Best Anti-Dragon Spellls?

[MesiDoomstalker]

I've been itching to play in a Dragon-focused game. Been toying with builds and have settled on a Sorcadin Jungle Goblin Dragonborn, utilizing Confound the Big Folk when high enough level. I'm always terrible at choosing spells Known. What are some of the best Sorcerer Spells for a Sorcadin to face off against Dragons? Things that eliminate Dragon's strengths like Wingbind would be good. Aura of Evasion is amazing for the party. What else?

[ryu]

The dreaded shivering touch is nasty if you optimize for it and can make it hit reliably. For that matter Lahm's finger darts is actually a better version of that if you have an efficient way of growing your fingers back afterwards.

Anything that lowers touch AC or relevant saves for nasty effects is also appreciated.

[xyianth]

For the most part, dragons are vulnerable to many of the same things that most creatures are: blindness, entanglement, SR:no effects, etc...

As a general rule, dragons are big, have average dexterity and reflex saves, high strength, constitution, intelligence and charisma. Dex damage is usually the notorious dragon killer, which is why shivering touch is so powerful. The main threats that dragons have are: breath weapon, spells, flight, natural attacks. If you use divinations/research to know which dragon you will face, use energy resistance (protection from energy) to negate the breath weapon. Most dragons tend to prefer buff spells, so bring dispel magic to negate those. Either use effects to negate the flight or bring flight of your own. If you can reduce the fight to big lumbering beast with claws, you have basically won already.

If your DM plays dragons as intelligently as they are meant to be, prepare some strong burst damage capability for when the fight nears its end. Dragons will usually flee losing battles, preferring instead to wait for a more favorable chance to strike later. They are basically immortal and very patient. In order to slay one, you either have to prevent escape or overwhelm it before it can escape.

One final thing of note that many people forget, dragon breath weapons are supernatural abilities, which means they do not work within an antimagic field.

[FocusWolf413]

The entire idea of anti-dragon spells bothers me. The most powerful dragons would have spy networks that rival powerful empires. They would hunt down people trying to develop spells and weapons to specifically kill dragons. It's generally agrees upon that dragons value three things: their lives, their progeny, and their hoards. Anything that stands as a credible threat to any of those three, specifically the first two, will be dealt with swiftly and decisively, and most likely with the backing of dragons of most alignments.

Yeah, the existence of those spells is RAW, but it just seems wrong.

[MesiDoomstalker]

The entire idea of anti-dragon spells bothers me. The most powerful dragons would have spy networks that rival powerful empires. They would hunt down people trying to develop spells and weapons to specifically kill dragons. It's generally agrees upon that dragons value three things: their lives, their progeny, and their hoards. Anything that stands as a credible threat to any of those three, specifically the first two, will be dealt with swiftly and decisively, and most likely with the backing of dragons of most alignments.

Yeah, the existence of those spells is RAW, but it just seems wrong.

I don't mean spells that are specifically targeted against Dragons per sae (the only one I can think of is Aura of Evasion and it hardly negates a Dragon's general deadliness). I mean spells that would work particularly well against Dragons, either by negating a Dragon Strength (preventing flight, countering comparatively weak spellcasting, etc) or exploiting weakness (hitting specific Elemental weakness, damaging already weak stats, etc) or leveling the playing field. Anything that calls out Dragons as their specific targets are few and far between to my knowledge.

On the subject of Flight, there is very few Spells that give Flight speed at comparable levels as Dragons. The best you can do is have better maneuverability but doesn't negate far superior Flight speeds. Flyby Attack is a very viable strategy even if you can fly as well. As long as they can fly out of the reach of either your charge range and the range of the majority of your spells, its a win for the Dragon.

I've been wondering a bit on flight rules about maneuverability and altering speeds. If you lower the Dragon's speed (by say the Slow spell), does that prevent a Dragon from flying since they cannot exceed half their movement speed (1 action only and only 1/2 speed to work with)? Or can they fly, but only if they move with the entirety of their reduced movement?

[FocusWolf413]

In that case, in general, listen to what other people are saying. The best advice is probably to make sure you have an escape plan. Even if you make the perfect spell line-up, even if you do everything perfectly, things can still go pear shaped. Plan a way out.

[ryu]

The entire idea of anti-dragon spells bothers me. The most powerful dragons would have spy networks that rival powerful empires. They would hunt down people trying to develop spells and weapons to specifically kill dragons. It's generally agrees upon that dragons value three things: their lives, their progeny, and their hoards. Anything that stands as a credible threat to any of those three, specifically the first two, will be dealt with swiftly and decisively, and most likely with the backing of dragons of most alignments.

