Hovering Dragons with Reach

[Runestar]

Because it then becomes a classic case of "It is fine only when it works". Which may or may not be the case. Especially if it boils down to the players attempting stunts the DM did not expect, and may not be able to rule appropriately.

For example, athletics checks may not be feasible on the fights decked out in fullplate. Readied actions are kinda moot when the dragon is out of reach anyways. As pointed out, while melee PCs can still use ranged weaponry, they likely won't be too good at it. Teleporting on top of the dragon is innovative, but its effectiveness also depends on how the DM opts to adjudicate it. What if positioning strike misses, or the rogue did not take it? Or if the party meets the dragon in the open wilderness, and do not have a disk ready?

All in all, presenting a normally impossible scenario and expecting the players to get out of it somehow may not always be feasible. In the very least, you need a contingency plan for if/when things go wrong. What happens if despite the party's best efforts, they still cannot injure the hovering dragon meaningfully, while it is unusually lucky in recharging its breath weapon and is able to to use it more often than what you would normally expect? How do you rationalize it forsaking such a winning strategy in favour of one that is clearly suicidal and obviously aimed at nothing more than giving your players a fighting chance?

All this should already have been ironed out before the DM even ran the encounter. He should know what the party will be getting into, in the very least, and not assume that they will be fine somehow.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Lowest level at which a character can bring down a hovering dragon, by class: (* = jump, teleport or some other way to reach it is required)

cleric: Command (3) or Split the Sky(3*)

fighter: Spinning Sweep (1*); can also change to a glaive, halberd or longspear and use any powers. All fighters should carry one.

paladin: Beckon Foe (7); can also use reach weapons as above. If a squishier target teleported onto the dragon's back, Benign Transposition (7) will rescue them and bring you into the fight.

ranger: Unbalancing Parry (1); also reach weapons as above, though powers that require 2 weapons will not be useable. Archers can, of course reach the dragon easily.

rogue: Positioning Strike (1*) or Trick Strike (1). Trick Strike will solve the problem fairly permanently.

warlock: Diabolic Grasp (1) or Curse of the Dark Dream (1). Warlocks can reach the dragon with any of their powers.

warlord: Leaf on the Wind (1*) - I would describe this one as leaping up, grabbing the dragon's claw and pulling it down, putting your self above it briefly. Now the dragon is 5' up, and the warlord 10' up in position to land on its back (with successful Acrobatics/ Athletics) or to fall embarrassingly, getting bitten on the way down (with a fail). Warlords are also proficient with reach weapons.

wizard: Icy Terrain (1) - aimed high, a succesful hit ices the dragon's wings. Whether it succeeds or fails, though, the frost would settle on the ground, requiring a minor action to end it so it doesn't hamper the party. Also Sleep (1) possibly, though failing two saves at +5 would happen only 4% of the time. Jump (2) might also be handy.

skills: Athletics with a running start or Long Jumper feat and a 2' Disk footstool is DC 15 to reach the dragon. Bluff vs Insight would require some serious creativity, but perhaps Prestidigitation or one of the illusion spells from Dragon magazine might scare/ entice the dragon down.

In short, all classes except the paladin have some countermeasure available at low level; a typical party should have at least 2 or 3 of these. Additionally, all melee-based characters except the Strength cleric and some brawny rogues are proficient in reach weapons, which cost only a few gold. So no, I don't see hovering as a terrible game-breaker. It's an interesting challenge, and after the party encounters it once, they will prepare better for it when going dragon hunting.

 

[AtomicPope]

Can anyone manage a 5' vertical jump? If not alone, what if another character provides a boost (Aid Another)? That floating disk that carries the party loot is a 2' stepstool; now you only need a 3' jump to swing at the dragon pinata...

A fight that forces characters to use something other than their standard tactics is not automatically a boring fight.

You read my mind

Simon says,"Jump!"

 

[AtomicPope]

This is exactly what ingenuity is for. As On Puget Sound pointed out, every class has, even at low levels, way's to maneuver the dragon into melee. The most obvious is the 1st level Rogue daily exploit Trick Strike which allows you to shift a monster one square every time you hit until the end of the encounter. Shift down one. If you're afraid you won't hit then tell everyone to Aid Action to give you a +8 and throw a dagger (+1 for dagger, +3 for proficiency). That's a solid +12 to hit at 1st level, not including stats, feats or Leader classes boosting you.

