It's a Dragon Attack!

[MarkCsigs]

In 26 years of being a GM for D&D I've rarely used Dragons. I don't know why ... too cliche, maybe ... but I'm finding myself in the mood for one right now. So my players have been charged with a dragon hunt (a white)!

But I'm concerned that with my lack of familiarity with dragons, I'm going to short-change the encounter. Heck, this'll be my first one since the introduction of third edition (nevermind 3.5)!

So I'm looking for advice, even the most mundane ... on how to run dragons effectively.

What details am I likely to miss/forget???

 

[XCorvis]

What age category are you using? White dragons are cunning, but not particularly intelligent. They can use their icewalk ability to great advantage in a cravase or ice cave, and even in non-icy surroundings they can use their freezing fog to make things slippery. And don't forget about their blindsense - those fog spells don't really hinder the dragon much.

Try this: have the dragon leave a trail in the snow, near an ice crevice. He hides in the snow, with the trail between him and the crevice. When the party passes, he leaps out and either snatches someone or bull rushes them into the crevice. He can now move up and down the walls with impunity, and he has separated one party member from the rest of the group. At the bottom of the crevice you can put in some ice caves for him to retreat to.

 

[themind]

You should also take a look at the Draconomican. Some great stuff on Dragons.

I'd offer other advice, but I have never really used a Dragon at all either. Had plans to, but never got far enough in the campaign to use it.

 

[MarkCsigs]

To The Mind: I appreciate the thought, but I'm really not looking to pick up another book at this time.

To XCorvis: I love the suggestion of the outdoor ambush ... I'm looking at probably 'old' to 'ancient'. I'm also trying to decide on whether there might be lesser creatures involved in the combat, in which case I'd go for 'old'.

 

[Blade of Desecration]

To The Mind: I appreciate the thought, but I'm really not looking to pick up another book at this time.

To XCorvis: I love the suggestion of the outdoor ambush ... I'm looking at probably 'old' to 'ancient'. I'm also trying to decide on whether there might be lesser creatures involved in the combat, in which case I'd go for 'old'.

Just remember, a dragon's ability to fly gives them extreme mobility, so it might very well be able to go after the guys in the back before the tanks can turn around to defend them.

 

[themind]

No problem, was just a thought.

 

[XCorvis]

While old-ancient dragons have great speed (200'), they have poor maneuverability, which means they might have a hard time turning around. It takes about 4 squares of movement for a dragon to turn, with more to rise. If you use a flying dragon, brush up on the aerial combat rules. You might also want to give him some flying feats like hover and wingover.

 

[Nightcloak]

The best advice for a dragon is to remember that it is smart.

Take its intelligence into account. Most Dragons are aware of the fact that others are going to try and steal their hordes. That means the dragon will prepare for intruders with traps, create situations that will hinder the party, and have a game plan for battle and retreat.

First: Physical Combat

Dragons can have special feats like fly by attack and can clutch opponents. That means your average dragon is not going to sit their and continually slug it out with a well armed party. Your average dragon may be arragant enough to go after them at first, but it will soon realize it is up against something that is not your average 1st level commoner class. It should then fall back on its plan - see below.

If the dragon has room, grabbing someone and flying up with them is a great tactic. It isolates one of its enemies. Further, if the victim breaks the grapple... splat. Heck, the dragon may just drop the poor SOB anyway.

Whiile its in the air, it can used ranged attacks like its breath weapon with minimal reprisal, unless the party casters all memorized fly for the day or brought potions. Odds are, only a few players will be able to take the dragon on in the air or launch ranged attacks.

Also, some dragons can swim. Black dragons and while dragons may live in cavers with lakes or swamps. A submerged dragon that pops up to attack then retreat to the depths will be real pain. It may also clutch a victom and drag them down to a very bad death.

Finally, take all of its attacks into account when it gets surrounded. It will use all of its attacks to the best of its abilities. Don.t forget the dragon is smart enough to target the biggest threat first: Spell casters and a thief that is flanking it.

Second: Magic

Most dragon have spells. They are also smart enough to use them effectively. This means you should do things up front before the ecounter:

1. Create a "Spell Power Up Suite" of spells the dragon will cast on itself. A few ability boosts and invisibility will go a long way to making the dragon even nastier. THrow in mirror image for lots of fun. A few protection from element spells are also in order. A white ragon will obviously fear a mage throwing fire ball spells at it and wnat to prepare some protection.

2. Combat spells. The dragon will have a few spells ahead of time that it will want to open combat with while it still has range. A party attacking a red dragon will think twice when it gets hit with magic missles and a cone of cold before it even gets to the beast (the cone of cold will be real surprise since the party probably prepared ahead of time itself with protection from fire spells - remember the dragon is smart enough to think in tactics).

A few well launched spells from an invisible dragon could verywell take a wizard or thief out (flat footed ) before they even roll initiative.

Third: Tactics

The dragon will have a plan for attack and a plan for retreat.

It will prepare alarms to know when intruders are about.
It will prepare traps to soften up those attackers or force them to burn resources.
It will use its invironment to its advantage. It will fly or swim when it can.
It will sit on a ledge with a 5 tunnel leading to it (can you say shotgun).
A red dragon will stand in 5 foot deep lava to A) slow down attackers normal movement and B) force the the characters to use up their protection spells from continuous fire damage.

The choices are only bound by your imagination. Just remember that the dragon chose its lair because it liked it for its ability to help protect itself. It found it defensable.

Hope those little tid bits help!

 

[MarkCsigs]

Thank you all for the replies, and I thought I'd just take a moment to let you all know how it went.

