Defeat 5 Great Wyrms in 1 hour with a lvl 1 core character

[TentacleSurpris]

Your challenge:

Defeat the 5 evil Great Wyrm dragons, one of each color, using a level 1 character, in one hour, and only material from the PHB, MM1, and DMG. It can be done. Go!

[Elricaltovilla]

Your challenge:

Defeat the 5 evil Great Wyrm dragons, one of each color, using a level 1 character, in one hour, and only material from the PHB, MM1, and DMG. It can be done. Go!

Questions:

1. Where am I fighting these dragons? Is the terrain my choice?
2. How badly do these dragons want to kill me? Are they actively seeking my demise, or if I just let them do whatever they won't even know I exist?
3. Do I have to survive this fight to win, or just kill the dragons?

Other questions may follow.

[limejuicepowder]

Not without ridicules DM fiat or incredibly stupid play by the dragon...and probably not even then.

Please, enlighten me how this can be done.

[Morcleon]

Do you have to fight them all at once?

And technically speaking, a Half-Dragon Half-Celestial Half-Fiendish Solar Angel Fighter 1 is a 1st level character... >.> :smalltongue:

[TentacleSurpris]

Clarifications, the dragons are in their home lairs near where you are. They won't be actively trying to kill you until they detect you and the DM decides that they have reason to. The lairs are within a reasonable distance to you.

Level 1 means ecl 1 as well.

If you need other resources near you, just state which assumptions you make.

[TentacleSurpris]

Oh, and any equipment or anything in the PHB, MM1 or DMG is available at the listed price, provided it's normally available to players.

[Kornaki]

We get average starting gold for our character?

[TentacleSurpris]

Yes, average starting gold.

[urandom]

Well pun pun is the answer to everything. That's not very interesting though, so I'm not sure what you are talking about. Maybe adventure until you are a high level wizard, and then travel through time and kill them?
Edit - I guess neither of those are core anyway.

[thatryanguy]

And just to clarify, is killing the dragons the only win condition, or is "defeat" more open ended than that for this contest?

Edit: As in "I challenge the dragons to a lock-picking contest" or something that they'd be ridiculously inept at comparitively

[Eldan]

Can we convert ladders to poles for money?

Edit: And I'm pretty sur ethere's no real way to pun-pun in core.

[TentacleSurpris]

How many poles can your pole shop sell in an hour? I can't imagine there is a high demand among the common folk for broken ladders.

Edit: there may be more than one solution, but my solution involves spending all of your starting money on one several of the same thing. Don't forget the dragons frightful presence will automatically fear you.

[ArcturusV]

... Hmm... well, fighting them in their lair is probably the best you could hope for. But even then, it kind of presumes the DM is playing them with kid gloves. I mean an elder black dragon's lair involves swimming through a long, underwater course to get to. Which alone probably couldn't be done in an hour. And would probably be where the Black Dragon would fight you, as inside the water, the Black Dragon is still a dragon, and the level 1 character (Excepting a few races) is just a snack.

... So I'm presuming it's some form of spellcaster who has enough slots to have enough spells that drain Dex to comatose the dragons because they'll have things like 4 and 5 Dex. Then just Coup de Grace to the coma patient until victory.

Though that also presumes you win Initiative, not exactly guaranteed at first level since you'd need all those slots already memorized for your Coma Bullets. And some form of Shenanigans to have 5 first level spells or the like.

... I'm not familiar enough with casters and all their thousands and thousands of spell options and feat options to really say off the top of my head like this. But I imagine that's probably the route involved as the Great Wyrms have dismal Dex and hoping 1d6 Dex damage on some ray gets 4+ to put them into a Coma is about the best shot I could figure.

But still, would need shenanigans to get enough spell slots for it.

[Eldan]

Well, the only way this can ever be won is by sticking to RAW to absolutely silly degrees.

So, we use the DMG economy rules. Thereby, there's no concept of supply and demand, merely a gold limit for settlements. With a metropolis, we should be able to get a ladder-breaking operation big enough to kill a dragon-killing spree.

Edit: do we have to stay on the material plane, and how does astral plane timelessness interact with the time limit?

[Kuulvheysoon]

... So I'm presuming it's some form of spellcaster who has enough slots to have enough spells that drain Dex to comatose the dragons because they'll have things like 4 and 5 Dex. Then just Coup de Grace to the coma patient until victory.

Though that also presumes you win Initiative, not exactly guaranteed at first level since you'd need all those slots already memorized for your Coma Bullets. And some form of Shenanigans to have 5 first level spells or the like.

... I'm not familiar enough with casters and all their thousands and thousands of spell options and feat options to really say off the top of my head like this. But I imagine that's probably the route involved as the Great Wyrms have dismal Dex and hoping 1d6 Dex damage on some ray gets 4+ to put them into a Coma is about the best shot I could figure.

Don't forget about the Great Wyrm's Spell Resistance!


Well, the only way this can ever be won is by sticking to RAW to absolutely silly degrees.

Agreed.

[JackRose]

Clarifications, the dragons are in their home lairs near where you are. They won't be actively trying to kill you until they detect you and the DM decides that they have reason to. The lairs are within a reasonable distance to you.

Level 1 means ecl 1 as well.

If you need other resources near you, just state which assumptions you make.

I approach humbly, and point out to one dragon that there's a heckuva dragon overpopulation problem in these parts. Since Dragons are territorial critters, and there's presumably considerably less than an hour's travel time between each dragon's lair, I let them tear each other apart, and hope for MAD.

I guess a Diplomacy Bard build, although I wouldn't expect the DC on this to be all that high, I'm just nudging them to act as dragons do...

[TentacleSurpris]

I approach humbly, and point out to one dragon that there's a heckuva dragon overpopulation problem in these parts. Since Dragons are territorial critters, and there's presumably considerably less than an hour's travel time between each dragon's lair, I let them tear each other apart, and hope for MAD.

I guess a Diplomacy Bard build, although I wouldn't expect the DC on this to be all that high, I'm just nudging them to act as dragons do...

I hadn't thought of this solution, but this would probably work. Except there will be 1 dragon left standing, and they might only plot and scheme against each other and take more than 1 hour to do it.

[Spuddles]

Wizard1. Goes to first dragon. Using craft rules, he creates an arbitrarily large amount of quarterstaffs to break line of sight/effect for long enough to steal 10,000 gp of gems. He has sold his spell book for at least 1125 gp and uses a scroll of teleport to travel to a city where he has someone lined up to buy the gem.

After recieving payment for the gem he buys a candle of invocation and a scroll of greater teleport.

He travels back to the dragons place, crafts enough wood to seal the dragon in for a long time, makes a bunch of cross class UMD checks, and then Gates in a Titan. He orders the Titan to gate a titan. And that titan to gate a titan. Until all the titans in the multiverse stand before him. Which all happens in the same standard action.

The they go kill dragons.

[Phelix-Mu]

I approach humbly, and point out to one dragon that there's a heckuva dragon overpopulation problem in these parts. Since Dragons are territorial critters, and there's presumably considerably less than an hour's travel time between each dragon's lair, I let them tear each other apart, and hope for MAD.

I guess a Diplomacy Bard build, although I wouldn't expect the DC on this to be all that high, I'm just nudging them to act as dragons do...

There is no way that great wyrm dragons would be motivated enough or reckless enough to undertake major fights within 1 hour. Reckless is the purview of the young and stupid; great wyrms try to win by covering bases, territorial advantage, and the biggest win button that they can afford. The bard may motivate the dragons to take the suggested course of action, but I wouldn't allow this to turn into npc micromanagement by the ambitious bard.

[Coidzor]

Create quarterstaves instantly until the entire planet is crushed beneath them, dragons and all?

[Jack_Simth]

Your challenge:

Defeat the 5 evil Great Wyrm dragons, one of each color, using a level 1 character, in one hour, and only material from the PHB, MM1, and DMG. It can be done. Go!
Use the clause that bypassing an encounter still defeats it, and simply decide to bypass the dragons by not antagonizing them.

[ArcturusV]

Don't forget about the Great Wyrm's Spell Resistance!

So I forgot. I tend not to think of it because SR is easily mitigated by casters when you start facing stuff with SR. But then again at level 1 you probably won't be able to jack it up enough to easily pass SR.

[Khatoblepas]

I don't need to defeat five dragons, I just need to prove to the OP that I have.

So what I do is, I have a Rogue and break enough ladders and sell them until I have enough money to buy the following:
- A cleric casting Guidance of the Avatar (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20010504a) on me. Hopefully a cleric of god with the Trickery domain.
- About fifty rogues with training in Forgery for Aid Another. (probably gotten from the ranks of the cleric)
With my impressive Forgery skill, I will forge the following document:


This is a certificate to show that Khatoblepas has managed to defeat 5 dragons in single combat, and is a pretty alright guy. He did it under an hour, too!

Signed,
Bahamut (King of All Metallic Dragons)

I then show it to TentacleSurpris, who, due to his lack of training in Forgery, will not be able to doubt it's authenticity. Can he beat a DC 50-70 Forgery check? (10 + 4 (Int) + 4 (ranks in Forgery) + 20 Competence +100 (Aid Another) -50 (Forger has never seen the document))

If he does, I do it again but with more rogues.

[Gavinfoxx]

No Wealth by level has been specified... so just stack up on gear!

[arguskos]

I don't need to defeat five dragons, I just need to prove to the OP that I have.
I was originally coming in here to go ahead and say something along the lines of what Spuddles did (craft abuse+candle of invocation=trololololololing my way to victory), but Khatoblepas has just instantly won the conversation.

Looks like he's a pretty formidable guy. I mean, Bahamut says so, and I generally trust that dude. :smallbiggrin:

[Mando Knight]

Spend all of your money on a quality forgery of an extremely valuable painting (so that casual inspection doesn't reveal that it's a fake). Tell the dragons that the winner gets the painting. Run.
:smalltongue:

[Fable Wright]

A level 1 Bard Diplomancer has a deal worked out with a Glaberazu already. At the start of the hour, the Glaberazu grants the Wish that the Bard had already arranged for, getting him a LE Candle of Invocation. After a chain of 300 wishes, the Diplomancer has more than enough omnipotence to take out the Dragons.

