Hardcore Dragonhunt

[Reynard]

Hey all

At an upcoming mini-con/game day, I am going to be running a "hardcore dragonhunt" one shot. You know the story: the kingdom is being terrorized by a dragon and its minions, and the PCs are hired to take it down. By "hardcore" I mean "no fudging": this is a one shot and the dice are going to fall where they may and the dragon is not going to roll over.

PCs: the players are going to create 12th level characters with a focus on hunting and killing dragons. I am going to let them use the following books: PHB, Complete Warrior, and Draconomicon. They get standard equipment. I will check the characters for legal builds, but otherwise I am not going to tell them what they can and cannot have aside from the books they can use. They will not, however, know what color the dragon is before they go in (but they will have an opportunity to gear up with potions, scrolls, and wand assuming they saved some of their starting funds).

The Dragon: I have not decided which color or size to go with. that's why I need you guys. I plan on giving the dragon a small army of ogre half dragon minions (CR 6, I believe), but what CR should the dragon be at. i am thinking 15 or so, but with the characters being dedicated toward killing dragons, should it be higher?

Also, I have the Draconomicon, and there are lots of neat ideas in there, but what suggestions do *you* have for running this kind of game. Remember, it is a con game, so I only have 6 hours, give or take, so I don't want to make the lair a really involved dungeon.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Piratecat]

By "hardcore" I mean "no fudging": this is a one shot and the dice are going to fall where they may and the dragon is not going to roll over.

Thank goodness. I had this horrible image of you starting the game and turning on a bad '70's syntho porn track. "Bow-chikka-bow-bow, chikka-chikka."

You may want to limit their prep time. People planning to attack a dragon can delay almost indefinitely, thus making the game less exciting and compressing the final combat.

 

[Reynard]

Thank goodness. I had this horrible image of you starting the game and turning on a bad '70's syntho porn track. "Bow-chikka-bow-bow, chikka-chikka."

Great. Now *that* image is going to follow me for the rest of the day.

You may want to limit their prep time. People planning to attack a dragon can delay almost indefinitely, thus making the game less exciting and compressing the final combat.

I am hoping that having them come with dedicated dragonhunters will help reduce at least part of that. But you're right. I should keep a half-dragon ogre raid handy if they yammer too long.

 

[Nightfall]

I favor a Shadow Dragon (mature adult), Dragon Ascendent 3.

But that's just me.

 

[Taneel BrightBlade]

how many players? I say that it should be red. (the halfdragon are way stonger if half red).

 

[Epametheus]

Try an adult or mature adult red dragon, with just enough sorcerer levels that it knows Teleport.

 

[morbiczer]

The environment sort of determines the colour of the dragon (for example no white dragon in a jungle and so on).

 

[shilsen]

Red with a Disguise Self spell to make itself appear white and the Draconomicon metabreath feat to change its breath weapon type.

 

[krichaiushii]

Bring a variety of pregenerated dragonhunter PCs, for the folks who inevitably don't bring one or bring noncompliant ones. These will also make for quick NPCs should your game suffer from noshows.

I agree with the others, make it a red.

 

[JDragon]

Well the Lingering Breath and Clinging Breath are fun meta-breath feats.

I agree that having characters ready just incase is a good idea.

The # of PC's you are planning for will make a difference on what CR you should go for, as well as if it will have any minions around for the fight or if they get to die in a seperate fight.