Dragon Tactics - How smart and original can you be?

[Tom Cashel]

I think it's not so much a question of startling originality, but rather using every advantage the dragon has got.

To wit: once you've got your wyrm statted, mosey on over to the Combat chapter and see what that bad boy can do with a simple Trip or Disarm attack.

I won't ruin the pleasant surprise.

 

[schporto]

I still think one of the dirtiest tricks you can do is to make that Red Dragon look like a white dragon. The dragon types and weaknesses are common enough that you gotta think most of the intelligent ones are not going to look like themselves. I mean really nobody ever expects a red dragon in an ice cave. (Nor do they expect a spanish inquisition.)
Other then that, unless its a young dragon, you should never walk into the cave and see the fell beast. There should be time for the dragon to know you are comming. All entrances should have some sort of alarm on them. And a little bit of buffs, and that dragon just got mean.
-cpd

 

[Evilhalfling]

Hmm,
human allies in nearby towns on the look out for adventures.
pits filled with breath weapon, (acid pools, molten rock, poisonous gas. etc..
purchase scrolls through agents. (825 gp for shield, prot good, mage armor, Blur, see invis, protection from element.) less if some are known spells.
illusion of self sleeping.
cave in trap to split party, then hit the rear group in melee.
most should take practiced caster, power attack, wingover, maximized breath.
any time the dragon gets only one attack, it should be at least +5 PA using this to sunder a weapon = even better.

 

[Ghostwind]

Another example:

A red dragon lives inside a volcano. The party must traverse an open cavern filled with lava by means of 5ft. stepping stones that only allow enough room for each party member to go in single file. Besides the obvious Balance checks that have to be employed, the dragon waits in the magma for the last character to pass and then catches him by surprise from behind only to vanish in the magma again. Assuming the party members fail their Spot checks, they will believe the character fell into the magma. And so it goes on from there.

 

[The Shaman]

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_...

I don't mind the idea that dragons are cunning - it's the ones casting buffs and flying around with staves in their claws that make me roll my eyes.

:\

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.

And this is one of the things I don't care for in D&D, which is why I run the dreaded, loathed, derided "rare magic" campaign - one of the consequences is that monsters with brute force as their forte become intimidating once again.

I think it's not so much a question of startling originality, but rather using every advantage the dragon has got.

I think so, too.

 

[Creat]

maddman75: is that site still online somewhere? The address in your profile (http://b_a_d_d.tripod.com/) gives an error

 

[Ferret]

I once faced a wyrmling vs some 1st levelers I had the dragon stay under the snow, ontop of weak ice. When the fighter came to strike into th obvious lump of snow he broke the ice and fell in.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

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.

The band of PCs that comes a'knocking are not "mere" humans. But they are not like those the dragon has fought, and the dragon doesn't know this. The vast majority of those labeled "adventurers" are probably Warrior-class mercenaries, or more rarely PC-types of inferior level to the dragon's CR. Why? Because under any reasonable distribution of levels, most PC-classed NPCs are far below an adult dragon's CR, and NPCs don't have the "DM's Mercy" of only having a dragon placed in their path when they have some hope of a positive outcome. In addition, dragons are so fast that they can retreat from just about anything on the rare occasion that something appears to be not a cakewalk (i.e., if nothing dies from the first breath weapon attack).

A CR 14 dragon won't sit cowering in its heavily fortified lair, because it has never run into anything in the world that could challenge it for the past few centuries. Those 15th-level PCs who come knocking? The dragon might assume they're just like every other group it's faced: the 100+ groups of 4th-10th level chumps who gave it its gold hoard in the first place.

Those groups represent the vast mass of "adventurers," outmatched and killed at an early age. PCs (actual PCs, not NPC members of PC classes) are something else. PCs are the ones who have a chance to defeat the vampire that has plagued the kingdom for a thousand years. PCs are the ones who might return from the Keep of No Return. "DM's Mercy" - the fact that PCs generally face things of an appropriate CR - is one reason why PCs are not just like everybody else. Some DMs maintain that the monsters' CR is fixed, and what you encounter is not related to the party's level. Most DMs do not do that, since it quickly leads to TPK. (You might say "Not if the players are smart," but in truth the characters really shouldn't have any way of knowing when they're ready to take on the dragon. The characters don't understand CR and don't have the Monster Manual, so the players have to trust the DM not to abuse their characters' ignorance. PCs who have beaten a 9' ogre might logically think that a 10' hill giant is not much more of a challenge, even though the players know otherwise.)

