Dragon Tactics? Could use some brains to pick!

[demiurge1138]

Like I said before, dragons don't need attack spells, so they should buff. In terms of 1st level spells, mage armor and shield are indispensible, especially if the dragon knows the players are coming. +8 to AC is niice. True strike is also a good idea for all-out power attack bites of death. Alarm is a nice and simple choice.

2nd level spells... hmm... bull's strength and bear's endurance are nice, and cat's grace could boost the dragon's sad touch AC. Glitterdust deals with those pesky invisible PCs, and mirror image gives the dragon a few free hits.

Even with an Int 12, the dragon should be smart enough to attack the wizard first, especially if it has Snatch, protecting it from those damn debuffs.

Demiurge out.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Depending how smart the beast is feeling, some simple misdirection could go a long way. An illusionary copy of itself could eat up some of an attackers resources? Can't see any reason why Minor Image wouldn't work? The snow sculpture is cool as well.

Cold water can be very nasty for anyone - especially heavily armoured types. The beastie could snatch and drop/bullrush people into icy pools. To make this nastier, it could use it's breathweapon to seal the pool up. Or it could have a friend - an aquatic monster in the pool...

A couple I used:

A cavern with large icicles all over the ceiling, except for one patch it has cleared. Dragon slams into the clear bit. Icicles drop. Ouch!

Large piles of snow around the lair. If attackers try to use them for cover, then knock the pile over and pin them under it!

 

[Old One]

Lots of great suggestions already...

Here are a couple of additional thoughts -

1) Spell selection: Buffs are great, but I would absolutely take invisibility. Using that in conjunction with Evilhalfling's outstanding fog cloud/ice sculpture idea is a great misdirection combo. It is also useful if the PCs have been spotted outside the lair. Cast invisibility, go for altitude, cast true strike, fly-by attack with jaw snatch on the softest looking target, fly away, breath, land and full attack until target is dead, rinse and repeat.

2) Lair prep: Most of the surfaces in the lair should be ice, honed to a fine, slippery sheen. On such a surface, unless the party has taken signficant precautions (such as ice cleats, etc) the party should be making rolls to stay on their feet any round they try to move more than half speed. The dragon might also keep semi-packed snow around the periphery of any large chamber to Bull Rush party members into, temporarily pinning them in the snow. A huge dragon takes up 15' feet of space, enough to get a couple of adventurers per Bull Rush. I think many DMs fail to use evironmental factors such as ice to the fullest extent. The dragon's icewalk ability gives it a huge tactical advantage in such a situation. Even if th party is using ice cleats, the cleats should probably slow their movement and/or prevent running.

I also agree with the large icicle deal - with a couple of improvements. Even with an INT of 12 (standard human intelligence with a +1 mod ), a dragon doesn't get to the "Old" age category without being crafty or lucky. The dragon does two further things to prep its lair. First, the major entry cavern has big icicles above, but the floor is designed so it won't hold the dragon's weight - but will permit creature of up to large size to walk on it without any problem. What's more, the ice floor covers a nice deep chasm. During combat, if the dragon lands on the floor (using a crush attack) or slams into the ceiling (dislodging a bunch of big icicicles to crash into the floor), the ice gives way and drops anyone in the area into the chasm for falling and crushing damage (from tumbling ice). An alternative would be to have them drop into an underground lake of frigid water (the dragon's bathtub) - the dragon follows up with a breath attack, freezing the water and immobilizing struggling/sinking PCs in ice

The dragon also has a "soft-spot" in the ceiling that it can escape through if things start to go bad. Of course, a huge dragon burrowing through the ceiling dislodges lots of ice that crashes down on the party or small avalanche that might temporarily bury them. This gives the dragon time to heal up, regain its breath weapon or start a large avalance to really bury the PCs.

3) Allies: The dragon's proposition to local humanoids is simple - You scout for me, bring me the occasional captive to munch on, warn me of approaching danger and pay me some tribute and I won't eat you and your kids. I agree that a gnoll/winter wolf group makes nice minions. If the dragon has enough warning of the PCs approach, it definitely should hit them on the road, preferrably in the middle of a probing attack by the gnoll/wolf minions. It might be an invisible, fly-by, snatch and munch attack or just observing invisibly to gauge party strength and tactics.

My 2 coppers...

~ Old One

 

[Tom Cashel]

I'll get on my old dragon-headed-hobby-horse and throw out my favorite "basic" tactics. They work fantastically well with the insane attack bonuses of a dragon, and they seem well-suited to a white dragon's bullying temperament.

