PDA

View Full Version : Climbing Dragons



EccentricCircle
2011-01-30, 02:37 PM
So the thread entitled Scaleing Dragons turned out to be about making them tougher or weaker so I figured i'd start a new thread for everyone to post their stories about climbing dragons during epic battles.
I'm sure every party has done this at some point in a D&D game there is always that moment when a towering Draconic ediface stands before you and you get that "because its there feeling"

In the games i've run and played in it always seems to be the halflings who end up doing the dragon climbing to the point where i've sugested writing a prestige class called the Halfling Draconeer.

so who has some good war stories about their dragon climbing exploits?

Kaww
2011-01-30, 02:45 PM
A white dragon with flyby attack snatched a gnome (party's beguiler). The Sun Elf Warmage, Gnome's best friend, tells the Cleric to hit him with Celestial Aspect, sprout's wings and chases the white dragon. Drops on the dragons back. Holds himself tightly and casts several firebursts. All the time the Dragon is trying to fling the Elf (str 7, pitiful grapple), but the elf rolls high every time. After three firebursts the dragon flings the gnome, which is caught mid flight by the pitifully weak Warmage...

The dragon escaped, waiting and plotting a revenge against the ones that killed his mother.

This happened some nine months ago.

dsmiles
2011-01-30, 02:47 PM
I've never had the opportunity to climb a dragon. I did, however, accidentally teleport myself directly into one's left ventricle once. Does that count?

Scarlet-Devil
2011-01-30, 03:05 PM
Well, I've never had the opportunity to actually climb one... about the closest thing to that is when my DM decided to give us a little 'side-quest'. My character's friend, a young baron, came to me to ask for our help with a "small problem" in his keep's dungeon. We go down there, having been told nothing, and find out that there's a huge green dragon lairing down there. We talk a little, but it's going nowhere, and then my horny sorcerer (we were teenagers at the time) asks if he has a sister :smallredface:, resulting in a surprise breath weapon and rolling initiative.

The battle was going pretty badly, so our DM tells the fighter that he can climb under it (I think) and slash it without it being able to retaliate with it's wings/claws/bite, and that helps in the first round. Then the dragon crushes him (lol :smallbiggrin:), knocking him out. (We did win though, barely).

DragonBaneDM
2011-01-30, 03:07 PM
Hivemind!!!! You beat me to it, man!

Our Tielfling Avenger did most courageously climb aboard a Red Dragon. To quote him, "Don't worry guys, I'm gonna solo him."

Malfunctioned
2011-01-30, 03:25 PM
I don't think I'll ever forget the time in a game where the party were chasing down a half blue green dragon that had escaped from the headquarters of the games paladin organisation.

Two of us were down, they being the Elven Wizard and the Dwarven Spellthief. The dragon had just started flying over the ocean with me, a Human Swashbuckler, Krang Stonefist, an Orcish Monk and Kain our local Human Paladin, following him on a magic carpet.

We managed to get along side it before we were hit by his electric breath. Kain was down. I managed to throw a lasso over one of his spines and held it securely with a lucky roll. Then Krang had his moment of awesome.


This 7 foot tall overly muscular orc ran along the taut rope and charged along the dragons back. Once he reached the head he leaped into the air and headbutted it dead on.

He managed to get a crit. The dragon was knocked straight out and both of us ended up plummeting in the ocean before later being rescued by some of the local Sky Gnome patrol.

After that Krang become known as Krang Dragonskull, the orc who had a head harder than a dragon.

Hazzardevil
2011-01-30, 03:30 PM
I haven't had teh chance to climb a dragon yet, mainly because I haven't fought one.

Viking_Mage
2011-01-30, 03:59 PM
I've never used a character to climb a dragon, but on one occasion my halfling rogue climbed into a dragon. I activated ethereal armor picked up a ghost touch jovar and just walked right in - full attacking the "flat-footed" dragon dealing sneak attack damage every swipe. I walked out of it by cutting my way through its belly and its blended innards swept out with me. I'm not sure if that was legal by RAW, but I got the DM to go with it.

