How do we prepare to fight a dragon about which we know nothing?

[Fieari]

Oooh, and don't forget that auguries can let you play a form of 20 questions when it comes to planning tactics. State an aspect of your plan, Weal or Woe it, and continue on until the divinations indicate you've a rock solid plan of action.

 

[coyote6]

Oooh, and don't forget that auguries can let you play a form of 20 questions when it comes to planning tactics. State an aspect of your plan, Weal or Woe it, and continue on until the divinations indicate you've a rock solid plan of action.

Augury only "sees" a half-hour into the future, though, and takes a minute to cast, so there are only so many you can cast. And every augury you prep and/or cast is one fewer resist energy, bull's strength, bear's endurance, etc.

 

[Fieari]

Scrolls.

 

[merelycompetent]

Is it really a dragon? If it's not, then I am going to be really angry. Our very first commune question was: Q: Is (name of creature) a red dragon? A: Yes. That was the only straight^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H direct answer we've received.

Setting aside questions about DM vs. Players, it sounds like your group isn't asking the right questions. So, back to basics...

You know that X is a red dragon. You know that your other questions didn't net any useful info:

1. (if you know about when the dragon is going to attack) Is X, the red dragon, going to attack this town/city on approximately yyyy date? (We'll assume YES for the next questions, since if the answer's NO, you've been had.)
2. Is X, the red dragon, the only creature that's going to attack the town on that day?
3. Does X posses powerful magical devices, requiring a caster of at least 14th level to create, that X intends to use in the attack? (If YES, you are in serious trouble.)
4. Is X going to start attacking the town/city by air on that date? (This allows you to plan for his alpha strike.)
5. Does X have a way of spying on us? (If YES, adjust your plans, and remaining questions, accordingly.)
6. Is there some device, feature, or characterstic of the town/city that will give us an advantage in the fight?
7. Does X have some other vulnerability besides the ones that are normal to a dragon of X's type?
8. Are there any other allies that we can recruit to help us fight X on the date X attacks the town?
9. Is there something particular in the town that X wants to acquire or destroy?
10. Can X easily detect illusions such as Permanent Image? (Always good for laughs when the dragon flies into an illusion-covered tower.)

Other questions will depend on the answers to these, but you may want to cover some of these additional areas:
* Does X have any allies that will actively assist X during the attack?
* Are any of the creatures in the town working for X?
* Are any of the creatures/people we've recruited to help us planning on betraying us before or during the attack?
* Will X approach from the north/south/east/west?

This should give you a better idea of what you're up against. And since some of the questions deal with the dragon's future actions, current plans, or abilities, you've got a better chance of getting around whatever it is that's blocking/confusing the other divinations.

Other tactics: Find a nice, dark, small room and scry on the dragon via crystal ball. If it fails, you're zeroing in on his divination defense (likely Mind Blank if it resists everything to this point). If its divination defense is that powerful, it's time to retreat and fight again another day. It's not that you can't fight the dragon and win - you might be able to. But your chances later on, after you've had a chance to do info gathering (magical and mundane), scouting, and library research with appropriate knowledge skills (it's a rare dragon that gets big enough to destroy a town/city and doesn't get written about).

Lesser Planar Ally/Binding with an air elemental = excellent early warning system, scout, snatched PC rescue, and/or surprise attack. If you're willing to lose the creature, it may be able to scout out the dragon's lair for you (or tell you where it is if you don't know).

Speak with animals/dead/plants: The animals and plants might know where the dragon's lair is (or that it always comes in from the north). If someone's been killed by the dragon before, and buried in the town, the corpse might have useful info.

Hope this helps!

 

[JRRNeiklot]

General - How do we prepare to fight a dragon about which we know nothing?

Draw sword. CHARGE!!!!

 

[vulcan_idic]

Do you trust your DM?

If so, stop thinking that the DM is screwing you, and think that maybe all the lack of info is actually clues to the truth.

Maybe all your assumptions/knowledge is wrong, so further investigation into those assumptions/knowledge will result in "unknown". Maybe there is no real dragon? Or something similarly twisted.

Quasqueton

I have to agree with Quasqueton. Given the original post and this piece of information from the original poster: "Is it really a dragon? If it's not, then I am going to be really angry. Our very first commune question was: Q: Is (name of creature) a red dragon? A: Yes. That was the only straight^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H direct answer we've received." I have the following hypothesis.

Is <assumed acurate name> really a dragon? answer yes. Based on the assumption that the name which we now know actually applies to some dragon of some type somewhere we start asking about the nature of said dragon. There are ways that this could occur while negating other information gathering systems - a soultrapped dragon and/or a powerful half-dragon mage (which still has the dragon type so may well be considered by the higher power to *be* a dragon or a powerful mage who soultrapped the real dragon) who is doing everything in their power to present themselves as the reknowned dragon <assumed acurate name>. How close was the bronze who saw the theoretical red, but knows nothing else about it? Could it have seen an illusion? If it's interaction with the illusion was insufficient it may never have had the opportunity to save against it. What do you *really* know about what's going on? What is hearsay or could be misleading information either intentionally or unwittingly on the part of the source? Who are the sources? What is the effect of the Dragon threat? Are there any who are benefitting from those effects? Question your assumptions and perceptions. "When you have eleimanted the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

 

[Joshua Randall]

All great suggestions, and I thank you for them. Unfortunately the information gathering phase has passed (without us actually learning much) and we are now into the massive buffing and preparing to fight phase.

Thursday's game will commence with "roll for initiative"; we just have to tell the DM what buff spells we already had in place. Which is what I've been working on for the last week plus.

For various campaign-related reasons, retreating to fight another day is not an option. Also, unfortunately, we have to fight in the air. So either we win the day, or our blackened corpses litter the ground afterwards. It should be fun. Sort of.

 

[Reynard]

For various campaign-related reasons, retreating to fight another day is not an option. Also, unfortunately, we have to fight in the air. So either we win the day, or our blackened corpses litter the ground afterwards. It should be fun. Sort of.

So, who is running the next campaign?

ASIDE: This is exactly the kind of DMing that would make me grab his dice and his screen and hand him a deaf-mute kender paladin for his PC in my new campaign.

 

[The Cardinal]

yep - sounds more and more like a planned TPK.

Try to die with honor and dignity...

 

[The Forsaken One]

CR 15, prepare a teleport spell, or 2. You're gonna need it if you even get to use it lol. A CR 15 UNTEMPLATED dragon is a nightmare already . Allthough thats one of the easier CR brackets to fight them in.

But for your level? Don't even go there But if you trust you DM, you guys will be fine. He'll have something worked out or its not as bad as you think it is and you guys can have a nice afternoón/evening of slaying ^^.