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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Philip" data-source="post: 1569947" data-attributes="member: 10993">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.</blockquote>

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