How to kill a blue dragon?

[Orcus Porkus]

The party is level 4, and encounters a young blue dragon (level 6 solo).
The dragon hovers at 20 squares above the party, peppering it with it's lightning burst (range 20, burst 2, 1d6+4 lightning damage, half on miss.)
How can a party that doesn't have tons of skilled archers kill the beast? There are no powers with range in heroic tier that can knock a target prone or immobilize it. I also couldn't find any magic items.
Melee specialists are absolutely helpless in this situation and better run. Laser clerics with range 5 can stuff their holy symbol and hide. Twin strike rangers: Better find some cover, because you are alone.

 

[Baumi]

It's time to think outside your powers, the advantage of an rpg is the freedom to set every clever (or not so clever) plan in action...

Try to grapple him with ropes and pull him down, find a shelter where he has to be in range to attack you (dungeon), hide and suprise him later when he is on the ground, try to find a spot where you can climb up and jump on his back, try some diplomacy/bluffs or if everything else fails just take out some ranged weapons and do some basic attacks.

I think you and your players will come up with much more plan's if you don't think about what stands on your sheets and think about what a "real" hero would do in such a situation.

 

[-Avalon-]

The party is level 4, and encounters a young blue dragon (level 6 solo).
The dragon hovers at 20 squares above the party, peppering it with it's lightning burst (range 20, burst 2, 1d6+4 lightning damage, half on miss.)
How can a party that doesn't have tons of skilled archers kill the beast? There are no powers with range in heroic tier that can knock a target prone or immobilize it. I also couldn't find any magic items.
Melee specialists are absolutely helpless in this situation and better run. Laser clerics with range 5 can stuff their holy symbol and hide. Twin strike rangers: Better find some cover, because you are alone.

Simplest solution: Have your wizard set up a wall of fog right above the party to block line of sight to the party, forcing the dragon to come down and play =)

 

[Plane Sailing]

Try to grapple him with ropes and pull him down

Some generally good suggestions, but good luck with this one if he is hovering 100ft above you!

 

[brehobit]

Some generally good suggestions, but good luck with this one if he is hovering 100ft above you!

Not that it likely helps in this situation, but in 3.5 we had a dragon flying between two towers to attack the party, most of whom were on the ground. One PC jumped out of a tower and grappled the dragon (making a fair number of outstanding rolls) and brought it down...

Just saying that sometimes out-of-the-box thinking works. As the DM I never saw it coming...

Mark

 

[Chen_93]

Only real solution is to somehow block his line of sight/effect to you. A cave, heavy tree cover, buildings etc and get him to come down in melee range.

If none of that is available, telling your DM to stop being an ass works too.

 

[-Avalon-]

Only real solution is to somehow block his line of sight/effect to you. A cave, heavy tree cover, buildings etc and get him to come down in melee range.

If none of that is available, telling your DM to stop being an ass works too.

OR

Ugh, prolly, but i'd be inclined to use Hong's "throw dice at them" method of player behavioral modification if one of my players tried to pull that.

In this case use that method on your DM, several players pelting their DM with dice at one time tends to do wonders for re-training

 

[Imban]

The party is level 4, and encounters a young blue dragon (level 6 solo).
The dragon hovers at 20 squares above the party, peppering it with it's lightning burst (range 20, burst 2, 1d6+4 lightning damage, half on miss.)
How can a party that doesn't have tons of skilled archers kill the beast? There are no powers with range in heroic tier that can knock a target prone or immobilize it. I also couldn't find any magic items.
Melee specialists are absolutely helpless in this situation and better run. Laser clerics with range 5 can stuff their holy symbol and hide. Twin strike rangers: Better find some cover, because you are alone.

Remember that by CustServ's (kinda dumb) ruling, anything that affects a square has infinite height, so Scorching Burst and Cloud of Daggers can still hit it out of the air. Not sure if there's much in the way of bursts or blasts for Clerics or Fighters at that level, though.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Remember that by CustServ's (kinda dumb) ruling, anything that affects a square has infinite height, so Scorching Burst and Cloud of Daggers can still hit it out of the air. Not sure if there's much in the way of bursts or blasts for Clerics or Fighters at that level, though.

Hey, that would include the Fighter Attack 3 "sweeping blow" since that is a close burst... I wonder how CustServ would describe the fighters attack reaching infinite height, eh?

 

[Baumi]

Some generally good suggestions, but good luck with this one if he is hovering 100ft above you!

Just shoot a rope through his wings or tuck it between his scales with a crossbow/bow.