[Krobar]

I buy the DM a bottle of Don Julio, and then say "I kill all 5 dragons in less than an hour and raid their hordes." He says "okay they're dead, and you're extremely wealthy."

Next.

[Sith_Happens]

Create quarterstaves instantly until the entire planet is crushed beneath them, dragons and all?

Reading over the craft rules, it looks like it takes a minimum of one day before you can make the check at all (though at that point you do in fact get your infinite quarterstaves).

Commoner 1 with Chicken-Infested and a spell component pouch would work, though.

...Though Chicken-Infested isn't Core.

[Autopsibiofeeder]

I am just putting my 2 gold pieces on that it can not be done. I am even volunteering to 'play' the dragons that are supposed to be slain.

[ArcturusV]

Love Khatoblepas's answer. Reminds me of something Red Mage would do.

*scribble, erase, scribble* I have Dragonslaying +200! See, says so on my sheet!

[Xefas]

It's only 1cp for a pound of wheat, and 1sp per day for an untrained laborer.

If the dragons are sleeping on their hoards, as dragons do, can I haul an enormous mound of wheat into their lair, and then collapse it onto them, burying them in bales of produce?

Dropping one pound of malleable non-sharp object on something deals 1d3 nonlethal damage. Drop enough wheat, and you could knock the dragon into unconsciousness, and then coup de grace him. Then have your laborers haul the wheat to the next cave, I guess?

[Spuddles]

It's only 1cp for a pound of wheat, and 1sp per day for an untrained laborer.

If the dragons are sleeping on their hoards, as dragons do, can I haul an enormous mound of wheat into their lair, and then collapse it onto them, burying them in bales of produce?

Dropping one pound of malleable non-sharp object on something deals 1d3 nonlethal damage. Drop enough wheat, and you could knock the dragon into unconsciousness, and then coup de grace him. Then have your laborers haul the wheat to the next cave, I guess?

A dragon's listen check is like +40.

[dwlc2000]

I would be a human wizard with two flaws. I would take inheritance 4 times for 875gp. I would buy 5 scrolls of a dex draining spell and a dagger. I would suprise the dragons and cast the scrolls on them. They i would kill their helpless forms.

Oops forgot about core only

[dwlc2000]

Wait. After you killed one dragon, wouldnt you advance enough xp to get to like 5th level?

[ArcturusV]

Yeah, but since it takes 1 hour (Rather than old school variable time per spell) to memorize spells, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of the new spell slots.

Unless you only memorize a "portion" of your spells, but even that takes 15 minutes at lowest. And is up to DM interpretation on what a portion is.

[dr_doomtron]

Peasant Railgun is technically core isn't it?

[Spuddles]

Peasant Railgun is technically core isn't it?

It doesn't work because there is nothing in that whole thing that has anything about conservation of momentum.

[Siosilvar]

Wait. After you killed one dragon, wouldnt you advance enough xp to get to like 5th level?

You can only gain one level at a time.

[ArcturusV]

Yup. So while you can get an object to break the sound barrier, or even faster, it doesn't actually do anything in Core. Doesn't matter until someone tries to throw it or fire it from a projectile launcher, at which point the momentum means nothing.

[TentacleSurpris]

Here's my solution:

Make a level 1 human wizard enchanter, take spell focus enchantment and a high int. You start with charm person prepared twice. You have 4 ranks in knowledge religion, 2 ranks in diplomacy, and make a roll to identify the location of a certain spooky tomb.

Convert your 75 gp to silver and hire an unskilled labourer (1 sp) to go out and find 500 more unskilled labourers and meet you at the spooky tomb to get paid. Preferably with children or crippled.

Now you need some spellcasting services. You need a 6th level caster to cast desecrate. That's a 6 cleric. Oops, you don't have enough cash. Sorry sir for wastng your time. But wait, CHARM PERSON. Luckily he failed his save.

You and the cleric are now friends for an hour. Between you and him, you have the knowledge religion to find a Shadow (for example at the spooky tomb). And your cleric friend controls him, as he has 3 hd.

You emerge from the tomb and your shadow slays a commoner which becomes a shadow under the control of the original. Call the original General Lee. Lee then instructs his subordinates to kill all the commoners and create more shadows in a command structure. With a movement speed of 40 they can easily charge them all down before they can get anywhere.

Now you have an army of Shadows in the control of your 6 cleric friend. General Lee rders the rest of the shadows to cruise under the ground to each dragons lair. 100 shadows attack from underground or from a nearby wall get Surprise on the dragon and will hit with their touch attacks. A Great Wyrm has 36-39 str and a touch AC of around 6, so it only needs around 11 hits to take it down.

So all of the dragons die simultaneously. Now you have 505 shadows under the control of an evil cleric who is generally pevved with you for charming him.

[Xefas]

Do we have some prep time before the one hour starts? For instance, if I max out my Handle Animal skill to the point where I can easily surpass the DC required to train an animal for battle, can it be assumed that my Ranger has previously trained his pack of 150 goats (1gp each) to be attack-goats?

Because, he has a life, y'know. Those goats are a part of his backstory.

[Malroth]

Shaper Psion with minor creation, craft (poison making) and craft (fake cow) could do it but they aren't core and rely on dragons automaticly eating anything they can get their jaws around

[Spuddles]

Here's my solution:

Make a level 1 human wizard enchanter, take spell focus enchantment and a high int. You start with charm person prepared twice. You have 4 ranks in knowledge religion, 2 ranks in diplomacy, and make a roll to identify the location of a certain spooky tomb.

Convert your 75 gp to silver and hire an unskilled labourer (1 sp) to go out and find 500 more unskilled labourers and meet you at the spooky tomb to get paid. Preferably with children or crippled.

Now you need some spellcasting services. You need a 6th level caster to cast desecrate. That's a 6 cleric. Oops, you don't have enough cash. Sorry sir for wastng your time. But wait, CHARM PERSON. Luckily he failed his save.

You and the cleric are now friends for an hour. Between you and him, you have the knowledge religion to find a Shadow (for example at the spooky tomb). And your cleric friend controls him, as he has 3 hd.

You emerge from the tomb and your shadow slays a commoner which becomes a shadow under the control of the original. Call the original General Lee. Lee then instructs his subordinates to kill all the commoners and create more shadows in a command structure. With a movement speed of 40 they can easily charge them all down before they can get anywhere.

Now you have an army of Shadows in the control of your 6 cleric friend. General Lee rders the rest of the shadows to cruise under the ground to each dragons lair. 100 shadows attack from underground or from a nearby wall get Surprise on the dragon and will hit with their touch attacks. A Great Wyrm has 36-39 str and a touch AC of around 6, so it only needs around 11 hits to take it down.

So all of the dragons die simultaneously. Now you have 505 shadows under the control of an evil cleric who is generally pevved with you for charming him.

Red Dragon has foresight up and is not surprised.

All the dragons are also capable of casting contingency.

[limejuicepowder]

Here's my solution:

Make a level 1 human wizard enchanter, take spell focus enchantment and a high int. You start with charm person prepared twice. You have 4 ranks in knowledge religion, 2 ranks in diplomacy, and make a roll to identify the location of a certain spooky tomb.

Convert your 75 gp to silver and hire an unskilled labourer (1 sp) to go out and find 500 more unskilled labourers and meet you at the spooky tomb to get paid. Preferably with children or crippled.

Now you need some spellcasting services. You need a 6th level caster to cast desecrate. That's a 6 cleric. Oops, you don't have enough cash. Sorry sir for wastng your time. But wait, CHARM PERSON. Luckily he failed his save.

You and the cleric are now friends for an hour. Between you and him, you have the knowledge religion to find a Shadow (for example at the spooky tomb). And your cleric friend controls him, as he has 3 hd.

You emerge from the tomb and your shadow slays a commoner which becomes a shadow under the control of the original. Call the original General Lee. Lee then instructs his subordinates to kill all the commoners and create more shadows in a command structure. With a movement speed of 40 they can easily charge them all down before they can get anywhere.

Now you have an army of Shadows in the control of your 6 cleric friend. General Lee rders the rest of the shadows to cruise under the ground to each dragons lair. 100 shadows attack from underground or from a nearby wall get Surprise on the dragon and will hit with their touch attacks. A Great Wyrm has 36-39 str and a touch AC of around 6, so it only needs around 11 hits to take it down.

So all of the dragons die simultaneously. Now you have 505 shadows under the control of an evil cleric who is generally pevved with you for charming him.

...Unless of course the dragons have the low-level spell that let's them apply their natural armor to touch attacks. Shimmering scales, I think it's called. What dragon wouldn't have this, I don't know.

Points for creativity, I suppose. This still isn't happening in an hour, and shadowpocolypse isn't exactly an unknown strategy.

[Spuddles]

...Unless of course the dragons have the low-level spell that let's them apply their natural armor to touch attacks. Shimmering scales, I think it's called. What dragon wouldn't have this, I don't know.

Points for creativity, I suppose. This still isn't happening in an hour, and shadowpocolypse isn't exactly an unknown strategy.

Core only dragons don't have Scintillating Scales, and it doesn't last long enough for all day.

[Jack_Simth]

Wait. After you killed one dragon, wouldnt you advance enough xp to get to like 5th level?
No. Two reasons:
1) The XP line for that level of CR difference is "-", not a number. Your XP becomes DM whimsey.
2) You can never gain enough XP in one go to level twice. You stop one XP short of gaining the second level.


Peasant Railgun is technically core isn't it?Yes and no. Yes, it's core. No, it doesn't kill a dragon; despite going 186,000 miles or so in six seconds, the quarterstaff simply drops to the ground at the end. There's no RAW inertia (and if there were, the quarterstaff wouldn't make it to the end of the line anyway).

[Kuulvheysoon]

Here's my solution:

Make a level 1 human wizard enchanter, take spell focus enchantment and a high int. You start with charm person prepared twice. You have 4 ranks in knowledge religion, 2 ranks in diplomacy, and make a roll to identify the location of a certain spooky tomb.

