The deadliest CR 18 in the world, courtesy of WotC

[UltimaGabe]

not to mention that silence spell is horribly overpowered as written...lol

...why's that?

 

[Scion]

...why's that?

I'd prefer not to push the thread off topic more than I already have Just do a search for it, there have been many threads about it. In brief though, it is pretty much the ultimate counterspell along with lots of other powerful uses, all for a lowly second level spell.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Oh! Whoops. I thought you meant the Silent Spell feat was overpowered. Anyway, I guess I agree with you, it is powerful- but I don't know if it's horribly overpowered. That's why people get Silent Spell, and Still Spell is useful in its own situations too.

 

[Majere]

I dont think that is true about the barred version, am I wrong?

Correct, bared version doenst block spells
The tactics I suggest work best if you get the suprize round.
If you want to take it that step further:
The cleric readies to cast dimensional lock and a quickened silence when the dragon casts a spell. Unless the dragon is a mind reader his first spell is unlikely to be a silent disintigrate, so he will lose that spell.
From now on the mage is reduced to preparing disitigrate as a readied actio to counter the dragons spells, but as the dragon is having to use silenced dispels the mage should be able to keep up.

If his spell IS a silenced disintigrate, that is a full round for a sorcerer, so he can do nothing else excpet a 5' step. He is still in the silence and the dimensional lock. And he will be in another force cage next turn.

Turn two mage force cages, dragon dispels, cleric refocuses.
Turn 3 cleric readies silence and miracle (cast disintigrate as a counterspell) for any spell the dragon casts. Mage force cages. Dragon get countered.
From this point on the mage can ready disintigrates as called dispels and the cleric and fighters can blow the crap out of the dragon.

Sure its a tough drain on spells. But it is a CR18 creature and you just completely immobilized it as little to no risk.
And it only works because the dragon isnt colossal.

And you get him turn one unless the dragon casts a slienced disintigrate which almost screams of metagaming by the DM

Majere

 

[Scion]

Dont forget contingency and chain contingency, and foresight, and any number of other 9th level spells

Plus, with a movement like the dragons he should be able to stay out of range of any close range spells, until he is sure his breath weapon will work.. at which point just about everyone is dead.

Also, when talking about a creature with wis 27 and int 26 I would expect it to have some plans up, and unfortunately a bit of metagaming now and then on part of the dm. After all, there is no way he has scores anywhere near that. At the least though a few defensive spells up makes this guy nearly invincible Not completely by any chance, but definately not a push over.


What exactly does caster level 21 do for him anyway? Does he gain extra slots for that level? It seems like it should do something other than just an extra point of penetration and such.

 

[Majere]

Dont forget contingency and chain contingency, and foresight, and any number of other 9th level spells

Plus, with a movement like the dragons he should be able to stay out of range of any close range spells, until he is sure his breath weapon will work.. at which point just about everyone is dead.

Also, when talking about a creature with wis 27 and int 26 I would expect it to have some plans up, and unfortunately a bit of metagaming now and then on part of the dm. After all, there is no way he has scores anywhere near that. At the least though a few defensive spells up makes this guy nearly invincible Not completely by any chance, but definately not a push over.


What exactly does caster level 21 do for him anyway? Does he gain extra slots for that level? It seems like it should do something other than just an extra point of penetration and such.

Ah we dont play splat books so chain contingency isnt a hassle
Contingency of "dim door 20' up when Im force caged would work, but he can only have 1 contingency up at a time so it only buys him 1 round.
And as stated before, delay poison and a few other buffs should neutralize his breath attack.
If he starts up with dispel magic then that is a round he gave up to dispel you, and of course you could have your own contingency up for that one (When a dispel magic spell will affect me cast dispel magic as a targetted counter spell). I which case he gave up a round for nothing.

The point is that, ever round the dragon spends trying to get out of silence/dimensional lock/ force cages etc, is a round he isnt attack you, but a round your fighter/rogue etc can be peppering the dragon. sure its tought but CR18 monsters are ment to be tough. With the right forethough you can contain this guy with relative ease. and with a fairly high sucess probability.

And sure a little meta gaming is reasonable, but I would stress the word litte there. Ultimately the DM will always "win" if the game boils down to trying to pull the most obscene spell/guild combination.

