meto30
2013-05-10, 01:37 PM
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.
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.