Help me beat my DM :)

[Vuron]

Timestop is certainly sketchy perhaps even broken but it can be counterspelled by the dragon.

Haste is a massive help but literally there is no way for the PC to keep up enough of an assault to actually kill the Dragon short of a insta-kill spell.

In terms of Harm, while this is a massively broken spell a forbidance in place over the dear dragon's lair makes getting to him in order to do a touch spell somewhat sketchy.

Gate is realistically the only possibility for the dear wizard but fortunately for the dragon forbidance in the lair makes for a very very effective barrier to planar travel

 

[Sanackranib]

dragon

sounds like you are still going back to the drawing board again.
If it takes place in the dragons lair then figure he knows you are comming and may do a spot of time stop himself.

 

[James McMurray]

Also, don't forget (someone may have already mentioned this). You have to deal enough damage in a single round to kill the dragon, because he will have Heal as one of his 6th level sorcerer spells known. That means he'll be able to cast them until the cows come home.

 

[MerakSpielman]

OK, let's nitpick. According to the MM under monster character class advancement, it states that monster HD are treated as levels for many purposes. E-Tools won't let you add levels to creatures with more than 19 HD based on this "rule". So can the dragon have levels, according to core rules, or not?

 

[Nail]

The Dragon is _disposable_!

I've done something similar to this, but with a 20th level character vs. a dragon. Color turned out to be black, of all things. And no, the DM didn't layer templates on top of that. If he had, I probably would have called foul, and we would've done a "do over".

BTW, Templates rock. Pray there are no templates.

I did the deed with a Sor 19/ Pal 1 with a cohort and the associated followers. The cohort was a cleric archer, of course! (Best damage dealer in the core rules.) The followers were not just useless bagage. They were great fodder, and those that could did the "aid another" action, ala PirateCat's Story hour. GWM their arrows, too.

Gate was a key spell (Solars rock), but don't forget the other, crucial one. It's been mentioned here often, just not as something for the player: Mord's Disjunction. You want that cast on the dragon ASAP. Use scrolls.

Since my sorcerer had better things to do, I had the cleric cohort take the trickery domain and have his own Time Stop. And of course I didn't miss the other obvious trick: My cohort had a cohort of his own. (Duh!) Can you guess the class? Paladin/Ranger, of course, with dragon as the favored enemy! And yes, the Paladin had a cohort too....although they turned out to be no better than the other canon fodder.

Finally, remember that a cleric can cast miracle, or a wizard can cast wish. These spells can save your bacon if that SR gets annoying. Phrase your wish/miracle something like: "I wish that my Spell penetration roll is a 20." Don't make it affect the dragon, otherwise his SR will apply to your wish.

My vote: The dragon is toast, even with an 18th level PC.

 

[DanMcS]

Edit: never mind.

 

[Vuron]

I refuse to even acknowledge Cohort chains as 1) it clearly bends the intent and spirit of the rules 2) it clearly makes it something other than a strict one on one battle. By your logic why does the Black Dragon not take a cohort chain himself (with ECL rules in play he could probably have several advanced Balors as cohorts)

Furthermore the more cheesy the strategy the more likely a DM can use cheesy strategies to overcome them.

Based on strict rules interpretations the Great Wyrm, teleports out upon the casting of a time stop, cast planeshift to another plane and then casts Gate to bring you to that plane after scrying your identity. There he CDGs you yadda yadda.

 

[Zappo]

Timestop is certainly sketchy perhaps even broken but it can be counterspelled by the dragon.

Haste is a massive help but literally there is no way for the PC to keep up enough of an assault to actually kill the Dragon short of a insta-kill spell.

In terms of Harm, while this is a massively broken spell a forbidance in place over the dear dragon's lair makes getting to him in order to do a touch spell somewhat sketchy.

Gate is realistically the only possibility for the dear wizard but fortunately for the dragon forbidance in the lair makes for a very very effective barrier to planar travel

The dragon can't counterspell anything if the cleric wins initiative. All the same, it can't teleport out when the cleric casts time stop. Forbiddance can be defeated by a Will save (which the cleric has extremely high) or M's Disjunction. IMO, having the cleric be forced to enter the dragon's lair is against the terms of the bet as I've understood it. It means giving a huge, arbitrary advantage to the dragon.

The idea of plane shifing away and then Gating your enemy is weird, but it looks like it could work. Very nasty. Of course, anyone can do it, so it's again a matter of initiative.

 

[Epametheus]

First off, the battle will be decided by initiative. It's that simple. You go first, you canpossibly win. Dragon goes first, it wil win. Oh, and if you fail to consistently beat the dragon's SR, you'll lose. Unfotunately, there's nothing in the core rulebooks that helps with that beyond Spell Penetration and the Prayer Bead of Karma, the latter of which only works for divine casters.

Ditch the spell focus feats for more metamagicks. The dragon can only fail its saves on a 1 no matter what you do, since you're stuck with the PH and DMG.

Did you hear the story of when Monte ran Cthulhu vs. the Iconics?

Not even Great Cthulhu can withstand Temporal Stasis or Imprisonment. If you beat the dragon's SR, you win. If I remember right, gods are declared immune to those two spells in D&Dg; this is probably in part due to the Cthulhu battle...

If you're required to actually kill the dragon (instead of sealing it away forever), you're probably SOL. Otto's Irresistable Dance is the best way to go, I think. It can't even use Spell-like Powers while dancing, let alone cast spells or attack you. And if the DM has a Contingency up, it's probably against Time Stop or Harm, not Otto's Dance. Unfortunately, a Half-celestial Gold is immune to all elements but Sonic, so strictly by the PH there's no way for you to reasonably kill it through direct damage magic, which reduces the amount of good Otto's Dance will do for you. Spend all of your 8th level slots on otto's dance and use a LOT of Enervation spells? 7th level slots for maximized, 6th for empowered, 5th of extended (it does have a duration, after all), and 4th for normals? Make sure you have scrolls of Otto's dance.. Actually, you'd need to slap on 41 negative levels to kill it, but somewhere between 20 and 30 it's saves will be shot so far down the crapper that you can finish it off with a disintegrate.

If you're willing to take a chance against SR and on Wish, you could also pull "I Wish the dragon fails its next save." And then you Disintegrate it (as Death Ward and Spell Turning can't protect it from that). Sadly, part of why Wish sucks is because it's entirely up to the DM whether or not it actually does what has been requested. So while Wish will be a perfectly viable option for the DM's dragon, it probably won't be a viable option for you.

If you're allowed to Prep, True Sight will be a must. Sadly, draconic blindsight defeats pretty much all of the evasive measures that you can take (including Non-detection + Imp. Invis).

And yes, Dust of Sneezing & Choking is horribly broken. Use Iron Body or Shapechange into a Construct if you want to mess around with it.

Hmmm... Using Shapechange along mulitple doses of the dust, and then combining that with Enervate-it-'till-it-can-be-killed might actually work.

But unless you take your chances and also get fairly lucky, you'll probably lose.

 

[Vuron]

Actually with a contingency the Dragon can use a greater dispelling geared against the time stop caster or just use the contingency-teleport chain.