Great white wyrm - DEAD

[Grendel]

I ran the Dragon Magazine adventure with a similar dragon, it destroyed a similarly leveled party.

Here is what I saw as the dragons strengths.
1. Create blinding ice storm in a huge radius, combined with blindsight and fear aura means one death a round.

2. very good AC, combined with very good HP. Add to that the ability to do 80+ points of damage a round with melee (dont forget power attack and haste).

3. excellent SR and huge saves.

Weaknesses and tactics
1. fire. although the SR makes magical fire nearly ineffective, try greek fire or flaming weapons.

2. Breath weapon. others seem to think it will be a problem but its breath weapon is nothing compared to its melee damage. If you can get in a small cave trade arrows for breath weapons do it. Stay at range.

3. make lots of targets with summon spells, Thoquas, and arrowhawks are good, cause they will suck up attacks but still be able to deliver some damage. Every attack that kills one of them is an attack that isnt' killing you (unless you get close enought for it to cleave, and you shouldn't).

good hunting.

 

[DM with a vengence]

For the ultimate in cheese, you should spend around 17000 gp.
You need.

1 Murylund's Paints
1 Wand of Shrink Item

Use the Paints to make a big cube of gold (lead) now melt it down into 5 ft^3 blocks, use the wand to shrink them down, and give them all to a character with decent HP and the ability to fly.

Everybody teleports in and attacks. Once your absolutely certain you know where he is, fly above him and unshrink the lead blocks.

Game over.

 

[Lela]

1. fire. although the SR makes magical fire nearly ineffective, try greek fire or flaming weapons.

Alchamast's Fire comes to mind.

 

[Urbanmech]

You guys really need a few more levels before you can take on the Big A. Continue to ride north and kill everything or nearly everything that you come across. When you get to the dragon's lair try to kill all of his minions (or as many as you can).

Greater Dispel Magic, Protection from Elements and Displacement are must have spells. Displacement turns the dragons huge to hit bonus to a 50/50 proposition, which is better than the more likely auto hit for 5 attacks.

Summoning monsters that deal touch attacks is also a good idea. If Vek can summon some shadows and someone else summons a ton of lantern archons and arrow hawks they might hit. A Slime Wave or two could also spell the dragons end.

Alchemists fire a great idea, it is going to hit nearly every time due to the dragons low touch AC and will do 2d6 damage...not much but better than nothing, and someone with multiple attacks and quickdraw can throw multiple flasks in a round. Anyone who has a flaming sword that can actually hit ac 40+ should use it.

 

[Lela]

True Strike only works on the caster of the spells, range = personal.

Works in Potion form though.

 

[MTR]

Remember the thing has a tremendous ability to escape if you get the upper hand. I can't think of a good way to keep it from flying away anytime it feels like it (perhaps the battlefield will help you here) In fact, not giving it room to fly around would be a good policy, period.

I'll guess the save DCs of your spells are mid 20's. Prepare your spells expecting it to make most of it's saves (even if you get through spell resistance). Basically, if the spell isn't a battle winner, don't bother throwing it on the dragon. Use those spots for extra buff spells, or use metamagic to improve your buffs.

One spell that might serve as a battle winner: slow. I know it would be unlikely to get through but a dragon limited to partial actions is much less scary.

Absolutely do all the recon you can to make sure you only fight it - if it's got allies with it or you're worn down from previous fights you're dead.

Have a method of escaping when it all goes wrong

 

[Nightfall]

Check out the spells in R&R2. Specificially Essential Blade, Accelerated Reflexes, Bladethirst, and Beetle Swarm. Some good spells.

 

[Wee Jas]

Great suggestions! I thought of the anti-life shell box tactic but the walls of force are a nice touch. The commune idea has merit as well. I doubt we have time to make magic items. We definately should try to get as much xp as possible before attacking him.. I'm 700xp from lvl 15 cleric.. I'll get a much needed Firestorm Spell.. or maybe a Earthquake for 'bringing the house down'.

I don't want any of his flunkies joining the fight. They are constructs so they pass right through my anti-life spell and I don't have a lot of spells to hurt 'non-living' things. Our party has a real tough time with that (Don't leak info to the other thread!!)

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll keep listening if you keep writing!

 

[Grog]

(True Strike) Works in Potion form though.

True. So maybe a bunch of potions of True Strike are the way to go. Let's see, Grumbar as a stone giant would probably have about a 30 strength (27 natural +3 Bull's Strength). So his bonus to hit would be +29 (or +30 if he has weapon focus - I'll assume he does since fighters get so many feats). Add in true strike and it's +50. So he could throw 10 points into Power Attack and still hit the dragon's AC pretty easily (assuming you did a good job dispelling it's buffs).

So that gives us 2d6+32 damage per hit, assuming weapon spec...

Problem is, it's still going to take forever to kill the dragon that way. So this probably isn't such a good idea after all.

I just don't see how you can beat the dragon without finding some way to lower either its AC or its SR. Squamous Pulse was a good idea, but the problem is, it's a 9th level spell, and you'd still have to beat the dragon's SR.

And Slime wave allows a Reflex save to negate, btw. Also, the slime is destroyed by extreme cold, so it probably wouldn't work.

I guess my advice is, go on some more adventures, gain a few levels, get a few new magic items, and then try again

 

[Lothar]

Enervation!!!

Enervation, Enervation, Enervation.

Get about a dozen scrolls of it, and have your hasted mages fire two of them a round. Then you can have fun with disintegrates and flesh to stones.

Just make sure you cast a few greater dispellings on the dragon first to ensure that he doesn't have spell turning active.

Show Doc that harm isn't the only broken spell.