Convert your 75 gp to silver and hire an unskilled labourer (1 sp) to go out and find 500 more unskilled labourers and meet you at the spooky tomb to get paid. Preferably with children or crippled.

Now you need some spellcasting services. You need a 6th level caster to cast desecrate. That's a 6 cleric. Oops, you don't have enough cash. Sorry sir for wastng your time. But wait, CHARM PERSON. Luckily he failed his save.

See, this is the part that I'm having problems with. Assuming fairly high Intelligence score (18) and Spell Focus (Enchantment), the DC for Charm person is still only 17. The cleric that you're describing would need to have a Wisdom score of at least 12 (to cast desecrate), as well as a Base Will Save of +5 (cleric levels), which is +6 to Will saves.

Meaning he needs to roll an 11 to pass the save. So at worse, he's got a ~50% chance to pass the save.

However, it's be much more appropriate to assume a higher Wisdom (to be able to cast spells of his maximum level), so at least 13, with his level-up point rounding that off to an even 14. Even NPC wealth should be able to shell out for a +2 Wisdom bonus item at that level, so 16. And it would be a bit silly to assume that he'd come to the meeting unbuffed (with 'long' duration buffs). So a +9/+10 is a much better guess on his Will save.

[Khatoblepas]

Now you have an army of Shadows in the control of your 6 cleric friend. General Lee rders the rest of the shadows to cruise under the ground to each dragons lair. 100 shadows attack from underground or from a nearby wall get Surprise on the dragon and will hit with their touch attacks. A Great Wyrm has 36-39 str and a touch AC of around 6, so it only needs around 11 hits to take it down.

Wouldn't work even if you got lucky and charmed the cleric, Red and Blue dragons have Death Ward. They are also all epic level monsters, so can be expected to have items of Death Ward just in case. Green dragons have Dominate Person, so you can bet they have a cleric minion somewhere.

Before you say "Death Ward is a cleric spell", Red and Blue dragons can cast off the cleric list. You could potentially get a White Dragon with this, unless they, with their 13th level casting, just teleport the hell out of there and come back after the hour is up.

And then they breathe on you.

Eat ludicrous damage, Shadows.

Let's not do it and say we did, right?

[Jack_Simth]

Wouldn't work even if you got lucky and charmed the cleric, Red and Blue dragons have Death Ward.
Oddly enough, a Shadow's strength drain isn't explicitly a negative energy attack.

[Khatoblepas]

Oddly enough, a Shadow's strength drain isn't explicitly a negative energy attack.

Death Ward states: "The subject is immune to all death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, and any negative energy effects. "


Strength Damage (Su)

The touch of a shadow deals 1d6 points of Strength damage to a living foe. A creature reduced to Strength 0 by a shadow dies. This is a negative energy effect.

It states it in it's entry, so why wouldn't it be? Was it errata'ed in later?

[Asmodai]

Jack_Simth & Krobar... you two have the only sane suggestions and i aplaud you.

[Phelix-Mu]

Here's my solution:
Now you need some spellcasting services. You need a 6th level caster to cast desecrate. That's a 6 cleric. Oops, you don't have enough cash. Sorry sir for wasting your time. But wait, CHARM PERSON. Luckily he failed his save.

You and the cleric are now friends for an hour. Between you and him, you have the knowledge religion to find a Shadow (for example at the spooky tomb). And your cleric friend controls him, as he has 3 hd.

You emerge from the tomb and your shadow slays a commoner which becomes a shadow under the control of the original. Call the original General Lee. Lee then instructs his subordinates to kill all the commoners and create more shadows in a command structure. With a movement speed of 40 they can easily charge them all down before they can get anywhere.


Kudos for creativity. A few nitpicks, though:

1.) Spellcasting is available by RAW, but as soon as you are interacting with a specific npc, the DM is within rights to have the cleric act as more than a vendor. Knowing that the cleric is evil, it seems to me that the cleric just kills the wizard instead of providing the spellcasting. Especially after you drag him/her into the graveyard with all the peasants.

Can a charmed spellcaster still make a Spellcraft check on the enchanter to tell that charm person was cast? If so, then the cleric can just stall for an hour. I guess the cleric isn't particularly likely to succeed on the spellcraft check, though.

2.) Can you really find undead in that matter? Isn't the presence of creatures up to the DM?

3.) Any DM that allows great wyrms to have the listed touch AC with all the powers (and treasure) that they have access to probably deserves to have a player try this. It's ludicrous to think that a thousand year-old creature hasn't contemplated their low touch AC and thought "hmm, I can buy stuff to fix that." Moreover, dragon hoards are full of the kind of items that pcs carry (now-deceased pcs), so the dragon probably already has the items.

[Spuddles]

Wouldn't work even if you got lucky and charmed the cleric, Red and Blue dragons have Death Ward. They are also all epic level monsters, so can be expected to have items of Death Ward just in case. Green dragons have Dominate Person, so you can bet they have a cleric minion somewhere.

Before you say "Death Ward is a cleric spell", Red and Blue dragons can cast off the cleric list. You could potentially get a White Dragon with this, unless they, with their 13th level casting, just teleport the hell out of there and come back after the hour is up.

And then they breathe on you.

Eat ludicrous damage, Shadows.

Let's not do it and say we did, right?

Well soulfire isnt core, and OP is assuming a surprise round because somehow the dragon is just blind and deaf on his hoarde with no traps or alarms or anything.

Alarm is a level 1 spell that lasts all day, and it should go off when the shadows get close enough to be a threat.

[Fable Wright]

Here's my solution:

Make a level 1 human wizard enchanter, take spell focus enchantment and a high int. You start with charm person prepared twice. You have 4 ranks in knowledge religion, 2 ranks in diplomacy, and make a roll to identify the location of a certain spooky tomb.

Convert your 75 gp to silver and hire an unskilled labourer (1 sp) to go out and find 500 more unskilled labourers and meet you at the spooky tomb to get paid. Preferably with children or crippled.

Now you need some spellcasting services. You need a 6th level caster to cast desecrate. That's a 6 cleric. Oops, you don't have enough cash. Sorry sir for wastng your time. But wait, CHARM PERSON. Luckily he failed his save.

You and the cleric are now friends for an hour. Between you and him, you have the knowledge religion to find a Shadow (for example at the spooky tomb). And your cleric friend controls him, as he has 3 hd.

You emerge from the tomb and your shadow slays a commoner which becomes a shadow under the control of the original. Call the original General Lee. Lee then instructs his subordinates to kill all the commoners and create more shadows in a command structure. With a movement speed of 40 they can easily charge them all down before they can get anywhere.

Now you have an army of Shadows in the control of your 6 cleric friend. General Lee rders the rest of the shadows to cruise under the ground to each dragons lair. 100 shadows attack from underground or from a nearby wall get Surprise on the dragon and will hit with their touch attacks. A Great Wyrm has 36-39 str and a touch AC of around 6, so it only needs around 11 hits to take it down.

So all of the dragons die simultaneously. Now you have 505 shadows under the control of an evil cleric who is generally pevved with you for charming him.

This doesn't work. First off, there's no guarantee he fails his save. Second, there's no guarantee you can find the shadow within an hour. Third, these dragons have rather large reach and caster levels, and quite probably combat reflexes. Given that the dragons have DR/Magic, their claws count as magic, and can hit Shadows 50% of the time. Their breath weapons also have a 50% chance to damage the shadows. Fourth, the Dragons have ridiculous wealth and casting, and have wards set up to detect the Shadows coming. Fifth, Red and Blue dragons, as previously mentioned, can cast Death Ward when their various wards are tripped by the Shadows. Sixth, they all have access to Teleport. If they're in desperate danger and not killed by the Shadows in one round, they can get out of there, use their various divinations, find the Shadow in charge of it all, kill the cleric commanding them and Command Undead that Shadow to turn all of the spawn on you. Congratulations, your solution has backfired, and you gave Evil Great Wyrm Dragons an army of shadows to kill you and terrorize the countryside.

Also, the Dragons have a pretty good Blindsight area around them. The Shadows won't get in range before the Dragon knows about them.

[GoatBoy]

Something involving crafting clubs. Since a club has no cost, you take essentially zero time to craft one. Do this over and over. Drown the dragon in clubs.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Dont forget Red and Blue have cleric spell access. Last thing you want is to deliver an army of shadows to the dragon with Death Ward and Command Undead.

[Eldan]

My solution?

Start as a level 1 expert. Invest all your feats in things that increase craft skill checks. Move to the Astral Plane. Spend the next ten million years crafting things to sell.

Buy a hireling and enough equipment for him that he can kill five dragons. Less than an hour has passed.

[Flickerdart]

Is there prep time? Because if there is...
1) Generate n money using your favourite method.
2) Use n money to use the awaken loop m times.
3) Use 2m+4 skill ranks in Handle Animal to train and rear whatever you damn well please, use 2m+4 skill ranks in Use Magic Device to cast whatever you damn well please.
4) Teleport.
5) Disjunction.
6) Quickened Disintegrate.

[Kuulvheysoon]

*snip*
If they're in desperate danger and not killed by the Shadows in one round, they can get out of there, use their various divinations, find the Shadow in charge of it all, kill the cleric commanding them and Command Undead that Shadow to turn all of the spawn on you. Congratulations, your solution has backfired, and you gave Evil Great Wyrm Dragons an army of shadows to kill you and terrorize the countryside.

Maybe the CE dragons would, but the LE ones? They'd likely team up with the aforementioned Cleric to kill you, then use it as a patsy to make all the adventurers think that they solved the problem.


Also, the Dragons have a pretty good Blindsight area around them. The Shadows won't get in range before the Dragon knows about them.

Dragon have blindsense in 3.5e (unlike 3.0e), and I don't believe that it would help against incorporeal foes, anyways.


Because it has no body, an incorporeal creature also has no scent and doesn't create any tremors in the ground or any currents in the air. Special qualities such as tremorsense, blindsense, and blindsight usually don't allow their users to discern incorporeal creatures.

[Invader]

Nothing mentioned so far will work given the constraints of the task. OP, why don't you just tell us your plan so that can also immediately be proven ineffective and we can end this exercise in futility.

