Tactics for defeating a huge red dragon

[Pielorinho]

Okay, Spider, you wanna play rough? You wanna create a thread for ideas that we can't join? Fine, then -- shoo, shoo!

Last session ended with out party stumbling on the lair of a huge red dragon. Through the use of combined tactics, we barely escaped without a single death; had we stood to fight, I believe we all would have died.

But this session, we need to go back into the face of danger, and I want some ideas for doing so.

Before I continue, this thread contains spoilers for RttToEE. Since I'm playing in it, I'd appreciate other folks not further spoiling the adventure: no saying, "Well, past the red dragon's lair is an underground river which you could use for cover" or anything like that. However, if you're playing through the adventure yourself, beware the spoilers I'm gonna post.

So here's the sitch.

After bumbling around the Dwarven Mines for a long time, we've finally decided to cross the stalagos and go after the bad boys inside. Our party consists of:

* A sorcerer9, reincarnated as a swarm of bees (basically, has no weight and can barely use equipment), who's good at lightning bolts, Otto's Resilient Sphere, and Dimension Door, and can also dispel magic.
* An elven monk/rog with 11 levels, with an AC in the high 20s/low 30s and a decent longbow
* A dwarven cleric10, with the earth domain and one other domain
* A dwarven cohort fighter8 (?) whom we've not yet seen but who will probably be a tank; and
* Myself, a dwarven druid10 with an emphasis on earth-magic and a prayer bead of karma and the natural spell feat.

We planned our entrance to the inner temple carefully, wearing disguises and learning passwords and so forth, and did such a good job of it that we didn't alert the perimeter guards nor activate the gigantic lightning rods that surround the stalagos. We made it to an inner door without incident and unlocked it, finding ourselves in the doorway of a massive torchlit room --

-- and then the huge, 10' by 20' red dragon in the middle of the room lifted its head and looked at us. It greeted us as temple worshippers for a brief moment before registering that no, under our evil-guy cloaks, we weren't Tharizdunophiles at all.

We got our butts out of there quickly. Wall of thorns on the doorway and on the dragon. Monk goes running his butt for safety. Sorcerer dimension doors the druid and the cleric across the bridge.

As the monk goes running, he starts getting peppered by magic missiles and nearly dies, so the sorcerer goes back via dimension door and rescues him. Once we're all safely back on the other side of the bridge, we sealed the passageway with a wall of stone.

And there we ended, shaken but alive. I had all kinds of spells prepared that were totally useless: transmute rock to mud doesn't work on worked stone, and flamestrike just tickles red dragons.

Here's the email I sent to my fellow players:

Thoughts I've had:
1) The bad guys now know we're coming.
2) They'll have time to prepare their turf.
3) They may prepare in one of a couple of ways: they may either attack us straight out the gate (i.e., over the stalagos) or they may wait until we get into the complex and then attack, trying to wall us in. We need to have contingencies for either plan.
4) If we take the fight to them, we'll be taking it to a battleground that they have prepared.
5) If we go somewhere else, they may perform divinations to anticipate our moves.

We've got lots stacked against us. In our favor, we have:
1) We know about the red dragon, and can prepare for fighting it if we decide that's an appropriate course.
2) We know about the wasps and the magic-missile casters, and can similarly prepare for them.
3) We have relatively flexible tactics; if they prepare for the last battle, we might be able to surprise them by fighting differently.
4) We know other routes in: if they prepare to fight us in the red dragon's lair, we might find it easier to take a different approach altogether.
5) We have access to scry and divination, both of which will help us figure out what they might be up to.

So, ideas:
* Wear our amulets and other protections, cover ourselves with invisibility, fly, and go in upstairs -- i.e., fly in through the same towers that were spitting out wasps before.
* Same as above, but go in through the boats we found underground.
* Go head-to-head vs. the red dragon. On entering, immediately prepare the battlefield by casting wall of stone just inside the entryway to create battlements with arrow-slits and such. Cast various protection spells on all of us, and cast dispel magic on the red dragon straightaway. I can ready a quench spell to deal with its first fireblast; if it turns out to be a nasty spellcaster, I can fill the area with an insect plague, at least temporarily preventing it from casting spells (and possibly frightening off any lower-level mooks in the area. I might also summon some arrowhawks to help whittle away the hit points, and it might not be a bad idea for our new cleric friend to do likewise (or summon some other critter with fire resistance and a touch attack). If we do this, hopefully the sorcerer can keep a dimension door handy for when the dragon starts beating our butts into the pavement.

