Help in adding feats to a White Dragon

[pabelfly]

I want to make a White Dragon of Great Wyrm age for my players to fight.

I have the equivalent of five players doing a level 20 one-shot. I'd like to run a challenging encounter and have no issue if the combat ends with a party-wipe.

Since this is CR 21, I need to add 13 feats to the White Great Wyrm. I'd like some suggestions as to good feats for the combat. I'd particularly like feats that boost HP and accuracy.

[zlefin]

Picking up martial study/martial stance plus ranks in tumble will let the dragon use Flame's blessing stance at max so it has fire immunity. not sure hwat to take for the maneuver, as you'd want a swift due to the dragon mostly having better things to do with its actions; maybe burning blade.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I want to make a White Dragon of Great Wyrm age for my players to fight.

I have the equivalent of five players doing a level 20 one-shot. I'd like to run a challenging encounter and have no issue if the combat ends with a party-wipe.

Since this is CR 21, I need to add 13 feats to the White Great Wyrm. I'd like some suggestions as to good feats for the combat. I'd particularly like feats that boost HP and accuracy.

First, adding a Sovereign Archetype makes a dragon artificially stronger for basically no cost. For a Great White Wyrm, I strongly advise Wyrm of War. That's literally 9 bonus feats. You should put at least 4 or 5 of them into Martial Study and Martial Stance. Since you have 36 HD, it means you can even take 9th level maneuvers. Notably, take some Tiger Claw maneuvers, that will allow you to make touch attacks and increase damage if you succeed at a Jump check. You know, the skill you have +25 in before even investing one skill rank. If you absolutely want to obliterate a PC on the first round of combat, then you should take Pouncing Charge. Also allows you to wield weapons if you want.

Apart from that, 13+9 feats is A LOT. The whole package of Power Attack, Multiattack, Improved Multiattack, flyby attack, Snatch, Hover, Wingover, Rapidstrike and Improved Rapidstrike for both claws and wings, and even Quickened Spell-like (Fog Cloud and Wall of Ice), Quickened Breath and Entangling Exhalation and still have 6 feats for your maneuvers. I'd say MStudy (Claw at the Moon, Sudden Leap, Pouncing Charge, Action Before Thought), MStance (Wolf Pack Tactics), Sudden Recovery.

Also, never forget to always have Scintillating Scales on (seriously, that should really be a feature of all true dragons), as well as as many hr/level buffs as you can cast.


Edit: also, increasing HP? What, wasn't 522 HP not enough? I guess you could take Improved Toughness 13 times for +507 HP, but I don't think that's the best use of your feats.

[Biggus]

Since this is CR 21, I need to add 13 feats to the White Great Wyrm. I'd like some suggestions as to good feats for the combat. I'd particularly like feats that boost HP and accuracy.

Are you open to epic feats? Per Draconomicon, dragons can take them when they reach the Old age category.

Some useful nonepic feats include Rapid Metamagic (CM) and Quicken Spell, Practised Spellcaster (CArc), Blind-Fight, Improved Flight (CAdv), Improved Initiative and Danger Sense (CAdv). If you're going for Improved Rapidstrike, Improved Natural Attack (Claw) can be worth it. Probably my favourite would be Awaken Spell Resistance (Drac) which would give a great white wyrm +9SR(!).

As dragons get all knowledge skills as class skills, Knowledge Devotion would work well for them. Tiamat doesn't have the knowledge domain, but there's no rule that says all evil dragons have to worship her.

I can suggest some good spells too if you're interested.



Edit: also, increasing HP? What, wasn't 522 HP not enough? I guess you could take Improved Toughness 13 times for +507 HP, but I don't think that's the best use of your feats.

Improved Toughness can't be taken multiple times. Epic Toughness can though.

[Gorthawar]

My party ran into a mature adult white dragon recently and I certainly enjoyed snatch and swallow.

A white dragons breath attack is rather pitiful so I increased it from 7d6 to 10d6. A great wyrm would only have 12d6 I believe.

Combined with maximised breath and strafing breath it made for a nice opener even against mass energy resist. I announced it the round before by having the dragon take obvious deep breaths but the characters didn't quite know what it meant. When the dragon got around to doing it again they scattered in all directions which was quite pleasing.

[eBarbarossa]

Give him a bigass magical bow and invest everything in archery feats. They'll never see that coming.