[Flickerdart]

Nothing mentioned so far will work given the constraints of the task. OP, why don't you just tell us your plan so that can also immediately be proven ineffective and we can end this exercise in futility.
Mine works fine if you interpret "in 1 hour" as "the actual dragon killing takes 1 hour", mostly because using a newborn old child is obviously not what OP was going for.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Nothing mentioned so far will work given the constraints of the task. OP, why don't you just tell us your plan so that can also immediately be proven ineffective and we can end this exercise in futility.

Already done, friend.


Your challenge:

Defeat the 5 evil Great Wyrm dragons, one of each color, using a level 1 character, in one hour, and only material from the PHB, MM1, and DMG. It can be done. Go!


Here's my solution:

Make a level 1 human wizard enchanter, take spell focus enchantment and a high int. You start with charm person prepared twice. You have 4 ranks in knowledge religion, 2 ranks in diplomacy, and make a roll to identify the location of a certain spooky tomb.

Convert your 75 gp to silver and hire an unskilled labourer (1 sp) to go out and find 500 more unskilled labourers and meet you at the spooky tomb to get paid. Preferably with children or crippled.

Now you need some spellcasting services. You need a 6th level caster to cast desecrate. That's a 6 cleric. Oops, you don't have enough cash. Sorry sir for wastng your time. But wait, CHARM PERSON. Luckily he failed his save.

You and the cleric are now friends for an hour. Between you and him, you have the knowledge religion to find a Shadow (for example at the spooky tomb). And your cleric friend controls him, as he has 3 hd.

You emerge from the tomb and your shadow slays a commoner which becomes a shadow under the control of the original. Call the original General Lee. Lee then instructs his subordinates to kill all the commoners and create more shadows in a command structure. With a movement speed of 40 they can easily charge them all down before they can get anywhere.

Now you have an army of Shadows in the control of your 6 cleric friend. General Lee rders the rest of the shadows to cruise under the ground to each dragons lair. 100 shadows attack from underground or from a nearby wall get Surprise on the dragon and will hit with their touch attacks. A Great Wyrm has 36-39 str and a touch AC of around 6, so it only needs around 11 hits to take it down.

So all of the dragons die simultaneously. Now you have 505 shadows under the control of an evil cleric who is generally pevved with you for charming him.

...And already disproven.

[Spuddles]

Mine works fine if you interpret "in 1 hour" as "the actual dragon killing takes 1 hour", mostly because using a newborn old child is obviously not what OP was going for.

A great wyrm passes a disintegrate from an item on anything but a natural 1. Even if the dragon fails its save and you happen to roll max damage ( a 1 in 1,000 quadrillion chance), it's only 132 damage. Not even enough to make a white dragon break a sweat.

[Invader]

Already done, friend.





...And already disproven.

Oh yeah, I read that but in on my phone and didn't see the OP's name because it was out of frame.

I'll add to whatever else was said that you couldn't remotely do all that in an hour :smallamused:

[Flickerdart]

A great wyrm passes a disintegrate from an item on anything but a natural 1. Even if the dragon fails its save and you happen to roll max damage ( a 1 in 1,000 quadrillion chance), it's only 132 damage. Not even enough to make a white dragon break a sweat.
It's obviously a reference to what V does re: dragons after obtaining ultimate cosmic power. Your actual spell could be anything you please. Don't forget that you have arbitrary amounts of HD, feats, and points in abilities, so you could really just stomp the dragon's face in, using your spells only for mobility and countering the dragon's casting.

[Zero grim]

I think were going about this all wrong, you've got starting wealth and level before the hour begins, I don't think its about earning infinite money, it about going from just a beginner to a pro....we need a montage.

You start as an Aristocrat to get as much money as possible, then you hire lots and lots of actors, everyone finds a buddy and you continue to have encounters against each other (lets say each flipping a coin), since an encounter is measured as overcoming a challenge or defeating a another creature then you would gain xp each time the coin matches what you call, and when you lose you opponent gains xp, you continue this until you have risen to arbitrary high level and can blast all the dragon with a flex of your arms.

(now someone say that my idea is any more ridiculous then the rest of this thread :P)

[Coidzor]

Do we have some prep time before the one hour starts? For instance, if I max out my Handle Animal skill to the point where I can easily surpass the DC required to train an animal for battle, can it be assumed that my Ranger has previously trained his pack of 150 goats (1gp each) to be attack-goats?

Because, he has a life, y'know. Those goats are a part of his backstory.

Do goats even have stats?


Given that the dragons have DR/Magic, their claws count as magic, and can hit Shadows 50% of the time.

Really? I thought that they just could bypass magic DR, not that they had a chance to effect incorporeal creatures and all natural weapons users had to have necklaces of natural attacks with the ghost touch property or another item or spell effect on them to be able to attack incorporeal at all. :smallconfused:

Is that any creature with DR/Magic or just creatures that natively have it?

I thought that was one of the problems with monk, was that he had to jump through hoops to get ghost touch because he didn't even have the baseline chance that a magic-weapon user would have.

[TentacleSurpris]

This doesn't work. First off, there's no guarantee he fails his save. Second, there's no guarantee you can find the shadow within an hour. Third, these dragons have rather large reach and caster levels, and quite probably combat reflexes. Given that the dragons have DR/Magic, their claws count as magic, and can hit Shadows 50% of the time. Their breath weapons also have a 50% chance to damage the shadows. Fourth, the Dragons have ridiculous wealth and casting, and have wards set up to detect the Shadows coming. Fifth, Red and Blue dragons, as previously mentioned, can cast Death Ward when their various wards are tripped by the Shadows. Sixth, they all have access to Teleport. If they're in desperate danger and not killed by the Shadows in one round, they can get out of there, use their various divinations, find the Shadow in charge of it all, kill the cleric commanding them and Command Undead that Shadow to turn all of the spawn on you. Congratulations, your solution has backfired, and you gave Evil Great Wyrm Dragons an army of shadows to kill you and terrorize the countryside.

Also, the Dragons have a pretty good Blindsight area around them. The Shadows won't get in range before the Dragon knows about them.

My thoughts on some of these considerations were that Blindsight and Alarm spell don't detect ethereal creatures, and regular sight cant detect incorporeal things travelling through solid rock.

Since the dragons didn't detect them, it's a surprise round. And each of the shadows charges for 1 hit. It,s true that I did not cinsider Foresight spell, but luckily only the Red dragon has enough caster levels.

And before you go arming ghe dragons with their hoards, remember they only have items from the DMG.

About finding the shadows, I did say you could use any material from MM1. You could find any monster, it's just that most of them are hostile and dangerous to a level 1 wizard.

[Spuddles]

My thoughts on some of these considerations were that Blindsight and Alarm spell don't detect ethereal creatures, and regular sight cant detect incorporeal things travelling through solid rock.

Since the dragons didn't detect them, it's a surprise round. And each of the shadows charges for 1 hit. It,s true that I did not cinsider Foresight spell, but luckily only the Red dragon has enough caster levels.

And before you go arming ghe dragons with their hoards, remember they only have items from the DMG.

About finding the shadows, I did say you could use any material from MM1. You could find any monster, it's just that most of them are hostile and dangerous to a level 1 wizard.

Incorporeal is not the same as ethereal. Shadows have no ability to go ethereal.

They trigger Alarm. Not a single one of the dragons are surprised.

[Chronos]

Has anyone else mentioned Dust of Sneezing and Choking yet, or did I just miss it? Yeah, you shouldn't be able to afford much, but combine it with some of the standard money tricks.

[Phelix-Mu]

My thoughts on some of these considerations were that Blindsight and Alarm spell don't detect ethereal creatures, and regular sight cant detect incorporeal things travelling through solid rock.

I believe shadows aren't ethereal, just incorporeal. They aren't like ghosts. Thus, while blindsight probably won't work (already mentioned), I think alarm should work (it only calls out ethereal and astral creatures as not working...the entire reason for that improved alarm from SC...interplanar alarm?).

I'd also note that shadows can't see through solid objects either (to the best of my knowledge), and thus can't target the dragon until entering the lair (making them more susceptible to traps...magic missile traps sounds like fun). It's also not clear that two incorporeal creatures can occupy the same space, so I think they probably need to spread out. Incorporeal is just not well described until clarified in later supplements.

[TentacleSurpris]

My thoughts on some of these considerations were that Blindsight and Alarm spell don't detect ethereal creatures, and regular sight cant detect incorporeal things travelling through solid rock.

Since the dragons didn't detect them, it's a surprise round. And each of the shadows charges for 1 hit. It,s true that I did not cinsider Foresight spell, but luckily only the Red dragon has enough caster levels.

And before you go arming ghe dragons with their hoards, remember they only have items from the DMG.

About finding the shadows, I did say you could use any material from MM1. You could find any monster, it's just that most of them are hostile and dangerous to a level 1 wizard.

But yes, Death Ward stops this, but has a duration of 1min per level, so it can't be up all the time. So I'd assume it's not up at the moment of attack: metagaming on the part of the dragon.

[TentacleSurpris]

Incorporeal is not the same as ethereal. Shadows have no ability to go ethereal.

They trigger Alarm. Not a single one of the dragons are surprised.

Hmm, on rechecking the rules, you are correct.

Please kill every character I ever make

[Kuulvheysoon]

Hmm, on rechecking the rules, you are correct.

Please kill every character I ever make

It's not so bad. We're all new at one time or another.

And even when we're not, there's always something new to learn.

[Mithril Leaf]

Shaper Psion with minor creation, craft (poison making) and craft (fake cow) could do it but they aren't core and rely on dragons automaticly eating anything they can get their jaws around

I love you.

[kardar233]

I love you.

Psionic Minor Creation isn't technically core, but I have to admit I thought of your Blistering Oil/Black Lotus Extract bombs when I saw this thread.

[SaintRidley]

Bluff, bluff, bluff the OP into thinking I spent the last hour defeating five Great Wyrms.

[Mithril Leaf]

Psionic Minor Creation isn't technically core, but I have to admit I thought of your Blistering Oil/Black Lotus Extract bombs when I saw this thread.

To be fair, that's why I came in here in the first place. I couldn't miss a chance to see a better method.