Yeah, the existence of those spells is RAW, but it just seems wrong.

The entire idea of anti-caster spells bothers me. The most powerful casters would have spy networks that rival powerful empires. They would hunt down people trying to develop and weapons to specifically kill casters. It's generally agreed upon that casters value three things: their lives, their spells, and their hoards. Anything that stands as a credible threat to any of those three, specifically the first two, will be dealt with swiftly and decisively, and most likely with the backing of casters of most alignments.

Yeah, the existence of those spells is RAW, but it just seems wrong.

Fun pattern isn't it? Dragons aren't specifically more scary than anything else. Not really. Any competent caster can achieve all of what they're known for no matter what class or race they are. In some cases they surpass dragons directly.

[Vaz]

I really wish people woukd stop throwing Shivering Touch around as the be all answer to a Dragon encounter. Any Dragon worth its salt will be immune to it in some manner. They are intelligent enough and long lived enough and capable enough to have theorized it would be used against them and then to have some protection against it, up to and including intimidated local wizards making spellblades with Shivering Touch in its most basic form.

[Seruvius]

I quite recently ran RHOD, which involved many a dragon on my side.
Going for anything touch AC based is often a good idea, but very much so on a big dragon. An adult will have AC in the high 20's but a touch AC lower than 10. Frustrated the crap out of the parties beatsticks but the Party warlock with his touch-ac targeting eldritch blast had a great time.

One thing you really need to have is dispel magic. Any spellcasting dragon worth its salt will buff itself and there are quite a few nasty spells that are quite low level for how much they buff a dragon. Examples that come to mind straight away include Scintillating scales (level2, natural armour bonus becomes deflection bonus, suddenly that touch ac is a lot scarier), good old Mage armour/shield combo, Blood wind (effectively gives 20 foot reach on all natural attacks. On a dragon. ouch.) and Wings of cover as a panic button.

Solid fog is a nice one to contain a Dragons maneuverability. 150 ft fly speed means rather little when you are reduced to 5ft max move.

[ryu]

I really wish people woukd stop throwing Shivering Touch around as the be all answer to a Dragon encounter. Any Dragon worth its salt will be immune to it in some manner. They are intelligent enough and long lived enough and capable enough to have theorized it would be used against them and then to have some protection against it, up to and including intimidated local wizards making spellblades with Shivering Touch in its most basic form.

It's common for a reason. It's a very low level solution and if it hits the fight is OVER. By the way the spellbade trick is thwarted by Lahm's finger darts. It basically reads as shivering touch's superior big brother so long as you're willing to go corrupt.

[FocusWolf413]

Any dragon worth its salt would cast scintillating scales.

[xyianth]

Any dragon worth its salt would...

Technically, few dragons are ever "worth their salt" in 3.5, unless killing one results in a huge amount of extra wealth.

Salt costs 10gp per pound, and is a trade good that can be sold at full value.
Most dragons weigh 2500 pounds upon reaching young adulthood, 20000 pounds upon reaching mature adulthood, and 160000 pounds upon reaching wyrm age.
The flesh to salt spell converts 100% of a creatures weight into salt. (assuming sufficient damage/failed save)
That means Young Adult dragons have to be worth 25000gp to be "worth their salt."
Mature Adult dragons have to be worth 200000gp. Wyrm dragons have to be worth 1600000gp.

I know this isn't what you all meant, I just thought it was funny how that phrase keeps being used in this thread.

[FocusWolf413]

Technically, few dragons are ever "worth their salt" in 3.5, unless killing one results in a huge amount of extra wealth.

Salt costs 10gp per pound, and is a trade good that can be sold at full value.
Most dragons weigh 2500 pounds upon reaching young adulthood, 20000 pounds upon reaching mature adulthood, and 160000 pounds upon reaching wyrm age.
The flesh to salt spell converts 100% of a creatures weight into salt. (assuming sufficient damage/failed save)
That means Young Adult dragons have to be worth 25000gp to be "worth their salt."
Mature Adult dragons have to be worth 200000gp. Wyrm dragons have to be worth 1600000gp.

I know this isn't what you all meant, I just thought it was funny how that phrase keeps being used in this thread.

No, it converts the creature's entire volume into salt. You need to find the volume of dragon.

[ryu]

Any dragon worth its salt would cast scintillating scales.

Nice. Shivering touch cares. Lahm's finger darts doesn't. It doesn't target any AC touch or non. It just hits from range. The only chance the dragon gets to try to say no is spell resistance. Piercing spell resistance is a lot easier than optimizing it in my experience.