And Numion, playing dragons as more reckless forces of nature is clearly still Dungeons & Dragons - just an older edition. In B/E/C/M, a majority of dragons were not capable of speech or spellcasting. This suggests that they were powerful beasts (as in "Reign of Fire") rather than schemers. Nothing wrong with creating some dragons that fit that mold. Many low-CR dragons are still fairly dim in 3.5E (though smarter than beasts), and dragons as a whole don't have much spell power relative to their CR.

Sitting in a pool of lava works for a red dragon, and sitting at the bottom of a swamp lake for a black dragon. But elaborate traps just don't seem to fit with the dragon's image IMO. That's something more appropriate to kobolds or goblins (who might indeed protect their dragon protector with traps). A brilliant and cowardly dragon, or one with powerful enemies, might create a series of traps and hide in its lair. The red dragon at war with the local fire giants would do so, or the dragon who annoyed a lich. But your Smaug-type who has never been seriously challenged?

 

[Ibram]

Dragons IMC are power encarnate, ancient beings from an ancient time before the creaters of man and elf ever crawled from the sea. They are, by any mortal definition, gods. They know their strenghts and weaknesses, and when stirred to action, be it by the shifting of the stars, vast wars among the mortal world, or the reckless action of a thief they are terrible in their wrath.

Here is how the "average" dragon rampage works:

1) Dragon wakes up from a few thousand years of slumber, leaves his hidden lair (at the bottom of a lake or under a mountain). Snack on a few villiages and then go looking for some good prey (using shapechanging abilities to pass as what ever vermin currently think they rule the world),
2) Find a good kingdom, large but not to powerful. Set about creating cults and infiltrating the various organizations that populate the kingdom. If to much resistance is encountered then walk away and find some better prey. this usualy takes about 10 years.
3) sow chaos and destruction. This is when the dragons presence becomes obvious, it flies around destroying villiages at seeming random (while in actuality herding the population into smaller and smaller areas. While this is going on cults and other servants of the dragon go about destroying supplys and assasinating important personages.
4) Once everyone is cowering in the capital, and the kingdoms armies are have been wasted away the dragon pounces, bringing all its power to bear smashing the city and consuming nearly everyone inside.
5) The dragon sits inside the ruins of the castle, eating and enjoying itself with the local population. followers of the dragon travel the countryside brining treasure and sacrifices to their god.
6) bored and sleepy the dragon kills nearly everyone who remains and flies off to its hidden lair to sleep for another few thousand years.

In actual combat the dragons best weapons are the fear it creates and its ability to fly. Dragons favor supprise attacks, strking a sleeping encampment out of the night sky or sneaking inside a barracks to kill all within. They are well versed in causing terror in their enemies (targeting supposidly save havens, attacking at midnight every night for a week, killing every person in a town then putting all their heads in the kings courtyard, ect...). They are also very paitent, waiting for days or weeks to strike then killing a single person and vanishing.

They are at their most vulnerable while hibernating in their lairs, which is why the location of a dragons lair is always a closely guarded secret. Lairs are often built in remot locations far from civilization (the middle of a desert, under a lake, or on an uncharted island). Other lairs are guarded by those who worship the dragon, protected by legions of fanatical warriros.

 

[S'mon]

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.

If they're not gods, they're mere humans (and demi-humans). If dragons need to be tweaked to make them tougher (higher SR say, immunity to CDGs) fair enough. But they can be beatable, just like any monster, without necessarily becoming extinct - I have no problem with PCs killing dragons, though I don't generally like them being polymorphed into frogs or otherwise beaten by save-or-die spells. I like to see my dragons fight fiercely and beaten by swords and arrows, maybe backed up by spells. Perhaps defeated by sneakiness, like Fafnir. But I think it's undignified to have red dragons who behave like cowardly wizards, skulking behind magical defenses.