I used an Ancient White, and gave her the feats of Hover, Snatch, Wingover and Flyby Attack (amongst other). Since I also have a large party I rarely set up a situation where they are fighting a single monster, alone. It took me days of leafing through various books looking for inspiration (and something that would work, logically). I finally settled on a wing of classic Gargoyles ... except I made them "Ice Gargoyles", which were mostly a cosmetic variation (i.e. they appeared ice-like rather than stone), although I did give them the 'cold' subtype.

I placed the dragon's lair in the great hall and throne room of an ancient frost giant lair (so everything was nice and large), but one that had been partially swallowed into the earth so that the rest of it was collapsed and the only enterence was through an opening 200' down a 1000' rift in the icecap. The enterence led into the throneroom which is where the gargoyles kept (amongst a collection of ice sculptures). The second room was the dragon's lair, and was seperated from the main room by a wall of ice.

Coincidentally ... *ahem* ... The most strategic, defenseable place to camp out and still have a view of the rift was exactly 200' above the second room.

To help get the picture, perhaps a better description of the party is in order ... [sblock]

My party is much larger than usual (eight players, plus several cohorts). It is also more combat oriented with only one pure arcane caster (although several have from one to three levels).

Boceefus: 13th level Cleric/Wizard/Astrologer (a prestige class in the service of the Goddess of the Night Sky and has domains in divination, travel and magic). 'Bo' has two cohorts; Glynnis: a Cleric/Wizard like himself who normally does most of the party's research and bookwork, but accompanied the group for this mission. And Ambro: An Ogre Barbarian which Boceefus "converted" with the help of a Helm of Opposite Alignment.

Snjolfur Vimunder 13th level Psychic Warrior and one of two "tanks" in my group.

Tobias 12th level Rogue/Fighter and one of two ranged weapon specialists in the party. Tobias has a Cohort Link a fighter whose main purpose is to fight alongside Toby as his "bodyguard". Is very adept in using the Spiked Chain.

Dashanial 11th level gnome Rogue/Illusionist. Where Toby is more of a combat Rogue, "Dash" is the party's main lockpick, trapfinder, treasure filcher and gadfly.

Ha'kim Silverleaf 10th level elf Ranger/Wizard. The other ranged specialist. Is working toward the Arcane Archer prestige class.

Phanta Schtick (yes, that's her name lol). 10th level Wizard.

Amras Dolgnskjald 9th level Dwarven Psion/Fighter. Ends up more like a psychic warrior. The other tank, and if I havy any probably the most "munchkinned" character.

Barilla 8th level cleric of the Goddess of Mystery and Secrets.

[/sblock]
The party decided to spend one day scrying, and would prepare combat spells for the next day. They did a great job with spells, and physically scouting out before hand. One member was able to fly invisibly into the lair, with detect magics and detect evil. Unfortunately (for him) he did not get close enough to the wall of ice to sense the evil and the magics beyond it. Also unfortunately, the dragon could smell them, and planned a pre-emptive strike.

That night, I had the gargoyles fly out and swarm around them while sleeping. Two rounds later, the dragon (who had been burrowing up from her lair) burst out underneath where the party had been camped. As the party mopped up the gargoyles (a little quicker than I expected), the dragon burst forth and used snatch to pick up the nearest human, which happened to be the wizard cohort Glynnis, and flew off back toward the rift.

The cleric (Boceefus) was close enough that I gave him an "attack of opportunity" to grab on to Glynnis and go along for the ride. Since he already had a fly spell active, he was able to keep up for a while but the dragon had much greater fly speed and Bo wasn't able to maintain hold with a strength check.

Boceefus flew off after the dragon, but watched helplessly from a distance as the dragon dropped Glynnis into the rift. Boceefus immediately teleported himself into the rift, near the base.

In the meantime, the rest of the party mopped up the gargoyles (much quicker than I expected, I grant) and used a combination of dimension door and teleport to get themselves into enterance of the dragon's lair. Immediately I described the sound of Glynnis screaming as she was dropped from the dragon's maw.

Snjolfur was the first to react, and leapt from the mouth of the cave ... successfully made a luck roll (for good measure), an attack roll and a grapple check to grab Glynnis and hold on as she plummetted down the crevasse. He then prepared to open a dimension door, to put them both back on the cave floor ... but the real fun I had was describing to the 10 strength Boceefus that he now not only had the lithe Glynnis plummeting toward him, but the hulking burly fighter as well! LOL

Meanwhile, the dragon flew back toward the battle site and was surprised/disappointed to find the battle over. Fearing for her home and treasure horde, she immediately made for the cave enterance. Hovering outside the enterance, she used her breath weapon on the party but to little effect (they had done well preparing themselves against cold based attacks).

The party fell further back into the cave, and the dragon took the bait ... pursuing them deeper. Several rounds of combat ensued and she found herself doing more damage to the heroes than she was taking ... but the tide turning factor was the healing that the party got from its clerics. Realizing she couldn't win the battle like this, the dragon retreated up to the surface and back down through the hole she burrowed, to protect her treasure horde and to recover.

Unfortunately, this time the party searched more thoroughly and were able to detect both evil and magic behind the icewall. Subtly bursting their way through with a fireball, the party renewed the battle. The dragon attempted a parley, but the party would have none of it and slew the dragon as it tried to escape through the hole it had burrowed through the cieling.

All in all, several members of the party were brought low (including the two tanks) but I didn't actually take anyone out. I had counted on the battle staying outside much longer, and several being dropped into the rift. None the less, it's certainly possible to have a great and memorable battle without any character deaths, and I did just take down four party members a few months ago.