Dragon Tactics - How smart and original can you be?

[Ghostwind]

All too often, I see dragons get run like a typical monster with no brains. What I'd love to hear is your stories dealing with new and original tactics that adversarial dragons have employed upon your characters. What did they do that was especially memorable and worthy of praise over the way they handled themselves against a party of adventurers?

For instance, I have a red dragon in one of my campaign worlds that likes to set traps above one of his lair "entrances" that dump lamp oil all over the intruding PCs, soaking them thoroughly. The fear factor ifrom that should be enough to send most running for safety. For the truly brave (or stupid), they get dowsed again further into the tunnel. After this point, the party tends to think they are safe because of no ill effects. Right before they enter of one the main chambers, they get hit with Achemist's Fire instead...

Who said the dragon had to use his breath weapon to cook an adventurer? Just the slightest spark will cause any tin-can fighter to shake in terror at the thought of being broiled alive in his suit of armor when flammable oils have penetrated and soaked into everything.

 

[demiurge1138]

My favorite tactic was when I was having the party fight a rust dragon on Acheron. The dragon breathed its iron-destroying breath directly under the PCs from a lower layer, sending them falling a hundred feet into his lap. Can also work for red dragons living in ice caves, or even black dragons in porous stone. Ooh... the thought of acid-gouged chimneys, causing one player, but not all of them, plummeting into the dragon's real lair...

Demiurge out.

 

[maddman75]

Ah, brings me back to the BADD days...

There's still some people running around with 'Bothered About Disposable Dragons" in their sig. A good while back, a group of us got tired of threads that went something like this

"OMG my 8th level party with half a million gp in magic items walked up to a sleeping dragon and killed it in its sleep! Dragons are so weak!!!1!"

So we started BADD, and I ran a web site for it. Dragon articles, Dragon tactics, sample dragons, constantly in every ENWorld thread on dragons. I was like, the dragon d00d. But sometimes it doesn't matter.

My group had the unfortunate habit of not bothering with magical light, despite being about 10-12th level. So I sprung a black dragon with all the rat-bastardliness I could summon. He learned of their coming from his lizardmen henchmen and ambushed them from under the water, buffed up with Mage armor, Shield, Pro Good, and other spells. He swooped in during the suprise round and cast Darkness on the party's fighter, rendering them blind. The sorceress managed to get out with Haste and Fly, while the dragon started lining up and dumping with acid.

Sorceress casts a Disintigrate at him. His touch AC was huge due to the buffs, so I wasn't nervous. She rolled a 19 and got him. Oh well, I've still got SR. Um, she rolls a 17.

Okay, she hit me and got through SR. No biggie. That's a Fort save - do you know what Dragons have for Fort saves? The d20 cursed me in my arrogance, and landed on 1. My perfectly played, ready to strike, nothing done wrong or weakly dragon disappeared in a cloud of fine dust.

 

[Jdvn1]

The first dragon I ever fought dropped on top of us while we were fighting a minion of his.

... Yeah, that sucked.

 

[sfedi]

First of all, you can't have general tactics.
Because any good tactic (i.e. good enough) would be highly dependant on available resources: magic items, terrain, circumstances, allies, etc.

Anyway, here goes some experiences:

A Land Dragon, that couldn't fly, but could run pretty fast (this was Rolemaster BTW)
His cave entrance was covered with a wall of rubble that a normal creature had to dig through, but he could just burst through.
Just what he did when the PCs were digging
(of course you wouldn't want to Dim Door blindly inside, wouldn't you?)
In fact, he had several such exits/entrances.

After that, he managed to crush some party memebers and started to run like hell.
Then, engaged the ones that followed him.
After awhile, he ran back, to confront the sloer ones, while the faster PCs tried to catch up with him.

It wasn't an easy fight, strategically. The PCs prevaild by sheer numbers and strength (they had another NPC party helping them )

 

[S'mon]

I've grown to hate 3e dragons and this obsession with sneakiness, traps, spell tactics... I want my dragons to be like forces of nature that don't think they could ever be challenged by mere _humans_...

 

[mythusmage]

Hello. I've been following your progress across my land, and I've noted that you are refuges. From the disaster west of here no doubt.

You are looking for a home. I can provide that home. Good farming land, herds, and hunting. Plus wood and stone for building material. Most everything you'll need. Plus commodities for trade, so you can get extras.

All you need to do is keep an eye on my aurochs. Tend to them, make sure they are safe from predation and healthy. I will teach you the skills and magic you need for this.

If you decide against this agreement, I will kill you. I will give you one day to come to a decision.

A band of human refugees vs. a Great Red Wyrm (the appellation refers to his personality ). Great motivation for an alliance, isn't it?

 

[BronzeDragon]

I've grown to hate 3e dragons and this obsession with sneakiness, traps, spell tactics... I want my dragons to be like forces of nature that don't think they could ever be challenged by mere _humans_...

The problem with this is that the band of adventurers that comes a'knocking hardly qualifies as "mere" humans.

If dragons were to assume this mightier-than-thou posture, in D&D, they would quickly become extinct.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Ah, brings me back to the BADD days...

I still read that site from time to time, maddman.

You should drop me an email sometime-- I have some questions.


Wulf

 

[Numion]

I've grown to hate 3e dragons and this obsession with sneakiness, traps, spell tactics... I want my dragons to be like forces of nature that don't think they could ever be challenged by mere _humans_...

So you're playing Dungeons & _______?