Majere

 

[UltimaGabe]

Just why exactly would this dragon have nothing up his sleeve but silenced Disintegrates? I know of plenty of Sorcerers who have FAR more tricks than that. Keep in mind, this Dragon can cast WISH several times per day. And Limited wish at that. And he'll be able to cast all of his spells several minutes longer than your Cleric or Wizard, considering he's got a million spells per level.

If it were me, and I were a 21st-level Sorcerer, and I somehow got caught in this, I'd Silently Dimension Door out of the Force Cage. Every round, I'd keep doing this- after all, the Wizard can't have unlimited Force Cages, and Disintegrate won't be doing much with a Dragon's amazing Fortitude Save. Once a round passed where he didn't cast Force Cage, I'd move out of the Silenced area and cast Otto's Irresistable Dance on the Cleric. Since there's no save, he'd be out for at least 2 rounds- so the next round I'd cast Wail of the Banshee. If that didn't kill the anyone, then the next round (assuming the Wizard didn't put up another Force Cage), I'd cast Horrid Wilting. The Wizard and Rogue would either be dead, or down quite a few hit points (20d8 is a nasty thing, especially when Evasion doesn't help). Assuming the Cleric is still out, I'd follow up with a Power Word: Kill. This would almost definitely kill the Wizard and Rogue, especially after the Horrid Wilting. Then I'd Maze the Fighter, and finish off the Cleric at my leisure. Once he was gone, I'd just buff up and wait for the Fighter. And, if at any point he's got an extra turn he doesn't know what to do with, he can always just cast Mordenkainen's Disjunction. That would render everyone's weapons nonmagical (along with all of their other items, that is), and thus the fighter would not be able to overcome his Damage Reduction.

See? I can come up with a plan too.

 

[UltimaGabe]

If he starts up with dispel magic then that is a round he gave up to dispel you, and of course you could have your own contingency up for that one (When a dispel magic spell will affect me cast dispel magic as a targetted counter spell). I which case he gave up a round for nothing.

You kinda can't do that. A contingency has to be a spell that affects you, and you can't have it affect something else. (So unless you wanted to Dispel Magic on yourself, you couldn't do it.) You can't make Contingency into an automatic Counterspell.

Besides, what makes you think that you could beat his caster level on a Dispel check?

 

[UltimaGabe]

The cleric readies to cast dimensional lock and a quickened silence when the dragon casts a spell.

Turn 3 cleric readies silence and miracle (cast disintigrate as a counterspell) for any spell the dragon casts.

Keep in mind, of course, that you can only ready one spell at a time, regardless of the casting time. So the Cleric could only ready a Dimensional Lock OR a Quickened Silence, not both. And he can't ready Silence and Miracle, only one or the other. This is, of course, unless you're using the 3e Haste, in which case the Dragon would be much better off, as he's benefitting from the extra partial action as well.

And keep in mind this thing's smart. If he sees that he's at a disadvantage because he's small, what's stopping him from blowing a 1st-level spell slot and casting Enlarge?

And, just to remind you, an 18th level Wizard would have to roll a natural 20 to overcome this thing's Spell Resistance with a disintegrate, so those are out of the question to begin with.

 

[reiella]

Keep in mind, of course, that you can only ready one spell at a time, regardless of the casting time. So the Cleric could only ready a Dimensional Lock OR a Quickened Silence, not both. And he can't ready Silence and Miracle, only one or the other. This is, of course, unless you're using the 3e Haste, in which case the Dragon would be much better off, as he's benefitting from the extra partial action as well.

And keep in mind this thing's smart. If he sees that he's at a disadvantage because he's small, what's stopping him from blowing a 1st-level spell slot and casting Enlarge?

And, just to remind you, an 18th level Wizard would have to roll a natural 20 to overcome this thing's Spell Resistance with a disintegrate, so those are out of the question to begin with.

Erm, well the quickened silence I believe wasn't [Gah typo fix to reaffirm meaning] explicitly being readied, just 'available as an option'. Although the ability to employ a Free Action/Quickened Spell Out of Turn is probably in question.

Enlarging whiel in a forge cage, hmm I'm not sure how well that'd work. The spell does automatically fail if the critter is "too large" at the time of casting, and I suppose the dragon could use Persistant Enlarge... Except he's not a humanoid, so he's not a valid target.

I also wasn't aware that you had to beat a target creature's spell resistance in order to counter the spells that they are casting...