Do y'all have other ideas that we should be thinking about? What would be good tactics for a group such as ours to use against such a massive dragon?

Daniel

 

[iwatt]

Avoid the Dragon by all means. The only reason you'd fighta dragon is because you must (cornered, quest, you have the combined IQ of a snail, etc), and you've just said that you have other options. Maybe your best bet is to bluff anybody scrying you into believing you're going after the dragon. Theyll probably wait for the aftermath. Meanwhile you can counter scry and discover were the bad guys are, preparing a rapid strike to surprise. Remember that a Sorc with Dimension door == Fast entrance, whittle down some enemies, evade. Rinse and repeat if possible.

If you really want to fight the dragon , buff up your sorc so that he can't be taken down. And summon lot's and lot's of critters while all you guys hunker behind the wall of stone (3/4 cover equals +7 to reflex saves. I still think the dragon might take some of you guys down, specialy because he's going to be waiting for you.

 

[sithramir]

hmm

Best ways to deal with a Big Red Dragon:

1)Leave it a lone
2)Run
3)Run really fast
4)Fly away (really fast)
5)leave it alone
6)run screaming into the night
7)offer it a cookie
8)trip the fattest/slowest character then (see 2, 3, or 6)

Those are my suggestions. Just remember if you ever beat a dragon its not because you were better than the dragon its because the DM wasn't as smart as the dragon.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

We bumped into this guy during our travels too. We stayed and fought, but I don't remember too many specifics. I do remember my cleric cast Insect Plague before anything else on the first round. According to the spell description, the dragon's fireblast will clear the insect horde for one round (or at least the area where the breath weapon goes), but unless it's hasted, that's it. Your party can then take shots at him, and the Insect Plague reforms the next round. Best of all, if he is a spellcaster, spellcasting within an Insect Plague is impossible. Oh, and spell resistance doesn't apply either.

Also keep in mind that this dragon is without one of his greatest advantages: flight. There's simply no room for him to move about and pick his fights.

Just something to consider - good luck!

 

[Tellerve]

I'm the cleric in this ill fated party and indeed I'll be having some sorta dwarven fighter/barbarian/devoted defender something or other as my cohort.

I think one of the biggest things about dragons is slowing them down. Especially in the realms of attacks. A slow spell is just a must, but sadly I don't think we can cast it. Tanglefoot bags would be nice as well, or any other entangling-ish spell. I'm intrigued with the insect swarm spell and will check it over again to see, but it sounds useful.

I like the idea of skirting the dragon for now, and using the sorcerer and celestial avorals that I summon to dimension door us in and out quickly. Granted I'm not sure how well our dm will manage if we completely circumvent his plans for tonight, but hey it is our right

So, things to think about Pel, is that well, there are 4 doors, but I'd wager that each has something guarding it and hopefully not 4 different dragons. But I imagine one door doesn't have two young orcs guarding it, ya know. So, generalized spells of hampering, escape, buff and just a smattering of destruction would be good.

Tellerve

 

[Pielorinho]

I'm the cleric in this ill fated party and indeed I'll be having some sorta dwarven fighter/barbarian/devoted defender something or other as my cohort.

Heh -- I was procrastinating at work yesterday (yes, really, and I don't appreciate your sarcastic tone either ), and doodled up the stats for a dwarven fighter/barbarian/DD. I'll dig them out of the recycling bin and bring them tonight, just to see how similar your ideas were to mine.

I think one of the biggest things about dragons is slowing them down. Especially in the realms of attacks. A slow spell is just a must, but sadly I don't think we can cast it. Tanglefoot bags would be nice as well, or any other entangling-ish spell. I'm intrigued with the insect swarm spell and will check it over again to see, but it sounds useful.

