Dragon not-a-dragon boss fight plan

[Falcos]

Hi all.

I need some help working out the way that a particular NPC in my setting would fight, given a particular set of circumstances.

(Players of my Mage Murder Mystery campaign, please turn away now.)

So the BBEG of this particular campaign, they're a red dragon who has been cursed to be bound to humanoid forms only, and while they keep the spellcasting abilities of a Great Wyrm red dragon, they are divinely restricted by their god from being able to assume any form with natural flight or a breath weapon.

Their personality is that they're extremely prideful in their draconic nature, and they hate the non-draconic races with an intense and burning passion, enough to start a race war/war of extermination.

I'm not sure how they would fight, given these restrictions, against a party that will be either 20 or approaching it. I don't know if I should just treat them as a high-level caster, which is my kneejerk response, but I'm not sure how to be more creative than that, in this instance.

Please advise, playground?

[Helluin]

I have never run a typical dragon before, but somehow I suspect that a dragon with no natural attacks, no flight, no breath weapon won’t even scratch a lvl 20 party. Whatever you can do with spellcasting of a lvl 19 Sorcerer, they can do it better.

The only time I used a dragon, the scenario was in fact pretty similar — the dragon was a Juvenile Tome Dragon Loredrake (with Sorcerer levels that brought him up to CR 14, with spellcasting of a lvl 15 Sorcerer) who prefers to stay in humanoid form for both sentimental and practical (Juvenile Tome has really low Str for dragons, and his breath weapons are irrelevant at that CR) reasons, but in this case his spellcasting ability vastly outstrips the party (lvl 11 gestalt). Do you think you might consider giving the Red Dragon some templates, or even take epic spellcasting feats (just don’t go crazy on the custom spells)?

[sleepyphoenixx]

You should play him like a spellcaster, yes, but i'd suggest an exceptionally paranoid and careful one. It only makes sense that he'd feel vulnerable after being stripped of his dragon form.
A great wyrm (?) dragon has centuries of experience, so get as nasty and paranoid with your magic as you can. Lay traps, have backup plans, abuse divination magic, use all the tricks you can.
Play him like the centuries-old, superhumanly intelligent ruthless monster he is, not some young adult human sorcerer who just learned Fireball and took int as a dump stat.

That obviously includes more spells than a sorcerer normally gets, so i'd look into options to expand his spell list: Runestaves, Knowstones, Rings of Theurgy, Planar Binding etc.
The guy has been around for a while, so of course he'd have preparations.
Basically look up the tricks that optimized player sorcerers use, then have him use as many of them as you feel is necessary to make him the threat you want him to be.


I have never run a typical dragon before, but somehow I suspect that a dragon with no natural attacks, no flight, no breath weapon won’t even scratch a lvl 20 party. Whatever you can do with spellcasting of a lvl 19 Sorcerer, they can do it better.


At level 20 the natural attacks and breath weapon are pretty much the least dangerous thing a dragon can do, so not really. And magical flight is easy enough to get.
I'm assuming he still keeps his dragon HD, meaning full BAB, a ton of d12 HD, all good saves, a truckload of skill points and mental ability scores in the mid-high twenties before buffs and gear.

He may not be a dragon (in shape) but he's still basically a sorcerer-fighter-rogue tristalt with better ability scores than a pc.

[Falcos]

Yeah, he keeps his Dragon HD and all the lovely things that come with them.

So what I'm hearing is, make him the most paranoid caster possible, layers and layers of redundancy and protection, the old "if you think it was easy to kill him, you didn't kill him" adage?

Just want to check I'm reading the advice right.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Yeah, he keeps his Dragon HD and all the lovely things that come with them.

So what I'm hearing is, make him the most paranoid caster possible, layers and layers of redundancy and protection, the old "if you think it was easy to kill him, you didn't kill him" adage?

Just want to check I'm reading the advice right.

Yes, exactly. If your players aren't cursing him even after they've won he wasn't paranoid enough.

Imo the main point to keep in mind to play a dragon right is the fact that it's a creature with 20+ Int and centuries or even millenia of experience.
And that goes double for one who has good reason to feel paranoid and vulnerable. A normal dragon might be arrogant (to a point), but one in a situation like you describe probably won't be.

[Biggus]

As Red Dragons have access to the Cleric spell list, they can get lots of handy protections like Conviction (which combined with Superior Resistance and their already-high saves means they should only fail on a natural 1), Greater Spell Immunity, Sign (combine with Nerveskitter, Primal Instinct and Improved Initiative to make them very quick to react) and Fortunate Fate (think you've killed me? Think again!).

From the Sorcerer list there's (Greater) Anticipate Teleportation, Ruin Delver's Fortune, Shield, Greater Mage Armor, Energy Immunity and Superior Invisibility.

For feats, consider Practiced Spellcaster, Rapid Metamagic and Quicken Spell. If you're giving him epic feats Epic Spellcasting, Multispell, Improved Spell Capacity and Superior Initiative.