[137beth]

Bluff, bluff, bluff the OP into thinking I spent the last hour defeating five Great Wyrms.

Already done, but with forgery used to produce a certificate signed by Bahamut asserting that you have killed 5 great wyrms in under an hour.

[zlefin]

as with all such things, the answer is to cheat!
I'm gonna go with the reinterpretation method; the goal says defeat, not kill.

I use a diplomancer bard build.
I buy 5 25 gp gems.

I humbly go to each dragon, leaving the gem in a hidden place outside; and use diplomacy to convince each dragon to let me beat them in a game of rock paper scissors for a small gem.

I have now defeated 5 great wyrm dragons (in a game).

[Phelix-Mu]

I have now defeated 5 great wyrm dragons (in a game).

I like this. Reminds me of Algebra 2.

{In a game [I have now defeated 5 great wyrm dragons (in a game).]}

[TuggyNE]

Really? I thought that they just could bypass magic DR, not that they had a chance to effect incorporeal creatures and all natural weapons users had to have necklaces of natural attacks with the ghost touch property or another item or spell effect on them to be able to attack incorporeal at all. :smallconfused:

There is some dispute over this. Last time the subject came up, the arguments that having DR/magic gives you the ability to strike incorporeal were interesting, but unconvincing. (I'm feeling too tired right now to go look up the exact reasons. :smallredface:)

[Jack_Simth]

Death Ward states: "The subject is immune to all death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, and any negative energy effects. "



It states it in it's entry, so why wouldn't it be? Was it errata'ed in later?

That or I'm thinking about a different critter.

Ah, that's it. I'm thinking about the Wraith's con drain. Oops.

[Arskanator]

Kudos for creativity. A few nitpicks, though:

1.) Spellcasting is available by RAW, but as soon as you are interacting with a specific npc, the DM is within rights to have the cleric act as more than a vendor. Knowing that the cleric is evil, it seems to me that the cleric just kills the wizard instead of providing the spellcasting. Especially after you drag him/her into the graveyard with all the peasants.

Why?

Wizard: "I need you to cast a spell for me. I can pay you."
Evil Cleric: "Cool. What spell do you need?"
Wizard: "Let's go to the graveyard, I'll explain the spell when we get there. I have a bunch of peasants waiting there, they are crucial for the spell to work."
Evil Cleric: "... This is starting to sound like my kind of a party :smallamused:"

[Phelix-Mu]

Why?

Wizard: "I need you to cast a spell for me. I can pay you."
Evil Cleric: "Cool. What spell do you need?"
Wizard: "Let's go to the graveyard, I'll explain the spell when we get there. I have a bunch of peasants waiting there, they are crucial for the spell to work."
Evil Cleric: "... This is starting to sound like my kind of a party :smallamused:"

Why would the cleric 6 that is the entire crux of this plan to kill and loot 5 great wyrms not want to cooperate with the wizard 1? Sure, the party sounds like fun, but it also sounds like the kind of party that the wizard doesn't need to be invited to.

So, if you find the right evil cleric 6, yeah, he/she might be game for it, but now it's clearly more than just purchasing a service, more of like a contract thing that would have to be negotiated (role played). I feel strongly that evil clerics don't just help people for fun, even when there is modest payment involved (payment the wizard doesn't have). Cash up front, please. I mean, honestly, who casts spells for other spellcasters without asking for cash up front. The wizard could just go poof at any time.

[ArcturusV]

Or at the very least go, "... and you contributed what exactly to the cause?" and backstab the guy he didn't actually need, served no purpose, and had no loyalty to (Or at the very least deny him any of the loot). Why share loot or anything with a guy who's contribution consisted of nothing more than to tell him to do something?

Of course, even if it did work out, it's still not a level 1 core character defeating them. It's a level 6 cleric with Shadow Spawning Shenanigans, while a level 1 character just watches the whole thing.

[SowZ]

Thing is, it all depends on how prepared these dragons are. If they are stupid, on the ground/outside without doing any divinations, I just play a Cleric with Earth domain. All I need to do is get high above it, cast magic stone 5 times and I have 15 bullets at 71 points of magic damage a piece. But that is ludicrously ideal.

[thethird]

I'm an expert with ranks in perform (act), disguise and craft (dragon disguises)

I hire a few other friendly experts to perform the parts of the dragons and help me craft their disguises.

Then I rock defeating the 5 Great Wyrms at the same time over the scenery with an epic tale of cunning deceit and brilliant improvisation.

:smallcool:

[8wGremlin]

this has been done before


Alright, I've run the numbers and figured out how to do it. In the spirit of both this thread, and the killing of a prismatic dragon thread, I have figured out how to kill a great wyrm prismatic dragon as a level 1 commoner. This does rely on one small piece of DM fiat, but it's fairly reasonable.

The Dragon Slayer: Male Middle-Aged Strongheart Halfling Commoner 1; CR ½; Small Humanoid (halfling); HD 1d4+0; hp 4; Init +0; Spd 20 ft.; AC 11 (10 +1 dex), touch 11, flat-footed 11; Base Atk +0; Grp -5 (-1 str -4 size); AL TN; SV Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +1; Str 8, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12.
Skills and Feats: Craft (Poisonmaking) +10 (4 ranks +1 int +2 Masterwork Tool +3 Psicrystal bonus), Handle Animal +5 (4 ranks +1 cha), Craft (Leatherworking) +8 (4 ranks +1 int +3 Psicrystal bonus) and Read/Write/Speak (Common & Elven); Hidden Talent (Psionic Minor Creation), Psicrystal Affinity (Artiste), and Psionic Talent x2.
Traits & Flaws: Noncombatant & Frail
Equipment (70 gp [36 gp if crafted]; 6 lb.): One cow, to be made into a sculpture, one masterwork tool (Poisonmaking), one glass vial volume totally 7 cubic feet (no listed price, 10 gp sounded fair).

I butcher my cow and make the carcass into a facsimile of a cow, but with the large glass vial taking up a large part of its internal digestive system. Then, I head to the entrance to the nearby prismatic dragon's lair with my creation. Once there, I manifest psionic minor creation to create 7 cubic feet of sassone leaf residue within the large glass vial. I then make some shouting and offer my cow to the great beast. Once the dragon consumes the cow, the glass vial breaks, releasing the 6630 doses of poison. The dragon fails approximately 5% of it's saves, and takes about 4,300 damage. This kills said dragon and loots me, a level one commoner about 3 million gp in loot. Plus enough xp to reach the upper half of the game at least. The xp is certainly off the charts.

Thoughts on how to improve this? Also any ideas for ways to make the method less reliant on the dragon eating the cow sculpture and not you?

Slight change, in that we create a barrel of poison and make 5 "Cow Bombs" with it. delivering the "cow bomb" to the 5 dragons simultaneously.

4300 damage/5 = 860 damage (Greater Wyrm Red dragons have 660hp)

[Hyde]

My Method:

Be the GM.

Rocks fall, the dragons die.


Anyway, I'd like to point out that while the shadows are not ethereal, incorporeality would make it very difficult to discern what manner of attack the dragon was facing, at least at first. Let's assume the dragon wants to at least attempt to defend its lair, so while it's not surprised, it's not just gonna skip town.

Alarm works, but nonvisual senses don't really work against incorporeal creatures, so blindsense isn't so important. What does matter is that fat stack of caster levels and the ability to cast Anti-magic Field, which suppreses incorporeal undead. Alarm's radius is kind of an issue, though.

So this is what happens-
Let's assume the shadows approach underground, provided they're capable of such complicated tactics. Since they're only approaching from one side of the creature, and still occupy space, we'll assume that only 64 shadows actually get to attack in a round (really, they could move in two groups, and rotate out)
If the dragon survives (honestly, it doesn't look very likely) it can AMF and then scry/murderface everyone involved, ending the problem.

If the shadows are detected at all, AMF is not an unreasonable spell for the dragon to cast or ready an action for- the list of things that would screw with a dragon that isn't thwarted by AMF is laughably small.

[SowZ]

this has been done before



Slight change, in that we create a barrel of poison and make 5 "Cow Bombs" with it. delivering the "cow bomb" to the 5 dragons simultaneously.

4300 damage/5 = 860 damage (Greater Wyrm Red dragons have 660hp)

I don't think a thirty plus Int being is ever going to eat food offered to him without casting detect poison first.... ever.

[otakumick]

I don't think a thirty plus Int being is ever going to eat food offered to him without casting detect poison first.... ever.

I dunno, whats the dragons wisdom score? :p

[Callin]

just make it a contact poison and cover a very good forgery of a golden cow statue

[Agent 451]

Level 1 Human Expert, full ranks in Craft (woodworking), Craft (painting) and Knowledge (arcana). Spend money on a set of artisan's tools, a hammer, 5 colors of paint (hmmm, no paint in the PHB? Ink will have to do then).

Grab some wood and whittle five small great wyrms, dunk each of them into red, blue, white, green or black ink.

Crush with a hammer.

[Phelix-Mu]

I dunno, whats the dragons wisdom score? :p

Looks like they range from 20 to almost 30, depending on color, whether the dragon is using items, has used wish, has an enslaved 15th level bard chained to the wall to sing it's praises night and day, etc.

In short, no. These dragons are neither stupid, nor foolish. Stupid dragons die long before reaching the proposed age category, as do the foolish ones. Normal dragons should be the formidable of the formidable among enemies. Great wyrms should take those younger dragons, turn them into sock puppets, and have their enslaved minions walk around in dragon-suits.

Honestly, I think some dragon god or other would probably just get insulted and pay the level 1 person actually trying this a visit, accompanied by the biggest curse the deity can muster. It's all very TO, I know, but this stuff just makes me roll my eyes, sometimes.:smallwink:

EDIT: Ah, seems I missed the joke emoticon at the end of the thing I quoted. No offense meant, ofc, I just felt a rant coming on and...oh well.:smalltongue:

[Howler Dagger]

this has been done before
<snip>


Strongheart halfling isn't core, nor any of the psionics.

[Spuddles]

My Method:

Be the GM.

Rocks fall, the dragons die.