The spell looks great at preventing spellcasting, and not so hot at anything else. Still, that might be useful. Considering that our DM seems determined to nerf wall of thorns into uselessness, and that I promised to cut back on the summoning spells, it might be best for me to take that, freeing up your fifth-level slots for more useful stuff (like raise dead).

I like the idea of skirting the dragon for now, and using the sorcerer and celestial avorals that I summon to dimension door us in and out quickly. Granted I'm not sure how well our dm will manage if we completely circumvent his plans for tonight, but hey it is our right

Are you planning on summoning them or lesser planar allying them? They don't appear on the summon list until level VII, so I'm guessing the latter. Not meaning to nitpick: but if they're here as allies, they'll be around for longer (probably) and can prove helpful for more than one battle. Heck, cast invisibility on one and get it to go a-scouting for us, maybe, teleporting its goody-two-shoes-self all over the place.

And given that Spider's getting all kinds of BADD-ass ideas for the dragon in his thread, I'm agreeing more and more that the best defense is a good detour. We do run the risk that the dragon will track us down, but that's a risk we'll have to take.

New suggestion: let's not camp somewhere that we want to protect, and let's not camp somewhere that's easily identifiable. Find some place that we can make a quick escape from and that would be hard to identify might be best for now.

We need to get our swarm of bees to learn rope trick, don'tcha think?

So, things to think about Pel, is that well, there are 4 doors, but I'd wager that each has something guarding it and hopefully not 4 different dragons. But I imagine one door doesn't have two young orcs guarding it, ya know. So, generalized spells of hampering, escape, buff and just a smattering of destruction would be good. [/B]

True, true. There are three doors, right? Do we know whether the one we took was keyed to the fire temple? Maybe we can take a different door this time, so that my druidic magic won't be ineffective against its guardians (i.e., I can produce flame and flame strike happily).

Daniel

 

[LokiDR]

To slow the dragon, try Briar web. Entangle plus a chance at stopping casting.

To kill it, cast quench on the dragon several times. 30d6 no save, no SR, should get it to mostly dead. It is a fire sub-type creature after all.

 

[Pielorinho]

To slow the dragon, try Briar web. Entangle plus a chance at stopping casting.

To kill it, cast quench on the dragon several times. 30d6 no save, no SR, should get it to mostly dead. It is a fire sub-type creature after all.

The way we rule things, briar web and entangle must be cast on existing foliage, don't create new foliage. (Unless I'm misremembering briar web).

I've thought about quench, but I'm not sure how the DM would rule it. The spell's text is unclear, saying that it damages "fire-based" creatures, not "fire subtype" creatures.

I decided for my own campaign that creatures who were made of or who used fire would be affected (e.g., elementals, thoqquas, red dragons), and creatures who just liked the heat wouldn't be (e.g., fire giants). But I don't know how he'd rule. In any case, it could be useful to trade a fourth-level spell to negate a breath weapon.

Except now I've reread the description, and strangely it seems like it'd be ineffective vs. a dragon's breath weapon: by the rules, it only affects fire-based creatures, nonmagical fires, fire spells, and fire-producing magic items. Ah, well.

Daniel

 

[Pielorinho]

I decided for my own campaign that creatures who were made of or who used fire would be affected (e.g., elementals, thoqquas, red dragons), and creatures who just liked the heat wouldn't be (e.g., fire giants). But I don't know how he'd rule. In any case, it could be useful to trade a fourth-level spell to negate a breath weapon.

Aw, crap -- that's not how I said I'd rule. In a previous thread, I suggested changing the spell's wording to the following:

Any creature of the fire subtype whose natural weapons deal fire damage takes 1d6 hit points of damage per caster level (no saving throw, spell resistance applies.

I'll stick by this POV, even though it takes away one of my best dragon-fighting spells. Dangit!

Daniel

 

[AuraSeer]

[...]and flamestrike just tickles red dragons.

It does work, just not very well. Only half its damage is fire; the other half is divine power, and is not subject to fire resistance or immunity. (That half also is not doubled against cold-subtype creatures.)

'Course, then you're spending a 5th-level slot for (effectively) 5d6 damage, and it's still subject to SR and a Reflex save. But some damage is better than none.