Fighiting a brown dragon and other sand-swimming minions in a sand-filled cavern

[meto30]

Hello Playground, it's been a while since I came here with a D&D question, but I'm in a need for tactical tips to give my party on overcoming a boss battle, as the most obvious choices are unavailable for some reason or another.

For your information, we're running our campaign in 3.5e Forgotten Realms (as it is possible to notice from the thread title, as brown dragons are unique to FR IFAIK), with some bits of homebrew mixed in. The adventure we're running is Altar of Scales, from the Dragons of Faerun sourcebook. I've adapted it a bit to the peculiarities of our grand campaign, but all details relevant to the situation I shall describe below are as written in the sourcebook.

The party (consisting of an arcane gish tank, an arcane gish duelist, a knight, an archery ranger, a cleric of Tymora (good fortune), a bard, a rogue, and a fighter tank) is descending into an underground temple of Tiamat beneath the streets of Messemprar, a major metropolis under siege for the last 3 years. They have rather good understanding of the inside as they were hired by the Tiglath(mainstream) sect of the Tiamatan church to put a top to the Malise(offshoot) sect's plans and the Tiglath sect has a spy in the complex. They are well prepared to deal with all dangers they are already aware of, and they are confident in their abilities to deal with anything they haven't prepared for. Or they think.

They have no idea what threat guards the innermost area of the temple, where the McGuffins the party is tasked with obtaining are supposedly kept. Only the head priest of the temple, Malise, ever gets in there, and the spy can only reveal that whatever's inside has a very big appetite as Malise always brings huge amounts of meat with him. What's actually there is the fiendish brown dragon blackguard Slavkrathmagal, who is determined to prove the worth of Brown Dragons to the Queen of Avarice. Her lair is filled with sand, and with her natural sand-swimming abilities Slavin has a huge advantage over the party on her home ground. She will probably stay beneath the surface, poking her head out to use her breath every now and then, using her prehensile tail to drag an adventurer downwards, drowning him/her in sand. She has a lot of magic items to help her in battle, and is also protected by her krathbairn children who can also swim in sand.

Now, the party lacks a full arcane caster, and the only divine caster in the party is also the lowest-leveled of the group, at 9th. I'd like to hear suggestions on how the party can best tackle the dragon, without consorting to extensive builds and/or large-budget magic item purchases as the party is already existent and they are rather short on funds (they bought tons of fire resistance items in preparation for their future forays into a volcano). The session is this Sunday, and I don't have any tips to give them :( I'll appreciate any kind of help that is thrown (or handed) my way.

[Jair Barik]

Well if they don't know what is coming there's no way for them to really prepare for it.

But a few ideas spring to mind.

Transmute sand to stone/earth (pretty sure a spell like that exists) would help force the dragon to fight on their terms.

Flight would give the party a similar advantage forcing the dragon up to fight.

Readied actions should be very important.

The budget defense would be to use ropes tied around their waists to anchor themselves above the sand, perhaps even using rock climbing gear to cling to the walls/ceiling.

[Lord Haart]

they bought tons of fire resistance items in preparation for their future forays into a volcano

Do they happen to have tons of fire and/of lightning, too? Lacking an arcane caster is bad, but there are still ways to make some nice glass and then mine through once monsters suffocate.

[meto30]

Well if they don't know what is coming there's no way for them to really prepare for it.

Well, as for tactical tips, I plan on giving them to the players once they encounter said dragon. On the case of magic items or spells, I can have some laying around in the head priest's office, and fluff them as Malise's backup plan in case the dragon has second thoughts on her cooperation with the church.


Transmute sand to stone/earth (pretty sure a spell like that exists) would help force the dragon to fight on their terms.

The lair is quite massive in size, I don't think the party will have enough spells to cover the entire area. Besides, turning them to stone cuts off their access to the McGuffins, which are buried beneath the sand. Of course, they don't know that, but I'd rather not recommend something that directly harms their objective. :(


Flight would give the party a similar advantage forcing the dragon up to fight.

That, I think, is a mighty good idea. The cavern is quite spacious, and the brown dragon is flightless! So are the krathbairns.


