Optimize encounters against black dragons. 5-25 man party, level 8.

[ixnay]

Hello all. I am currently the DM in a game where long history made short, Black Dragons are the only dragons that exist, and are a plague upon my world. As such, an order dedicated to the slaying of dragons has emerged.

Here is what I am asking of you: Will you help me come up with tactics and strategies to kill dragon/s?

Specifics and details and limits:

- Dragons are between CR 11 (Adult Black Dragon) as lowest encounter or Challenge Rating of up to 7 levels above party level of 13,3 (25 level 8 characters) (Any valid combination works as a premise. For simplicity, assume 5 strong black dragons fighting a group of 25 characters)

- Groups of soldiers vary between 5 and 25 man strong (all lvl 8). However, assume a group is on average between 8 and 10 strong.

- Characters are all lvl 8, no level advancement, no magic items. Any special and superior material (up to standard amount of gold per level) is allowed, along with any mundane gear, and potions level 1-3.

- Game uses Critical Effects and Called Shots. Called shots, if hit, can potentially cripple dragons wings and leave it grounded (or any other part). Likewise, rolling a critical hit also has a critical effect, but randomly determined location. Called shots can only be performed if target has not moved more than 5ft previous to the called shot.

- if you score 5 over target's AC with critical / called shot, thats mild effect. 10 is moderate, 15 is severe. Severe is the effect one wants to achieve. True Strike and Touch Attacks are likely to be very common. Weapon focus or concentration DC 13 needed to make called shots. Improved critical extremely useful in general.

- Optimize to your heart's content. Any 3.5 books allowed, any 3.5 feats allowed, Oriental Adventures allowed. Assume Pathfinder feat progression (1, 3, 5, 7), 1 additional feat (for flaws).

- The groups between 5 and 25 have undergone training under supervision of experienced slayers of between level 12 and 16.

- Again, No Magic Items. (Only exception is Potions).

- Pathfinder skills + concentration. All skill requirements reduced by 3. Works for prc's, feats, skill tricks etc.

These are the premises I have at the moment. Depending on your suggestions, I may be slightly changing them.

I know this is a lot of information, and a lot of effort to go through. I am not really expecting anyone to put this much effort into it, but for those who do, what I can give in return is this:

Every time my players (with or without NPC's) encounter dragons, I can give a detailed description of the events, both cinematic and mechanically. I would also approve of constructive criticism in this case. More work, I know.

Anyhow, there you have it. I hope someone finds this interesting, and appreciate anyone reading this.

- Ixnay.

[Quertus]

Standard conventional wisdom is that casters are stronger than mundanes. Without items, that is even more true.

Standard way to fight dragons is to drain their dex. Given their fort saves vs difficult to optimize poison, magic has the upper hand here, too.

Given that only one type of Dragon exists, tack on a low ECL race with acid immunity, call it a day.

[Kamai]

I'm not a crazy optimizer, but one thing that I'm noticing is that black dragons (unlike most dragons) have the innate ability to swim. If these hunters are going out and hunting down the dragons (instead of just defending an area), it's likely that most of them are going to be Merfolk (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/uncommon-races/arg-merfolk) to deal with this reality. This actually goes well with either holding down 1 place with archery, or trying to close with a potion of fly or mounts.

For this thought, Half-fey looks somewhat promising, giving a 100ft fly speed to the merfolk, although if we use 3.5's rules for LA, it might just be too much. Getting 25ft movement speed without impacting the build too much would give a creature that could keep up with the dragon, whether it goes in the air or underwater, without having a second creature to protect.

There's still a matter of what happens once you get there, but I should leave that to someone else.

[AvatarVecna]

Venerable Human Ranger 3/Martial Rogue 2/Fighter 2/Shiba Protector 1

Feats: Point Blank Shot (ECL 1), Zen Archery (Human), Darkstalker (Flaw), Alertness (Flaw), Track (Ranger 1), Rapid Shot (Ranger 2), Quick Reconnoiter (ECL 3), Combat Expertise (Martial Rogue 1), Weapon Focus: Longbow (Martial Rogue 2), Improved Initiative (Fighter 1), Far Shot (Fighter 2), Iron Will (ECL 6)

Stats (before adjustment): 13/14/12/12/15/8

Stats (after adjustment): 7/8/6/15/20/11

BAB: +7

Base Saves: +8/+6/+3

Favored Enemy: Dragons

Flaws: Pathetic (Charisma), Vulnerable

Items: Composite Longbow, 60 arrows, Leather Armor, Masterwork Tool (Hide), Masterwork Tool (Move Silently)

Dragonborn Human Bard 8

Feats: Dragonfire Inspiration (ECL 1), Lingering Song (Human), Song of the Heart (ECL 3), Words of Creation (ECL 6)

Both cast Inspirational Boost right before starting their song; one uses Inspire Courage, the other uses Dragonfire Inspiration.

Venerable Human Wizard 5/War Weaver 3

Standard build, 20 Int, etc etc

Important Spells: Owl's Wisdom (cast through Weave), Nerveskitter (cast through Weave), Magic Weapon (cast on all Composite Longbows), Haste.

