Challenge: Wizard 20 versus Ancient Blue Dragon

[Hawk7915]

Hello folks. For a character I'm playing soon, part of my back story is that to attain epic level I single-handedly dueled and killed an Ancient Blue Dragon as a straight wizard 20 (this character later goes on to try Chain-gate Infinite Wish tricks to cast "Genesis" until the God of Gaming, Gygax, stops him, disjunctions his gear, and level drains him back to 2. It's a silly campaign ).

So, my question to you is...can straight Wizard 20 do such a thing? I can't think of how a fight would actually go or if this is possible. Here's the key stats:
Str 4 Dex 10 Con 10 Int 26 Wis 16 Cha 16 (all level-up points accounted for, but not magic gear)

Elf Conjurer 20, barred Evocation and Enchantment
Flaws: Pathetic Strength, Slow
Alternate Class Feature: Immediate Magic (Abrupt Jaunt)
Battlefield: Wizard has 5 rounds to buff before challenging dragon. Battlefield is a frozen and hilly, but relatively open, field.

So, under which of the following circumstances could a wizard of the above stats defeat an ancient dragon alone?:

1. Core only. 500,000 GP for magic items.
2. Core and PH2 only. 500,000 GP
3. Core and PH2. 1,000,000 GP
4. Anything goes. 1,000,000 GP

Any ideas? I was thinking either Arcane Thesis Orb abuse, or possibly just a ton of Necro debuffs and save-or-sucks with Disintegrate to polish things off.

[Salt_Crow]

You could always smack it with Shivering Touch (Frostburn). In case you aren't familiar with this spell, this is a touch spell (duh) dealing 3d6 Dex DAMAGE. Average damage by itself (10.5) is enough to drop an unprepared Great Wyrm dragon pre-epic. Of course you'll have to get close and personal with the dragon which is always baaaad, but it's only a 3rd-level spell so you can always get a Rod of Reach Spell (MIC?) and safely (provided you won the initiative) blast him from afar.

Some complications may arise if the ancient blue dragon has read OOTS and had sensibly cast AMF prior to battle though. One way to counter AMF-using dragon nightmare is to go with Arcane Thesis-Orb combination since 'instantaneous conjurations are not affected by AMF'. And orb spells are instantaneous conjurations :)

If it comes down to actual blast-until-they-drop kind of a battle then I strongly recommend you to make use of the dragon's clumsy manoeuverity. Fly directly above him, it'll take him almost a full round to get to you- then just fly a bit higher... repeat and blast.


Edit: or HER. Yes the dragon may as well be a she-dragon and so you could fly directly above 'her'.

[RandomFellow]

Anything Goes is easy.

Foresight to win Init.
Quickened Enervation w/ Maximize Rod. Combined with Celerity.

Toss in a Split Ray Rod + Maximize Rod + 2 Energy Drain Scrolls.

33+ Negative Levels in your opening round.

He dies in the 2nd round.


Core only with 500k is harder.

3 Scrolls of Energy Drain + Rod of Maximize, Greater
3 Scrolls of Energy Drain + Rod of Quicken, Greater + Rod of Maximize Greater

16 Negative Levels a round for 3 rounds.

You'd need some defenses to survive but that shouldn't be hard with the remaining gold and all of your spell slots.

[streakster]

Now, a real challenge would be:

Given only an Ancient Blue Dragon, try to defeat a Wizard 20.

[MeklorIlavator]

You may only use one rod per spell. Also, I'm not sure you can use rods with scrolls.

[Salt_Crow]

Now, a real challenge would be:

Given only an Ancient Blue Dragon, try to defeat a Wizard 20.

Ask him/her nicely? You can never underestimate the power of Power Word Puh-lease.

[Keld Denar]

So...ancient blue
33 HD
SR 27

Size G, thats great for Force Cage...

Lets see....you win init because you have badass +init items and whatnot. Don't cast Nerveskitter though, although a UMDed scroll of Signs ahead of time would be great. Your lookin to beat a creature with a +0 init, so you shouldn't have to try too hard.