• Trip (forces players to waste a move action getting up, and suffer an AoO when they do)
• Disarm (see the looks on PCs' faces when their favorite swords/staves/etc. get taken away)
• Bull-rush

And something I remembered from a white dragon we fought back in high school (gosh, that's 15 yrs. ago!): this particular white kept all of his collected treasure horde frozen into the walls of the lair, like a museum. Not only was it cool, but if the dragon has to fly out of the lair (to drop PCs from a great height), the other PCs will have a very hard time riffling through the dragon's stuff for something useful.

 

[IcyCool]

The party consists of 7 players: Paladin 4/Noble 6, Cleric 9/Fighter 1, Fighter 10, Fighter 10, Rogue 10, Monk 10, and lastly a Wizard 4/Cleric 2/Mystic Theurge 4. The Noble is a House-Rule class; rogue BAB progression, d8 HD, class skill list is mostly social/knowledge skills, every 3rd level they get a free fighter feat.

How did the Wizard 4/Cleric 2 manage to qualify for the Mystic Theurge prestige class?

As far as tactics, having the white dragon disguise himself as a red is a priceless suggestion, but it sounds like the party already knows what they'll be facing. IMO, any dragon with an elemental weakness is going to pick up a ring of elemental resistance to the energy type, and possibly a ring of spell turning or a ring of evasion. The only other suggestion I can make is have the dragon put the lights out. He's at a huge advantage fighting in the dark, and it's possible that not all your party will be prepared for that. One round that the party has to spend preparing is a round of attacking for the dragon. Also, be sure to check out the clinging breath feat from the Draconomicon.

 

[azmodean]

As for the disguised color suggestion, how about expanding it a bit.

Dragon is color #1, alter self or similar spell to make it look like color #2, and mundane use of disguise skill to make it look like color #3. So totaly unprepared adventurers see color #2, adventurers who have true seeing up or otherwise penetrate the spell see color #3, and only adventurers who somehow penetrate the mundane disguise as well as the magical one see the true color. The tricky part might be selecting the combination of colors that would be most beneficial for the dragon.

Also with an area effect spell, the caster gets no direct information on wether the target saved or if the damage was lessened somehow (except if it was beaten by SR?), so the dragon is free to pretend to be fully hurt by the attacks the caster thinks should work.

This strategy is more suitable for a silver or some other highly sociable and/or trickery-oriented dragon, but I don't think it would be totally out of the question for any adult dragon.

And don't dismiss the confusion and panic factor introduced when the party encounters what they thought was going to be a white dragon and sees a red, especially if you have it do something minor to back it up, like casting a fire spell when the party can't see it so they think it breathed fire.

My group ran into an adult blue and turned tail (they were pretty beat up after a fight with a purple worm and a grey ooze). When they got around to taking it on and saw a red dragon, the panic was immense, "Crap, I already cast all my resist elements spells! Half my attacks are fire-based" Luckily for them, the psion had true seeing up, so he was able to disabuse them of their misunderstanding. And the ghost possessed the dragon, but that's another story...

 

[Lance_Work]

How did the Wizard 4/Cleric 2 manage to qualify for the Mystic Theurge prestige class?

As far as tactics, having the white dragon disguise himself as a red is a priceless suggestion, but it sounds like the party already knows what they'll be facing. IMO, any dragon with an elemental weakness is going to pick up a ring of elemental resistance to the energy type, and possibly a ring of spell turning or a ring of evasion. The only other suggestion I can make is have the dragon put the lights out. He's at a huge advantage fighting in the dark, and it's possible that not all your party will be prepared for that. One round that the party has to spend preparing is a round of attacking for the dragon. Also, be sure to check out the clinging breath feat from the Draconomicon.

IcyCool,
I'm posting from work and don't have access to all my campaign notes, so I did it off the top of my head. We haven't played in almost a month. My wife had a baby two weeks ago so we had to skip a session. I'm starting to prepare for the next game, but doing it without my notes makes the details a bit hazy.

azmodean,
I like the disguise idea, though I'm going to file it away for future mayhem and slaughter, err....um....I mean future challenging encounters, yeah!

Tom Cashel,
I'm going to try my best to keep the dragon out of melee range. Melee is the party's strength. But if they do get into melee range, Disarm is going to be awesome!

Old One,
Great points on all three! I has planned on ice-covered everything. An ice-covered chasm is a nice thought also. I'll be incorporating some savage allies.

Thanks for the ideas also, Demiurge and InconsequentiAL.
I'll post again and let you guys know what happenned!

 

[blargney the second]

With 24 HD, it gets 9 feats:
Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack
Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Improved Disarm
Combat Reflexes

You'll need to switch its stats around a bit to have Dex 15 and Int 13 for the prerequisites.

Other feat options:
Mage Slayer (from Complete Arcane - kills its spellcasting ability though)
Improved Natural Attack (Bite)
Multiattack

Tactics:
1) Whirlwind Attack using Improved Disarm
2) Whirlwind Attack using Improved Trip

How do you say "Party Slayer" in Draconic?
-blarg