From up to 165 ft away, the mages have the others buffed up; with the group winning initiative (hopefully), each of the Hunters is attacking with +29/+29/+29/+24 dealing 1d8+16 piercing and 8d6 fire damage (with 20/x3 on crits for 3d8+48 piercing and 8d6 fire damage). Each hunter, targeting an Adult Black Dragon, has an average DPR of 190.075...where the Adult Black Dragon averages 199 HP. If the lot of these NPCs can afford an accurate enough teleport to get within point blank shot range of the group of dragons, each hunter can take one out on his own, letting these 10 level 8 NPCs take out up to 6 Adult Black Dragons in one round.

EDIT: With a little bit of luck, or getting into point blank range, these guys can take out 6 adult black dragons in one round...which is all they need if they win initiative, which they probably will.

[ixnay]

Thanks for all replies so far.

The War Weaver is one thing I will definitely be using in my game. I will use Metamagic specialist Sorcerer variant as the base for War Weavers, allowing them to also cast healing spells through the weave, since sorcerers, per raw, can learn any spell in the game provided they "do the research".

However, I am considering a Divine Bard of Creation, who uses Words of Creation to boost his bonus, in conjunction with inspirational boost and Song of the Heart. This will, hopefully, increase to-hit chances of all in party by +8 and +8 to damage. Not as good as 8d8 damage, but still pretty decent.

Due to the specific setting, getting Dragonfire inspiration will be almost impossible, unless a player makes a new character with it, which is unlikely due to there already being a bard present. I guess the lack of Dragonfire Inspiration creates a slight lack of damage, but assume that Flame Arrows are available to all ranged combatants.

Is there any way to make up for the lack of damage in any other way? Are there any spells that grant great damage boost to a lot of ammunition? The Archivist has the Dark Knowledge (foe) at lvl 8, which on a DC 20 arcana check will grant +3d6 damage to all allies within 60ft.

An archivist is intelligence based, sooo if we assume its int 20 at lvl 8, and has maxed ranks (+8 ranks, +3 proficiency as per PF, and +5 from int, we give them skill focus knowledge arcana to make it a round 19), they will always have +3d6 damage.

So now we are at +8 to hit, +3d6+8 damage to all allies, and with flame arrows thats an additional 1d6+50%.

Anything else we could do? Increasing saves is always something important.

---

Kamai: These specific dragonslayers are land-based, but should also be adept at fighting dragons at the sea, or coastline. The reason why they arent instantly sunk from below is because they employ dragonscales to reinforce the boat (fantasy, I say it works so it works), in addition to spells.

[Jormengand]

8-9 wizards throwing enervation in one round will drop a dragon instantly. This means that you can kill them all in about two rounds. Use invisibility+fly to go up to them (take a level in rogue and dump all your stuff in move silently), switch out to greater invisibility, then start throwing enervations. Move between castings to prevent dragons doing anything untoward by knowing where you are. Fortunately their breath weapons are lines, so they are unlikely to hit many of you at once. You have spells/potions to resist energy, so ehh.

Alternatively, a rogue 1/ninja 1/SA fighter 1/you get the idea has 8d6 sneak attack. Let's have a greatsword while we're at it. Flat-footed 27 is a pain, but assuming we can find a way to hit it we do 35ish damage each, which stacks up to enough damage to handle the dragons, especially if you can manage to hit twice (though I'm not sure that many full-BAB classes actually have sneak attack).

Rangers with favoured enemy (Arcanist) and favoured enemy (Dragon) will get the bonuses for both. Also take slayer levels for enemy sense?

[ixnay]

8-9 wizards is probably a tad too much in a 25-person group, and especially in a 10-person group. I think there will be a max of 4 "powerful" casters in each 25-person group. It also seems that at least 2 of those will be War Weavers.

Also, re invisibility & fly: Dragons are faster, and they have that awesome extraordinary sense of theirs which allow them to pinpoint creatures within 60ft. That means they will usually be getting a fair number of hits during breath attacks. Luckily, war weaver can easily fix the acid damage part through some nifty resistance spells.

The issue with hitting is still a difficult one, as unfortunately True Strike is only personal. However, this brings into play the Duskblade, as it is a full bab, "cast spell through single attack" with access to True Strike. This is probably one of the better classes for meleeing a Dragon, would you not say?

While we are on that topic, another class I've come to realize is pretty damn amazing against dragons are the Warlocks. Ranged touch attack that can have a range of 300 feet, that is not subjected to the dragons damage resistance? Granted, it has no iterative attacks, BUT that means it could potentially make a called shot every single round.

[ixnay]

A main issue is still dealing with a dragons maneuverability. If it is not in an enclosed space, why will it not simply retreat to a safe distance? Dragons aren't stupid either, so if they think they are in danger on the ground, then they will avoid the fight.

Any suggestions on this subject?

[Jormengand]

Truenamers with reversed inertia surge/reversed seek the sky? By 8th they'll be able to stop the dragons flying for 10 rounds or moving out of their space at all for 2. Also, dropping mortalbane extended empowered reversed energy negation for a total of 40d6*1.5 damage to the dragon can't hurt (or more to the point, it can). Also using Fog from the Void to give everyone total concealment is potentially decent.

Maybe get one truenamer per dragon to knock them onto the ground and freeze them in place before sending in the rest of your stuff to get rid of them once they're grounded.