Opening round.
Swift - Assay Spell Resistance (4th)
Standard - Mages Disjunction (9th) to purge any buffs

Immediate Action
Twinned Celerity (8th)

Action 1 from Celerity
Time Stop (9th) (MM Rod of Maximize for 5 rounds)

Time Stop 1
Standard - Dimensional Lock (8th)
Swift - Quickened Prestidigitation (4th) for party confetti

Time Stop 2
Standard - Shades (9th) for Force Cage, barred version
Swift - Quickened Ghost Sounds (4th) for party whistle sounds

Time Stop 3
Standard - Limited Wish (7th) for Divine Power
Swift - Quickened Heroics (6th) for Improved Precise Shot

Time Stop 4
Standard - Limited Wish (7th) for Favor of the Martyr (Pal4)
Swift - Quickened Prestidigitation (4th) to warm up victory tea

Time Stop 5 - Energy Immunity (6th) *just in case*
Swift - Quickened Prestidigitation (4th) to flavor victory tea

Action 2 from Celerity
Standard - Arcane Thesis Occular Spell Split Ray Empower Spell Sanctum Enervation (6th) with MM Rod of Maximize resulting in 16 + 4d4/2 average 21 negative levels (which results in -21 to saves and CL, rendering dragon impotent. Attack roll is 20 BAB + 1 PBS + ~4 Dex, or +25 vs AC 6 with no miss chance from barred Force Cage thanks to Improved Precise Shot

Round 2
Standard - Arcane Thesis Occular Spell Split Ray Empower Spell Sanctum Enervation (6th) with MM Rod of Maximize resulting in another ~21 negative levels

Alternatively
Standard - Freezing Fog...Dragon now has a Ref Save of 18-21=-3. If your DC on Freezing Fog is higher than 17 (which it will be) then the dragon will be stuck on its back in a force cage taking 1d6 cold damage for the rest of its short life while you drink victory tea.

Round 3
Standard - Teleport drained dragon corpse to secret underground lair and wait for Ancient Blue Dragon Wight to raise
Swift - Cackle maniacally while drinking victory tea

Build
1 Scribe Scroll, Empower Spell, Blooded
3 Occular Spell
5 Quicken Spell
6 Split Ray
9 Arcane Thesis: Enervation
10 Sanctum Spell
12 Improved Initiative
15 Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
18 Open

Relevant gear
Greater MM Rod of Maximize
MM Rod of Quicken
Gloves of Forunate Striking (in case you roll a 1 on your Enervations)
Orange IWIN Stone
Ring of Arcane Might
Scroll of Signs
Tea cup with water

Spells used
9th - 3
8th - 2
7th - 2
6th - 3
5th - 1
4th - 5
3rd - 0
2nd - 0
1st - 0

Do I win? I got flair!

FIXT

[RandomFellow]

You may only use one rod per spell. Also, I'm not sure you can use rods with scrolls.

Meh. That could be.

I never remember those things. lol.

With anything goes, you can do it with Arcane Thecheese plus Easy Metacheese plus Practical Metacheese. Probably.

The other you just use the 9th level spell slots and switch to enervation.

It may take an extra couple of rounds but it'll get the job done.

The only way the Blue Dragon will live is if it burrows and runs away.

[Sir Giacomo]

The problem with blue dragons is that they are very difficult to find.
They can do a veil spell, making them appear tiny or even fine size all the time (once cast as spell known, once as their spell-like ability per day, or with a rod of extend), which together with hide as class skill could mean a wizard has near nil chance to locate it - even with scrying.

Additionally, the wizard should have some item of true seeing or he is at a severe disadvantage. Again, just outside 120ft range the dragon may fool him (and the breath weapon, for instance, has a higher range!). And a charge can be done from even further away.

Note also that the dragon can crush with a standard action (meaning pinning and making the wizard unable to speak and use somatic/material components). A ring of freedom of movement can be spotted and sundered easily with just one attack.

Against a STR 4 wizard, a simple (possibly enlarged from behind far away illusions) ray of enfeeblement can cause big problems. The lowish CON also increases the vulnerability to enervations. A simple breath weapon attack will annhilate the wizard, saved or not (or evasion is available).

Finally, the burrow speed is quite nasty. A hasted blue dragon can burrow 200ft per round, meaning full cover against anything the wizard can throw at him (her).

Outside core, the celerity/foresight/time stop combo should overcome the dragon, but in core?

- Giacomo

EDIOT: against a forcecage, a disintegrate is possible, followed by a burrow move into total cover. Although outside core, it is no help vs celerity time stop, as illustrated by Keld Denar above.

[Kurald Galain]

I believe has already given us the answer.

[Chronos]

Dragon fights are very difficult to talk about in general, because of their spellcasting. No dragon has enough spellcasting to be a primary spellcaster, but many of them have enough to seriously complement their other abilities. For just about any strategy you can think of, there's a spell or three which will negate it, but on the other hand, a dragon can't know enough spells to counter all of the strategies you can come up with. So the first step should always be, if possible, to research the dragon in question extensively, and then to find an offense against which it doesn't have the proper defense.