Anyway, I'd like to point out that while the shadows are not ethereal, incorporeality would make it very difficult to discern what manner of attack the dragon was facing, at least at first. Let's assume the dragon wants to at least attempt to defend its lair, so while it's not surprised, it's not just gonna skip town.

Alarm works, but nonvisual senses don't really work against incorporeal creatures, so blindsense isn't so important. What does matter is that fat stack of caster levels and the ability to cast Anti-magic Field, which suppreses incorporeal undead. Alarm's radius is kind of an issue, though.

So this is what happens-
Let's assume the shadows approach underground, provided they're capable of such complicated tactics. Since they're only approaching from one side of the creature, and still occupy space, we'll assume that only 64 shadows actually get to attack in a round (really, they could move in two groups, and rotate out)
If the dragon survives (honestly, it doesn't look very likely) it can AMF and then scry/murderface everyone involved, ending the problem.

If the shadows are detected at all, AMF is not an unreasonable spell for the dragon to cast or ready an action for- the list of things that would screw with a dragon that isn't thwarted by AMF is laughably small.

The Shadows have no way of seeing the dragon while they are in the floor. Meanwhile, the average dragon has +40 to +50 to its spot checks. So if the shadow ever pops out of the floor to find the dragon, the dragon immediately notices it.

The dragon will immediately know what's up.

[Gotterdammerung]

I say "Pazuzu...Pazuzu...Pazuzu."

Then I strike a deal with Pazuzu that if he kills these 5 dragons, I will give him my soul.

[Jack_Simth]

The Shadows have no way of seeing the dragon while they are in the floor. Meanwhile, the average dragon has +40 to +50 to its spot checks. So if the shadow ever pops out of the floor to find the dragon, the dragon immediately notices it.That's actually not quite true. Buried in the Incorporeal Subtype (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#incorporealSubtype) definition, there's a clause about that:
An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see farther from the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect. (emphasis added)

[Callin]

I say "Pazuzu...Pazuzu...Pazuzu."

Then I strike a deal with Pazuzu that if he kills these 5 dragons, I will give him my soul.

This is what i always picture when i see someone mention that

http://paizo.com/image/product/secondary/Zogonia/zogonia55.jpg

[Empedocles]

Well, two things: Pazuzu is less powerful then a Great Wyrm if I recall his stats correctly, and I don't think a wish is that powerful anyways...

More importantly, Pazuzu isn't core.

If you could do the "pazuzu, pazuzu, pazuzu" thingy, wish for some piece of equipment that could be abused sufficiently to kill the dragons (spam wishing of rings of 3 wishes, if you have to. At the point of wish, I'm sure it can be done).

[killem2]

Couldn't a level 1 super diplomancy bard talk down a dragon? Maybe?

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

Nothing mentioned so far will work given the constraints of the task. OP, why don't you just tell us your plan so that can also immediately be proven ineffective and we can end this exercise in futility.

Au contraire:

Use the clause that bypassing an encounter still defeats it, and simply decide to bypass the dragons by not antagonizing them.

It was largely ignored, but the man has a point. Of course, one can argue about various specifics, but unless the OP is changed such that the dragons have a specific desire to kill the character, bypassing the encounter is very likely to succeed.

[Gurgeh]

One thing I'm surprised hasn't been picked up on is that it's impossible for the shadows to all swarm the dragon from underground.


An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own.

In other words, they can obscure most of themselves beneath the ground if they choose to, but they have to come in through the door and can't just walk through the walls of the dragon's lair unless said walls are less than a metre thick. There likely wouldn't be a surprise round, since there's every chance that the dragon would spot them the moment they enter its chamber.

[Phelix-Mu]

Well, two things: Pazuzu is less powerful then a Great Wyrm if I recall his stats correctly, and I don't think a wish is that powerful anyways...

More importantly, Pazuzu isn't core.

If you could do the "pazuzu, pazuzu, pazuzu" thingy, wish for some piece of equipment that could be abused sufficiently to kill the dragons (spam wishing of rings of 3 wishes, if you have to. At the point of wish, I'm sure it can be done).

"Pazuzu, Pazuzu, Pazuzu. Please make the Pazuzu Method core."

There, done.:smallcool:

[Flickerdart]

One thing I'm surprised hasn't been picked up on is that it's impossible for the shadows to all swarm the dragon from underground.



In other words, they can obscure most of themselves beneath the ground if they choose to, but they have to come in through the door and can't just walk through the walls of the dragon's lair unless said walls are less than a metre thick. There likely wouldn't be a surprise round, since there's every chance that the dragon would spot them the moment they enter its chamber.
They can submerge themselves under the floor and coast underneath the doorway no problem.

[Mando Knight]

They can submerge themselves under the floor and coast underneath the doorway no problem.

But in order to see anything, they need to emerge... which doesn't bode well for them remaining hidden before attacking, particularly against something with up to 40 HD and an inclination towards maximizing Spot.

[Phelix-Mu]

I usually have dragons use countermeasures like fake dragon simulacra, illusory/mock up hoard, false main chamber, and so forth, not to mention contingent heals, the pact spells, contracts for service with compatible, called beings. While restricting it to core nixes one or two of these tricks, most are still viable.

A paranoid great wyrm should be no less decked out than a 20th level wizard, especially as its had 1000+ years to contemplate and form countermeasures against its own weaknesses.

In short, lined every inch of its lair with permanent walls of force, sandwiched between solid stone, with a couple inches of lead, then another layer of stone. I mean...1000 years. Even if you subtract a somewhat arrogant youth, dragons become very smart pretty early on, and are totally loaded gp-wise throughout.

Totally unrealistic that the great wyrms are just there, ready to be attacked.

[Flickerdart]

But in order to see anything, they need to emerge... which doesn't bode well for them remaining hidden before attacking, particularly against something with up to 40 HD and an inclination towards maximizing Spot.
They don't need to see anything. Using simple trial and error, the shadows can position themselves in every valid space that is inside a wall, and then all jump out at once. Given that a Great Wyrm's room is massive, it will contain many shadows as a result of this tactic.

[rockdeworld]

I like Jack Smith's solution myself, and think this is another one for the Totally Overpowered Basketweaver.

On the other hand, Miracle.
1. Earn money ahead of time. A way that hasn't been mentioned yet: Be an Elan with at least 1 rank in Profession (Farming). Stock up to NI cash by farming over the course of eternity. Live in a planar metropolis (read: a place you can buy anything).
2. Pay a 17th level cleric (good-aligned if the dragons are evil, evil if they're good) with at least 19 Wis cast miracle and make a very powerful request. Cost: 26,530gp. Request: defeat these 5 Great Wyrms within the next 599 rounds. Since the dragons are the opposite alignment of the deity, they won't refuse. And even sorcerer spellcasting doesn't stand up to a god, especially since this is straight core and the gods don't have stats.

Rinse, repeat.

[SowZ]

just make it a contact poison and cover a very good forgery of a golden cow statue

If it is that easy, and you could come up with it, the dragon won't be fooled by it. His Int and Wis are smarter than any human that has ever lived in RL. Question: If you were the president and some random guy put a steak or a statue of a chicken on the doorstep of the white house, would you go near that thing? It has trap written all over it. And that dragon is more paranoid then you are.

[Empedocles]

I like Jack Smith's solution myself, and think this is another one for the Totally Overpowered Basketweaver.

On the other hand, Miracle.
1. Earn money ahead of time. A way that hasn't been mentioned yet: Be an Elan with at least 1 rank in Profession (Farming). Stock up to NI cash by farming over the course of eternity. Live in a planar metropolis (read: a place you can buy anything).
2. Pay a 17th level cleric (good-aligned if the dragons are evil, evil if they're good) with at least 19 Wis cast miracle and make a very powerful request. Cost: 26,530gp. Request: defeat these 5 Great Wyrms within the next 599 rounds. Since the dragons are the opposite alignment of the deity, they won't refuse. And even sorcerer spellcasting doesn't stand up to a god, especially since this is straight core and the gods don't have stats.

Rinse, repeat.

Nailed it.

EDIT: Or, uh, not. Elan's aren't core... :smallannoyed:

[SowZ]

I like Jack Smith's solution myself, and think this is another one for the Totally Overpowered Basketweaver.

On the other hand, Miracle.
1. Earn money ahead of time. A way that hasn't been mentioned yet: Be an Elan with at least 1 rank in Profession (Farming). Stock up to NI cash by farming over the course of eternity. Live in a planar metropolis (read: a place you can buy anything).
2. Pay a 17th level cleric (good-aligned if the dragons are evil, evil if they're good) with at least 19 Wis cast miracle and make a very powerful request. Cost: 26,530gp. Request: defeat these 5 Great Wyrms within the next 599 rounds. Since the dragons are the opposite alignment of the deity, they won't refuse. And even sorcerer spellcasting doesn't stand up to a god, especially since this is straight core and the gods don't have stats.

Rinse, repeat.

The 1st level character isn't doing it, the 17th level character is. Besides, if you start with more than level 1 gold you are kind of breaking the spirit of the game. May as well say I start with 1 million gold and hire a level 22 Wizard to fight the Dragon. The level 1 character didn't kill the dragon there, either.

[8wGremlin]

Why does this lvl 1 core character even care...
he dies of boredom at the:
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"

Actually to the OP - pointless thread

[SowZ]

Why does this lvl 1 core character even care...
he dies of boredom at the:
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"
Clever person who is trying "We try this", OP say "NO, doesn't work"

Actually to the OP - pointless thread

Thing is, all of these strategies, even the one I proposed, wouldn't work against a reasonably played dragon. The OP said there is a way to do it, but I am guessing it is very situational and one of those situations requires a 90 degree bend of the rules or a less than stellar play on behalf of the dragon. But I am curious enough to see it.

[8wGremlin]

Thing is, none of these strategies, even the one I proposed, wouldn't work against a reasonably played dragon. The OP said there is a way to do it, but I am guessing it is very situational and one of those situations requires a 90 degree bend of the rules or a less than stellar play on behalf of the dragon. But I am curious enough to see it.

Or its like LOST the tv show... he hasn't got one, or he did have and some one guessed it in the first 5 posts, so changed his mind...

time to prove that OP.

