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<blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 4970164" data-attributes="member: 29746"><p>I should note in fairness that none of the suggested fixes would have helped the Nexus Dragons that died in my game, because my party used scry n' fry tactics and very careful planning against the beasts. It took us two entire sessions of preparation, with the party doing essentially nothing but researching the topic of Nexus Dragons, before they finally attacked one. Sure, most of their divination attempts were failing thanks to the dragon's Interdimensional ability, but the party always played patient and waited until it knew exactly where the dragon was- and then Teleported right on top of it in the same round (usually from another plane of existence actually, so the dragon's ability to see the whole universe was irrelevant- senses don't cross planar boundaries).</p><p></p><p>Also, several party members have Perfect Initiative, meaning that They Go First; the dragon not only didn't, but has a 10 DEX by default. That hurts badly because even if the dragon wasn't surprised, it's still not going first. The melee character who took most of the dragons out also pumped his DEX ridiculously high, so his Initiative bonus is in the hundreds. That's easy to do at ECL above 400; you don't really even need to try if you're a Rogue-type or multiple-weapon striker like a Dervish (which is what this guy is).</p><p></p><p>And of course, the melee characters are using the best possible weapons and dealing upwards of 40,000 points of damage on a STANDARD hit (meaning, not even a crit). And that's the Dervish I mentioned above. The one who concentrated his power on one big attack (equivalent to a Greatsword user at low levels) can now (at ECL 700) deal over 1 MILLION points of damage if his biggest attack hits (and it nearly always does, given how high attack bonuses are compared to AC at these levels).</p><p></p><p>Dervish guy got past the Interdimensional ability essentially by stacking multiple action-adding abilities so as to spam an absurd number of attacks per round, he was making something like 100 attack rolls (of course, having six arms with Perfect Multiweapon Fighting helps). Even the dragon that had over 90% on Interdimensional didn't stand up to that very long- it survived the initial assault, and used its turn to run away, but the party time travelled back 1 round to when they knew exactly where it was and just hit it again before it got away (admittedly this is a nonstandard method of victory for most games, but if you have any sort of time travel- like that Epic spell Time Duplicate- it can be done in a core game too).</p><p></p><p>Oh, and just in case the dragon had gotten a turn, the party made sure that the PC with Abrogate was teleported such that the dragon was within his Divine Aura. Hence, most dangerous ability eliminated, and under most circumstances, that would mean the breath weapon.</p><p></p><p>My players ARE powergamers, but we actually banned several abilities that do stuff like help Power Attack, and bumped up others by a full tier (i.e. Divine->Cosmic, Epic Feat->Divine). And I have the "one Esoteric limit" rule in place, meaning that characters are never allowed to have more than one Esoteric ability, except for certain ones of a "bread & butter" nature that don't really help beings of the tier they're meant for. Examples of the latter include Divine Toughness and Perfect Body at Divine (useless to most gods), or Cosmic Toughness and Cosmic Consciousness at Cosmic (useless to Sidereals since they get them for free anyway). This means, among other things, that my party- which thanks to my much higher HD requirements are still just gods (i.e. not even Sidereals)- are NOT ALLOWED under any circumstances to have or use Transcendental or Omnific Abilities. So in fact, my PCs are pretty heavily limited compared to core Ascension, if you look purely at their ECL, and they're still kicking ass and taking numbers.</p><p></p><p>This tendency to use Scry N' Fry is why I feel the Starshadow Dragons or Firmament Dragons might work out better, since they're effectively armored against it- the Starshadow by the fact that they're so damned hard to hit in the first place (though admittedly the Dervish can probably get around that little issue, so Starshadow probably wouldn't win in a combat), Firmament by the Thelemic Damage Reduction. All their attacks that first round (not to mention divination attempts if they're not timed perfectly) will just plain bounce off- the dragon is GUARANTEED to get at least one turn. Which will help it. Of course, that assumes they're going to fight it- so far they've avoided trying, because they're afraid that attacking it will wake up their Demiurge early (the main campaign plot in both games now is preparation for the waking of the Demiurge, which seems inevitable- both parties even know the exact time it occurs, down to the minute).