[Keld Denar]

Dragon fights are very difficult to talk about in general, because of their spellcasting. No dragon has enough spellcasting to be a primary spellcaster, but many of them have enough to seriously complement their other abilities.

Thats the glorious thing about stacking on negative levels. Negative levels give a -1 CL on top of everything else. A dragon with a CL low enough can't cast higher level spells. Even if you don't completely abuse metamagic like I did in my example, a simple Split Ray + Empower Spell Enervation is an 8th level spell (without Arcane Thesis) and gives 7.5 average negative levels, up to 12 negative levels on a good roll. This knocks the dragon down to using only 1st or 2nd level spells usually. Also, Dragons have terrible CLs, which means their buffs are vulnerable to dispelling so you don't even have to resort to MDJ. A simple Reaving Dispel would steal all the dragons buffs, and you probably wouldn't even have to roll.

Also, dragon's SR is laughable for the entire fight with a single application of Assay Spell Resistance. Totally worth the 4th level spell slot.

[Myrmex]

If I was making this encounter, you should pretty much expect to be fighting a gish with 15 levels of wizard casting (yes, you read that correctly).

At the very least, outside of core, expect scintillating scales. Good luck landing your touch attacks! Ahahahaha!

Inside core:
You could try spamming heightened Feebleminds with both spell focus and spell penetration feats.

With a orange ioun stone, archmagi robe, and both feats, you get +26 to SR checks, so you never fail to overcome its SR.

Feeblemind DC: 10 + 9 (heightened) +2 (spell focus) + 13 (36 int) = 34
The dragon will have +23 (base) - 4 (penalty for being an arcane caster) + 2 (iron will feat?) = +21.

A roll of a 13 or better means the dragon makes it. Without iron will, it's a roll of 15 or better.

Why do you want to feeblemind it? So it can't do anything smart or use its abilities. After that, you just stick it behind force walls with a cloudkill and wait for it to die.

[mostlyharmful]

The problem with blue dragons is that they are very difficult to find.

Agreed but this is a conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt, he just needs to wait for the dragon to show itself and that's easy to do with taunting tactics like horde stealing.

With all the negative level stuff, battlefield control and mindganking going on it's safe to assume that only a prebuffed dragon with Freedom of move, Deathward and Mindblank would last a round but MDJ can take care of all of those and a reaving dispel from a Wiz20 is almost as sure and will sting even a dragon with that all layered onto itself.

the Wizard can kill the Wyrm provided he knows whats about to happen and from the OP it sounds like this is a fight he picked rather than the other way around.

[Kaiyanwang]

You could always smack it with Shivering Touch (Frostburn). In case you aren't familiar with this spell, this is a touch spell (duh) dealing 3d6 Dex DAMAGE. Average damage by itself (10.5) is enough to drop an unprepared Great Wyrm dragon pre-epic. Of course you'll have to get close and personal with the dragon which is always baaaad, but it's only a 3rd-level spell so you can always get a Rod of Reach Spell (MIC?) and safely (provided you won the initiative) blast him from afar.

I used what I'm going to say as a fix in my games, so I'm not assuming it's right, but..

Aren't dragon immune to paralysis? I always assumed Dragons dex cannot go under 1..... so you can debuff them with ST but not auto-win...

[mostlyharmful]

Aren't dragon immune to paralysis? I always assumed Dragons dex cannot go under 1..... so you can debuff them with ST but not auto-win...

they're immune to the status condition 'Paralysis' but they aren't immune to having their physical attributes reduced to 0. If a physical attribute is reduced to 0 it isn't the same as the stauts condition but they still lose any ability to voluntarily move their muscles (unless it's 0 con of course).

Paralysis =/= 0 Dex

[Kaiyanwang]

they're immune to the status condition 'Paralysis' but they aren't immune to having their physical attributes reduced to 0. If a physical attribute is reduced to 0 it isn't the same as the stauts condition but they still lose any ability to voluntarily move their muscles (unless it's 0 con of course).

Paralysis =/= 0 Dex

Barring the fact that I will continue to use the (house)rule I said in my games for sanity...

It's another istance of "I was thinking about something else* when I was writing down the spell".

*and for sure, not to metamagic.

[mostlyharmful]

Barring the fact that I will continue to use the (house)rule I said in my games for sanity...

It's another istance of "I was thinking about something else* when I was writing down the spell".

*and for sure, not to metamagic.

yup. it's also down to loose to non-existant game testing

[kjones]

I used what I'm going to say as a fix in my games, so I'm not assuming it's right, but..

Aren't dragon immune to paralysis? I always assumed Dragons dex cannot go under 1..... so you can debuff them with ST but not auto-win...

