Need help with Dragon Tactics

[Grant_Stoom]

The only ones I know for sure were Greater Restoration and Unholy Aura. One of his other 8th levels was some kind of buff. My Greater Dispel got an 8th level spell, but we have no idea what it was. Maybe Protection from Spells? I think he also had Bigby's Clinched Fist, but it wasn't used.

Thanks for the compliments! I had fun playing it and writing about it.

Our DM is actually very good at playing things well. I think we just got him on the defensive quickly, and then he was using actions to undo what we were doing to him - rather than taking us out of the fight one by one. Sure he could have done a Time Stop and thrown out 5 delayed blast fireballs - but that's no fun.

 

[Grog]

The only ones I know for sure were Greater Restoration and Unholy Aura.

If he had Greater Restoration, why didn't he fix all the Con damage he'd taken?

 

[The Souljourner]

I presume the purpose of the dragon is to survive. Dominate Monster is not much help in surviving, especially when it could have like a +30 or so intimidate/diplomacy check to get minions (or just take leadership ). Shapechange is great and all, but when you can use polymorph to look like pretty much whatever you want, and your natural shape already rocks so much in combat, shapechange becomes a little less powerful.

-The Souljourner

 

[wtdavid]

He used a Heal to fix the con damage. He use the Greater Restoration to fix the negative levels. That worked out to his advantage that way, since the Heal would not have fixed the neg levels.

A couple of other things.
The dragon was pulled from the MM (what ever the hightest sample was) and then added upon for the advancement in age. The DM did this for quickness and for some of the story. We knew everything about the dragon up to that age for records of some ancient dwarf that knew of the dragon.

I'm the happless rouge who rushed in. The dragon didn't use an AoO on me (I have spring attack), he had readied an action to bust up on the first person to try something. The DM had the dragon spit me out so he could full out attack the first Balor. The DM was over confident in the amount of damage the Dragon would do. After the first less than effectual attack, he began power attacking the Belors with much better results.

There was a bit of luck to the fight, but I do believe the location help us a great bit. The ceiling was low and the room barely contained him. If we would have fought in his lair or outside, we would have been toast. As for 60% of resources, I'd say we used that if not more. All the spellcasters have blown there best stuff, I've blown all my puncturing hits, the archer blew through a ton of dragon bane arrows and one arrow of dragon slaying, the barbrian used a rage and a lot of hitpoints. As well as Grants XP for the gating and the cohorts xp for crafting all that dragon fighting equipment. There were a lot of resources used up.

- wtdavid

"If it's a TPK, then it's a f***ing TPK!"

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

He used a Heal to fix the con damage. He use the Greater Restoration to fix the negative levels. That worked out to his advantage that way, since the Heal would not have fixed the neg levels.

A couple of other things.
The dragon was pulled from the MM (what ever the hightest sample was) and then added upon for the advancement in age. The DM did this for quickness and for some of the story. We knew everything about the dragon up to that age for records of some ancient dwarf that knew of the dragon.

I'm the happless rouge who rushed in. The dragon didn't use an AoO on me (I have spring attack), he had readied an action to bust up on the first person to try something. The DM had the dragon spit me out so he could full out attack the first Balor. The DM was over confident in the amount of damage the Dragon would do. After the first less than effectual attack, he began power attacking the Belors with much better results.

There was a bit of luck to the fight, but I do believe the location help us a great bit. The ceiling was low and the room barely contained him. If we would have fought in his lair or outside, we would have been toast. As for 60% of resources, I'd say we used that if not more. All the spellcasters have blown there best stuff, I've blown all my puncturing hits, the archer blew through a ton of dragon bane arrows and one arrow of dragon slaying, the barbrian used a rage and a lot of hitpoints. As well as Grants XP for the gating and the cohorts xp for crafting all that dragon fighting equipment. There were a lot of resources used up.

- wtdavid

"If it's a TPK, then it's a f***ing TPK!"

Well - if you feel like you used 60% or more resources - then the dragon did it's job fairly well, however much I may want to disagree.


But if you should ever choose to GM, realize that the DMG, when it indicates that the party should use 75% of it's resources, it's indicating that the average party of four will end up with one-two dead, depending on the items the party has (obviously a staff of life could easily reverse this)

If the goal of the dragon was merely to provide an entertaining fight, one in which the players felt that it was a hard fight, then the GM accomplished a primary goal.

However, it should also be noted that such a dragon, if fought at it's optimum potential, should have eaten your party.

But that's the GM's job - fudge numbers, pull punches, and generally make the game more fun than realistic, right?

So y'all did fine - and he accomplished his goals I'm sure.


Now if he feels that he didn't - that he wants to fight better with dragons next time - send him here cuz he'll get LOTSA help with it

 

[FrankTrollman]

Being a basilisk during enemy rounds? Are you high? Yeah, losing 25 (!) AC is really going to make up for that DC 13 gaze.

The Save DC is based on the Dragon's Hit Dice and Charisma - both of which are very high.

-Frank

 

[Nail]

Shoot, FrankT beat me too it. Slow internet today.

 

[Nail]

Shoot, FrankT beat me too it. Slow internet today.