Dear post#3132721, don't blame me. I'm just the interpreter.

[Nightfall]

Frank,

Yeah well that's something that happens some times.

 

[frankthedm]

Frank,

Yeah well that's something that happens some times.

But that is really bad. Even Practiced spellcaster only means a 20% harder dispel when it comes to debuffing the dragon. Caster = HD means there is just about no hope.

Heck, It is a good thing Sorcerers [and thus dragons] can't use quicken. Getting up a shield and a mage armor in one round can still tip the scales at later levels.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Huh? What brought that on? I never said anything about 1e. I was suggesting dragons should be MORE powerful, not less.

But if you want to talk 1e, no way should a 10th level fighter take out a 96 hit point anything in 2 rounds. Let's see, 2h sword, 18 (00) strength = 3d6 +6. That's 72 points max in 2 rounds if he hits with all 3 attacks. Assuming a +3 sword, that's 81.

A frost brand is +6 against fire-using creatures. Double specialization grants 2 attacks per round and a +3 damage bonus. (He needs a 2 to hit in any case, so we can assume every time.) At 3d6+15 damage twice per round, the fighter deals 51 hp average damage per round. Bye bye, 96-hp beastie.

Meanwhile, said dragon does 96 hit points with his breath, 48 on a save. He can breathe 3 times. Not to mention the ancient red could have stoneskin up, or just play the snatch fly up, drop routine. This is without even using the attack routine.

1e stoneskin handles one attack or attack sequence. So it becomes 3 rounds. If the fighter doesn't have a ring of fire resistance, he's a chump. Also, where are you getting this snatch/fly/drop thing? Not an available combat option in 1e.

Sorry; just correcting.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I've tossed several dragons at my party. They have close to "vanilla" wealth and the dragons were played as smart as I can. The net result is that dragons at appropriate CRs who stay and slug it out tend to die when their buff spells fade. If they ambush the party and take out the party one PC at a time they are horrifyingly effective.

So far the best spell vs. dragons has been Foresight since it lets the party mage put up a protective spell, like forcewall, before the dragon snatches him in a flyby attack while silenced and invisible. Dispel Magic runs a close second since the dragon's low level spells (relative to the party) provide a significant boost. Without the spells, the dragon begins taking quite a lot of damage while in range.

Dragons' greatest weakness is a lack of healing. I use the ELH so many dragons with >20HD have fast heal. Without it, however, even the hit-and-run dragon needs multiple days of down time to recover from the hits the party gets in, especially since the PCs get progressively better at fighting the dragon.

 

[LostSoul]

But what about the poor non-evoker

The last time I fought a dragon, I was playing a Diviner. I just buffed everyone else up, and hit the dragon with an empowered Ray of Enfeeblement. Hmmm, and I think I blew the SR roll (by 1 or 2) with a maximized (or was it empowered?) Magic Missile.

I like to think those spells made a difference.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Bookmarking this thread to bump it next year.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

but necromancy IS fun

 

[Crothian]

THis thread now needs bumped yearly

 

[blargney the second]

Thread necromancy is one thing you can call it. Another would be renewed interest in a topic that previously came up in discussion.

Besides, it would only be necromancy if the thread was dead. This was just down and dying. Frank only used some Conjuration (Healing) here.

 

[Thurbane]

Thread necromancy is one thing you can call it. Another would be renewed interest in a topic that previously came up in discussion.

I can agree somewhat - sometimes you have to weigh up the lesser of two evils - thread necromancy, or creating multiple threads on the same topic each time one passes it's "use by" date. But in general, bumping for the sake of bumping isn't such a great idea.