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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rystil Arden" data-source="post: 2058373" data-attributes="member: 29014">If you read my 20th-level rogue post, I give him low (25 point-buy) stats, don't spend all his money, don't buy anything crazy or make an attempt to min-max him (I don't even use all his feats for crying out loud), and he still automatically beat the dragon unless the dragon gets a series of 20s.  There are odds that a 1st-level fighter with 18 strength and a scythe will beat the tarrasque (if he hits for max damage and crits every round, he will get past DR and Regeneration by 1 hp), but those odds are incredibly long.  The dragon's victory chances are better than that fighter's, but they are still lower than 1/1000.  My rogue uses no tomes at all, and his only expensive item worth more than 54,000 of his 760,000 starting gold is his sword, many of whose abilities I didn't even use in any analysis (it would remain unchanged if you just bumped the sword down to +5 with nothing else, leaving it at 50000ish gp value).  This is exactly as it should be.  This monster is so weak, that were he one CR weaker, I wouldn't even get XP for killing him.  This is the CR equivalent of putting up a bugbear against a 9th-level character, only pushed upwards in level by 11, so that both sides are much stronger, so there won't be a one-hit-KO.      Also, remember, the character is not going to wait until 20th-level to get a flying item, or else he'd probably be dead by then.  If you have no item shops, his party wizard didn't have item creation, and you insisted on keeping these items generally out of his reach, he could commission one from an NPC wizard (unless nobody in your game has Craft Wondrous Item, although the sample NPC wizard in the DMG does, and so does the PC wizard in my campaign, despite being nearly maxed out for spell effectiveness otherwise).  If I was playing in your campaign, I would completely understand if you had no magic item shops, as I tend to be leery of them too.  However, if you also disallowed me to commission the item (and yes, I know it would take almost two months) just because this PC is not a wizard and so couldn't make it himself, I would be pretty upset.  Of course, when I encountered a flying wizard who flew around out of arrow range and shot long range spells at poor Derrick until he eventually succumbed, then I would be more upset. Now, the other thing: this is a rogue, and they aren't very good at soloing monsters.  In fact, he wasn't built by me to do so, or to fight dragons, he's just an average rogue.  Give me a wizard, and the dragon is dead faster and safer.  The same goes for any other class, even the much-maligned pure fighter.  I can also kill the CR 15 adult the vast majority of the time, but the CR 18 mature adult is going to be tricky for anyone except the spellcasters (unless I get to multiclass or use DMG prestige-classes).  There was an earlier comment that a 50/50 chance to save or die means a 50/50 chance for the wizard to lose; this is an either-or fallacy.  First, the Young Adult dragon's +13 Will save is inadequate to save 50% of the time against a level 20 Enchanter's (who started at level 1 with 16 Int) DC 29 Dominate Monster (or the symmetrical Imprisonment from a level 20 Abjurer).  However, the Mature Adult *does* save exactly 50% of the time.  Let's say he makes the save: Against a wizard, I would breath attack and close in.  Let's assume this wizard is an idiot, and he doesn't have on any long-lasting energy protection effects.  He still takes only 77 damage, so he's fine.  Then he casts again on the defensive.  If he were smart, it would be a dimension door or teleport to build distance and buff, then return.  Even if he's an idiot and retries the Will Save trick that failed before, he wins this fight now 75% of the time (two chances for 50%).  Oh and if an Evoker pulls out Polar Rays, which aren't going to miss, the Mature Adule is dead in three hits from damage average and the Young Adult at about two, so if the wizard tosses in a quickened cone of cold each round (dragon saves on an 18, and if so it doesn't matter), the dragon is dead on round 2, and the wizard automatically wins unless he starts rolling all 1s on his d6s.  And before you ask me, spellcasters in my campaign do memorise those spells (although the cones are left at level 5 and metamagic rodded to be quickened).  If you allow metamagic rods and the archmage PrC's Mastery of Elements ability, the dragon is dead on round one from the Evoker's Ice-substitued Meteor Swarm and Quickened Polar Ray (average 259 damage).  I'm not suggesting that you allow all of these things, but they are all in the DMG, so I would venture that a goodly number of DMs do.  Even without them, the wizard still beats the Young Adult ever time, even without ongoing buffs up.    My guess is that you usually don't play with level 20 characters very often.  That's fine, most people don't, and its a perfectly cool way to play.  My other guess is that most people who are posting agreement with me have, however, and I know that I personally have done so.</blockquote>

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