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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old One" data-source="post: 2114661" data-attributes="member: 83">Agree completely with the above commentors...This will be a cakewalk for the party (due primarily to numbers) unless they have to fight through a bunch of encounters prior to meeting up with the dragon.  Using my handy dandy Grim Tales EL-XP calculator, I show that the CR 18 dragon barely makes the party break a sweat.  It lists as a "moderate" encounter, using 18.75% of the party resources and yielding a 90.63% party survival calculation.Even if you add 20 CR 5 dragon minions and 4 CR 8 dragon minions to the same encounter, it only ups the encounter to "very difficult", using 62.50% of the party resources and yielding a 68.75% party survival calculation.The only way to really make this a challenge, IMO, is to use lots of environmental effects, constant encounters to wear them down and prevent rest and cagey "hit and run" tactics by the dragon.  At 12 level, both the wizard and sorcerer have access to scry and teleport, making the scry, bluff, teleport combo available to them - unless you exculde those spells from their spell lists.Here are my suggestions:1) Environmental Effects: Fog/mist, shifting and unstable islands of floating vegetation, changing paths, quicksand, sink holes, near constant insect swarms (use the swarm template for biting flies, army ants and other annoying creatures - damage is relatively minor, but they can carry disease, prevent rest, devour food stores, etc), corrosive water (the black has been using its breath weapon for years to create large areas of corrosive acidic water that starts eating through non-magical gear and may pose an eventual danger to magic gear), double/triple canopy sections of overgrown trees and thickets (this breaks contact between flying party members and those on the ground, since if effectively breaks line-of-sight between 15-20' off the ground and 75-100' off the ground and makes flight through the middle band of 20' to 75' virtually impossible).  Footing should be treacherous in many places due to soft spots, roots, etc - requiring a DC 5 or DC 8 DEX check each round of combat to avoid tripping or effects similar to a grease spell.2) Dragon Minions: Enhanced lizard men with half-dragon shamans and leaders on giant crocidile mounts sounds about right.  Giant crocs have a nice grapple (+21) and are good for dragging PCs underwater to drown.  Add in stirges, various giant insects, a giant insect swarm or two, free-roaming giant crocs and giant snakes, maybe a roper or two, some carniverous trees, lots of advanced assassin vines and a flight (3-6) of advanced gargantuan wyverns (11+ HD) to deal with the pesky paladin and his dragonelle mount.3) The Dragon: Consider advancing the dragon to Ancient (or even Wyrm) status to make it a truly memorable event.  This provides additional hps, boosts the dragon's spell ability to 11th/13th and, if advanced to Wyrm, moves it to the gargantuan size category, picking up the tail sweep attack.  The dragon should use its minions to wear down the party through successive encounters and use hit and run tactics to pick off stragglers/separated party members to attrite party strength.  One nasty little trick is to hide and use its "corrupt water" ability to spoil most of the party's potions and drinking water.  For an ancient black, this ability has a range of 300' (30' x age category), a DC 28 Will Save for any magic potions or items in a PC's possession and affects 80 gallons per use.  Imagine the look of shock on the tank's face when he pulls his Heal potion and tastes brackish water instead <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />!The dragon definitely should stay below water for most of the adventure...I don't think flying is going to help it much and exposes it to way too much firepower.  Its superior swim speed, some magical enhancements, creative use of spells (expeditious retreat underwater, anyone?) and indirect attacks should be the order of the day.  If the party beds down on an island of floating vegetation to rest, the dragon swims underneath, severs the roots holding it in place and slowly drags it into a deep water rapid current - sending the PCs on a medievel log flum ride.  Then, just for fun, it swims underneath and gives the island a shot of acid breath weapon.  Now the PCs are on a rapidly moving, disintegrating island of vegetation and all of their water-breathing potions have been corrupted...what fun!Got a couple of other fun thoughts...but have to run now...back with more later <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />!~ OO</blockquote>

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