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Message: <blockquote data-quote="interwyrm" data-source="post: 2722907" data-attributes="member: 31913">I like tinner's encounter. That takes some serious foresight to pull off.I'll leave the encounter setups to others and focus on combat tactics. It is my opinion that a dragon's best option is not to jump into melee and start thrashing around like a wild beast. That's a good way to get killed. A dragon's tactics will vary to a large part on what feats they have. Pretty much all dragons should have flyby attack, and all dragons of large or larger size should have snatch. Maneuverability is of key importance to a dragon, and if in an open space, they can flyby, breathing in one round, picking up a party member in the next, flinging/dropping that party member in the third while turning around, and then begin anew. Separating the party like that makes healing, running away, and fighting as a cohesive unit difficult if not impossible.Another useful option for snatch is to hold onto the grappled creature (preferably in the mouth) as the creature (I think) takes bite damage each round, as well as breath weapon damage with no reflex save when the dragon uses the breath weapon. This is a useful tactic for quickly eliminating spellcaster support. Dragons, in my opinion, should fear melee. Fighters of a level equivalent to the dragons CR can do a pretty good job of taking off half their hp in a single round. Luckily, dragons can cast spells so they can either turn invisible, gain concealment by means of blur, hold person the fighter, dispel the fighter's flight spell, etc. If all else fails, a dragon should always run from it's foes rather than die at their hands. All dragons have a flight speed of at least 100ft if I'm not mistaken, and that is more than enough to outrun any character using a fly spell.To sum up, a few rules:breathe early, breathe often.take ranged attackers and spellcasters out of the fight by grapplingtake advantage of buff spells to reduce vulnerabilitiesif all else fails, run away, and hunt them down later.if a dragon has access to cleric spells, right after running away, heal, and come back for a second battle. Most likely the pc's are not recovered enough for a second fight with the big bad dragon.Ah, one more thing. If a dragon *must* wade into melee. Make sure it throws up a darkness spell and jumps around a lot, or have it cast improved invisibility. Don't let the players just whale on it.Btw. I just felt like contributing, don't want any prize</blockquote>

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