MinMaxing Monsters

[FireJustice]

Hi there. I'm DMing for my RL group and trying to get them some challenges.
The group isn't really Hi-OP, but right now i'm making some big bad evil generals to make some nice boss fights.

Right now I want to get a CR 19 Ancient Black Dragon, at least to get better feats and spells known. Must be a Solo (no minions or summons or anything).

Relevant Data:
A Ancient Black is Huge.
11 feats (since 31 HD)
Cast Spells as a Sorcerer 11th
Access to 77.000 gp to magic items to use in battle.

Can anyone spare some help?

[Immabozo]

I wish I could, just broke my hand and typing aint easy. also bumping your post back to the top for you

[lsfreak]

Might be nice to have a rough idea of the party level, composition, and general tactics (wizard throws fireballs? metamagicked scorching rays? haste and web?) so that people have an idea of how to stat things up. For dragons, especially, depending on how they're built and how well they're played, they're everything from pushovers to walking TPK's.

[Saintheart]

If you're determined to have it solo, then you really need stuff that breaks the action economy or at least allows you to keep up on it, because the dragon will be outnumbered throughout the fight.

On spell selections -- Wings of Cover, Scintillating Scales, Shield, Mage Armor, Nerveskitter for a start. Others can advise for higher-level spells...

What's the terrain in which you're planning to fight the party? There's a lot of advantages you can get from priming your dragon's lair correctly.

On feats: Practiced Spellcaster is a must. 15th level spells are better than 11th level ones.

In a hurry, sorry...

[Urpriest]

If you're determined to have it solo, then you really need stuff that breaks the action economy or at least allows you to keep up on it, because the dragon will be outnumbered throughout the fight.

On spell selections -- Wings of Cover, Scintillating Scales, Shield, Mage Armor, Nerveskitter for a start. Others can advise for higher-level spells...

What's the terrain in which you're planning to fight the party? There's a lot of advantages you can get from priming your dragon's lair correctly.

On feats: Practiced Spellcaster is a must. 15th level spells are better than 11th level ones.

In a hurry, sorry...

CL 15 is still at a big disadvantage for dispelling. I'd only go for Practiced Spellcaster if there are a few highly CL-dependent spells that look interesting.

Otherwise, go for defenses, then buffs. Your attack spells will be worse than the party's, but it's always worthwhile to at least work to control the battlefield. Basically, if the party all gets to pile on their best attacks every round this guy is going to be swamped no matter what you do. Short of summoning, that means divide and conquer. In particular, since this is a Black, he should at the very least be fighting the party in the dark and under water. Adding Black Tentacles or the like to that could be fun.

Buffwise, between buffs, items, and general dragonyness you should try to have most of this list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851) covered.

Your full attack can probably annihilate a party member a round (if not, use a few feats to boost it. Multiattack and Knowledge Devotion are good choices, as is Improved Unarmed Strike for you to get your full compliment of iterative attacks, though if necessary you can replace it with a Mouthpick weapon), and with the feat Dire Charge or a spell-based source of Pounce you're likely able to make full attacks every round. Look up handbooks for gishes, then take into account the fact that you're a humongous force multiplier. Arcane Spellsurge will let you throw spells out while you're doing this.

Huge means you can be pretty decent at battlefield control, while the fact that you actually have 31 BAB rather than 20 BAB and a bunch of epic attack bonus makes Power Attack that much better.

[FireJustice]

Thanks for the answers, so far

Yeah, I forgot to tell more details about the party.

Like I said, low OP.
The most powerful one is the wizard (shocking, isn't). The best spells he can use are enervation with split ray and disintegrate. He has both a metamagic rod of maximize and of empower. Other pertinent spells, Orb of X chain, he has no Flight (only Fly, swift)

Other part members, a warlock (got fell flight, but his Eltritch blast deal so few damage, and must penetrate the dragon's SR, since vitrolic blast is a no-no against a black dragon), crusader (melee), a barbarian (melee), and a paladin (guess what, melee). Also an rogue archer with a Ring of Blink.
No one flies.

I don't think disintegrate will any trouble with Fort +23.
Enervation may be, so, the first step is getting immune to negative energy.

Mostly of the party is melee, so no trouble there. Just need to keep flying.
The damage from the Archer is precision based (with % misschance), so he needs to be within 30 feet. Also any form of concealment will screw him too.

