Tactics for a Dragon

[Plane Sailing]

In the 3.5 MM it indicates dragons have blindsight 60 ft... where do you get 270 ft. kigmatzomat?

He was thinking of 3e where dragons got 30ft x age category blindsight. That was one thing that got toned down severely in 3.5e!

Now dragons only get blindsense instead of blindsight, I'd make See Invisible a high priority spell for them to know.

Regarding webs, I personally (house rule) use the size category modifiers for breaking through webs - large creatures +4, Huge creatures +8, small creatures -4 etc) (/house rule). At any rate, webs are only 20ft radius and he has a 15ft square footprint, he is going to be mostly out of the webs after one strength check anyway (not 20ft/level - that really would have been broken for a 2nd level spell!)

He was protected against fire, lightning bolt only ever has a range of 120ft which is well within the dragons normal speed of 150ft (180ft if hasted). Acid isn't a worry and cone of cold is only 60ft range. Ice storm has longer range but paltry damage. If I were the dragon I'd certainly have gone for protection from fire and protection from lightning - perhaps after the first lbolt hit the dragon would spend a round "running" to get 600ft away and then do a move and a Protection from Electricity, possibly with a resist elements electricity as an additional backup.

The description of the spell point usage highlights one of the balance issues that has to be dealt with most carefully - the ability to pump out many more of the highest level spells. This was potentially an issue for psions, except that the non-automatically-scaling powers made it less of a problem. In your current campaign it is likely to become an increasing problem as the wizards and sorcerers will only ever cast their highest level spells again and again and again. The only solution to this is to put them in situations where they have lots of encounters before they can recharge. If this happens regularly they will know that they have to husband their resources more.

A point about Counterspells which you may have got wrong... PHB p170 says "you must then cast the correct spell... If the target is within range, both spells automatically negate each other with no other results". Thus you can counterspell a fireball from anywhere within long range... but to counterspell his casting of invisibility you had to be within touch range (and I don't think the wizard would have wanted to do that!)


Cheers

 

[morbiczer]

Maybe i completly misunderstand the situation (or the spell description), but just as someone else already wrote, I don't think web can be used to trap a flying creature in mid air. It needs at least two fix points to anchor it to. These simply weren't there in your example, at least in my reading. (The wings of the dragon or some other body part shouldn't count IMO).

So the web should have simply collapsed on itself. No effect on the dragon.

 

[Sejs]

Once the dragon realizes the mage has Stoneskin up, probably after the first attack has its effectiveness reduced, grapple the wizard and effectivly 'drop prone' while flying. Both combatants drop into the swamp, both taking falling damage, and dragon precedes to drown the wizard by maintaining the grapple in a watery area.

But again, this is just going back to the "dragon gets into melee = dragon wins" scenario, so *shrug*

 

[kigmatzomat]

the best he could do is move to the spot where the wizard was. How could he possibly find him to attack?

Does anyone have a way to defeat this tactic?

The dragon can take two move actions in one round if it wants to...

And if he gets lucky (or within 60' blindsight) he can close to within 5' of the mage so that when the mage moves or casts the dragon gets an AoO and promptly eats the mage.

 

[SJ]

power snatch?

This is a great thread, as my party will be facing a juvenile red saturday.

When the Snatch occurs, could the dragon then do a full Power Attack for the automatic damage? That would add ALOT of pain before he tossed the carcass to the ground. I figure it does, thought I'd check.

Earlier in the thread there was talk of readying a 1x move + attack. That's a partial charge, and I thought you could only do that when all you were allowed was a partial action (ie: surprise round or slowed). Did I read that right?

Keep the tactics coming. I'm thinking BW, Snatch, drop, then see who's left standing/flying.

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

This is a great thread, as my party will be facing a juvenile red saturday.

When the Snatch occurs, could the dragon then do a full Power Attack for the automatic damage? That would add ALOT of pain before he tossed the carcass to the ground. I figure it does, thought I'd check.

Earlier in the thread there was talk of readying a 1x move + attack. That's a partial charge, and I thought you could only do that when all you were allowed was a partial action (ie: surprise round or slowed). Did I read that right?

Keep the tactics coming. I'm thinking BW, Snatch, drop, then see who's left standing/flying.

A couple of pts... Unless you're using 3.0 - get rid of the 'partial' thoughts...

Following that move to proper 3.5 nomenclature - if you can move 10' in a straight line and still attack - guess what? you can charge. Now, to do this on a readied action requires a couple of feats that will allow you do just that - move 10' and attack.

