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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5382791" data-attributes="member: 59082">The 4E rules make it possible to face a dragon at pretty much any level, from a Young dragon in mid-Heroic Tier to an Adult dragon in early Paragon to an Elder dragon in late Paragon to an Ancient dragon in Epic tier. But is there a "best" time? Or is it all relative to the level the characters are at? Or is there a "sweet spot" for dragon-goodness?The reason I ask is that the PCs in my group are all at 10th level and I'm planning out the Paragon tier trajectory. We just finished the first chapter of Tomb of Horrors and I'm wanting to use the next three chapters but probably not starting until 15th or 16th level. I will be modifying and fleshing out the "Acererak Plot" before then, but I'd also like to fit in a kind of archetypal dragonslaying quest either before then or later, around 20th level, but I like the idea of doing before.The basic gist of the quest is this: About a hundred years ago a thriving dwarven city was utterly destroyed by a powerful dragon. Heroes have tried to take the city back, including a small dwarven army, but they were all destroyed. More recently one of the great heroes of the land sought to slay the dragon but has not been seen since. Now the "secret" (and it is a good thing that none of my players read this board, afaik) is that it is not one dragon but two: an old red dragon female and her younger male blue dragon consort.Depending upon the PCs level when they get there, the two will be: early-to-mid Paragon Tier: Adult Blue/Elder Red, or late Paragon-to-early-Epic Tier: Elder Blue/Ancient Red. I'd like to set the adventure up so that they are way out of their league to face the Red, but can win through via trickery or some sort of magical dragon-slaying artifact. I might have them first go on a shorter quest to find an artifact that will help them slay the dragon. I also like the idea of them sneaking in and somehow imprisoning or killing the Red, or collapsing a cave upon her...that sort of thing.But the key is that I want them to face the Blue and just barely defeat him and think they are home free and ready to loot the lair (they would face the Blue outside of the ruined city, which is within a mountain, of course!). As they explore the city they would come across clues that Something Is Still Alive Down There, and I would build up the suspense until they come across the massive red beast. They will realize--probably due to her size--that they are over-matched.One of the things I love about 4E, and what I forgot when I started writing this, is that it is easy to modify monster levels so that an Adult Blue, for instance, doesn't have to be 13th level, or an Elder Blue doesn't have to be 20th. I could make an Adult Blue be in the 15-16 range, and then I could make the red be an Elder dragon of at least 22nd level.So let's say that the PCs, currently on the cust of Paragon Tier (10th going on 11th), ran a preliminary "dragon slaying artifact quest" that took them up to about 12-13th level by the time they face the Blue dragon, who would be 15-17th level - a nice combat, I would think. Simply killing the Blue would probably bring them up to 13-14th level. So here's a question: How could a party of 5-6 13-14th level characters possibly kill an Elder Red Dragon of 22nd level? What sort of artifact would that require? Or is that too big of a gap? As a secondary question, what sort of "Ultimate Dragon Slaying Quests" have you run? Can you share a brief plot outline?</blockquote>

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