[TuggyNE]

Thing is, all of these strategies, even the one I proposed, wouldn't work against a reasonably played dragon. The OP said there is a way to do it, but I am guessing it is very situational and one of those situations requires a 90 degree bend of the rules or a less than stellar play on behalf of the dragon. But I am curious enough to see it.

The OP already posted their proposed solution. It didn't work, due to death ward, alarm, scintillating scales and a few other possibilities.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

Thing is, all of these strategies, even the one I proposed, wouldn't work against a reasonably played dragon. The OP said there is a way to do it, but I am guessing it is very situational and one of those situations requires a 90 degree bend of the rules or a less than stellar play on behalf of the dragon. But I am curious enough to see it.

I'd like to reiterate that Jack_Simth's strategy is 100% viable; bypassing an encounter counts as defeating it and, especially given the OP rules, this is a very easy set of encounters to bypass and, thus, defeat.

[Gurgeh]

Even ignoring the silly D&D economics, there's no way you're hiring more than twenty thousand workers in half an hour. You'd be lucky to talk to that many in half a year.

[Killer Angel]

Why do we limit ourselves? if we're able to defeat 5 Great Wyrms in 1 hour with a lvl 1 core character, it's thanks to a deadly loop or a dirty trick, so we could well defeat 10 GW. or 15.

[ShurikVch]

Bard
Charisma 18
Maximized Bluff
Potion of Glibness...

Bard: "You are dead!"
Great Wyrm: "I am dead!"

[Gurgeh]

Since there's a 100% profit for every GP invested into hirelings and ladders, and the ladder-breaking is only needed to purchase a Candle of Invocation (priced 8,400 GP), you could hire a spare hireling for every ~3.7 ladder-breakers. They would not increase the time needed to be able to buy the Candle of Invocation, and would be used to organize a workforce in your stead.

Of course, D&D is not designed to figure out these sorts of things, making the rules beyond Core unavailable.
Core or its absence has no bearing on this. Random people in the street aren't programmable von Neumann machines who'll do exactly as they're told and propagate themselves endlessly, and even if they were, the turnover from one step to the next would increase exponentially as they'd crowd into one another and run out of potential future recruits. You're not falling foul of being stuck in Core, you're falling foul of basic mathematics and common sense. This isn't even TO, this is just an exercise in intellectual wankery. It's like playing Dominion with yourself: of course you're going to win, nobody else is playing.

[Kornaki]

. Lastly, assume all buying/hiring/selling transactions are merged together, excluding initial purchases, and take 2 minutes at a time to complete.


How the heck does it take you TWO minutes to hire 6656 people? Keeping in mind that you have already hired the closest 6656 people - if you assume a population density of 10,000 people/sq mile, you're hiring everyone in a radius of .6 miles. Unless you're magically amplifying your voice you will need to spend a decent amount of time walking around hiring everyone. Anyone inside of a building probably needs you to enter that building to hear you offer them large quantities of gold. Assuming a block is 300 feet to a side, and a road is 60 feet wide you need to travel about 8.8 miles to travel up and down the roads contained in this circle. That's 387 turns of running! But you aren't allowed to run that far typically, and you can only hustle 6 miles in an hour, so you blew your whole time just running up and down the streets hiring people.

Then you need to get everyone a ladder. The commoner railgun can move one ladder a turn, so that's thousands of turns to get everyone a ladder on your last step alone. You would think you can make production lines to make this move faster, but the chokepoint is the doorway of the store you bought the ladders from, and only one ladder a turn is going out, and then one pole a turn coming back in. You can't swap people in and out because if someone passes a ladder then moves, someone else can move in then pass a ladder, and is then stuck until the next round.... so at best you double your item movement rate

[Phelix-Mu]

Anything that relies on people that aren't the character trying to do this ill-conceived task are beyond that players control, and are thus npcs under the purview of the DM, and are thus not particularly well-suited for TO exercises (since the way a DM decides to handle something of this nature is wildly unpredictable). A good solution should rely chiefly on the powers of the level 1 character in question.

So far the prize (IMHO) goes to the person (name...name....) who suggested the forgery solution, which was basically the first incarnation of several "bluff/diplomacy/deception"-type tactics that revolve around making everyone think the character killed the dragons. Sadly, if memory serves, it also relied on having an arbitrarily large number of people aid the character attempting the forging. Still, quite elegant, and in before the OP posted his/her solution (shadowpocalypse variation, it seems, and flawed in several respects). The OP's solution is on page 2, and is dissected shortly thereafter.

[Icewraith]

Be a female of any core race. Challenge each dragon (need the lawful chromatic and metallic dragons for this one though) that you can beat them in one traditional mortal contest without using magic, and if you win your reward is only that they will not take revenge on you.

The challenge? Wet T-shirt contest.

[Krobar]

Be a female of any core race. Challenge each dragon (need the lawful chromatic and metallic dragons for this one though) that you can beat them in one traditional mortal contest without using magic, and if you win your reward is only that they will not take revenge on you.

The challenge? Wet T-shirt contest.

Until that female great wyrm silver dragon with a much higher charisma than yours changes form into a smoking hot female of your race and beats you.

Or, if you view that as magic ...

Since you failed to specify the crowd, she specifies a crowd of male silver dragons.

edited: that's what I'd do to your plan as DM.

Either way, though, win or lose ... the silver dragon(s), being they like humanoids as much as they do, would probably all end up being your friends. Silver dragons are like that. Now, take your new friends and go defeat the other dragons.

[Phelix-Mu]

Until that female great wyrm silver dragon with a much higher charisma than yours changes form into a smoking hot female of your race and beats you.

Or, if you view that as magic ...

Since you failed to specify the crowd, she specifies a crowd of male silver dragons.

edited: that's what I'd do to your plan as DM.

Either way, though, win or lose ... the silver dragon(s), being they like humanoids as much as they do, would probably all end up being your friends. Silver dragons are like that. Now, take your new friends and go defeat the other dragons.

Hmmm. Sex wins D&D. Who knew?

[SowZ]

I'd like to reiterate that Jack_Simth's strategy is 100% viable; bypassing an encounter counts as defeating it and, especially given the OP rules, this is a very easy set of encounters to bypass and, thus, defeat.

Jack Smith's strategy requires starting with an arbitrary amount of gold. I can do that, too. A level one character can take over the world allowed infinite gold. Buy all the magic items that cast all the spells and all the potions. Hire all the people to fight for you. Should be easy, now.

It's not really conducive to a thought experiment. You should start with WBL for this sort of thing or you aren't talking about a level 1 D&D character anymore. Further, bypassing an encounter is not the same as hiring someone else to do it. If just hiring someone else to do it is the same, then the old wizened man in the corner of the bar who sent you on your quest should get all the XP for the job he hired you.

Jacks plan relegates you to the level of NPC quest giver. It would be like someone saying, "I have a 10th level Monk that can accomplish X." "How?" "I pay a wizard to do it!" Oh... well... The wizard still did it. The Monk didn't.

The though experiment is could a level one character beat a Great Wyrm dragon? By just hiring a 17th level character we are no longer in the same realm as that question. We weren't asking could a 1st level character pay a 17th level character to do it. We all knew a 17th level cleric could do it. Could the first level character actually do it?

And in these sorts of things, you can't just say "I have infinite gold because I am immortal," anymore that you could just say, "My level 1 commoner has all the artifacts because he found them."

[TentacleSurpris]

The OP already posted their proposed solution. It didn't work, due to death ward, alarm, scintillating scales and a few other possibilities.

Death Ward can't reasonably be assumed to be up at the time of attacking. It's only 1 min per level, so the dragon cant' have it up all day, as a level 4 cleric spell, the dragon doesn't have enough spell slots to keep it up. There are no permanent death ward items in core that I know of.

Scintillating scales isn't core.

Alarm might work because ethereal (which it doesn't detect) is different from Incorporeal, but it is a 20' radius emanation. Emanations require line-of-effect. Shadows under the floor bypass a line of effect.


Whatever the dragon does on its turn (AMF, Control Undead, Fly away, Death ward, breath weapon) dont' matter, because the dragon never gets a turn.

So the shadows group up underground, and cruise together underground into the dragon's lair. They stay underground and search, never emerging from walls or floors or ceilings until they detect the presence of the dragon (incorporeal craetures can detect adjacent creatures through solid objects, but not vice versa). A colossal creature is 8x8 squares, so 64 shadows can attack it at once, from inside the floor, which Blindsense cannot detect.

So the dragon cannot detect the attack, all the shadows act on the same initiative: The dragon is surprised (unless it has the spell Foresight, which only 2 dragons are high enough level to have, and they only get 2 level 9 spells each. This is a hole in my plan that I didn't account for, but hey, you takes your chances). The dragon gets attacked by 64 shadows at once, which have a 50% miss chance. So 32 attacks go through, with +3 to hit against a touch AC of 6 (say 10 with Mage Armor), the shadows only need 11 hits on average to take down the 37-39 strength of a Great Wyrm. If need be, more shadows can charge 80ft from nearby walls or ceilings, or just occupy the same squares as their friends, or step into their friends spots after they attack and 5' step out.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Hmmm. Sex wins D&D. Who knew?


Book of Erotic Fantasy! Whose writing is overall better than several DnD books. Sadly actually.

[Krobar]

Death Ward can't reasonably be assumed to be up at the time of attacking. It's only 1 min per level, so the dragon cant' have it up all day, as a level 4 cleric spell, the dragon doesn't have enough spell slots to keep it up. There are no permanent death ward items in core that I know of.

Scintillating scales isn't core.

Alarm might work because ethereal (which it doesn't detect) is different from Incorporeal, but it is a 20' radius emanation. Emanations require line-of-effect. Shadows under the floor bypass a line of effect.


Whatever the dragon does on its turn (AMF, Control Undead, Fly away, Death ward, breath weapon) dont' matter, because the dragon never gets a turn.

So the shadows group up underground, and cruise together underground into the dragon's lair. They stay underground and search, never emerging from walls or floors or ceilings until they detect the presence of the dragon (incorporeal craetures can detect adjacent creatures through solid objects, but not vice versa). A colossal creature is 8x8 squares, so 64 shadows can attack it at once, from inside the floor, which Blindsense cannot detect.

