Defeating a Great Wyrm Force Dragon

[akbearfoot]

If he was a ranger 30/temptest 10 instead that could be interesting...

2 x dread bane(dragon) wounding speed scimitars, a belt of battle and the thousand cuts ability....How many attacks does that actually make?

 

[Drowbane]

How do you beat SR 57 (or 75 if the DM is using Draconomicon feat) with a 11-12th level caster?

by cheating? hehe

Marshal in party with awesome Cha and the aura that helps defeat SR. Assay SR?

I guess I wasn't really thinking about the Dragon's defenses when I posted.

 

[FEADIN]

Knew it was too good to be true. OK, with the 8 attacks at full value, only 1/3rd chance to get a 20. With all 20 attacks, you have a 2/3rds chance of a natural 20. Not good enough.

OK, let's compute damage again. The ranger is 40th level, has consistently taken dragon as his favored enemy, so he gets a +18 to damage. I'm going make the weapon +6 to bonus (so that the Force Dragon's DR doesn't apply: 3.5 revision, has the Great Wyrm Force Dragon at DR 25/epic, rather than DR 60/+12, a much lower bar). I will also make the weapon Concussive, so that it does +5 to damage (Magic Item Compendium). Strength for a 40th level Ranger - having a 34 doesn't seem out of line at all, giving him a +12 to damage.

A critical hit allows us to reroll damage plus all modifiers, but not any extra dice. Keen Concussive Dragon Bane weapons of Speed:

d6+ 6 + 5 + 18 + 12 + 2d6 = 3d6 + 41, or about 52 for a normal hit, 96 for critical for the scimitar. The kukri does d4+ 41 + 2d6 (50) on a normal hit, 94 on a critical.

He gets 8 attacks at full bonus, and 4 more at a -5 penalty. I'll assume that these 12 attacks hit him.

I will further assume that two attacks succeeded at a critical (one of each weapon).

So that's 5 * 52 + 5 * 50 + 94 + 96 = 700 points of damage, roughly. It's less than a third of his hit points. The ranger might be able to survive a round of hand-to-hand attack from the dragon.

Half strength bonus on damage with the second hand.....?

 

[Draz]

Beguiler 20/Archmage 1/Wizard 5.

Cast a Reached Maximized (rod) Shivering Touch, and use Cloaked Casting to automatically bypass the Spell Resistance.

Three problems with this:

- How do you surprise something (to use Cloaked Casting) with +100-something Spot and Listen checks, Blindsense, and probably some magical defenses like Anticipate Teleport?
- How do you hit its Touch AC? Although, if you're surprising the beast anyway, it probably won't have Scintillating Scales up, so maybe this isn't a problem.
- This build is a one-trick pony, quite weak for a Level 26 character except for its Shivering Touch cheese.

 

[thompsja]

Half strength bonus on damage with the second hand.....?

Thank you for correcting me. This reduces damage by 42, total of 658.

My experience with this level of play is obviously theoretical.

I'm going to drop out of this now. At 40th level, the full casters will all have taken Automatic Quicken spell three times, and Multispell many times. Likewise the dragon. There are a host of other abilities in the other supplements that add so many variables. If you add Epic Spellcasting into the mix, it becomes a question of what Epic Spells have been developed, and the possibilties (and abuse) are endless. My gut tells me that after 40th or so level, fairly equiped, the winner is going to be the side with the most actions. This is likely to be the adventuring party.

 

[Rethalgamon]

Sorry that I haven't been around to comment (new job, etc.), but I must say, this has gotten interesting!

</post of surprisingly little substance>