[ericgrau]

There is actually a spell in spell compendium called "Antidragon aura". Normally it's way too specific but you may benefit. Whole party gets +2 luck AC & saves + 1 per 4 caster levels above 5th. At 1 min/level try to extend spell it when you first enter a dragon's lair. A lesser rod of extend spell is good for this. That way you still have time to cast your other spells when needed.

[MesiDoomstalker]

There is actually a spell in spell compendium called "Antidragon aura". Normally it's way too specific but you may benefit. +2 luck AC & saves + 1 per 4 caster levels above 5th. At 1 min/level try to extend spell it when you first enter a dragon's lair. A lesser rod of extend spell is good for this. That way you still have time to cast your other spells when needed.

IIRC that's an abjuration, so will get auto-extended and auto-quickened from Abjurant Champion if I have enough levels/it is low enough level.

[ericgrau]

It's level 3. It is abjuration. So I think that means yes to extend and eventually yes to quicken.

Hide from dragons (SpC) is a super 10 min/level concealment spell similar to hide from undead, but with no save for the dragon. It's level 7 though. It seems amazing enough that the 2,275 gp scroll cost for 1-2 isn't too hefty even before you can cast it yourself. OTOH dust of disappearance is around 3,500 gp IIRC, it's better for combat (but much worse for sneaking past), and it works against all creatures.

[Tvtyrant]

Every dragon should at least have wings of cover as a spell or item, so the best anti-bloated beast spells will ping off.

I would probably suggest Control Winds/weather to knock them down. A grounded dragon is a dead dragon.

[ericgrau]

I would probably suggest Control Winds/weather to knock them down. A grounded dragon is a dead dragon.
Control weather has a 10 minute casting time. Most of the time they save against control winds and even then it does not ground them, it knocks them back a distance far less than their fly speed. That's after you heavily abuse caster level boosters, which are normally game shattering. Without CL boosters the dragon laughs at the effects even on the rarely failed save.

I'm amazed how often people don't check their ideas.

[Tvtyrant]

Control weather has a 10 minute casting time. Most of the time they save against control winds and even then it does not ground them, it knocks them back a distance far less than their fly speed. That's after you heavily abuse caster level boosters, which are normally game shattering. Without CL boosters the dragon laughs at the effects even on the rarely failed save.

I'm amazed how often people don't check their ideas.

I'm amazed how often people make gigantic assumptions about other people's ideas. :smallsigh:

Not all dragons are wyrms, and a wyrm was never specified. Windstorms take a CL of 9, and Control Winds does not allow for spell resistance. It also applies to every round, so the dragon has to make the check again and again to stay airborne.

Control Weather deals with higher level dragons, and the casting time isn't a limitation because of this magical thing called scry, which you should be doing anyway. You sit a mile away from where you know it is going to be, turn the sky into a hurricane, then have your golems/summons punch it in the face 20 minutes later.

[ericgrau]

See this: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/weather.htm#winds

The misinterpretation might come from "drives most flying creatures from the skies" which means most flying creatures leave the skies. Whether or not they then go to the ground or are blown to another locale, how/how-fast/etc. they get to either location, and whether "most" means birds and so forth or everthing short of Bahamut are details not well covered. But fortunately we have the wind rules for that.

Also the dragon passes his fort save. An unknown dragon easily passes his scry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scrying.htm) will save assuming you even have enough connection to scry him at all. Also, well, check any/all the other rules and numbers:
Dragon stats: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm
Weather: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/weather.htm
Spells: http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm
This is really a helpful site.

[xyianth]

Control weather has a 10 minute casting time. Most of the time they save against control winds and even then it does not ground them, it knocks them back a distance far less than their fly speed. That's after you heavily abuse caster level boosters, which are normally game shattering. Without CL boosters the dragon laughs at the effects even on the rarely failed save.

I'm amazed how often people don't check their ideas.

Considering you can get control winds 3/day (Cl 18) as a standard action on a half-elf commoner at ECL 9, perhaps you should avoid making too many assumptions. For reference:

race: half-elf
build: commoner 4/dragonmark heir 5
feats: least dragonmark(mark of storms)[1], favored in house[3], mighty dragonmark[6], dragonmark visionary[9]

This character gets control winds at CL 18 3/day as an SLA (which can be used as a standard action to create a 720' radius tornado in any weather that lasts 3 hours) and can use storm touch 3/day at CL 18 for 54x 10d6 electric touch attacks that can stun. And those are just the greater dragonmark powers, she also has lesser and least dragonmark powers to use. As a half-elf commoner. Even dragons roll 1s eventually.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Before this gets anymore out of hand, lets not assume Scry-And-Die tactics. Lets assume mid-OP on both sides. Also this is all theoretical. There is no campaign (yet), no DM (yet), or party (yet). Anyways, I've stumbled upon the spells Scale Weakening, Earthbind and Wingbind in the Spell Compendium. The first does wonders in making my melee attacks easier (and if I can't seem to remove Scintillating Scales, helps reduce that as well.)

