Epic Dragon Fight

[jguy]

I am statting up a Great Wyrm Shadow Dragon called Mom for an Epic Fight for my players. It is a call back to old characters who never got a chance at fighting this beast even though everyone was effectively level 19. As I was writing up the monster, I never thought I would have to take so many things to come into play. Like:

How should the lair be protected? Considering it's a great wyrm, shouldn't the lair be a gigantic death trap?

Would the dragon ever realistically fight alone? Half-Dragon offspring would more than likely serve their mother, let alone her full dragon offspring.

Feat and Spell Selection: Go for Caster type or Melee beast type? I chose melee beast that used a lot of day/level or swift/immediate action spells.

How much of her wealth should she use? Using the Draconomicon I found that her CR hoard is 348,000. How much of that should be items for her to use. Like amulets of health, rings of deflection ect ect.

How do I realistically portray a creature that is thousands of years old and has mental scores in the 30s? Sheer intelligence alone makes taking on such a monster, let alone DMing as one, almost impossible.

How can the players get a clean win? The dragon has access to teleport, greater plane shift, and Heal. Unless the players can kill it within a single round, what is to stop the dragon from leaving, casting heal twice, and coming back with full HP. Or worse, reinforcements.

Any tips or just stories of when you had to write up a dragon fight?

[Runestar]

The lazy man's answer to your questions is to use the xorvintaal template in MM5, which essentially replaces a dragon's spellcasting with a variety of special abilities. You can argue that they may be poor alternatives, but it at least does away with the complexity of having to juggle so many spells, plus resist the siren's call of how to buff and having to keep track of all of them.

The template also lets it call in minions (at the cost of hp), so this gives you an excuse to give it whatever allies you deem fit, even if they may not be thematically suitable or make sense.

What lv are your characters and what is the cr of this dragon? A dragon prc from draconomicon might be in order if you feel it needs a little more differentiation.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The lazy man's answer to your questions is to use the xorvintaal template in MM5, which essentially replaces a dragon's spellcasting with a variety of special abilities. You can argue that they may be poor alternatives, but it at least does away with the complexity of having to juggle so many spells, plus resist the siren's call of how to buff and having to keep track of all of them.

I'm personally a big fan of the template, if not the fluff- it makes dragons even more massive physical threats, while simultaneously simplifying encounter design.

[jguy]

Well the players are all level 17 with LA 2 templates. One is an Illusionist specialist gnome, another is a Sorcerer Gish, and the third is a Dungeon Crashing Warblade that was turned into a Firbolg.

I was tempted to use the Xorvintaal template but Mom lives on the Plane of Shadows and has already shown to be a spell caster. She was the guardian of a lich's tower who tried to merge with the Shadow Weave or something.

A Great Wyrm Shadow Dragon is a CR 24 with 37HD and 17th level sorcerer casting. I've already picked out spells and feats for her but I don't know if I missed anything.

The issue for me is that she is already going to be a tough fight solo, but the story teller in me can't see how she would ever be alone in the first place, and if she was, why not escape or get reinforcements if she is losing. You don't get to be a Great Wyrm by underestimating adventurers.

[Tokuhara]

What I suggest is a Monologue from Mom and then she becomes astronomically huge, forcing the party to fight her minions ON HER BACK while she flies off, trying to shake the party free of her back. After the party kills her minions, they attack her while she is flying. Make sure the party member with the last hit gets a coup de grace ala Dragon Age: Origins (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqXI21a3q-o&feature=related)

[Aegis013]

Why not design the encounter so that the minions are easily drawn away, so the party doesn't have to fight everything at once? A great wyrm is likely to be fairly arrogant (though I'm not entirely familiar with Shadow Dragons typical personalities) and may not engage while sending the minions to do the dirty work and watching the show.

As far as the lair, it should be set to Mom's advantage, but whether or not it's a deathtrap or what middle ground to take is your choice.

[Metahuman1]

Ego? She teleports her kids out and tells the party "You are such lowly vermin that I shall crush and then devour you by myself!"

[Tokuhara]

Why not design the encounter so that the minions are easily drawn away, so the party doesn't have to fight everything at once? A great wyrm is likely to be fairly arrogant (though I'm not entirely familiar with Shadow Dragons typical personalities) and may not engage while sending the minions to do the dirty work and watching the show.

As far as the lair, it should be set to Mom's advantage, but whether or not it's a deathtrap or what middle ground to take is your choice.

Hence why I thought on her back. Makes the fight pretty epic

[jguy]

I like the idea of fighting on the dragons back. Is colossus big enough to fit enough people on to fight?

[jguy]

So has anyone ever had to run a high level dragon fight? Ancient or older? If so, what did you do and how did it go.

[dspeyer]

One way to play a >30 int is to retcon anticipation, and boast about it. "You tried to cast x on me? How predictable. I included it in my spell immunity this morning." "You activated that power 3 seconds later than I calculated. No matter, the scroll to undo it is still on the top of the pile."

[Runestar]

I have this funny mental image of the dragon going into a long soliloquoy, then her allies/children start rolling their eyes and wander off while going "There she goes again." or "Hey, let's check out what's on the tube."

By the time she is done, everyone has left, leaving her alone with the PCs. :smalltongue:

Back to the encounter, in general, solos make poor climatic encounters as they lose out in terms of action economy.

As to why she doesn't flee, perhaps she is in the midst of some immense ritual to grant her greater power or something? She cannot afford to flee as that would mean that her long centuries of planning would come for naught. The ritual must happen there and then, so she is forced to defend her lair and effectively fight to the death.

Why is she alone? Perhaps she has been holding her cult/clan together by fear/intimidation/force of personality alone. Given the chance, her allies and followers would not hesitate to flee, or perhaps they were the ones who tipped the PCs off as to the moment when she would be at her most vulnerable, precisely because they want her overthrown so they can take over?

[Fable Wright]

Hm... Xorvintaal dragon is an applied template, so couldn't she undergo the process to become a Xorvintaal dragon after the events that transpired? Sure, she'd lost all that spellcasting- but she keeps her contacts and children, as well as any minions she had that gain the Exarch template that she would be able to summon, who could cast spells for her. The existing fluff for the Xorvintaal template, if you choose to use it, would also give a reason for the party to face the dragon in single combat- it would give her far more points to deal with them herself at this point in time, rather than use minions. The dragon most likely would have also selected the Rejuvenation trait, giving her reason not to use contingent teleport or heal effects- aside from not getting more points for not using them, she doesn't believe that the party would be able to kill her, and she would have faith that the exarch that didn't interfere in the battle would be able to ensure that the party doesn't try to dismember or skin her after her victory.

Or, if you don't want to use the game as described in the book, it might be a side-effect of the lich's tower merging with the shadow weave. Perhaps a delayed process that slowly stripped her of her spellcasting, that were eventually replaced while the powers remain. She might have been given restrictions by the new powers given by the shadow weave, and if she follows them, she gains additional powers- which would be why she's willing to take on the party alone. It's an option, at least.

[Runestar]

Alternatively, there's always mordenkainen's disjunction, if you need a reason as to how she lost her casting...:smalltongue: