HELP WANTED..tactics, build for UNDEAD DRAGON VS COCKY PC'S

[Sir ThornCrest]

I need help creating a Undead Dragon, never have done it before.
I have a very stout 12th level group, in a Undead Hunter campaign. I wanted to put a strong CR spell casting, colossal, a real big Mother.

HELP my pc's trashed my vampires last week, although the frensied beserker really brought it!

Thorncrrest

 

[Mynex]

I need help creating a Undead Dragon, never have done it before.
I have a very stout 12th level group, in a Undead Hunter campaign. I wanted to put a strong CR spell casting, colossal, a real big Mother.

HELP my pc's trashed my vampires last week, although the frensied beserker really brought it!

Thorncrrest

You want to trash the PC's? Okie dokie, they asked for it!

Ancient Gold Great Wyrm Mummy Lord with a Fiendish template + 20 levels of straight up fighter

Vampiric Ancient Green Great Wyrm + 20 levels of rogue

Dracolich (blue) - 'Nuff said.


Hope that helps.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Well you could throw a real curve ball at 'em and have no undead.

 

[RSKennan]

I couldn't get too specific with templates etc., but I'd think a stat or level-draining breath weapon would be a natch. You could also have its bones blaze with hellfire (fire and Evil energy damage on a hit), or choose another theme, like cold, making it ethereal, etc.

Hmmm. a dragon-wraith... interesting.

 

[Sejs]

One of the things you will definitly want to compensate for is the lack of con mod to hps. It tends to make undead a bit on the frail side, even with d12 hd.

Which dragons already have anyway. So you're going to want to make extra sure to pad out +hp per hd mods.

Tacking on the Undead (or is it Unholy? I can't recall) Toughness trait would be a good start. Lets undead use their cha mod for bonus hp per hd.

Have 'em raised by someone with the Corpsecrafter feat.

In the radius of a Desecrate spell, with a permanant fixture (altar).

... trying to think, what else could boost an undead critter's hp?

 

[snarfoogle]

Well you could throw a real curve ball at 'em and have no undead.

Or better yet: a dragon which looks undead due to an illusion, but actually isn't!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Wight dragon. 'Nuff said.

 

[Templetroll]

I once had a party get warned about a White dragon. They were really shook up when it turned out to be a Wight Dragon. It only drained from the mouthy mage and kept his father's corpse. They never felt strong enough to go back and get it before we movedd from the area.

Hey!!!! grumble grumble.... but it was fun to run.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Along the "it's not really undead" line, I once used a dragon native to the Negative engery plane. Had a bunch of undead related abilities (including rebuke/controle), but the dragon was very much alive.

 

[Voadam]

Go with something that has special attacks tied to its natural attacks (such as a ghoul), not to one attack a round (such as a vampire's energy drain slam).

Since dragons have so many natural attacks this will have a big effect.

There is a ghoul template in the WotC menace manual modern srd file. Also one in the penumbra fantasy bestiary (that I wrote) but that one deteriorates their minds so they can't cast spells.

Advance by HD, this ups the DCs of special abilities and only increases CR slowly for undead.