Savannah
2011-01-30, 04:07 PM
We were fighting a black dragon on the shores of an underground lake. It was popping up to breath on us, then heading to deep water while its breath weapon recharged. So the (mildly insane) rogue readied an action to lasso it....

So while no one climbed a dragon, the rogue and monk did ride one underwater (while the wizard and cleric, who weren't quite as crazy, stood on shore praying). Everyone but the dragon survived in the end, although the rogue nearly drowned.

Waker
2011-01-30, 04:27 PM
One of my more epic battles in my D&D career involved climbing a dragon. A little backstory on my character first. I was playing as a Human Barbarian/Fighter hailing from the desert. He favored leather and cloth armor and his weapon of choice was an ancestral falchion with a few magic traits (including minor intelligence.) I was not at all optimized, but the character had one thing going for him, he was larger than life. No matter how bad things got, he always pulled through with overwhelming panache. The only reason he failed rolls was so that what he did next was all the more impressive. At the time of this adventure I was either level 11 or 12.

Anyways, this blue dragon (young adult or adult, can't remember) decided to stake a claim in the desert and demanded tribute from my character's tribe. To make an example of them, the dragon kills some of those resisting him, including my character's father. Bad move. I tell the rest of the party I've got to go kill the dragon. They say "Don't worry, we'll help you." to which I reply "If you interfere in any way, I'll kill you."

Fast forward to me entering the dragons cave. I attempt no stealth or subterfuge, and demand a duel. The dragon is of course amused by my swagger and agrees to this. Some blows are exchanged and he manages to get a lucky spell in on me (Can't recall which, but I was locked in place for a few rounds) but before he can kill my character, my fathers ghost (who is bound to the cave) appears and harries the dragon while I break out. Combat is resumed and the dragon decides to get cute. He opts to snatch my falchion and then fly in the air above me.

I'm not having any of this, I run and jump up high enough to grab his leg and begin clambering to his head. Now comfortably perched behind his head I begin wailing away (I did have Improved Unarmed). The dragon is sufficiently annoyed/hurt so he flies out of his lair and begins climbing altitude. Once high enough he grabs me with a claw and has the brilliant idea of stabbing me with my falchion. Remember how I said the falchion was intelligent? The dragon ends up slicing up his own hand and I'm forced to make two reflex saves, one to grab the dragon and the other to grab my sword as we are both dropped. I make the saves. I make a swing at the dragon with my sword (taking penalties for using my sword one-handed) and miss. The dragon attempts to finish me off and by sheer stupid luck, misses me. I attack again and get the lucky blow I needed, killing the dragon.

Now gravity kicks in, the now dead dragon and myself begin plummeting. But I've got one last ace in the hole. As a 1/day ability my sword can cast Feather Fall. I make a safe landing on the ground several hundred feet below. With 6 hp left.

That is one tale of Abar Zaal the Immortal. It was not his last.

Dralnu
2011-01-30, 04:57 PM
It was a level 12 campaign. The party was a tiefling something (fighter?), half-dragon werebear barbarian, celestial bard, some flying monkey (from stormwrack) monk thing and my human paladin / fist of raziel. We were up against a blue dragon of huge size.

The dragon stayed in the air and alternated between flyby attacks and breath. Everybody but me had the ability to fly, so they brought the fight to it. Since I was grounded and useless, I spent each round slowly buffing myself with paladin spells. I think I casted every stackable offensive buff that I had.

Rounds went by as the battle continued, both sides getting beat up but our side on the verge of all being KO'd. The blue dragon then casted Heal on itself and the DM indicated that it was preparing another breath attack. It looked bad.

I ready an action to smite some evil and give the flying monkey the signal. He flies down, grabs me, and uses dimension door to teleport us on top of the dragon's back. Balance check passed. Full attack power attack smite evil, divine might feat activated on top of my massive list of buffs. Each swing is dishing out over 150 damage. Two swipes, it goes down. I coast to the ground with the dragon as my board. Cheers.

Best D&D moment I ever had :smallsmile:

Lurkmoar
2011-01-30, 05:14 PM
Does jumping on a red dragon from a cliff count? Because I totally did that.