It's quite easy to get +20 to hit at 1st level without a magical weapon. It just takes a little help from your friends

 

[IceFractal]

If the design intent was that dragons would use the hovering tactic whenever a battle got serious, then that's fine - just makes dragons more challenging, which should hopefully be accounted for in their XP rating. However, if the intent was that they have the ability but for some reason don't use it - that's bad design (especially in the 4E paradigm).

To take it to a logical extreme, imagine if a monster had the following ability:
Dark Soul Blast (At-Will, Minor): Enemies within 20 squares take 10d6 damage and are stunned for 3 rounds.

But it supposedly didn't use it, because it was vain and didn't think it would be necessary to do so. That might work ... to a point. But then comes the time when the fight is clearly going against the monster, and it'll be dead in 3-4 rounds - is it really vain enough to die rather than use effective tactics? Unless we're talking some kind of vanity demon - no, it isn't. And so either the PCs are going to get stomped, or the monster is run so insanely as to be a Deus ex Machina rescue.

An extreme example, but the basic point holds with dragons. With a dragon's high HP total, it may well be obvious that things are going badly for it quite a few rounds before it actually drops, and then it gets rather ridiculous trying to explain away the lack of hover-fighting. And really, why do dragons need Hover anyway?

 

[icarusfallz]

The Jump would NOT provoke, IMHO. Falling is forced movement. Forced movement NEVER provokes...

 

[Revinor]

Is there any actual rule which would allow attacking while mid-air? As far as I can see it RAW, jump is part of move action and you will fall down at the end of that move action (unless you do double-move). Only after falling down, you can start to think about attacking.

As far as Trick Strike is concerned - great idea, but it won't work. PHB page 285, "you cannot move target vertically [with forced movement]".

I suppose that there are some powers which can make target prone and they would force dragon to crash for one round (and given the cost of standing up and flying up, it would stay in reach for 2 rounds, possibly giving OA when flying up).

I still think that thrown/reach weapons for melee characters are the only reasonable solution here. With heavy thrown being based on strength, everybody should find something interesting for his taste.

Biggest probably will be probably lack of stickiness from the defenders. Dragon will hover over squishies and obliterate them...

 

[Starbuck_II]

To take it to a logical extreme, imagine if a monster had the following ability:
Dark Soul Blast (At-Will, Minor): Enemies within 20 squares take 10d6 damage and are stunned for 3 rounds.

But it supposedly didn't use it, because it was vain and didn't think it would be necessary to do so. That might work ... to a point. But then comes the time when the fight is clearly going against the monster, and it'll be dead in 3-4 rounds - is it really vain enough to die rather than use effective tactics? Unless we're talking some kind of vanity demon - no, it isn't. And so either the PCs are going to get stomped, or the monster is run so insanely as to be a Deus ex Machina rescue.

You mean like the Balor in 3.5's Unholy Word (Blasphemy) that killed parties/incapatitated them?
Yeah, the WotC learned their lesson. It was too strong.

An extreme example, but the basic point holds with dragons. With a dragon's high HP total, it may well be obvious that things are going badly for it quite a few rounds before it actually drops, and then it gets rather ridiculous trying to explain away the lack of hover-fighting. And really, why do dragons need Hover anyway?

To hover over a target and breath fire before getting into melee next turn.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Ow, you are correct...no vertical forced move eliminates several of the powers I suggested. It also doesn't make sense to me. I believe 4E was trying to prevent rogues chasing people up into the sky to make them take falling damage, and made it simple (as usual) with a blanket rule. I'm going to houserule that one; I think flying or swimming characters should be able to move each other in 3 dimensions. 4E rules for 3D combat are generally poor to absent anyway.

My new rule: "Most forced movement cannot move a target in a direction the target would normally be incapable of moving, subject to DM's discretion (and other existing rules, e.g. an immoblilized target can be forced)." The reason for the big hand-wave clause? Some forced movement (existing or yet to be introduced) might involve throwing or blasting a target with brute force, and that could lift a non-flying target.