Prep to kill a dragon

[buzzard]

Did the combat happen? I'd like an update!

Owing to sequential excuses, we will only be getting to it tonight.

I shall inform people of the casualty count tommorow.

buzzard

 

[the Jester]

I don't know about that - if their average level is 17 and his CR is 25 then one would rather expect them to NOT be able to take it.

Well, in my experience a group of pcs working together with a plan can overcome extreme odds, especially at higher levels. Granted, it's iffy, but still- time and again, I'm amazed by the resourcefulness and competence of the pcs. (Maybe it's just my group, granted, but I doubt it. )

Something like this- while surely not a sure thing, by any means- could go down in the campaign's history as the party's greatest triumph over overwhelming odds...

...or a tpk.


Again- good luck to ya, buzzard!

 

[buzzard]

Ok we had our encounter with Ashardalon last night.

I feel dirty.

All hail the uber twink.

We dropped him in a round. No friendly casualties.

spoilers for Bastion of Broken Souls:

Spoiler

Honestly the module set the dragon up for failure, but still we were quite ridiculous. Our DM really couldn't have done much to improve the situation as written. If I were running it I might have been able to make the big A last maybe another round, but not much more. We were just way too twinked out.

The dragon is cooped up in a small room (80' dragon in a 100' diameter room) and is set to not know you are comming. Half the party got the initiative drop on him, and he took 440 damage before he even went. At this point the DM went with the breath weapon. This might not have been prudent, but it was logical and natural. We were, of course, immune. His other inclination would have been to eliminate the melee guy who had hit him hardest and plow through him to the Deepwood sniper. His attacks wouldn't have dropped the fighter. In any case the second melee guy was even more twinked out, and finished him off. About the best I could think of to drag things out would have been either multiple grapples on the two melees and the archer. The only other useful option would have been haste and heal. None of which would have done much beyond postponing the ultimate outcome. We had means to get friendlies out of grapples (dimension door in and gaseous form on the fighter). Of course the dragon could have run, but I don't think the adventure considers that a valid option. However I haven't read it yet, so I can't say.

The small room and no prep time really left the dragon out in the cold.

Now let's all be civil, and not form a BADD posse to lynch me.

buzzard

 

[MerakSpielman]

BADD will surely be upset, but if this is the way the mod is written, they can't complain too much. The module seems violating some basic principles of dragon encounters: minions, magical alarms and wards, enough room to fly, a back way out, etc...

The above situation might indeed occur, but it would be the illusion of a dragon that was being killed, or somebody polymorphed into a dragon as bait, or something equally sneaky.

Bad mod. BADD mod...

I always thought it would be fun to have a red dragon that slept at the bottom of a deep pool of lava - the treasure cave only ascessable by swimming through a few miles of the stuff.

 

[S'mon]

...Half the party got the initiative drop on him, and he took 440 damage before he even went...

Hmm.

When this happens to my BBEGs they LEAVE.

Seriously, attacking with breath weapon in those circumstances was just suicide. In 3.0 the dragon could have Healed up, in 3.5 though that's just 150hp, so the only sane option would be to retreat, heal and buff up, then (if required) return for a rematch.

 

[buzzard]

Hmm.

When this happens to my BBEGs they LEAVE.

Seriously, attacking with breath weapon in those circumstances was just suicide. In 3.0 the dragon could have Healed up, in 3.5 though that's just 150hp, so the only sane option would be to retreat, heal and buff up, then (if required) return for a rematch.

That's definitely a wise course of action. However it may be that the constraints of the adventure prohibit this. I'm rather curious to see how it's written.

buzzard

 

[S'mon]

That's definitely a wise course of action. However it may be that the constraints of the adventure prohibit this. I'm rather curious to see how it's written.

buzzard

As described it seems to me the dragon wasn't really a CR 25 encounter - probably a mere CR 23. Of course for level 17 PCs that's still quite good.

 

[Sejs]

Not to be rude or anything here, but either your DM didn't run the encounter by the book, didn't read the encounter well enough, or cut you a break.

 

[Numion]

Hmm.

When this happens to my BBEGs they LEAVE.

Seriously, attacking with breath weapon in those circumstances was just suicide. In 3.0 the dragon could have Healed up, in 3.5 though that's just 150hp, so the only sane option would be to retreat, heal and buff up, then (if required) return for a rematch.

Draconomicon is the first book from WotC that actually remembers to choose Clerical spells too for Dragons that can cast them. So no Heal for poor Ash.

3.0E Dragon spell lists were generally very bad IIRC. They didn't even bother to check if some of the spells the dragon had chosen were available as lower level spells in the cleric lists.

Annoyed me to no end, but every time I made a dragon I sure as hell made sure that it had Divine Favors and all the cream of the cleric lists! Wait, I only ever did one or two dragons

 

[buzzard]

Not to be rude or anything here, but either your DM didn't run the encounter by the book, didn't read the encounter well enough, or cut you a break.

Well, when I get a chance to read it, I'll decide if I agree with you.

buzzard