Both Earthbind and Wingbind remove Flight as an option, though Wingbind is harder to remove.

[herrhauptmann]

Force cage can contain any dragon smaller than Huge I think. 20x20 ft cage. Or 10x10 if solid wall.

That can give you time to escape if you need it. You're not guaranteed to fight on your terms.

I believe you can also force wall right in front while they fly. Enough to take them out of the sky for a round or two. The humiliation of falling damage may put them in a real foul mood though.

I can think of any other no save no SR spells off the top of my head.

[Seward]

I've been itching to play in a Dragon-focused game. Been toying with builds and have settled on a Sorcadin Jungle Goblin Dragonborn, utilizing Confound the Big Folk when high enough level. I'm always terrible at choosing spells Known.

Dispel Magic - the sorcerer levels on dragons are very low, but if you've ever tried to fight a dragon with mage armor and shield up, much less crap like mirror image and energy resistance you'll know why a targeted dispel is your best opening move.

Solid fog. Stops that 300' of movement BS right away, makes them drop out of the sky right into the lap of your melees. Wall of force, used properly (with readied actions to interfere with flying or block breath weapons or full attacks in retaliation for the barbarian who just charged it and is now AC 15 and exposed to a million attacks), is also quite good.

Things that hit touch AC are always good, ones that ignore SR are even better.

Fly for your melees, so they can actually participate in the fight.

Resist energy or protection from energy for fairly obvious reasons.

Stoneskin for the dude who you just cast fly on :)

A lot of dragons will use spells like darkness or fog to get advantage from their blindsight. Gust of wind or wind wall for the fog and something like daylight for darkness can be quite helpful.

Coordinate your spells with other spellcasters. If you have a cleric, he can cover the daylight and resist energy, for example, if you have a druid, he can do the wind effects.

Always have some kind of long range direct damage spell, preferably two in different damage types. Because when the damn dragon does a run action and is now 700' away with a handful of hitpoints, you want to be able to finish it off.

If you fight aquatic dragons, have a plan to get into the water with it, because it'll retreat there and it'll have total cover vs many effects and make a lot of melee and missile fire useless. The party divine caster has more options than the sorcerer, but a well timed dimension door can help even in an unprepared situation can help. (everyone can hold their breath for a few rounds, archers can shoot underwater at 5' range once the first AOO is drawn and melees might do less damage but if it's retreating into the water, maybe enough). Hell, dimension door is just plain helpful, especially if you've got fly on yourself and a melee or two. Although sometimes it's better to fall out of reach of the dragon after dropping off flying melees...the AOO and ground splat damage is less than a dragon full attack.

Finally - all spellcasters in the party should Buff Buff Buff their melees/archers if initiating a fight with a dragon. A lot of what makes dragons hard is just very high AC and high mobility. If your physical attackers reliably hit the damn thing, they aren't insanely tough on the hitpoint front.

These are all "core" solutions. Yes, some splatbook spells are especially effective against dragons, but in a dragon heavy campaign you can probably assume that either those spells will be banned or dragons will normally have some kind of counter.

[ericgrau]

Force cage can contain any dragon smaller than Huge I think. 20x20 ft cage. Or 10x10 if solid wall.

That can give you time to escape if you need it. You're not guaranteed to fight on your terms.

I believe you can also force wall right in front while they fly. Enough to take them out of the sky for a round or two. The humiliation of falling damage may put them in a real foul mood though.

I can think of any other no save no SR spells off the top of my head.

With a barred cage you can continue attacking the dragon at a safe distance, outside the range of his dragon breath. You might hit the bars sometimes but eventually he'll drop. Most dragons don't have the 4th level spells for ddoor and the other options below 4th level are uncommon. Even if he does get out trading 1 player turn for one solo monster turn is a nice trade.

[Hiro Quester]

Irresistable dance is awesome against dragons. Touch AC, no save. It's not even a save or suck. It's just suck.

The only trouble is that you have to get close.

[Deophaun]

Pretty much any buff spell, such as scintillating scales, is easily dealt with by dweomer vortex as a swift action. It could be scary enough to eat the one wings of cover the dragon gets a round instead, which means you hit it with the finger darts right after.

