Best Anti-Dragon Tactics

[kerbarian]

So let me change the question to: Given intelligent Dragons who have anti-Adventurer / anti-Army / anti-other Dragons, etc. tactics of their own, what anti-Dragon tactics do you use WITHOUT having the advantage of a lot of PC foreknowledge that today they are going to get into a fight with a Dragon?

Or in other words, what anti-Dragon tactics and/or spells does your PCs carry around with them on a daily basis?

Tactics for fighting a dragon with no preparation or warning? Teleport away and come back later with preparation and warning

Unless you have some reason to believe a hostile dragon is in the area, I wouldn't permanently tie up spell slots preparing for a dragon fight.

Although... I guess it doesn't hurt for a cleric to carry around a few anti-dragon spells, since he can always burn them as cures.

In that case, I'd go with Remove Fear (which can also be used pre-emptively for a +4 save bonus) and Resist Energy, Mass. Antidragon Aura is handy as well, but it's not something I'd keep prepared all the time.

As has been mentioned, hitting the dragon with a targeted dispel magic early on is a good idea. Dragons become much nastier with a small pile of low-level buffs (mage armor, shield, scintillating scales, bull's strength, etc.), and if you're not surprising the dragon, I'd expect them to have such buffs in place.

If you can neutralize their breath weapon (via Resist Energy, Mass), dragons don't really have that much damage capability. They have a pile of hp that you need to work through, but you can beat them down just fine in a straight fight. The problem is that they can fly, and they can fly *fast*. If they're outdoors, you really can't engage them in melee or keep them from getting away if they don't want it.

Our 12th-level party recently fought a couple black dragons -- first an adult, then later (after resting) a mature adult. We were prepared for both fights, though -- we were hunting the dragons. We had Heroes' Feast and Mass Resist Energy in effect, so the dragons didn't really have anything they could do to us aside from melee. Both fights our sorceress spammed Feeblemind, and it stuck eventually in both cases.

The first fight the dragon got away -- it was outdoors and we couldn't catch it. It was feebleminded, though, so we staked out its lair and killed it when it eventually returned home to lick its wounds (I felt kinda bad for it...).

The second fight (vs. the mature adult) was a massacre. We buffed up, charged into its lair, and killed it within a few rounds. If that fight had been outdoors, though, the mature adult would have gotten away, too. In this case, we were able to keep up with it long enough to finish it off due to an advantage in flight maneuverability -- we could fly straight up the exit shaft (with fly + haste) while the dragon had to fly upwards in a spiral.

Incidentally, this fight also prompted our DM to rule that Polymorph can only be used with MM1 monsters. He wasn't so crazy about an entire party of flying War Trolls .