The fellows in my party:
Barbarian
Ranger
Cleric
Wizard
Rogue-myself

My group was hired to take out a triad of young adult red dragons that were reigning terror over a large swath of countryside. They made some form of blood pact that they would always aid each other in times of combat and would stay away from each others domain unless one was under attack. A previous group had tried, but were wiped out.

Luckily, we had some plot coupons in the form of adamantine chain nets we were borrowing from a neighboring dwarven kingdom that had heard rumors that the red dragons were recruiting orcs to expand their territories.

Of course... our first target has to live in the tallest freaking mountain in the whole region. And trying to haul up three sets of adamantine chain nets was the pinnacle of suck. Had to make checks every twenty feet after the first hundred feet... and this mountain was around 6000 feet IIRC.

When we were almost about half up the mountain, my group was attacked by a tribe of kobolds from above. Little buggers were throwing rocks at us, shooting at us with crossbows and they had one witch doctor that was pelting the lead climber (yours truly) with magic missiles. And when we finally reach the cliff the little buggers were at, all of us hungering for blood, they ran off into a cave. The wizard casts Wall of Stone to prevent them from coming after us. We then took a quick heal break while we lowered ropes to help the dwarfs climb after us. It was nice that they sent along a squad to help instead of just sitting on their collective duffs...

Thankfully, the cliff lead into a road that wound across the mountain(think the GM was as bored of climbing checks as we were at that point). Before we get to the top, the dragon that lived there did a strafing run on us. Two of the dwarfs were burned to a crisp and most everyone took some damage, except me. Yay.

As the dragon was turning around for another pass, we got one of the adamantine nets ready. Since it was a group effort we all had to roll... and we made it. The dragon got tangled up and crashed into the mountain. The dwarfs swarmed on it right then and there, but we held back... because my group saw his buddies coming in.

We were able to net the second dragon, but not before he paralyzed our cleric. The third dragon nailed my group with his breath weapon and was preparing another run on us. So, we ready the net... and fail. Cue us watching the heavy adamantine chain net fall four thousand feet to the ground.

Ranger:"Someone has to get it!"
Me:"Not it."

At that point, the kobold tribe from earlier started shooting at us from above again. The wizard now on stable ground throws a lightning bolt at them. It killed them all, but it started a land slide. The two dragons on the ground being netted fell over the edge and about half of the dwarfs followed. So did the wizard and cleric.

Wizard: "I cast feather fall!"
GM: "That's not on your list of spells you prepared today."
Wizard: "Levitate!"

The GM hands the wizard his list of prepared spells. The wizard then became polymorphed into street pizza. The cleric survived the fall, but he was still paralyzed. He was not happy.

The battle raged on for a while after that, all the dwarfs were dead, the first dragon was dead, the second dragon was heavily wounded and dying, the barbarian was heavily injured and the ranger got grappled by the third dragon and tossed off the mountain(he lived, but with two broken legs he wasn't going anywhere fast). The third dragon was also hurt pretty badly though. At the start of the next turn the second dragon died from blood loss, freeing the third dragon from their pact. I went first... and knew the dragon would run.

Me: "I jump off the mountainside and attack the dragon while on top of him!"

The dragon missed me with his wings, and I rolled and got a crit. I rode the dragon down in its death spiral. At that moment I wanted to shout something... but I couldn't remember what that crazy guy who rode the atomic bomb in Doctor Strangelove said. Instead...

Me: "Yippee!"
*stares of disbelief from everyone at the table*

The dwarfs were kind enough to rez everyone... but I never let that yippee down at that table.

kalkyrie
2011-01-30, 05:40 PM
I was running a 'Paladin in Hell' game (2nd edition adventure, updated into 3rd), with a party of near epic semi-optimised characters.

They had reached a pocket layer of the Abyss, consisting of a barren rocky island, covered with giant acid spitting ants, with a fortress in the distance.
The group had fun murderizing the ants, but took too long in doing so.

Thus the greater invisibility- enchanted two-headed dragon got the surprise round. Fly-by Attack, two breath weapon attacks.

Party recoils in shock at the attack from the empty sky. They cast True Seeing spells, only to be told that since True Seeing only goes out 120', they *still* can't see what is attacking them.

