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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 2116281" data-attributes="member: 30022">Dragons are fairly rare in my campaign, in part to try and keep some of their 'mystique'. However, when they do show up, they tend to be pretty lethal for their CR. Requires some serious party cooperation.For example... A few months ago, the party fighter decided to take on a good-sized red dragon all by his lonesome, in the style of Beowulf. The fighter has a somewhat specialized (munchkin) build: one level of Monk, the rest in Sumarai and Iaijustsu Master. At 15th level, he was running AC 40+ (in no armor) and had a collosal Reflex save, with Evasion, to completely negate dragon breath. Not much damage capability per hit, but fast speed and Spring Attack to limit the dragon's ability to get a full attack on him.Despite that, all the dragon had to do was tag him once and succeed on a grapple check - it had a feat giving it Improved Grab. The fighter lacked a 'Freedom of Movement' effect, was easily pinned, and got ground into the... uhh... ground. WotC's Dragonomicon is a great source for springing that kind of surprise on your players. The party cleric and the secondary fighter showed up soon after, but lacked the ACs and Reflex saves to handle the situation. They were steadily getting fried to a crisp (Lingering Breath meant multiple rounds of damage from a single blast) when the *real* hero showed up...The party mage. I'm not sure about the experiences of other DMs, but my group's wizard uses a fairly standard build (and equipment roughly in line with the wealth-by-level guidelines)... and he's simply lethal to dragons. The various energy protection spells deal with breath weapons, and Stoneskin/Blink/quickened Dimension Door can all limit physical damage. The wizard's prefered tactic involves various Force effects: Walls of Force, Bigby's hand spells (which often have higher grapple rolls than even the beefiest party fighter), etc. He limits the dragon's ability to maneuver, then pummels it to death with Scorching Rays (usually Empowered, and usually turned into sonic rays with the Energy Substitution feat).Ways around it, of course: Anti-Magic Field, Spell-Turning, etc... but you can only use so many of those without it becoming obvious you're trying to single out the wizard. I guess bottom line for me is that I've never seen the necessity to "put that epic feeling" back into the 1 PC vs 1 Dragon fight... because they tend to be pretty lethal encounters at the best of times. I'd consider it nearly unthinkable to take one on alone. However, if you're having the same sort of troubles I've had with the wizard above, the Dragonomicon is a great place to start. Some of the feats and draconic magic items included there are just nasty.Also, don't forgert that dragons can be bad news when they use "non-standard" tactics like trips, grapples (...into the air, then dropping the PC from a great height), bullrushes, knocking over buildings on top of characters, igniting the forest they're fighting in to deal continual fire damage, etc. The latter tactics are particular useful in that the massive collateral damage can give the whole scene a really cinematic feel. ("Whoa... you mean the whole village is alight, and he just smashed the town hall's roof in?")</blockquote>

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