The Unstoppable Black Dragon

[Fifth Element]

lol. Well, at least the paladin can. Actually the paladin could defat the draogn all by himself (run into room, challenge the dragon using the class ability, run back out and keep running until dragon dies)

If your best strategy is relying on a heavily-armoured halfling to outrun a dragon, you need to rethink your strategy.

That, and the fact the designers have already fixed that bug.

 

[Sitara]

The dailies aren't that good.

Cleric: +4 vs. Will, max 28 damage (range 10).
Fighter: +6 vs. AC, max 35 damage (melee).
Paladin: +3 vs. Will, max 27 damage (range 5).
Ranger: +6 vs. AC, max 24 damage (ranged, more useful vs. multiple opps).
Warlock: +4 vs. Will, max 28 damage (range 10).
Wizard: +5 vs. Will, target slowed, sleep if failed save.

So that's maximum 142 if everyone hits and everyone rolls max damage. Average damage more like what, 40-50 points if you take into account the chances to hit? So as it happened in the fight mentioned by Mr. Mearls, hoping the dragon fails it save against sleep (assuming you make your attack roll) is your best hope.

You alsoneed to remember the quearry/curse/challeng/et alabilities. They require not attack AFAIR.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I ran it last night, and killed the whole party in six rounds.,

Now, admiteddly, they only had 4 of the six characters (no Pally or Cleric!) and they'd used a few of their dailies getting there (after two rounds I told them they could have their dailies, it was obvious they were going to get creamed.)

The dragon has two action points, which I used 1 on the surprise round (he easily slaughters their perception) and then 1 on the first round (in which he went first, he has a +11 init)

So I had 4 standards, a move, and a minor before anyone could do anything. By that time the wizard was at -2, the party was blind, the fighter & ranger were stunned. Good luck!

By the time they'd all died they'd done exactly 13 points of damage to it. Of 280.

I can't see how you could possibly beat it without the DM rolling all 2's and the party rolling all 18's for SEVERAL rounds.

Fitz

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

Andy Collins DMed the Delve in which we fought the black dragon. Scott Rouse, The Universe, and I were having a Hell of a time and that Hell of a time was compounded by the fact that Andy decided that the black dragon's acid attack was going to do 10 points of damage every round to my Dwarven fighter, instead of 5.

Two things allowed us to beat the dragon:
(1) Sara Girard joining the game at the last moment as the cleric.
(2) The Rouse's "TIMES 10!!" rule.*

*Sara rolled a two and The Rouse yelled, "TIMES 10!!!" Andy looked up and said, "Okay. Give me a dollar." And the two became a twenty.

 

[Derren]

Umm, except pull out a bow and shoot at them. You did remember to buy a missile weapon, didn't you? No? Too bad then.

I used the same logic on the elemental immunity issue (wizard only preparing fire spells? too bad...) but the 4E crowd immediately shouted how unfair it was to expect players to create reasonable characters and how it ruins the theme of a elemental moron, sorry I mean wizard when he is forced to prepare other spells than direct damage fire ones.

But apparently the elemental wizard theme is sacred while the fighter with just his trusty sword (either anime inspired or old edition kensais) can be violated at will be requiring a ranged weapon.

Also I was talking about the fight with the black dragon at DDEX. The 50% of the samples characters only have some throwing hammers, a dagger or two handaxes as ranged weapon. Not very effective.

 

[Belphanior]

You alsoneed to remember the quearry/curse/challeng/et alabilities. They require not attack AFAIR.

But what's the point? Curse does +1d6 damage if the warlock hits. Quarry does +1d8 damage if the ranger hits. And really, they're very likely to miss. So maybe it adds about 1 point of average damage per round each. Nothing really serious. Challenge can do damage but,
a. Has been fixed to prevent exploits.
b. It doesn't do damage if the dragon simply keeps using Breath Weapon and Double Attack to include the paladin all the time.

 

[Fifth Element]

You alsoneed to remember the quearry/curse/challeng/et alabilities. They require not attack AFAIR.

True. There's the cleric's Power of Amaunator, which does max 10 if you hit, the fighter's mark which does no damage, the paladin's challenge which does 8 if the dragon doesn't attack the paladin, hunter's quarry which does max 8 if you hit, and the curse which does max 6.

You'll need more than that. What else you got?

 

[Sitara]

lol maybe thats why they didn't 'fix' the exploit for ddxp. SO people would have a chance to kill the dragon.

But seriously I think its possible; just remember all the xp crew let the party rest for 6 hours outside the dragon's lair (how convinient!) and then they faced it. Also, remember pc's get a lot of action points which RECHARGE. so they can get of another standard action.

Trust me, in their round fresh pc's with full action pt complement will do tons of damage.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

We did 77 pts, and had one fatality before we fled. If it's well played, it's essentially unbeatable given the abilities of the players and the tactical situation. Possible, but you'd need a buttload of luck, have to be in great shape beginning the encounter, and not have a RBDM.

It beat our Perception checks and our Init, cast darknes, breathed, and stunned. I was the only one that avoided the acid, and the cleric was the only one that wasn't stunned. So for two rounds most of just sat there waiting to get eaten.

We actually lasted pretty damn long (I'd guess 10 rounds or so) but it was a scramble just to survive.

 

[Insight]

We defeated the Black Dragon in our only chance. I'm not sure the DM was running the dragon correctly as it never got an opportunity attack, even though the Fighter and Paladin were constantly running around in front of it. In addition, the DM refused to have the dragon breathe every round even though it could have (he refreshed every time, and kept rolling 1s).

If the DM had run the dragon correctly, we would have died in about 5-6 rounds, as the thing had 200+ HP and did way more damage than we could heal. Not really an appropriate encounter for a 1st level group IMHO.