few ability bonuses, Ashardalon didn't get squat for that template. IMO it was just a way to pump up his CR a couple more notches without adding any additional challenge. Really a CR 22 encounter disguised as a CR 27 encounter.

My campaign's count: Ashardalon dead in 3 rounds, the balor dead in 1 round (pre-3e balors were weak). The party was 20th level, which is a lot different than 17th. They were also 3.0e, so they had access to Broken Haste and highly-stacked crit ranges (15-20 for the then-paladin that was doing the lion's share of damage).

 

[RithTheAwakener]

One high level dragon disciple will do the trick. At least mine would.

 

[Ferret]

Dragons exist to kill PCs not the other way arround.

 

[Altalazar]

Dragons exist to kill PCs not the other way arround.

Even the dragons with 30 hit points and an Int of 6?

 

[Zappo]

2E low-level psionicist manifests disintegrate on round 1. Dragon fails magic resistance and save. Boom. This actually happened in one of my campaigns, and is probably the reason for which I now hate save-or-die spells (as well as 2E psionics, but who doesn't?).

 

[Olive]

Example: 3.0 Paladin with Power Attack, Power Critical, Scythe, Spirited Charge, Rhino Hide, Divine Might, Holy Sword,...

The paladin in my game did pretty well with divine smite, divine might, hste and luck rolls.

 

[Neil Aitken]

I want to pick your brains for the cheesiest ways for pc's to kill a dragon, or the other way around.

Cheesiest?

In a 3.0 game, this actually happened.

After breathing lightning on the party, the blue dragon (juvenile) passes through the fighter's threatened area provoking an attack of opportunity. The fighter critically hits on the AoO with a mercurial greatsword+2 for a total 75 points of damage (max damage + Weapon Specialization + ench bonus + strength)

The wounded dragon then flies to the top of a high vaulted room, out of melee range, ready to breathe lightning next round. Party sorceror attempts to polymorph the dragon into a squirrel. He beats the SR of the dragon. Then the dragon rolls a 1 and fails the save! The squirrel formerly-known-as-dragon then plummets 100+ feet and dies from falling damage.