More breath weapon attacks.
Party starts to panic, until the fighter has a brainwave. He and the monk delay actions until the dragon swoops in again for breath weapon attacks. When the dragon does, the fighter pulls out his extendable rod, and swings in at the source of the breath attacks. The rod bounces off the scales (not a weapon), but gets caught on the hide for a few brief seconds.
At which point the Monk runs up the 200' long rod, screaming blue murder at the dragon.

Sadly for him he failed his balance check and plummeted to the ground, but at least it seemed a good idea at the time.

(FYI, the dragon was forced off by the wizard, who tested for a missing energy immunity (acid, only 30 resistance), then teleported into it's maw with a heavily metamagiced acid aura spell up. Dragon, blessing it's luck, teleported away with him to a remote outcropping. Then found out it couldn't dispel the spell, and it didn't have the hit points to brute force through it. Ended up with the dragon plane shifting out of the adventure)

MachineWraith
2011-01-30, 06:09 PM
In the first D&D 3.5 campaign I ever played, I climbed up on a Bulette. Not quite a dragon, I know, but at the time, the description the DM gave made me think it was some kind of burrowing dragon. Close enough, I hope.

I was a Thri-Kreen (non-psionic) ranger. The party was ECL 7, so I had two class level. Our DM, being a bit of a feudal Japan fan, houseruled that a katana's critical threat range went to 18-20 x3 if wielded in two hands, so I dual-wielded katanas with two hands on each.

Anyway, the bulette pops up out of the ground and proceeds to roflstomp the rogue into unconsciousness before turning on the wizard. I ask the DM what the DC would be to jump on top of the bulette. He said some arbitrarily high number, and I said, "Piece of cake." :smallcool:

I made the jump, and proceeded to use my two bottom arms to hold on with strength checks that I kept just barely making. I used my top arms to hold the katana tip-down and stab the bulette repeatedly. It started devoting whole turns to shaking me off, while the cleric picked up the rogue and wizard, and, no longer undermanned, the party went on to murder the snot out of this thing.

From then on, I was the Demon Flea.

Admiral Squish
2011-01-30, 06:23 PM
Does it count if I was riding the dragon?

So, this isn't as epic as some of the other stories here, but still...

My character was a... somewhat bratty and demanding psion. A kineticist, to be specific. She had a very sheltered life. When it came to walking in the woods, however, she was not happy. Eventually, to shut her up, the party managed to convince the large-sized copper dragon to give her a ride. When we came to a burned-out village, the dragon decided to take a look from above while the party examined the village below.

The party below is ambushed by five salamanders. when the dragon went to dive down and help out, a giant vulture-thing came out of a cloud bank and started spitting acid at me, specifically. The dragon returns fire with his breath weapon but to no effect. I fire off an empowered energy ball (cold) into the thing's spine and it goes down, but not before a second one joins the fray. Another energy ball, and it too goes down. Yeah, I'm burning a lot of PP, but better than getting burned personally.

The rest of the party is still fighting the salamanders, remember. Three or four rounds of combat, and they're taking their hits, but they haven't killed even one of them yet. So, I tell the dragon to dive and get me in range. I fire off a maximized energy missile (cold), and in one round, I take out all of them. This, of course, just further inflates the character's ego and she is merciless in reminding them how she swooped in and saved the day.

This turn of events also leads to my most epic character death, though, so they didn't have to put up with her long.

MightyTim
2011-01-30, 06:26 PM
My one friend who very neatly fits the "Specialist" gamer archetype decided he wanted to run a campaign. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the theme was Ninjas.

It actually turned out to be surprisingly fun. We got away with a lot of stuff that if I were DMing, I'd never let fly because "Ninjas are awesome."

At one point, we came into an encounter with a dragon.

Me: I want to try to jump onto the dragon, and stab down into his head.
NinjaDM:Sure. Go ahead. Roll for damage.
Me: Uh... Don't I need to roll some sort of check to see if I even made it on?
NinjaDM: Oh of course you made it on. You're a flippin' ninja. Roll for damage.

