How To Kill An Adult Black Dragon Without Dying Of Boredom

[helium3]

Combat taking to long in rounds seems to be a common problem with solos and high level foes. Maybe a few months of actual play will change that, but it might actually be a systematic issue. It's not exactly a "math" problem, but it might still be a playability issue.

Don't forget that the prior encounter (level 11 vs. level 10 party) also went on for a long time and only ended because I decided to let the party kill the monsters.

The flameskulls were the real problem there. Those suckers are level 8 monsters (though I advanced them to 9) that have fly 10, regeneration 5 (and unlike wraiths the regeneration continues to work even if they get hit by radiant damage) and Fiery Ray as an at-will attack (+13 vs. Reflex; 2d6+6 fire).

That regeneration 5 is really nasty and can negate all the damage done to them by the party very quickly. Even more so if you've got a couple of brutes or soldiers on the ground to engage the party in melee while the artillery plunks away unimpeded.

Basically, the idea of the "Bloodied" mechanic is to ensure that the combat dynamics can change, but if the time to bloodied is too long, this doesn't really help.

The dragon's bloodied mechanic is a free use of his breath weapon. Not such a big deal and certainly wouldn't have changed the encounter dynamics in any significant way.

 

[Silent Cartographer]

Maybe big stand-off fights with bosses like this could provide an ideal opening for, oh.., say, negotiation?

Just askin'!

That was the problem with 5 round kill or be killed fights; there was never enough time or motivation for well-matched opponents to seriously consider any other alternative.

 

[matthewseidl]

You can sneak attack at range if you have CA, but you only flank if your adjacent.

The fighter should probably be trying to keep the dragon locked down to one place with his combat superiority ability. Maybe to the point of not attacking without CA to prevent being pushed away with the tail. Did you remember that there was only 1 tail slash a turn? The dragon can only do one immediate interrupt a round, so only one fighter should have been being pushed away. Also, if the fighter starts adjacent, even on a miss he could shift back in, so ignore what I said before. He should just attack. Better he or the paladin draws the tail slash than the rogue.

Except the Cloud of Darkness, the dragon doesn't really have any movement related powers, so he won't be able to get away from the melee people. So with the rogue and the fighter/paladin shifting, I hope CA won't be that hard to get.

For the 50/50 on the warlock, I was rounding up. Yes, its +13 vs. a 23 will defense.

As for long fights, over in another thread about a party of level 30's against the Terrasque, I think the fastest fight was 7 rounds, and that was using a huge number of dailies. 4e fights are definitely longer. But with a bunch of encounter/dailies to use, hopefully it doesn't fall back to just the same at-will every round till the very end of the fight.

 

[corwyn77]

I assume the cleric no longer had Spiritual Weapon - wow, that's a cool power, auto CA for everyone, whee!

Yeah, an orb wizard may have helped a bit to contain it for a couple of turns but overall it would cost some damage dealt. Warlocks with the right powers can be very good solo controllers as well. Thief of the Five Fates can be very annoying, though it won't keep the dragon from moving.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Yeah, I also have to wonder why the OP started at level 10. I'm not going to be playing that level for a good long time.

 

[Tony Vargas]

yeah but cant you only swap powers when leveling? I dont think they could choose their powers assuming they would fight a dragon.

Yep, retraining is on level-up, only. Wizards can pick thier dailies and utilities ahead, though, so a full day's foreshadowing of a dragon to come would help them. I think the idea, though, was that a party aware that they'll be facing a very dangerous encounter will conserve thier dailies more, making previous fights a little tougher, but leaving them at full potential for the major confrontation.

 

[Byronic]

Actually . . . .

This is one of the areas where the Devs clearly left it up to each group to decide how it works. I can find no rules anywhere that describe how mundane/magical darkness/light interacts with mundane/magical light/darkness.

Basically, I just ruled that the two cancel each other out while they overlap. In this case, it returned the area to a "dim" condition.

But honestly, I was running the encounter as if it were happening in broad daylight at this point. There was too much other stuff going on to worry about the environmental conditions to any real degree.

I would think that logically magical darkness trumps natural light (although a great source like being outside in the sun should weaken it a bit), since otherwise it would be impossible to use Cloud of Darkness outside in the daytime. Although I think that Drow might not have been able to use that power in the daytime either (but that was either a previous edition or a tail)

Considering how long it took I think that was a good decision though.

At times, he did. And at other times he used it to "squid" out of harms reach. And yeah, all total concealment does now is give you a -2 to your attack. You can still attack a square you can't see.

It's -5 actually, which is a big advantage for the dragon. I wonder if fourth edition allows you to add +x to your attack role if your opponent is a certain size? If not I'd certainly lower the penalty for concealment for such a large creature. It's a dragon for God sake, they aren't that hard to hit. It's getting through the scales that's the hard part

Poppycock. A dragon of level n shouldn't be any more of a challenge to a party of n-1 than any other encounter of level n. If that's not the case then the "maths" aren't as balanced as they're supposed to be.

If dragons are harder than their level indicates they should have a higher level to reflect this. Or less hit points and a lower AC.

Shouldn't is (sadly) a completely different thing then what is. Dragons seem to be harder then their level suggests. Mind you so are five Needleswarm Drakes against a level 2 party.

I wonder if you turning some into Elite's rather then Solo's might be interesting. Maybe there's a plague going through the land which is making dragons sick.

 

[BEAN THE CAT]

Maybe big stand-off fights with bosses like this could provide an ideal opening for, oh.., say, negotiation

"Ne-go-she-a-shun?, huh, what do that word mean?"

 

[Brain]

So, the ideal tactic in this situation would've been:

(1) Create several overlapping zones (preferably those that can be moved) that deal damage of different types to the dragon when it starts its turn in them.
(2) Use one or more forced movement powers to place the dragon squarely in the "Square Of Death" created by the overlapping zones.

Anyone have any thoughts? Anyone else play out an encounter like this yet?

From my understanding, if a creature is in multiple zones, it only takes damage from the highest damage zone.

 

[Entropi]

Yep, retraining is on level-up, only. Wizards can pick thier dailies and utilities ahead, though, so a full day's foreshadowing of a dragon to come would help them. I think the idea, though, was that a party aware that they'll be facing a very dangerous encounter will conserve thier dailies more, making previous fights a little tougher, but leaving them at full potential for the major confrontation.

Yep.

If practicable, most parties would try to fight their way TO the main baddy, then take an extended rest before the final fight. Go in buffed with max resources.