I believe there was once a 20-page thread on these forums debating that point. I'd link it for you, but I'm lazy.

(The answer, if I recall correctly, was that dragons are not immune to becoming helpless upon having their dex drained to 0.)

[Wolfwood2]

So, under which of the following circumstances could a wizard of the above stats defeat an ancient dragon alone?:

1. Core only. 500,000 GP for magic items.
2. Core and PH2 only. 500,000 GP
3. Core and PH2. 1,000,000 GP
4. Anything goes. 1,000,000 GP

Any ideas? I was thinking either Arcane Thesis Orb abuse, or possibly just a ton of Necro debuffs and save-or-sucks with Disintegrate to polish things off.

It seems like you're over-complicating this.

1) A "1" is always a failure on a saving throw.

2) Since this is backstory, we can just declare that the dragon failed a crucial saving throw.

So the dragon flies up and breathes on you. You had energy immunity up and the breath weapon doesn't work. You move up and cast 'Wail of the Banshee'. The dragon dies.

[Keld Denar]

Lacks flair and the ultimate useage of Quickened Prestidigitation...

VICTORY TEA!

I still like my idea best! Mmmmmm, Blue Dragon Wights! (is this even possible?)

[Myrmex]

Lacks flair and the ultimate useage of Quickened Prestidigitation...

VICTORY TEA!

I still like my idea best! Mmmmmm, Blue Dragon Wights! (is this even possible?)

I don't think so. I think wights only come about from other characters being level drained, not monsters. When character levels = 0, you die and come back as a wight. That, and only humanoids can turn into wights, as per the wight ability: make more wights. LM or SavS may have a wight template; if it does I'm pretty sure it only applies to humanoids. Maybe LM has a monster class for wight. Not sure.

Still, as a DM about to go epic, I'd let it fly.

"Oh yeah, you know that Wightocalypse on Poliius V? Yeah, turns out level draining an ancient blue dragon wasn't such a great idea."

[Kalirren]

Just a few factors that haven't been considered explicitly yet:

Caster Level: Sorcerer 13, which gives 6th-level spells, with the cleric spell list and Air, Evil, Law domains added to spells known. I think this gives the Ray-B-Gone spell. It also gives Contingency.

Feats: An Ancient Blue Dragon has 12 feats from hit dice. If I'm not mistaken, this also means that Craft Contingent Spell is open to the dragon.

In particular, this means that the effects of Disjunction can be avoided with a contingent dimension door or teleport triggering upon someone casting Disjunction within 400 ft. Disjunction has a Close range, and even when Reached with a pimped caster level of 50 has less than 400 ft. range + a 40 ft. radius AOE. This means you have to consider treasure.

Treasure: Yes, treasure in your enemy's hands works against you, or so my most Monty-Haul-esque DMs used to run it. We have to estimate treasure value, or we're literally not giving the dragon a fair run for its money. Right now I'm just going with the approximation that all treasure is gear. Treasure is given as "triple standard", so from the DMG, we look up treasure for a CR 21, given as CR20 treasure +1 major magic item. Looking up median treasure for a CR20 in MIC treasure tables gives 2d12 kgp+ goods of average value 15kgp + 1 19th-level magic item. For sake of simplicity assume that the other major magic item is also 19th level.

Median 19th-level magic item is a +6-equivalent weapon, worth 72 kgp.

Therefore we estimate the total hoard value to be approx. [ (72kgp*2) + 13kgp+17.5 kgp ]*3= 523kgp.

That's a lot of gear, which means that the dragon's preparation for this sort of gang-bang is going to be quite reasonably thorough.

[Keld Denar]

Immediate actions can be responded to with Immediate actions. Thus, if the dragon does have a contingency crafted, then showing up and Disjoining the dragon would trigger that contingency, which would be interupted by the Twinned Celerity in my example. The first Celerity would include an action to Chained Greater Dispel Magic any magic items that the dragon had, rendering them non-magical for 1d4 rounds, or...long enough. I'm pretty sure you can cast the Chained Dispel Magic on the dragons gear while under the influence of Time Stop since you aren't targeting the dragon itself. After the Time Stop wears off, use the 2nd Celerity to Disjoin again. Since the dragon has already used its Immediate action attempting to teleport out, you strip off all of his buffs, including any contingent spells that just triggered. If it had a contingent teleport effect, that is now blocked by your Dimensional Lock. There is no save against getting your buffs stripped. That leaves us with a dragon with no buffs, stuck in a barred Force Cage while Dimensionally Locked and unable to affect you with its Breath Weapon. From that point on, its like shooting fish in a barrel.

