Building The Mother of All Dragons

[walfulninja]

Hello everyone! For my current campaign, my players are climbing my worlds Mount Everest to fight a group of dragons terrorizing the people that live on the mountain. Unbeknownst to them, the mountain they are scaling is a massive slumbering great wyrm. Only trouble is, I have no clue how to stat this thing. It's the size of a freaking mountain. So I require the help of you guys/gals. Can you help me stat this thing? And how should I run the encounter?

TLDR: Help me stat a great wyrm the size of mount Everest.

[Fax Celestis]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?173921-d20r-Monster-Cataclysm

Or refluff this: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?198573-d20r-Monster-Trempulcahue

[sideswipe]

the god Io?

otherwise there is the tarrasque rework. its basicly a cr 50 odd dragon coated with many layers of smelly parmasan.

edit - take a look - ultimate tarrasque (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258802-Lets-finish-the-Ultimate-Tarrasque)

[Urpriest]

What CR are you going for?

In general, it's tricky to build fights against landscape-sized creatures. There are a couple of the Elder Evils (in, naturally, Elder Evils) that are of comparable size, I'd look at how they are statted for ideas.

[hamishspence]

In those cases, you generally end up fighting an Aspect rather than the Evil itself.

Atropus is the size of a moon- but his Aspect is fairly small. Leviathan encircles the world - but his Aspect isn't nearly so big.

[sideswipe]

have the mountain dragon eat them as they enter the cave at the top (its mouth) and then they go through fighting its insides (basicly a tough dungeon like jabu jabu from ocarina of time

[Thrice Dead Cat]

have the mountain dragon eat them as they enter the cave at the top (its mouth) and then they go through fighting its insides (basicly a tough dungeon like jabu jabu from ocarina of time

To be extra silly, have them encounter more dragons while inside said dungeon. It's dragons all the way down.

As to the question at hand, desired CR is something we need. I would probably slap on a sovereign archetype from Dragons of Eberron and work from there.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

It's fairly simple really. You got everything you want from the description alone;


Size category:
A creature 1 size category bigger has double the dimensions and 8x the total volume and mass of the smaller creature. Mount Everest is 6 miles tall. Humans are 6 feet tall. That's 13 size categories of difference. Your Mother of All Dragons should be Colossal+++++++++. Being 9 categories larger than Colossal means that her base weapon damage increases appropriately. A 4d8 bite or tail slap becomes an 128d6 bite or tail slap and a 2d8 claw or wing strike becomes an 64d6 claw or wing strike.

Strength:
Minimal strength for a creature that size is 10 + size bonus. Since the bonus is 8 per category, that's Strength 114. Dragons usually have strength a few points higher than the minimum for their size so call it Strength 120

Dexterity:
Dragons have lousy dexterity and larger size doesn't fix that. Dexterity 10 it is.

Constitution:
Minimal Constitution for a creature that size is 10 + size bonus. Since the bonus is 4 per category, that's Strength 62. However, dragons beyond Young Adult continue gaining Constitution at the same rate they gain strength - their CON is about 10-12 points behind their STR. So a CON better fitting a dragon that size would be Constitution 110

Intelligence:
True Dragons keep getting INT at half the rate of their STR. So Intelligence 60 is appropriate.

Wisdom:
True Dragons keep getting WIS at half the rate of their STR. So WIsdom 60 is appropriate.

Charisma:
True Dragons keep getting CHA at half the rate of their STR. So Charisma 60 is appropriate.

HD and natural armor:
True Dragons gain HD at 3/2 the rate of their STR beyond Great Wurm stage. That indicates around 150 HD and thus 149 Natural Armor for a dragon that massive. Appropriate feats/skills/BAB are extrapolated.

Breath Weapon:
Breath weapon has a number of dice equal to 2/3 the dragon's HD. So it will be an 100d10 breath weapon. Breath weapon size is comparable to dragon size. 2-3 times as long as the dragon's space if it is a cone, twice that if it is a line. So a cone breath weapon would be 12-18 mile cone. Breath weapon save DC is 10 + 1/2 HD + constitution modifier, or around DC 135.

Frightful Presence:
DC is 10 + ½ dragon’s HD + dragon’s Cha modifier, or DC 110. Normally, it would be 30 feet per age category and dragons gain 1 age category per 3 HD so the range would be a mere 1500 feet - but compared to the size of the dragon, that's negligible. Thus let's arbitrarily give a range of 3 times the dragon's space, or 18 miles.

Spellcasting and Spell Resistance:
SR for really big dragons about equals their HD. Even if it would be less, a single feat (Awaken Spell Resistance) will make it so. Thus Spell Resistance 150. Spellcasting about equals half their HD. So caster level 75. An epic dragon with a caster level above 20th gains the Improved Spell Capacity feat as a bonus feat once for every three caster levels above 20th, so she gains it 18 times. This gives her spell slot array as follows, including bonus spells from charisma; 14/14/13/13/13/13/12/12/12/7/6/6/6/6/5/5/5/5/4/4/4/4/3/3/3/3/2.
Yes, that does mean she gets up to 27th level spell slots. Do note that this is without any buffs.