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="paradox42, post: 4970164, member: 29746"] I should note in fairness that none of the suggested fixes would have helped the Nexus Dragons that died in my game, because my party used scry n' fry tactics and very careful planning against the beasts. It took us two entire sessions of preparation, with the party doing essentially nothing but researching the topic of Nexus Dragons, before they finally attacked one. Sure, most of their divination attempts were failing thanks to the dragon's Interdimensional ability, but the party always played patient and waited until it knew exactly where the dragon was- and then Teleported right on top of it in the same round (usually from another plane of existence actually, so the dragon's ability to see the whole universe was irrelevant- senses don't cross planar boundaries). Also, several party members have Perfect Initiative, meaning that They Go First; the dragon not only didn't, but has a 10 DEX by default. That hurts badly because even if the dragon wasn't surprised, it's still not going first. The melee character who took most of the dragons out also pumped his DEX ridiculously high, so his Initiative bonus is in the hundreds. That's easy to do at ECL above 400; you don't really even need to try if you're a Rogue-type or multiple-weapon striker like a Dervish (which is what this guy is). And of course, the melee characters are using the best possible weapons and dealing upwards of 40,000 points of damage on a STANDARD hit (meaning, not even a crit). And that's the Dervish I mentioned above. The one who concentrated his power on one big attack (equivalent to a Greatsword user at low levels) can now (at ECL 700) deal over 1 MILLION points of damage if his biggest attack hits (and it nearly always does, given how high attack bonuses are compared to AC at these levels). Dervish guy got past the Interdimensional ability essentially by stacking multiple action-adding abilities so as to spam an absurd number of attacks per round, he was making something like 100 attack rolls (of course, having six arms with Perfect Multiweapon Fighting helps). Even the dragon that had over 90% on Interdimensional didn't stand up to that very long- it survived the initial assault, and used its turn to run away, but the party time travelled back 1 round to when they knew exactly where it was and just hit it again before it got away (admittedly this is a nonstandard method of victory for most games, but if you have any sort of time travel- like that Epic spell Time Duplicate- it can be done in a core game too). Oh, and just in case the dragon had gotten a turn, the party made sure that the PC with Abrogate was teleported such that the dragon was within his Divine Aura. Hence, most dangerous ability eliminated, and under most circumstances, that would mean the breath weapon. My players ARE powergamers, but we actually banned several abilities that do stuff like help Power Attack, and bumped up others by a full tier (i.e. Divine->Cosmic, Epic Feat->Divine). And I have the "one Esoteric limit" rule in place, meaning that characters are never allowed to have more than one Esoteric ability, except for certain ones of a "bread & butter" nature that don't really help beings of the tier they're meant for. Examples of the latter include Divine Toughness and Perfect Body at Divine (useless to most gods), or Cosmic Toughness and Cosmic Consciousness at Cosmic (useless to Sidereals since they get them for free anyway). This means, among other things, that my party- which thanks to my much higher HD requirements are still just gods (i.e. not even Sidereals)- are NOT ALLOWED under any circumstances to have or use Transcendental or Omnific Abilities. So in fact, my PCs are pretty heavily limited compared to core Ascension, if you look purely at their ECL, and they're still kicking ass and taking numbers. This tendency to use Scry N' Fry is why I feel the Starshadow Dragons or Firmament Dragons might work out better, since they're effectively armored against it- the Starshadow by the fact that they're so damned hard to hit in the first place (though admittedly the Dervish can probably get around that little issue, so Starshadow probably wouldn't win in a combat), Firmament by the Thelemic Damage Reduction. All their attacks that first round (not to mention divination attempts if they're not timed perfectly) will just plain bounce off- the dragon is GUARANTEED to get at least one turn. Which will help it. Of course, that assumes they're going to fight it- so far they've avoided trying, because they're afraid that attacking it will wake up their Demiurge early (the main campaign plot in both games now is preparation for the waking of the Demiurge, which seems inevitable- both parties even know the exact time it occurs, down to the minute). [/QUOTE]
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