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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dark Dragon" data-source="post: 6256531" data-attributes="member: 1115">In fact, the players don't tend to plan everything in detail in adavance or develop contingencies for situation x or y. Their style of play has some similarities to real life: you can't plan for everything, and sometimes life is mean (i.e. the dice do not favor the PCs) and you have to accept that. For me as DM, I play more on the storytelling side of the game. I don't like excessive battles (which are difficult to manage in the D&D system, IMO), and I don't like excessive buff orgies either (like piling some 5 or more numbers of spells on each PC, then DimDoor in to annihilate the evil guys). For the latter, there is consensus in the group to keep buff orgies to a minimum.The upcoming fight is a rare exception and a major turning point of the storyline: the party directly faces for the first time an evil organisation that is seeking to capture the PCs' brass dragon companion for years, and now finally has the opportunity to achieve success. The PCs have fought strong dragons earlier, but those dragons were attacked either by surprise, or, if the dragon attacked the party, faced a team that worked well together and that was clever enough to realize when it was time to retreat ASAP.In the end, the PCs need to find a way to extricate from the trap with their means at hand, possibly making some difficult and ethically questionable decisions for survival. That's why I intend to use AMF as a back-up if the dragon's plan does not work out. I am not intending to make the dragon immune to all forms of attacks. But I intend to play the dragon as a smart and evil, cruel creature using possible advantages for himself while denying advantages to its foes. As I said earlier, it is a draco-centric campaign, and the old dragons are on the top of the hierarchy (along with some epic spell casters). Letting the PCs simply kill the dragon would reduce the monster to something more or less trivial, IMHO. Making it a worthy adversary or potentially a nemesis is more difficult but would show even epic PCs that they are not invincible per se.From most earlier battles of any PCs vs. a big dragon, arcane firepower did the most damage and/or crippled the dragon's mobility (e.g. reducing its fly speed or have otherwise adverse effects on move options) over a considerable distance, unless the dragon was forced into melee combat (which meant that he was subject to the full power of the party and finished off even faster).Even within an AMF, the dragon is not invulnerable: his AC will drop, the party fighter is a formidable foe even when blind and wielding a non-magical weapon, and he can't leave the battle quickly by magic means if hit by a critical attack and/or low on hp. To take out the arcane component and reduce the damage output of the melee guys, Blinding Breath and/or AMF seems fair to me. I fully agree! Most of my encounters are not designed to show the players that their PCs are still weak despite of being at level 25, just because the foes have the right spell or ability at hand to counter the PCs' abilities. This one special encounter however is designed to be difficult.The earlier fight with the lavawight should have been easier (because the monsters did not have a plan and no magic backing), but it became deadly due to a lot of bad luck on the players' side (failed save, failed rolls to overcome SR, failed tumble checks), and a bit of good luck on the DM's side (two confirmed 20s, mostly high rolls for damage).Four of the PCs are at level 25, the fifth just made it to 26. We used a 32 point-buy method for the stats. A few buff items are used in the group, but they are not maximized. Except for the straight fighter, all other PCs have multiclassed (some 3 to 4 classes including PrCs), so they are not optimized in their main class. Their two brass dragon allies are either a spectator (a very young brass dragon with 7 HD), or a potential threat to the evil guys (the juvenile vampiric brass dragon with an ECL of 29 which the cultists want to capture by any means and convert it to the evil side). The half golem is a nice but rather short-lived meat shield (97 hp, but with DR 10/adamantine and magic immunity). The party is still protected by Resist Fire (30 points), at full hit points (between 170 and 250 hp), and in possession of an evil artefact with some control over time (but its effects are usable only for the guy who carries the thing, which is the cleric in this case). They have only a few high-level spells left, which is a drawback.The players have managed difficult encounters earlier (this group meets for some 10 years now, IIRC, if not for longer), so far, they were clever enough <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Something about the topic...Agreed, as posted by Scorpio616. Let's have a look at the SRD:The AMF wording says "10-ft.-radius emanation, centered on you". Again, the SRD:By the wording and assuming that a gargantuan dragon completely covers 20x20 ft (i.e. including the corners) one could say that the creature could be harmed by aiming spells at its "corners". At these corners however, SR, DR, and ongoing spells cast prior to AMF would work as well! An AMF'ed dragon could place its head in one of the corners (remember, there's no facing in D&D), and use its breath weapon. Overall this would make the use of AMF not really useful UNLESS the dragon snatches or jumps/crushes a foe to deny access to magic means (like DimDoor or healing). The AMF-snatch combo would work even if we assume that the dragon is not protected at its "corners" by the RAW. A snatched PC between the teeth of an AMF'ed dragon (or even swallowed) is not capable of casting spells (exception: Invoke Magic, as was pointed out earlier) or use magic items other than artefacts. A dragon who seeks out to kill nasty spell-slinging would-be dragon hunters still would refer to this strategy: cast AMF, fly-by & snatch, kill. Rinse, repeat.A dragon who wants to be on the safe side would take Widen Spell to fit into an AMF. I did rule it earlier by following the RAW and used once a dragon with a widened AMF, but I had (and still have) some doubts if ruling AMF by RAW follows the spirit of the rules for several reasons:1) A dragon is not a cube. A gelatinous cube is a cube, a Borg cube is a cube. A dragon is not. A gargantuan dragon has a wing span pretty much extending a 20x20 ft area, but this is not covered by the rules. A dragon gliding in for an attack is technically a cube with scales and pointy weapons that may suddenly protrude from the cube. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/worried.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":-S" title="Uhm    :-S" data-shortname=":-S" />2) Using the RAW, parts of that dragon are simultaneously protected by AMF and other ongoing spells, e.g., earlier cast spells like Haste, Greater Magic Fang, Protection from Energy, ... would still work despite the AMF because they could happen to be on those limbs that are just outside the AMF. This makes batteling an AMF'ed + spell-pimped dragon a very nasty thing. I don't think that the developers of D&D had in mind that AMF (and other short-ranged emanations) could be cast by gargantuan creatures...Looks a bit like "DM's ruling needed"...</blockquote>

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