As far as the range on Disjunction, you are probably riding on a Phantom Steed (with Fly cast as a security blanket) which has a movement speed of 240'. You and it are Invisible, which means you can move in from outside of its True Seeing range and MDJ it in the suprise round. Unless the dragon has Barbarian levels as well, or its own Forsight running (can't cast that high), you are gonna get ~4 actions against it before it can even think. (Suprise round + first action of normal round due to massive +init + Twinned Celerity)

Oh, and you could also block its Contingency triggering with Battlemagic Perception + Greater Dispel Magic. Free action counterspells 4tw.

[Myrmex]

Depends on how cleverly the dragons and the wizard's contingencies are worded. The dragon could have so many layers of contingencies to go off, it would get the equivalent of 10,000 spells at you or something nuts like that.

I mean, that's what I would spend my gps on if I was a dragon, and got to spend them.

[Draz74]

Swift - Quickened Heroics (6th) for Precise Shot

Swift - Quickened Heroics (6th) for Improved Precise Shot\

Not that nitpicks should detract from your overall Flair Rating, but ...

- Heroics can't be active on the same character more than once at the same time. Thus, it can't be used for its own prerequisite feats.
- Heroics does nothing to give a Wizard BAB +11, which he would need to gain the Improved Precise Shot feat.

Also, the recurring subject of whether dragons are immune to paralysis due to Dex damage reminded me of a great powergamer moment in my last campaign. The DM had to make an on-the-fly houserule, which he hates doing, to prevent me from defeating a CR 10 Advanced Ochre Jelly with a simple 3rd level spell slot, no save, ridiculously easy ranged touch attack. (Ray of Exhaustion. Oozes have 1 Dex. RoExhaustion causes Fatigue even if the target saves. Fatigue gives a -2 Dex penalty, no "to a minimum of 1" clause. W00t.)

[Keld Denar]

- Heroics can't be active on the same character more than once at the same time. Thus, it can't be used for its own prerequisite feats.
- Heroics does nothing to give a Wizard BAB +11, which he would need to gain the Improved Precise Shot feat.

Eh, I had enough feats left over on the build that I could have taken PB and Precise Shot alone. And if you cast Lim Wish > Divine Power, you're BAB would be set to 20, which would temporarily qualify you for Improved Precise Shot. So...all that did was change the order around slightly, and give me 2 more slots to cast Quickened Prestidigitations...maybe party confetti + whistle sounds. Epic win there!

[mostlyharmful]

So...all that did was change the order around slightly, and give me 2 more slots to cast Quickened Prestidigitations...maybe party confetti + whistle sounds. Epic win there!

There really needs to be a higher level version of the most awesome spell ever. maybe a level three version and an ultimate ninth level of bling on command.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

1) Dragon has Awaken Spell Resistance feat. 6 times. That gives it SR 47 (see # 4 for why).
2) Dragon has Eternal feat chain. Because it doesn't like dying.
3) Dragon has had scrolls of Mantle of Icy Soul and Mantle of Fiery Spirit used on it. Now the most dangerous orbs don't work.
4) Dragon has had a scroll of Nar Fiendbond used on it. Now it's half-fiend.
5) Dragon has used a tome +5 on constitution and an amulet of health +6.
6) Dragon has fast healing epic feat.
7) Dragon has Ray Deflection. I bet it has more 4-6 lvl slots than the wizard has memorized dispels.

Now the fight is just a bit more even, don't you think?

[Keld Denar]

Meh, take Arcane Mastery from Complete Arcane so you can take 10 on CL checks. That + Assay SR gives you a 40. Buy a Third Eye Penetrate for another bonus +2, and combined with a Ring or Arcane Might + Orange IWIN Stone and Greater Spell Penetration and you'll crack SR48. Sure, its an investment in resources, but its worth it if you anticipate difficult SR (IE, your Contact Other Plane divinations reveiled that SR was "very very high" or whatever).

Eternal feat chain "could" probably be brought down by a well worded Wish. After all, Wish is what kills Big T when he would otherwise come back.

Mantles get Disjoined along with the rest of the trash.

Nar Fiendbonod gets Disjoined along with the rest of the trash.

Increased Con and HP mean nothing, since I target neither Fort save nor HP directly. Dim Lock + Force Cage + Disjunction don't care. Actual kill condition is irrelevant.

Epic Fast Healing is rather irrelevant, since my primary kill condition was Enervation. Even if you didn't use Enervation, a bit of SR won't stop high powered damage spells like Maw of Chaos.

Ray Deflection gets Disjoined along with the rest of the trash.

That solves pretty much everything except the Eternal feat chain, which I'm not familair with, provided that Wish won't result in prevention of coming back.