So it's already heavily handcaped.
Point is: they refused support from a entire kingdom to hunt this one, so kid's gloves are off. Surely I will not TPK, but I want to give them a bitter defeat, if they can pull off somehow, it's their merit.

About the terrain i'm still planning about.
it's not the lair of the dragon, so no unfair advantage needed yet

[Keld Denar]

This took about 2 hours of work, so I hope you enjoy it.
Size/Type: Huge Dragon
Hit Dice: 31d12+186 (387 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares), fly 150 ft. (Poor)
Armor Class: 38 (-2 size, +30 natural), touch 8, flat-footed 38
Base Attack/Grapple: +31/+50
Attack: Bite +40 melee (2d8+11)
Full Attack: 1 Bite +40 melee (2d8+11) 3 claws +38/+38/+33 melee (2d6+5) 2 Wings +38 (1d8+5) and Tail Slap +38 melee (2d6+5)
Space/Reach: 15 ft./10 ft (15 Bite).
Special Attacks: Breath Weapon (DC 33 20d4, 100ft line), Frightful Presence (DC 28)
Special Qualities: Darkvision 120 ft., improved low-light vision, Blindsense 60 ft, Damage Reduction 15/Magic, Spell Resistance 31
Saves: Fort +23, Ref +17, Will +20
Abilities: Str 33, Dex 10, Con 23, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 16
Skills: Concentration +40, Intimidate +37, Hide +26, Knowledge Arcana +37, Listen +20, Move Silently +34, Sense Motive + 37, Spot +20, Use Magic Device +37
Feats: Power Attack, Imp Bullrush, Knockback, Shape Soulmeld(Phase Cloak), Open Lesser Chakra(Shoulder), Flyby Attack, Awaken Spell Resistance, Clinging Breath, Multiattack, Ability Focus(Breath), Rapidstrike(Claws)
Environment: Swamp
Organization: Solitary, pair
Challenge Rating: 19
Treasure: Triple
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Advancement: By Age

Sorcerer Casting: 11th level, DC 13+spell level
1st 7/day Blood Wind, Mage Armor, Ray of Enfeeblement, Nerveskitter, Critical Strike
2nd 7/day Scintillating Scales, Heart of Air, Bladeweave (DC15), Glitterdust, Invisibility
3rd 7/day Heart of Water, Anticipate Teleport, Blacklight, Spiderskin
4th 6/day Blinding Breath (DC17), Dimension Door, Greater Mirror Image
5th 4/day Greater Blinking, Lord of the Sky

Immunities (Ex)

All dragons have immunity to sleep and paralysis effects. Each variety of dragon has immunity to one or two additional forms of attack no matter what its age, as given in its description.

Breath Weapon (Su)

A black dragon has one type of breath weapon, a line of acid.

Water Breathing (Ex)

A black dragon can breathe underwater indefinitely and can freely use its breath weapon, spells, and other abilities while submerged.

Corrupt Water (Sp)

Once per day an adult or older black dragon can stagnate 10 cubic feet of water, making it become still, foul, and unable to support animal life. The ability spoils liquids containing water. Magic items (such as potions) and items in a creature’s possession must succeed on a Will save (DC 28) or become fouled. This ability is the equivalent of a 1st-level spell. Its range is equal to that of the dragon’s frightful presence.

Charm Reptiles (Sp)

A great wyrm black dragon can use this ability three times per day. It works as a mass charm spell that affects only reptilian animals. The dragon can communicate with any charmed reptiles as though casting a speak with animals spell. This ability is the equivalent of a 1st-level spell.
Other Spell-Like Abilities

3/day—darkness (radius 100 feet), insect plague (ancient or older)
1/day—plant growth

Tactics usually involve a combination of Flyby Attack with Lord of the Sky to strafe breath anyone groundbound. Against flyers who try to charge, the attack is disrupted by a Knockback AoO. Casters are generally thwarted by the massive SR31 and the Scintillating Scales. Clinging Breath allows him to breath, then flee for 1-4 rounds to recover the breath while his foes take damage. Phase Cloak allows him to charge through most BC spells to keep them from affecting him. Greater Blinking, Greater Mirror Image, and Blood Wind all have the potential to make him a VERY tough customer to kill.

Also, Power Attack.

