[BADD] My dragon story

[Dagger75]

Okay I hope did right by you standards.....

The group: Level 9 Dwarf Cleric
Level 9 Human Druid
Level 9 1/2 Orc Fighter Barbarian
10 HD awoken Dire Wolf (druids new friend)

Any way the party got out of Ravenloft (we got bored with it) and ended up in the middle of some frozen marsh. The druid turns into a bird flies up and sees no sign of civilization. The group decides to head south, they have no idea where they are so any direction is as good as the other. The druids gets the bright idea to awaken a wolf, it may know where people live and hey cool animal companion to boot. With only 3 players another fighter type in the group won't hurt. They awaken the wolf and he tells them that civilization is to the south (lucky guess by the party). The druid askes the wolf if he would journey with them, the wolf aggrees under 1 condition, there is nasty white flying lizard thing killing my pack. Kill that and I will hunt with you. The party agrees.

Now this is a young adult white dragon only encounters the occasional human ranger patrol. He flies, snatches the rangers and drops them in a big pit he dug, so if they survive the fall they are still trapped in a 30 foot deep hole. Now sometimes these humans go after this dragon, so he has a pit under the mouth of his cave. Now this pit is camoflauged. There is a thin layer of ice over the pit and he has a couple of body parts poking out from the middle likes it is in a snow drift. The people would investigate the bodies but fall into the pit. The dragon could then take on a smaller force on top and kill the men in the pit at his leisure.

Story continued. I know you all hate long posts.

 

[alsih2o]

ack! now i hate short posts! more! more!

 

[Dagger75]

Continued

The wolf knows where the dragon lives, he doesn't know the trap is there.
The party walks up the path and sees a cave mouth in the mountian a 100ft above the ground and some bodies sticking out of a snow drift under the cave mouth. The druid and the wolf run to the bodies and fall into the pit. The dragon who has seen this group approach has himself hidden a little alcove he dug in the side of the pit. Now he breaths on the druid and the wolf with his cold breath. Both make there save. They also have Endure Cold up because they are traveling in the snow. Now Intiative.

The Half orc goes first and thinks the pit isn't very and tries to jump the hole the wolf and druid made. He also ends up in the pit. The cleric goes next. He has stone shape memorized and stoneshapes a stairway on the wall of the pit. The wolf charges the dragon but the dragon only takes a few points of damage thanks to his damage reduction.

My dragon then takes to the air, hovering 40 ft above the party most of the time. I also get lucky with my breath weapon every other round or so. Now here is where my dice conspired against me. I NEVER got a single hit with my claw attack when I attempted to snatch a party member and drop them from the sky. I needed to roll like 7 or better, if I add the totals of 3 of my attacks I got a 7
I also got hit by 2 flame strikes in the same round and failed those saves as well. There is 1 1/2 times damage from that. I had 210 Hit points, got nickled and dimed to about 110, from spiritual weapons, and the cleric greater magic weaponed crossbow bolts. I did manage to at least get 3 party memebers each time I used my breath weapon.
To my beneifit the party never got more than 1 melee attack a round on me if any at all. My downfall was the dice. Also the CR for a young adult white dragon is 7 and my party average is 9.

I hope my tactics at least hold to BADD standards.

 

[Fade]

So your dragon fled when he saw that he was losing the battle and that his enemies would be unable to pursue?

 

[Dagger75]

Nope, My dragon took close to 100 points of fire and holy damge from 2 flamestrikes. He died that round from that blast. Only a 16SR and has a Ref save of like +10, I rolled so bad that night. My players rolled that good.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Nope, My dragon took close to 100 points of fire and holy damge from 2 flamestrikes. He died that round from that blast. Only a 16SR and has a Ref save of like +10, I rolled so bad that night. My players rolled that good.

Pity the party when the dragon's parents stop by for a visit....

 

[takyris]

Wait.

This was a young adult white dragon?

Right out of the SRD, a young adult white is Large, and has 142 hit points. How did yours have 210 hit points, and how could it have Snatched people of Medium size?

Er, wait again.

I think I've been misreading "Snatch" apparently, (sigh)... I thought that a dragon could only pick up someone that was small enough to be damaged by them (four sizes smaller for a claw, three sizes smaller for a bite). Have I got the rules wrong? Can a dragon pick up someone of any size, and the three or four sizes smaller is just to determine automatic damage? Can everyone confirm for me that a Large dragon could pick up a Medium-sized human, dwarf, or half-orc with a bite attack?

-Tacky

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I think you did fine.

You keep to the air, took advantage of his breathe weapon, and, most important of all, had the dragon choose his ground so there was one melee combatant on him at most at any given time.

The dragon had 4 "saving throws" (2 SR rolls and 2 normal saves) against the 2 Flamestrikes. If he had made any one roll he would have lived to flee and fight another day.

 

[AEtherfyre]

Takyris

If I'm not mistaken, Snatch gives the dragon Improved Grab. Even if the extras don't apply, Improved Grab still would, as it only requires one size smaller.

[Edit]

Ah, here it is...

Snatch: A dragon that hits with a claw or bite attack attempts to start a grapple as though it had the improved grab special attack. If the dragon gets a hold with a claw on a creature four or more sizes smaller, it squeezes each round for automatic claw damage. If it gets a hold with its bite on a creature three or more sizes smaller, it automatically deals bite damage each round, or if it does not move and takes no other action in combat, it deals double bite damage to the snatched creature. A snatched creature gets no saving throw against the dragon’s breath weapon. The dragon can drop a creature it has snatched as a free action or use a standard action to fling it aside. A flung creature travels 10 feet, and takes 1d6 points of damage, per age category of the dragon. If the dragon flings it while flying, the creature suffers this amount or falling damage, whichever is greater.

From the SRD.

 

[Wolf72]

so did your CR7 dragon hurt the lvl9 party enough to use up 25% of their resources? ... if it did I think you did a good job,

dice, blech! ... I'm so fed up with my 20 sider that I went and bought a new one ... we'll see how that works out this weekend.