Special Abilities and Qualities:
As an Abomination/Elder Evil/Quasi-Deity thingy, your Mother of All Dragons should have the following qualities:
Immunity to ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, death, mind-affecting and form-altering attacks.
Not subject to antimagic, dispelling, the Gate spell and any effect that doesn't work on unique creatures.
Immunity to at least 2 energy types, resistance to all the rest equal to half her HD.
Not subject to disease, poison, paralysis, sleep, starvation, thirst, suffocation and vacuum.
Doesn't fail saving throws and attack rolls on a natural 1.
Subject to a Nondetection effect with a CL equal to her HD preventing divinations from working on her.
Not subject to the divine awareness of deities directly, unless she wishes to be.
Regeneration, Damage Reduction and Fast Healing appropriate for her HD/CR. Since the Hekatoncheires only has 1/3 her HD, let's use 3 times his equivalent traits. Thus we get DR 60/good+epic+cold iron, Fast Healing 150, Regeneration 120/weapons tempered in the blood of a deity.
In addition, she sould have at least two unique cosmic abilities appropriate to her power level and flavor.

[walfulninja]

For CR I'm not 100% sure but I know the players will be epic level at this point.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

It's not so much the level of the players that matters here but the level of their optimization. There are 20th level characters that could kill a dragon with the stats I've extrapolated if they optimized enough and the dragon did not.


EDIT
You could give her Permanent Emanation: Antimagic Aura as an epic feat. Thus if she's the mountain and you need them to fight dragons in a cave or something, they'd have to contend with their magic not working. That would be a significant challenge by itself.

[Extra Anchovies]

Hm. Take a look at the Leviathan chapter of Elder Evils; for that particular (very) big bad, the PCs never actually fight it, and it never even fully awakens (if it did, everything would die). Instead they fight various (comparatively) small enemies (by which I mean, they're "only" Colossal), and the eventual goal is not killing Levvy so much as it is putting him back to sleep.

Since this enemy is, well, the biggest dragon of them all, maybe it has a bunch of other dragons living on/in/around it? The PCs would fight these normalish dragons on their way up, and the big dragon they're climbing on produces occasional environmental hazards (earthquakes, jets of fire coming up from cracks in the ground, etc.). At the top, there's one of the epic dragons (there's a few on the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/dragonEpic.htm)) trying to get the big dragon to wake up. As the fight goes on, the environmental hazards get progressively worse as the big dragon nears consciousness.

[walfulninja]

Hm. Take a look at the Leviathan chapter of Elder Evils; for that particular (very) big bad, the PCs never actually fight it, and it never even fully awakens (if it did, everything would die). Instead they fight various (comparatively) small enemies (by which I mean, they're "only" Colossal), and the eventual goal is not killing Levvy so much as it is putting him back to sleep.

Since this enemy is, well, the biggest dragon of them all, maybe it has a bunch of other dragons living on/in/around it? The PCs would fight these normalish dragons on their way up, and the big dragon they're climbing on produces occasional environmental hazards (earthquakes, jets of fire coming up from cracks in the ground, etc.). At the top, there's one of the epic dragons (there's a few on the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/dragonEpic.htm)) trying to get the big dragon to wake up. As the fight goes on, the environmental hazards get progressively worse as the big dragon nears consciousness.

Yeah this was kind of the idea I had with the party fighting "smaller" dragons till the top and then having the momma dragon wake up.

[walfulninja]

It's not so much the level of the players that matters here but the level of their optimization. There are 20th level characters that could kill a dragon with the stats I've extrapolated if they optimized enough and the dragon did not.


EDIT
You could give her Permanent Emanation: Antimagic Aura as an epic feat. Thus if she's the mountain and you need them to fight dragons in a cave or something, they'd have to contend with their magic not working. That would be a significant challenge by itself.

The party is fairly new and I wanted to introduce them with a bang. Note they are no where near this level yet but they will get there. Would a list of the party help, with classes etc?

[sideswipe]

The party is fairly new and I wanted to introduce them with a bang. Note they are no where near this level yet but they will get there. Would a list of the party help, with classes etc?

it always helps

[walfulninja]

it always helps


OK then. We have:
A border line psychopathic paladin of Heroinious (its a long story). Focuses on TWF
A dwarf cleric who's life goal is to box with a dragon.
Focuses on unarmed combat/support
A human dragon shamon who will most likely **** his pants when he sees Momma. Not sure on his focus yet. Tank so far
An elven scout who's main emotion is Batman.
Ranged skirmisher. Pretty straight forward
A gnome bard who the other party members found frozen in ice. Can only sing in pop/Disney's Frozen songs. Party cheerleader.

No very optimal but certainly...interesting.

[noparlpf]

Well, there are a few ways to handle it.

1. Stat it out like Belial figured.
2. Start with, say, a Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon (ELH) for something that's already Colossal++ with like 70 HD (I forget exactly how big this thing is) and work from there using the Advanced Dragon rules a few pages earlier.
3. Check out Deities & Demigods for ideas for more stupidly powerful stats.
4. It's the size of a very very big mountain. It doesn't need stats. You can't fight a mountain with normal combat rules.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

You can't fight a mountain with normal combat rules.

Why not? Someone with a strength of 120 and colossal size (which is acheivable if you Bite of The Werebear and Miracle a Giant Size plus a couple more buffs on your strongest party member by epic levels) can lift 8 million tons and throw 1 million tons. A 1-million-ton rock is going to deal ridiculous 80.000d6 points of damage. That's a lot, even compared to the toughness of a mountain. It's gonna make a crater a thousand feet deep.

[noparlpf]

But if the big bad is Colossal+++++++++ and only one party member is Colossal++++++ and the rest are ants microbes flitting around you still need some kind of modified combat system.