[ryu]

Pretty much any buff spell, such as scintillating scales, is easily dealt with by dweomer vortex as a swift action. It could be scary enough to eat the one wings of cover the dragon gets a round instead, which means you hit it with the finger darts right after.

Bonus points if you make a terrible pun while you unleash the darts. Perhaps something about finger sandwiches or giving the dragon the finger(s)? Can't decide which I like best.

[ericgrau]

Irresistable dance is awesome against dragons. Touch AC, no save. It's not even a save or suck. It's just suck.

The only trouble is that you have to get close.
And break his SR. And avoid wetting yourself if you find out you didn't break his SR and he's about to full attack. But yeah overall a nice spell. Dragon SR isn't too terrible.


Pretty much any buff spell, such as scintillating scales, is easily dealt with by dweomer vortex as a swift action. It could be scary enough to eat the one wings of cover the dragon gets a round instead, which means you hit it with the finger darts right after.
Not to mention trading 1 PC action for 1 dragon action is a nice deal 4v1. For that matter a dragon that always has to cast scintillating scales round 1 is already a round behind. Or if he loses initiative he might get tagged anyway. I think it's better to realize that if a spell like shivering touch gets mentioned so frequently that you expect it to always be used and not the 9,342 other spells then it means it's an author mistake and you shouldn't play with it.

Yeah irresistible dance is also melee touch and SR yes but it's 5 levels higher and by then dragons have SR. A CR 7 red dragon has no SR while a CR 18 red dragon has SR 23 plus better reach, 4th level spells and perhaps a couple items from his gigantic pile of treasure (even if you favor making most of dragon treasure gold and gems, there could be a little to spare from so much). Plus many campaigns don't even go this high and those that do see tons of crazier tactics.

[MesiDoomstalker]

And break his SR. And avoid wetting yourself if you find out you didn't break his SR and he's about to full attack. But yeah overall a nice spell. Dragon SR isn't too terrible.


Not to mention trading 1 PC action for 1 dragon action is a nice deal 4v1. For that matter a dragon that always has to cast scintillating scales round 1 is already a round behind. Or if he loses initiative he might get tagged anyway. I think it's better to realize that if a spell like shivering touch gets mentioned so frequently that you expect it to always be used and not the 9,342 other spells then it means it's an author mistake and you shouldn't play with it.

Yeah irresistible dance is also melee touch and SR yes but it's 5 levels higher and by then dragons have SR. A CR 7 red dragon has no SR while a CR 18 red dragon has SR 23 plus better reach, 4th level spells and perhaps a couple items from his gigantic pile of treasure (even if you favor making most of dragon treasure gold and gems, there could be a little to spare from so much). Plus many campaigns don't even go this high and those that do see tons of crazier tactics.

Assuming this CR 18 Red Dragon is supposed to be a very tough encounter (Party level 14-15), as a Sorcadin I'm going to be running at ECL-2 Caster Level, so 12-13. That puts me at needing 11 or 10 to break SR. Less if were higher level. Dragon's Spell Resistance, on whole, isn't insurmountable. One Assay Spell Resistance will be sufficient.

[ericgrau]

Its SR is not that high and it will also have to use reach, spells and other tactics to keep away a toucher. Plus that is very late game, later than many campaigns ever run. I was more saying that shivering touch is too much for its level.

[ryu]

Its SR is not that high and it will also have to use reach, spells and other tactics to keep away a toucher. Plus that is very late game, later than many campaigns ever run. I was more saying that shivering touch is too much for its level.

Not really. It's just an efficient way of damaging a different avenue than is common. The spell isn't mentioned so often in dragon fights because it's generally powerful. It's mentioned because it's specifically a good offensive option right here against something like this. If this were an animal thread and we wanted to do something similar we'd have ray of stupidity. Similarly there are other spells to shut down literally entire classes of encounters that offer less chance to fight back than shivering touch does. It's not uncommon or some one-off mistake. It's a universal truth of the system that decently optimized fights are quick, brutal affairs that will probably involve a lot of magic.

[Hiro Quester]

My previous character, a Bard/Sublime Chord, used Irresistible Dance to help our party defeat a very angry very large Red Dragon once. I think I did use Assay Spell Resistance, too.

But Bard /SC gets that as a 6th level spell, which a Bard/Sc can get much earlier, at 13th level. For a sorcerer, you'd have to be much higher level.

[RedMage125]

Isn't there a necromancy spell that drains DEX with no-save, no-SR? I'm AFB atm, but I seem to remember one...