Lycan 01
2011-01-30, 07:40 PM
This happened some nine months ago.

The longer a major antagonist goes without screen time, the worse their return tends to be. :smalleek:


I've never had the opportunity to climb a dragon. I did, however, accidentally teleport myself directly into one's left ventricle once. Does that count?

That's the one where the game had to be canceled because afterward everyone kept drunkenly screaming Teleport! at random and bursting into hysterics, yes? :smallbiggrin:



That is one tale of Abar Zaal the Immortal. It was not his last.

I am now curious to hear more of these tales. XD



This turn of events also leads to my most epic character death, though, so they didn't have to put up with her long.

Aw man, don't just leave us hanging like that. What's the story? :smalltongue:



Me: I want to try to jump onto the dragon, and stab down into his head.
NinjaDM:Sure. Go ahead. Roll for damage.
Me: Uh... Don't I need to roll some sort of check to see if I even made it on?
NinjaDM: Oh of course you made it on. You're a flippin' ninja. Roll for damage.

That's so broke, but so very awesome. XD







Hmmm. I myself have never fought, let alone ridden, a dragon. In two games I've DMed, though, players managed to ride dragons.

In the first, half the party and a wounded Young White Dragon were plummeting from the sky after the volcano they were fighting in erupted. One player managed to land on its back, and start bashing away at its skull with her mace. I just let her make some acrobatics tests and attack rolls... It was almost dead, anyway, so I wasn't gonna be too strict about things, especially since the Rule of Cool was already in place. Seriously. It was a free-falling dragon battle. You think I cared about mechanics and crunch at that point? :smalltongue:

Oh, and the dragon was shortly thereafter killed when the (Good) Paladin of Bahamut eviscerated it by spearing it with his bastard sword as he fell/flew by, but in its death throws it smashed him with its claws, destroying his armor and knocking him out. His unconscious form fell into the ocean, and he had a near death experience where Bahamut scolded him for not being properly Lawful Good. :smallbiggrin:


The second story... Well... Depends on your definition of riding. :smallconfused: The party is asked by some Dwarves to kill a Young Black Dragon that's been attacking their settlement every few weeks. Well, they stumble into the clearing in the swamp where it is waiting to ambush them - the fight would have been horrific, and I was expecting at least one PC death.

But rather than triggering the fight, the party instead tries to reason with it, much to my shocked surprise. Several good Diplomacy checks and roleplaying moments later, the dragon is listening to their supplications for peace and offers for truce. Well, turns out they're bad at making deals with dragons. But then, to further complicate matters, the Tiefling Rogue starts flirting with it. The result?

Several amazing Bluff Checks, a time-skip for the sake of everyone's sanity, and the player's next character is going to be a Half-Dragon Tiefling... :smalleek:

Lurkmoar
2011-01-30, 07:51 PM
Several amazing Bluff Checks, a time-skip for the sake of everyone's sanity, and the player's next character is going to be a Half-Dragon Tiefling... :smalleek:

... is everyone else going to have to make a new character? Dragons are the real players.

Admiral Squish
2011-01-30, 08:20 PM
Aw man, don't just leave us hanging like that. What's the story? :smalltongue:


Weeeeell, if you insist.... :smallamused:

So, following this, the party came to a walled city and we headed in to rest up and restock. We didn't get much rest, just enough to recharge my PP before we were woken up by alarms. We came out to the wall to find, essentially, an entire army of the salamanders parked outside the city gate, howling for the blood of the ice-mage that had killed their scouts.

Now, my character did not have a lot of skill points in the usual party-face-skills, but nobody did, and my character also had the highest charisma (flavor decision). So, guess who got to go out there and try to talk down the big boss-man?

I would like to further elaborate at this point. My character basically considered males to be useless meatbags whose only purpose was to be manipulated by their women and essentially, used as manual labor.

So, my character walks out down the corridor the army had parted into, salamanders screaming and gesturing with weapons all the way, and walked into the enemy leader's tent. There's a elder salamander in there, and his elite guards, and his first words to me are: "Is this a joke? Woman, I need not a concubine, go get the real negotiator."

