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Message: <blockquote data-quote="brehobit" data-source="post: 3895918" data-attributes="member: 12032">OK,I'd missed that the mask can cure 440 points of damage in one round and 98 points of damage in two other rounds (on the average) as a free action for the dragon.  Toss in the counter spell (d20 vs caster level) and this guy is going to eat casters -- all but something like a warmage will be really hosed.  The cold vulnerability will be hard to exploit given the 8 protection from energy spells (110 point of damage each) that can be cast.  The mask should cast one of those right away, as well as freedom of movement.  If a caster throws the same spell more than once, a spell immunity should go up.So this seems like it will come down to save or die spells (Will save of +16 isn't _that_ hard to beat at this level, and SR 24 isn't too bad either) or hand-to-hand combat.  And it will be a heck of a long battle before the PCs win, unless the save or die kicks in. So my call:Ranged combat for damage will fail badly.  Caster's will run out of spells too soon, and even orbs will have a hard time given the protection from energy and the potential to counter spell spells (I think 25% of spells will be dropped this way).  A warmage will of course be best here (start with cold, keep changing and a LOT of attack spells) but a wizard will run out of spells and a sorc. will find spell resistance stopping his best spells after a bit.  Toss in the healing, and well, things are ugly.  The problem is the breath weapons don't do enough to be a huge pain: the party can likely managed to heal fast enough that ranged combat won't be that deadly for the party either.Hand-to-hand might be pretty crazy too.  The ward is huge.  A full-attacker will be facing a lack of a magic item on the 2nd or 3rd attack in the round almost for certain and the DR10 will kick in.  Ugly.  That said, a good hand-to-hand party has a chance of eathin this guy in 3 rounds even with all the healing.The final option is throwing a variety of save-or-lose spells.  Most parties will only have a few, and spell immunity should knock them down after a bit.  My high-level caster would start with hold and charm spells and the freedom of movement and break enchantments would completely kill them off (not to mention spell immunity after a while).  After that she'd shift to buffs, esp. if she figures it out.So it looks to me like the best bet the party has is to wait for the dragon to be within 50' of the ground and cast "downdraft" and close like mad.  That's what the (lower-level) party I have would do.In any case, unless a save-or-die spell gets past all defenses, this will be a long LONG combat.  This thing has more than 1000 effective hit points.  With protection from energy a lot more than that.  Dude, long fight.Mark</blockquote>

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