[Arael666]

Shape souldmeld and open chakra feats open a lot of possibilities, so I would check this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?321557-The-World-in-One-Feat-A-Shape-Soulmeld-Handbook) for interesting things you could add to your dragon.

My sugestions would be phase cloak for At-will etherealness, or maybe strongheart vest if your group has shivering touch prepared.

[pabelfly]

While on the subject, I wanted to make sure I understood the proper attack routine for a dragon with Multiattack, and Improved Rapid Strike for both Claws and Wings:

Is it
45 (Bite Attack) / 43 (Claw Attack) / 43 (Claw Attack) / 41 (Wing Attack)...

Or

45 (Bite Attack) / 43 (Claw Attack) / 43 (Claw Attack) / 43 (Wing Attack)...

[Coeruleum]

Hidden Talent (Vigor,) Speed of Thought, Psionic Charge, Psionic Meditation, Psicrystal Affinity (keep it hidden,) Psicrystal Containment, Deep Impact, Reckless Offense, Cloak Dance, Psionic Body, Martial Study, and Martial Stance. Everyone expects it to be a sorcerer and breathe ice. No one expects it to use the two most controversial systems in the game.

It should also definitely open its chakras and learn as much archery as it can with what it has remaining.

[Beni-Kujaku]

While on the subject, I wanted to make sure I understood the proper attack routine for a dragon with Multiattack, and Improved Rapid Strike for both Claws and Wings:
Is it
45 (Bite Attack) / 43 (Claw Attack) / 43 (Claw Attack) / 41 (Wing Attack)...
Or
45 (Bite Attack) / 43 (Claw Attack) / 43 (Claw Attack) / 43 (Wing Attack)...

It's +45 (Bite)‚ +43/43/38/33/28/23 (Claw)‚ +43/43/38/33/28/23 (Wings)‚ +43 (Tail). Note that contrary to regular BAB‚ Improved Rapidstrike allows for four additional attacks‚ for a total of 6 attacks with both claws and wings.

With Improved Multiattack‚ it's instead :
+45 (Bite)‚ +45/45/40/35/30/25 (Claw)‚ +45/45/40/35/30/25 (Wings)‚ +45 (Tail).

I hope you brought a lot of d20s ^^ Also you might want to make a Power Attack chart to see what is the optimal amount depending on your opponent's AC.

Edit: Damage per round calculations

If you have Multiattack and Improved Rapidstrike but not Improved Multiattack, the optimal power attack against foes of various AC is (AC:PA:Damage per full attack):
40:5:187, 35:10:230, 30:11:273, 25:15:324, 20:20:375.85

With Improved Multiattack:
40:7:204, 35:12:246.6, 30:12:293.5, 25:17:345, 20:21:397

With only your bite, (AC:PA:Damage per attack):
40:7:32.3, 35:12:37, 30:17:42, 25:22:46.5, 20:27:51.3

If you have Multiattack but not Rapidstrike (AC:PA:Damage per full attack):
40:5:134, 35:10:162.5, 30:15:191, 25:20:219.5, 20:25:248

If you have a composite +1 Gargantuan longbow adapted to your strength (Str bonus +13, +33/28/23/18, damage 4d6+14), no feats (dragons do not have the dexterity for them without items), no Power Attack possible (AC:Damage per full attack: Damage per full attack with Point Blank Shot):
40:39.2:45, 35:64.4:71, 30:85.4:91.35, 25:99.4:104.4, 20:106.4:110.2

For a creature with as much mobility and a dexterity as low as a white dragon, using a bow seems fairly unoptimal, especially if you can't use feats. Just keep your money for Necklaces of Natural Weapons.

It's interesting to see that when you have fairly efficient iteratives with Improved Rapidstrike, the optimal Power Attack stays almost constant between AC 35 and AC 30. That's because that's the point where the iteratives start consistently hitting, and "increase PA when lower AC", which is the basic tactics, has higher drawbacks in that range, since it kills your iteratives. When you don't know the opponent's AC, considering it's AC 30 and using Power Attack 11 is the best bet (you can adjust later depending on the results of the first full attack).

[Gorthawar]

When you use improved rapidstrike to get a high number of attacks the draconic aura: power that adds +4 damage one all your melee attacks could get interesting as well.

Edit: You might be able to get another 7 attacks pre-epic with improved unarmed strike and the twf chain.