At this point, I am torn. I can play smart, and be polite, or I can play the character. The character demanded a very not-smart move. she sighed, looked him in the eye, and hit him with a maximized mind thrust. He's down alreADY> The guards are going for weapons but quickened energy missile (cold, and they're out of the fight. They went down quiet, thankfully, and I'd suppressed the displays, so I had a few rounds to work with. I cast may usuall array of pre-battle spells, and sent a message to my party that it just got real, and to come out guns-a-blazing. We couldn't just leave the salamanders there, the town would get burned to the ground and we'd be to blame. We had to hit hard to give the town a chance to either evacuate or arm themselves properly.

So we did. The part comes out and slams the front lines hard. I step out of the tent and go to town. Widened energy ball, widened energy burst, quickened energy ball, I'm going full nova here, and everything is cold damage, so the salamanders are taking 150% damage. Everything is overchanneled to the max and I'm taking damage left and right, but the army is packed in tight and I'm doing some serious damage to their numbers. It's only two or three rounds before I'm seriously running low on HP, and the party is not getting closer fast enough. Since I was pretty much at fault for all this, I couldn't just D-Door out and leave everyone else to die. She may have been a bit of a b****, but she was still CG. So, I charge into the thickest part of the army and let off a widened, empowered energy burst. The overchannel damage puts me in the negatives and an arrow does the last of the job. The DM decided that it was such a powerful display that I left a crater behind.

I don't have an EXACT killcount, but overall, my last stand reduced the army's numbers by a good 50%, and I'm pretty sure it was in the triple, if not quadruple digits. The town was inspired by my heroic sacrifice and took out what was left of the leaderless army. Unfortunately, the campaign ended abruptly before I could be revived, so that was the end of her.

dsmiles
2011-01-30, 08:25 PM
That's the one where the game had to be canceled because afterward everyone kept drunkenly screaming Teleport! at random and bursting into hysterics, yes? :smallbiggrin:How thoughtful of you to remember me telling that story before. Probably in one of the "Most Hilarious Character Deaths" threads. :smallsmile:

Waker
2011-01-30, 08:46 PM
I am now curious to hear more of these tales. XD
It would take too long to relate all of his stories, so I'll just give a quick summary of his brushes with death.

He survived being sacrificed (two successful saves against coup de grace), buried in an avalanche, jumped off an airship onto a mountain, dropped into a vat of water containing some bloodsucking jellyfish (like bloodbloaters, but did con damage instead) then fell into a fast moving river that propelled me into a spiked wall, killed a water elemental by himself underwater when it knocked over his boat, blew up a pirate ship and killed its crew, killed a pair of twin monks using only a scimitar.
He had many other brushes with death, these are just some of the more memorable. The group joked that death was obviously a woman, because this man flirted with it constantly

But I can tell one more story.
Basic background is that we've been conscripted and sent off on a diplomatic mission to get allies needed to oppose an invading army led by an Ogre Mage. We get sidetracked and end up stumbling across the invading army, somehow saddled with the extra task of saving a princess taken for the general's wife.
Armed with some illusion magic the Barbarian/Fighter bluff/intimidates his way to the general claiming to be messengers. We get a look at the compound and figure the princess is held in the remains of a tower near the camp's center. The rogue spider climbs his way up but ends up scaring the princess half to death and her screams raise an alarm. With subtly abandoned I tell the remaining party (Paladin, Mystic Theurge and Ranger I think) to start a fire and yell out "We're under attack!"
Abar climbs the sheer tower wall with his bare hands and upon reaching the window, bursts in. The Princess is not in the tower, but the Ogre Mage is. At the time I'm lvl 7 and down to 2/3 of my health. My Fight Or Flight Instinct came preset with the third option of "Awesome" fortunately so I proceed to pound the Ogre, but before he goes down he used a magic item to open a portal to the Plane of Shadow.
The party eventually recovered this item, but sadly it was 1/day, so Abar had to spent the night by himself in the Plane of Shadow. The next day the party opens the portal and I come staggering out with about 4 Str left after a few brushes with some Shadows.

Lycan 01
2011-01-30, 08:46 PM
... is everyone else going to have to make a new character? Dragons are the real players.