The budget defense would be to use ropes tied around their waists to anchor themselves above the sand, perhaps even using rock climbing gear to cling to the walls/ceiling.

I think Link has a lot of climbing gear he keeps in his bag of holding. I just checked, he does have a lot of pitons, but not a whole lot of rope. Perhaps I should nudge them into buying rope before heading in?


Do they happen to have tons of fire and/of lightning, too? Lacking an arcane caster is bad, but there are still ways to make some nice glass and then mine through once monsters suffocate.

The lair is protected with a spell turret set to fire dispel magic on anyone/anything that tries evocation, so they'd have to deal with the turret first if they want to do that, but yes, that'd work. But first they'd have to prevent themselves from being dragged down. Also, they still need to get the McGuffins, which are beneath the sand.

[Marnath]

That, I think, is a mighty good idea. The cavern is quite spacious, and the brown dragon is flightless! So are the krathbairns.

How spacious exactly? I ask because if she's the same age as the version in the book she will have an 80 foot long line of acid breath. It would have to be an extremely large cavern for them to evade that.

With her standard strength score, her movement speed bonus to jump and her natural vertical reach she can easily make a vertical leap(with a running start) of 21 to 2413-16 feet straight up depending on her roll. That would be more than enough to snatch someone out of the air if they get too overconfident.(forgot quadrupeds count as one size smaller for vertical reach.)

[JusticeZero]

It's okay to let them stumble in blindly, get lessonned briefly in just how horrifying what they have to face is, run away like prissy middle school girls faced with a nest of spiders, and regroup afterward to say "Wow, that was horrible! I have an idea how to do this, though.."

[Vknight]

Is this basically a huge domed room with sand and you need to go under the sand for the prize?

Or is it more buried temple and large cave above the temple

Sand to Stone can work if they are willing to spend a few hours mining if they get the item in question
Glass it easier to break but more dangerous in pieces

[meto30]

How spacious exactly? I ask because if she's the same age as the version in the book she will have an 80 foot long line of acid breath. It would have to be an extremely large cavern for them to evade that.

With her standard strength score, her movement speed bonus to jump and her natural vertical reach she can easily make a vertical leap(with a running start) of 21 to 2413-16 feet straight up depending on her roll. That would be more than enough to snatch someone out of the air if they get too overconfident.(forgot quadrupeds count as one size smaller for vertical reach.)

She can jump out of the sand to take a jab at the now flying party of course, but while doing so she is in full view of the party, which is way more manageable than trying to target something in the sand, methinks. But yes, her reach is more than enough to get to them, as the cavern is about 40' high from the sand at the highest point. The Krathbairns won't be able to reach the party, though.

The breath is pure elemental damage and can be handled quite nicely with the huge amount of resist energy scrolls the party's gish duelist bought. I think. I hope the player doesn't think "I need to use these expensive scrolls sparingly".


It's okay to let them stumble in blindly, get lessonned briefly in just how horrifying what they have to face is, run away like prissy middle school girls faced with a nest of spiders, and regroup afterward to say "Wow, that was horrible! I have an idea how to do this, though.."

Yes, that is quite possible, I think. The cavern-lair is the only place spacious enough for Slavin to fight in, so if the party retreats she can't follow. That is of course given that the party does decide to retreat before it's too late and one of them's drowned in sand - I've seen the party get slaughtered for reckless behavior countless times before.


Is this basically a huge domed room with sand and you need to go under the sand for the prize?

Or is it more buried temple and large cave above the temple

Sand to Stone can work if they are willing to spend a few hours mining if they get the item in question
Glass it easier to break but more dangerous in pieces

Mining the things out is rather out of the question unless they use spells to do it, as the metropolitan location of the dungeon means other intruders won't be far behind once the commotion of combat begins. For instance, as per my plans Malise will probably run away once things start looking remotely bad, and if he makes it outside he might decide to seal the party in, possibly using earthquake (he has access to it, yes). For another instance, the fighting may cause the Private Sanctum spell protecting the temple to fail, or the vibrations of a dragon fighting underground may be felt on the surface, which will attract the attention of the police, which in turn is very problematic for the party as three of them are outlaws.