Aside from that - on dragon tactics - younger dragons should die easily, so don't try to hurt you <10 APL party just yet... warm 'em up, let 'em get cocky. Around 12-15 APL, toss a mature adult or old wyrm at 'em as a humbling device

Tactics can include snatch & fling (beaut of a combo), snatch & BW - toasts the character snatched usually. Also, hit and run tactics are always beautiful things for a dragon. Strafe the party at irregular intervals between 1 hour at a minimum and 3 at the most. They'll waste every buff/heal they have, and eventually either yell at you or come up with some semi-inventive tactics of their own.

What dragon with 15+ Int will ever hang around a party of adventurers and actually try to fight???

 

[SJ]

a dragon's tactics

Yep, thanks. Lingering terminology from the 3.0 dies hard. However, here's the excerpt from the 3.5 SRD on charge w/ only movement X 1:

You can’t use this option unless you are restricted to taking only a standard action or move action on your turn.

To me this precludes the use of that as a readied action. IMO.

And I had the order sub-optimal. Snatch. BW. Auto-chomp. Fling. DM cackles w/ glee.

 

[Plane Sailing]

But since a readied action (when triggered) only allows a standard or move action, I have no problem with using that very same rule to say "yep, "partial" charge allowed". 1xspeed and attack.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Lords of Darkness

For a good time, simply have the dragon cast a darkness spell on itself and then charge the party.

 

[Philip]

One point of major importance for monsters (especially lone) when fighting high level PCs: divide and conquer. Attempt to separate or distract as many PCs as possible. Summoned monsters, illusions, wall spells, invisibility/fog/darkness, superior mobility, all are essential to survive the concentrated firepower of the PCs.

A dragon has many of the abilities mentioned above, and it should create scenarios where it can use them. A brief summary of the last encounter with the 10th lvl heroes and a Black Dragon in my campaign:

- The heroes are prepared and fully prepped. They know they are going to face a Black Dragon and have precast many buff spells, including protection from elements (acid).

- The heroes see the lake swirling and bubbles rising. They immediately start casting short-duration buff spells.
(the dragon purposely makes his presence known, but the murky water provides enough cover so that he does not epxose himself to attacks)

- A Black Dragon slides out of the water silently and gracefully, the PCs open up with ranged weapons and spells only to discover it an illusion.
(the dragons uses a silent image spell to draw out the PCs and make them waste resources)

- The dragon waits for a minute causing the players a lot of anxiety.
(their short duration buffs, summoned monsters etc. expiry. At the end of the waiting time the dragon casts his own buffs)

- The dragon flies out of the water attacks on the wing. The PCs open up once more. The fighters miss their ranged attacks, the cleric's Flame Strike fails to penetrate SR but the Wizard's fireball strikes true. The Dragon manage to catch 3 out of 4 heroes on his breath but deals no damage and notices the PCs are protected from acid.
(with his AC augmented by an armor spell, the fighters have problems hitting the dragon reliably. Additionally, with their battle plan foiled, the PCs bunched up, making them good targets for a breath attack).

- The fighters loose another volley while the cleric casts air walk on one of the fighters. T the dragon swoops down and snatches up the wizard and flies off.
(spellcasters are always primary targets for any dragon, wizards/sorcerers, clerics next).

- The dragon flies out of range of the others and then casts darkness on a ring its wearing. Then wizard escapes with a dimension door, returning to the other heroes.
(once you got one PC snatched, use your superior speed to cover distance and attempt to kill the lone spellcaster. In this case the dragon chose to cover his retreat by casting darkness on itself, confident that it could deal with the lone spellcaster in due time.)

- The dragon circles while the Cleric casts daylight. The radius of the daylight is not sufficient to negate the darkness, though.
(in this case, its better to let the PCs come while his breath weapon recharges. The darkness will last long enough.)

In cases as this, the dragon could chose to cast other spells from the cover of darkness and benefit of range. It could create another illusion, cast invisibility on itself etc. It could do flyby's, wearing down the protection from acid spells, attempt a snatch on the cleric. Maybe even draw the airwalking/flying fighters towards it, and then circle around to deal with the wizard and/or cleric. Inside the darkness, its not vulnerable to a targeted dispel, and when subject to an area dispel, it can simply recreate the darkness.

- Take advantage of good senses by using spells or enviroment to exploit this (fog, darkness, murky water etc.)
- Take advantage of your superior speed and mobility by using hit-and-run tactics. Let buffs expire while you make a big circle. Lure away or snatch lone PCs. Just flying often makes half of a party unable to attack you directly without special magic.
- Take advantage of your ability to attack from range with breath weapons.