Oh no, he doesn't have to make a new character. He survived the experience, and informed the Dwarves that the Young Black Dragon is no longer any threat to them... :smallamused:

Admiral Squish, I actually think I've heard that story before. Never gets old, though. :smallcool:


Dsmiles, I think it was in either a death thread, or the Funny DnD Stories thread. Personally, its one of my favorite "magic fubar" stories, and I sometimes tell it to my DnD friends, in fact. :smalltongue:

Teleport! :smallbiggrin:

dsmiles
2011-01-30, 08:50 PM
Teleport! :smallbiggrin:At least I killed the dragon. :smalltongue:

Admiral Squish
2011-01-30, 08:53 PM
Admiral Squish, I actually think I've heard that story before. Never gets old, though. :smallcool:


You probably have. I've posted it once or twice. I will say, however, that this may be my finest rendition of the tale yet.

Vknight
2011-01-30, 11:09 PM
4e game but notheless awesome.

Party
Dragonborn-Fighter
Minotaur-Warden
Gnome-Bard
Human-Rouge

The Dragonborn earlier in the adventure had collected large rocks which he threw at enemies. When they got to the Youn White Dragon he asked if he could get a called shot to temporairly blind it. I say yes for rule of cool throwing a head sized rock at a dragon. He then proceeds to jump on it by moving and action point.
The Dragon tries to get him off flying out of his den taking the Fighter with him who proceeds to beat the Dragon to death with the rock.
I ruled after the 7 or 10th attack it collapsed landing from exhaustion.

Acero
2011-01-30, 11:45 PM
Me (Swordsage) and the rest of the group (a Barbarian, Barb/Fighter Sorcerer, Wizard, Favored soul, rogue, and Paladin Npc) were sent to kill a young Black Dragon who had amassed a small Kobold cult. We collectively had whittled him down to about a quarter his health and took out most of the kobolds. That's when it got fun.
Realizing he was close to death, the dragon had his last remaining Kobold caster hop on his back and try to fly off while the Kobold casted Fireballs at us. Fortunetly, I rolled high enough initiative to grab his leg before he took off.
Now it wasn't the first time I had climbed someone bigger than me, so I always had a neverending rope tied around my waist. I activated it and the rope starting spilling on the ground as we all hit the air.
So I eventually climb to the top of him after I grapple the Kobold off him (Think assasination from a ledge in Assassin's creed) when he finally lands on a nearby cliff because I clipped his wing. A few lucky criticals with my bastard sword and he died on the cliff.
I then proceded to stop the rope's expanding. The Druid's Squirrel Companion (he was on it too, and took out one of the dragon's eyeballs) send a telepathic message that I killed it and to fasten the rope. I also tied the other end of the rope to a quarterstaff I had stuck in the ground. Long zipline-esque ride later and I'm back with the group (Squirrel went in my shirt) and have the rope retract to around-my-waist size. This unlodges the quarterstaff, and because I'm not allowed to be that awesome as I just was, it hits me in the head and drops me into the negatives.

Good times :smallbiggrin:

Serpentine
2011-01-31, 07:34 AM
I was the DM for such an event once. The party was off on a side-quest to resurrect a character - the player of that character was playing a catfolk Beguiler. It involved travelling down a valley that resembled the Grand Canyon if each sediment layer were made of a type of gemstone to get to a planar Gate for a blah blah blah. We came across a Radiant (template) Chaos Dragon. Battle ensued.
The catfolk Beguiler turned invisible, and managed to leap onto the dragon's back. I believe he was just slashing into its flesh with a pick or something similar. The dragon whacked him a few times, and sent him unconcious, still on its back.
Meanwhile, the human Witch had been hiding behind a pillar of stone. He came out, and Call Lightninged the dragon. What with the catfolk being invisible and the Witch not watching, he didn't know where he was. Zapp'd.
Did some good damage to the dragon, but also took out the catfolk... Fortunately, seeing as we were there anyway the priest gave us a twofer resurrection.

