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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6086570" data-attributes="member: 42582">On action denial - I like [MENTION=2804]Dragonblade[/MENTION]'s ideas. I also agree about pushing the players hard in this sort of fight, and making them dig deep.Some ideas of my own - which can be combined with Dragonblade's in whole or part, or used instead, or ridiculed mercilessly, as appropriate:* I'll re-emphasise the suggestion of giving your dragon two initiative counts - this helps with action denial, and with action economy more generally. For extra viciousness, let it act on a 3rd initiative account when bloodied! (MV dragons, and Calastryx, show some ways of approaching this.) Another good feature of this approach (from my point of view, at least) is that it rewards players who think hard about the initiative sequence and make clever use of delaying to coordinate the party's actions so as to work well around the dragon's initiative count. * Give it free actions (so it can do stuff when dazed) or no action abilities - say some sort of breath or fire or aura ability (so it can do stuff when stunned). The MV beholder and purple worm have some examples along these lines. * Another idea is to let is spend an action point as no action to shed a condition, gain a save etc. Combine this with an ability to extinguish/swallow minions to add APs, so it can stock up! * Make sure it has a viable close or area attack so even if blinded it can do something without a -5 to hit. * Decide how you want to handle immobilisation/slowing - which can be as bad as dazing! Calastryx has Rip and Tear, which lets her throw a melee target multiple squares away, thus escaping fighter lockdown. You might want to think about something like that (maybe a wing buffet?). Also think about a ranged attack if appropriate - especially if the dragon can retreat behind lava and attack from a distance (can your defenders fly?).On minions/cohorts - there's nothing wrong with some devils to warm things up, but I would strongly recommend having some cohorts present with the dragon also. Flying and/or ranged would be good, because you can then try to shift pressure onto other PCs besides the defenders (who presumably will try and lock down the dragon). In the post I linked to upthread, the encounter used salamander archers for this purpose. For flying devils, stat up some 18th-20th level spine devil minions - in an encounter on the weekend I used (among other things) 6 21st level Vrock minions and these worked well as an irritant to keep the PCs (and players) on their toes. There are also some other devils that I've used recently in levelled-up, MM3-ed form: Assassin devil (a nice lurker - if a controller or ranged striker takes up a nice position on a ledge above the lava, drop one of these on them!), and the Indwelling Devil, which has a dominate ability - dominate is a nice way to add a bit of a twist to an encounter without just denying a player actions!</blockquote>

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