[Chronos]

Is it set in stone that it's Ancient? You could drop it an age category or two and make up the difference in CR via class levels (presumably, some sort of arcane-advancing PrC). In particular, a dragon that can cast Antimagic Field can be a real crusher, as Vaarsuvius discovered.

[Mnemnosyne]

I like Keld's suggestion there, except I'd recommend swapping one of those 4th level spells, either blinding breath or dimension door for friendly fire, which if cast with a full-round casting time can make you effectively immune to ranged attacks for 1 round/level. That will completely negate the danger of ray-based attacks as well as orbs and the archer too.

One other change I'd make is trading one of those feats for Craft Contingent Spell. That gives the dragon thirty-one contingent spells that should cover every possible situation that could ever kill it. It may well have used scrolls in the past to cast higher level spells than it has access to, in order to craft contingent spells with. You should have defenses against Mordenkainen's disjunction (even if the players don't have any means of casting it, it's a reasonable thing for the dragon to protect against), death, and a variety of other effects. Contingent heal and contingent revivify would definitely be things the dragon probably has, as well as a contingent greater teleport to take it back to its lair in the event that it's actually hurt enough to make that go off.

With the money, you can either give him a couple big ticket items, or a lot of weaker ones. Scrolls aren't a bad idea either; if the dragon has a few scrolls handy to pull out some higher level spells when things are going bad, that will help it a lot. Metamagic rods will help it get off more spells per round or better spells. A normal rod of extend will work on friendly fire and double the duration, for instance. Spend 12,000 on a pectoral of maneuverability from the Draconomicon; combined with the lord of the sky spell that Keld recommended, this gives the dragon perfect maneuverability, since lord of the sky brings it to Good, then the pectoral improves it by one class. A dragon that can hover, move backward, forward, up, and down with no difficulty is far more dangerous than one that is clumsy in the air.

[Larkas]

-snip-

WHOA!!! That's a tough one! :smalleek:

[Urpriest]

Incidentally, while I started out advising a natural attack focus, I'm going to switch to supporting a breath weapon-based build like Keld's. A natural attack build will just annihilate PCs, while it looks like you want to annoy them and make them feel helpless, which a breath-strafter will definitely assist with.

[Keld Denar]

I tried not to specialize him too much. Ability Focus, Clinging Breath and Flyby Attack are all very good for breath attacking, but he also has Power Attack and Knockback and Blood Wind and a couple of other spells for melee, as well as done defensive and evasive stuff.

I didn't spend any of his money, though. The Pectoral of Flight would normally be a good option, but it clashes with the Phase Cloak shoulder chakra bind. I figured Good would be good enough. You could always spend a feat to increase it by one if perfection is the goal.

One feat I left of that you might consider is Practiced Spellcaster. His CL is only 11, which means the DC to dispel his Scintillating Scales is 22. That is way too easy and leaves the dragon rather vulnerable. Practiced Spellcaster bumps his CL to 15 which is DC 26 to dispel. Not going to make a big difference to a dedicated Dispeller, but moderately tough for a mid op 15th level caster.

[Vaz]

Find space for a double Chakra feat?

[Runestar]

First thing I would do is to remove their spellcasting via the xorvintaal template. Makes them less complex to run.

Next, any chance of bumping it up to wyrm stage to make it gargantuan? Just seems sexier.

I don't have any info, but here's a link from dnd on how they streamlined the black dragon's statblock to make him easier to run in combat. Hope it helps. :smallsmile:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20061013a

[FireJustice]

Hello again.

Jeez Keld Denar, that was amazing!
Thank you very much.

[PaintByBlood]

In general, if you have the Draconomicon sitting around, I don't know about other people but I personally love their metabreath feats. Certainly don't go too heavy on them, because all it takes is a party that knows they are up against a black dragon a while beforehand to be ready to resist acid (and the dragon knows that), but something as simple as Recover Breath or Shape Breath can be a major boon, especially for a dragon that breathes in lines. And of course Quicken (anything) never hurt anyone, and Quicken Breath isn't much different.

[Morithias]

Remove some of it's treasure and say a druid cast "Mantle of the Icy Soul" from Frostburn on it. Shuts down Shivering Touch INSTANTLY.

[PaintByBlood]

Speaking of breath, I would definitely recommend Breath Weapon Substitution (again, Draconomicon) as one of the 4th level spells. Turns out the players were expecting acid? Good thing the dragon can breathe cold.

[Vaz]

They were updated to be much less clunky in the SpC.