Kaww
2011-01-31, 08:47 AM
The longer a major antagonist goes without screen time, the worse their return tends to be. :smalleek:


Didn't get it. :smallconfused:

If you are talking about the return of the dragon it will not happen. The party would kill him, and his army of clones, without breaking a sweat.

MarkusWolfe
2011-01-31, 09:00 AM
So many great stories of dragon slaying here.....while I cannot contribute a story of dragonslaying in which I personally climbed a dragon, I can contribute one where someone else did.

http://mcmasternerds.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=downloadattachment&board=pbpdnd&thread=193&post=8352&key=kOAZ4d3TawxAhVwtRiBU

Quirp
2011-01-31, 09:33 AM
I never climbed a dragon, but have been thinking about a build, that somehow utilizes the Giantbane tactical feat, which allows you to climb creatures two size categories larger then yourself. But since I somehow ended playing 4e I no longer have access to crazy feats like that one.

Lycan 01
2011-01-31, 10:02 AM
Didn't get it. :smallconfused:

If you are talking about the return of the dragon it will not happen. The party would kill him, and his army of clones, without breaking a sweat.


Oh. No massive level gain for a dramatic showdown of vengeance? Pity...


Also, MarkusWolfe, I think that link is broke, because the spoiler tab is empty. :smallconfused:

Ormur
2011-01-31, 12:58 PM
We haven't climbed dragons but once a great wyrm black dragon was climbing the celing of the darkened cave we were exploring. It was quite a shock when he dropped on top of us.

Moginheden
2011-01-31, 02:44 PM
Our party consisted of a human sorcerer, halfling rogue, dwarf warrior, and dwarf cleric. We encountered a large black dragon.

Round 1:
-sorcerer casts Ray of Enfeeblement, and crits
-cleric shoots dragon with crossbow, misses.
-rest of group spreads out and surrounds dragon, not enough movement to attack.
-dragon tail sweeps all melee characters to the ground.

Round 2:
-sorcerer cast ray of enfeeblement and misses
-cleric cast sound burst and stuns the dragon.
-melee get up and attack, all missing.

Round 3:
-sorcerer cast ray of enfeeblement
-cleric cast sound burst and stuns the dragon.
-melee all miss, party is worried about dragon's high AC

Round 4:
-sorcerer cast ray of enfeeblement
-cleric cast sound burst and stuns the dragon.
-halfling decides to climb dragon to try to "find a weak spot", one grapple check later the dragon was "pinned".... by a halfling. The DM then told us we had got the dragon's strength down to 1 and the weight of the halfling was enough to make it over-encumbered.

Rounds 5-10 or so:
-sorcerer summons level 1 celestial badgers
-rest of party laughs
-dragon dies the most humiliating death I've seen from badgers nibbling on it.

Dr. Qwerk
2011-01-31, 03:01 PM
Iirc, the penalties from the ray of enfeeblement spell do not stack, just overlap. Also, I am not sure if you can crit with a spell that does not do real damage.

Of course, I know this because a group of mine used the spell to do the same thing to a rakshasa I threw at them. After the session I took a look at the spell description and felt really stupid.

edit: remorhaz, not rakshasa

Moginheden
2011-01-31, 05:22 PM
Iirc, the penalties from the ray of enfeeblement spell do not stack, just overlap. Also, I am not sure if you can crit with a spell that does not do real damage.

Of course, I know this because a group of mine used the spell to do the same thing to a rakshasa I threw at them. After the session I took a look at the spell description and felt really stupid.

edit: remorhaz, not rakshasa

hmm... I didn't notice this passage in the player's handbook.

Same Effect More than Once in Different Strengths: In cases when two
or more identical spells are operating in the same area or on the
same target, but at different strengths, only the best one applies. For
example, if a character takes a 4 penalty to Strength from a ray of
enfeeblement spell and then receives a second ray of enfeeblement spell
that applies a 6 penalty, he or she takes only the 6 penalty. Both
spells are still operating on the character, however. If one ray of
enfeeblement spell is dispelled or its duration runs out, the other spell
remains in effect, assuming that its duration has not yet expired.

I'm not seeing anything that would indicate it doesn't crit though. As it does dice damage I'd expect it to crit, (even though the damage is to a stat not HP.)