So the dragon cannot detect the attack, all the shadows act on the same initiative: The dragon is surprised (unless it has the spell Foresight, which only 2 dragons are high enough level to have, and they only get 2 level 9 spells each. This is a hole in my plan that I didn't account for, but hey, you takes your chances). The dragon gets attacked by 64 shadows at once, which have a 50% miss chance. So 32 attacks go through, with +3 to hit against a touch AC of 6 (say 10 with Mage Armor), the shadows only need 11 hits on average to take down the 37-39 strength of a Great Wyrm. If need be, more shadows can charge 80ft from nearby walls or ceilings, or just occupy the same squares as their friends, or step into their friends spots after they attack and 5' step out.

Hallow or Unhallow can, with Death Ward attached to it (Cleric 5, cast once per year). Maybe they cast Forbiddance, too (Cleric 6, permanent). Most dragons I run as a DM do this. After all, a dragon that has lived over a thousand years isn't going to be snuck up on by a bunch of shadows sent in by a low level mook.

[Menzath]

hmmm, well you could build a house of collosal quartersatves over some of the dragons lairs, then just use knowledge arch/eng to get the construction/tools for leverage to have it fall on them.
Thats if your DM let's you craft by the minute. and if you had the str to lift it.
Although you could proably contract classless npcs for a few copper to help with labor.

Ohhhh you could hire out an entier town, give them all slings and just sorta stand back. having 100+ people would take a long time for a dragon to kill if they spread, and 1 is bound to get three natural 20's if you go by instant kill rules.

[Toliudar]

Death Ward can't reasonably be assumed to be up at the time of attacking. It's only 1 min per level, so the dragon cant' have it up all day, as a level 4 cleric spell, the dragon doesn't have enough spell slots to keep it up. There are no permanent death ward items in core that I know of.

Scintillating scales isn't core.

Alarm might work because ethereal (which it doesn't detect) is different from Incorporeal, but it is a 20' radius emanation. Emanations require line-of-effect. Shadows under the floor bypass a line of effect.


Whatever the dragon does on its turn (AMF, Control Undead, Fly away, Death ward, breath weapon) dont' matter, because the dragon never gets a turn.

So the shadows group up underground, and cruise together underground into the dragon's lair. They stay underground and search, never emerging from walls or floors or ceilings until they detect the presence of the dragon (incorporeal craetures can detect adjacent creatures through solid objects, but not vice versa). A colossal creature is 8x8 squares, so 64 shadows can attack it at once, from inside the floor, which Blindsense cannot detect.

So the dragon cannot detect the attack, all the shadows act on the same initiative: The dragon is surprised (unless it has the spell Foresight, which only 2 dragons are high enough level to have, and they only get 2 level 9 spells each. This is a hole in my plan that I didn't account for, but hey, you takes your chances). The dragon gets attacked by 64 shadows at once, which have a 50% miss chance. So 32 attacks go through, with +3 to hit against a touch AC of 6 (say 10 with Mage Armor), the shadows only need 11 hits on average to take down the 37-39 strength of a Great Wyrm. If need be, more shadows can charge 80ft from nearby walls or ceilings, or just occupy the same squares as their friends, or step into their friends spots after they attack and 5' step out.

A few more holes in this plan:

Control is not two-way communication. Even with the shadows controlled by the same entity, all you can do is give each one the instruction to go lurk around solid surfaces, wait till you detect a life form on the other side, and attack it. Shadows don't have telepathy or other similar powers, so can't find or communicate with each other in solid objects any more easily than anyone else can. The shadows have no way to coordinate the attack. The first few arrive and follow instructions. Dragon flies up off the floor. The others never emerge from the floor because there's no living thing to detect.

Also, Contingency is in the core. "Dimension Door on me, if I get attacked" is a completely reasonable use of that spell in core.

[GeriSch]

So the shadows group up underground, and cruise together underground into the dragon's lair. They stay underground and search, never emerging from walls or floors or ceilings until they detect the presence of the dragon (incorporeal craetures can detect adjacent creatures through solid objects, but not vice versa).


This won't work, even if they go 5 feet underground well before the entrance (remember - they can't go deeper into solids), they can't see diddly squat - they have no sense of direction, and many of them will pop out of the ground partially all the time before they realise they have to change direction again - some alarm somewhere in the dragons lairs will most likely trigger given the amount of intruders. So even a 1st lvl spell will defeat this tactic, not mentioning that maybe dragons use terrain features like lava (reds) or acid (blacks) to fortify their stronghold/ main chambers? Shadows would go poof completely submerged in energy damage.

gr,
Geri

[Phelix-Mu]

Hallow or Unhallow can, with Death Ward attached to it (Cleric 5, cast once per year). Maybe they cast Forbiddance, too (Cleric 6, permanent). Most dragons I run as a DM do this. After all, a dragon that has lived over a thousand years isn't going to be snuck up on by a bunch of shadows sent in by a low level mook.

Nice trick. I'll be jotting this one down for use in my campaigns.:smallwink:

[Bonzai]

Lvl 1 only? I go bard maxed out diplomacy and bluff. I go before the most powerful church of Bahamat that I can find, and spin an hour long tale of the foul and wicked deeds of these 5 evil Great Wyrms.... favored minions of Tiamat herself. I tell of the poor innocents that are slain daily at their hands, and the constant and continual suffering that they inflict to all around them. Then I wrap it up by informing them that I had discovered the locations of their lairs, at the cost of many lives, and beg them to free the land from their evil.

If I succeed on my diplomancy and my performance check, the problem is solved. :wink:

[Jack_Simth]

Jack Smith's strategy requires starting with an arbitrary amount of gold....

Say what? How in the world does:
Use the clause that bypassing an encounter still defeats it, and simply decide to bypass the dragons by not antagonizing them.
Require you to have an arbitrary amount of gold?

(oh, it's in the DMG, straddling pages 36 and 37, incidentally, that lets you know defeating a creature doesn't require fighting it)

[Invader]

...

Say what? How in the world does:
Require you to have an arbitrary amount of gold?

(oh, it's in the DMG, straddling pages 36 and 37, incidentally, that lets you know defeating a creature doesn't require fighting it)

Just because you choose not to fight the dragons doesn't mean you automatically win the encounter but nice try :smallamused:

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Convert your 75 gp to silver and hire an unskilled labourer (1 sp) to go out and find 500 more unskilled labourers and meet you at the spooky tomb to get paid. Preferably with children or crippled.
Can't be done. Merely walking between laborers takes 1 round. Merely making the job proposition to a laborer takes another round. The unskilled laborer convincing sb else to follow them to a spooky tomb before any reward is given would require a hefty diplomacy check. So, your hour is up.


Now you need some spellcasting services. You need a 6th level caster to cast desecrate. That's a 6 cleric. Oops, you don't have enough cash. Sorry sir for wastng your time. But wait, CHARM PERSON. Luckily he failed his save.
Knowledge check to find the cleric. Spend the time to walk to the cleric's current location. Walk to the spooky tomb you mentioned. If the total distance is more than, say, 2 miles, your hour is up.
Also, clerics have the absolute highest will saves of all characters.


You and the cleric are now friends for an hour. Between you and him, you have the knowledge religion to find a Shadow (for example at the spooky tomb). And your cleric friend controls him, as he has 3 hd.
Time spent to walk to the shadow's location if you succeed on the knowledge check. Time spent to find the shadow, who is hiding beneath the floor and waiting for nightfall because it is nocturnal. So your time is up.
Also, charisma checks must be made for every instruction given to the cleric.


You emerge from the tomb and your shadow slays a commoner which becomes a shadow under the control of the original. Call the original General Lee. Lee then instructs his subordinates to kill all the commoners and create more shadows in a command structure. With a movement speed of 40 they can easily charge them all down before they can get anywhere.
Movement speed of 40. Too bad the peasants are running (240 ft/round) or even taking double-moves (60 ft/round) instead. The shadows will never move fast enough to get even a significant portion of them.


Now you have an army of Shadows in the control of your 6 cleric friend. General Lee rders the rest of the shadows to cruise under the ground to each dragons lair. 100 shadows attack from underground or from a nearby wall get Surprise on the dragon and will hit with their touch attacks. A Great Wyrm has 36-39 str and a touch AC of around 6, so it only needs around 11 hits to take it down.
A Great Wurm has an intelligence of 25+ and access to 9th level spells. Its lair WILL be unhallowed/hallowed and dimensionally anchored for all by itself. Its lair WILL be a labyrinth full of smoke/steam so creatures without blindsense get hopelessly lost and casters of all flavors get no useful information while scrying. Its lair WILL be just a decoy, with the real lair being an equally protected sealed cave 2 miles below nobody knows about that the Great Wurm gets into via teleportation. And the Great Wurm WILL have a teleport contingency taking him out of danger if it is attacked when not prepared and ready for that fight.


So all of the dragons die simultaneously. Now you have 505 shadows under the control of an evil cleric who is generally pevved with you for charming him.
No, you don't. You just failed on every single step in your grand plan.

[SowZ]

...

Say what? How in the world does:
Require you to have an arbitrary amount of gold?

(oh, it's in the DMG, straddling pages 36 and 37, incidentally, that lets you know defeating a creature doesn't require fighting it)

Ahh, sorry, I misread. A fellow earlier said Jack Smith right before his post which required hiring someone to cast a high level spell and thought they were linked.

[rockdeworld]

Nailed it.

EDIT: Or, uh, not. Elan's aren't core... :smallannoyed:
Good catch. Replace Elan with Dwarf, Elf, Gnome or Halfling. After 102 years of farming (assuming average results over the course of 102 rolls) with a Wis mod of +0, you have the required amount of gold and aren't dead, if close to it.

And to the person who said that hiring a cleric isn't defeating the dragon, 2 things:
1. That was the OP's actual answer. I just got the cleric to cast a different spell.
2. If I'm a level 1 character vs 5 Great Wyrm dragons, I don't think there is any excuse not to use every resource at my disposal. Especially when those resources are listed as resources in the PHB/DMG.

Also for those who don't think you can get a ton of workers within 1 round: the job board (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0357.html).