Players vs. a Dragon

[sofawall]

So, I'm wondering, what would win, a party of 20th level characters, or a Great Wyrm dragon? It seems like the Dragon is expected to win handily, but a nagging suspicion says otherwise.

I would like anywhere from one person to four people to run as a party. I would also like these people to suggest house-rules. We'll base it off of the ToS ruleset. Any changes you would like from that base ruleset (for example, some thing are banned because of the power at lower levels when gotten early), we can work it out and agree on it.

It will be PbP, 3.5, and unless anyone has any objections, or someone wants to volunteer, I will run the dragon. Let's say CR 24, to begin with. It will not be just a dragon, however, it will be a mini-adventure, forcing you to pick something other than mere dragon-killers. You must be able to handle a variety of challenges.

The dragon will use treasure rolled randomly from its hoard. Of the raw coinage left over (not art or magic items, for example), 10% will be used to purchase specific items, chosen by the DM.

Do we have any suggestions, easy things I forgot, advice, volunteers, etc?

[ex cathedra]

I'm interested in playing a 20th level wizard under the ToS ruleset, preferably in a party of my peers. Running a party isn't my cup of tea.

[sofawall]

Oh, actually I forgot to mention something I was meaning to. This is meant to go somewhat with the other thread. See what different rules, parties and dragons will do to the results.

[Ponce]

Abjurer 3 / Master Specialist 10 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7

Dragon loses. Contest over.

[Harperfan7]

Yeah, it can easily go either way. All a spellcaster needs is a high roll vs. SR and dragon a low roll vs. death. And a dragon can wipe out a party just as easily.

[ex cathedra]

Abjurer 3 / Master Specialist 10 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7

Dragon loses. Contest over.

I was actually making an Abjurer 2 / Master Specialist 10 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 / Archmage 1.

[mostlyharmful]

Yeah, it can easily go either way. All a spellcaster needs is a high roll vs. SR and dragon a low roll vs. death. And a dragon can wipe out a party just as easily.

Not always, by level 20 a full arcane caster should be pretty much immune to death.

[PhoenixRivers]

Abjurer 3 / Master Specialist 10 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7

Dragon loses. Contest over.

You'd be surprised. There's more than 1 dragon at that CR with 9th level spells. Barring that, it's just an attack that the Iot7V isn't aware of.

[Tshern]

I am pretty sure the dragon loses every time against a party that optimises. Get a single damage dealer, one who specialises in protecting everyone else and two hardcore debuffers, including dispelling, and just kill the damn dragon. The action economy heavily favours the heroes and if the four casters, at level 20, are not prepared to take down a dragon, they suck.

However, what is ToS?

[ex cathedra]

I am pretty sure the dragon loses every time against a party that optimises. Get a single damage dealer, one who specialises in protecting everyone else and two hardcore debuffers, including dispelling, and just kill the damn dragon. The action economy heavily favours the heroes and if the four casters, at level 20, are not prepared to take down a dragon, they suck.

However, what is ToS?

The Test of Spite, a heavily balanced ECL13 PvP/Dungeoneering rules set, managed by DocRoc, contributed to by quite a few others.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Test of spite, look for the thread somewhere here

Edit. never mind

[Eldariel]

Basically an arena environment with cleaned-up version of 3.5 rules, run by none other than Doc Roc aka. Dr_Rocktopus from Gleemax. It hosts a variety of exhibition matches in addition to a sort of tournament for entries to dungeon instances and such.

Started as an environment for settling differences in opinion on class power and such. It's grown quite much, but still handles stuff like the Monk test, Fighter 20 vs. Wizard 13s and other...challenges around the board.


Link here

[mostlyharmful]

does it damn well too, reason I hang out on the Gitp boards is cause of the general level of civility and willingness to be proved wrong, Doc Rocs testing grounds not perfect but it's about as close as you're going to get in a shared public space like this.

*gets out popcorn and smoothie and eagerly awaits stompy-smashy action*

[Tshern]

The Test of Spite, a heavily balanced ECL13 PvP/Dungeoneering rules set, managed by DocRoc, contributed to by quite a few others.

Ah, I wasn't familiar with the abbreviation, although I considered thaking the challenge under my wing some time ago. Clearly my knowledge of GitP events is not sufficient yet. Too bad I found myself busy with a number of projects dealing with D&D and my real life. Thanks for the information everyone.

[AslanCross]

It's really impossible to say at face value. Great Wyrm Reds and Golds are still formidable 19th level Sorcerers. If the dragon didn't advance HD and instead took Wizard and Ultimate Magus levels, you're in for an interesting fight.

[Tshern]

It's really impossible to say at face value. Great Wyrm Reds and Golds are still formidable 19th level Sorcerers. If the dragon didn't advance HD and instead took Wizard and Ultimate Magus levels, you're in for an interesting fight.

Sure, if you don't optimise. I am giving the action economy a chance here and believe the party will, in a way, outrun the dragon. The dragon casts as a 19th level Sorcerer while the party casts as a level 20 caster times four. Whatever the dragons get from their racial HD is not worth four characters.

[Eldariel]

Sure, if you don't optimise. I am giving the action economy a chance here and believe the party will, in a way, outrun the dragon. The dragon casts as a 19th level Sorcerer while the party casts as a level 20 caster times four. Whatever the dragons get from their racial HD is not worth four characters.

Except it qualifies for epic feats due to HD, and epic caster feats due to 9th level spells; even cutting out Epic Spellcasting (I think we all know why), Multispell, Spell Stowaway, Permanent Emanation and company even up the action economy notably.

[AslanCross]

Sure, if you don't optimise. I am giving the action economy a chance here and believe the party will, in a way, outrun the dragon. The dragon casts as a 19th level Sorcerer while the party casts as a level 20 caster times four. Whatever the dragons get from their racial HD is not worth four characters.

I said interesting, not an overwhelming "YOU WILL DIE" encounter. I'm certainly aware of action economy, having been burnt by it as a DM.

The OP doesn't specify what the party is, so I don't see why the party is made up of 4 20th level casters.

Granted, one optimized caster could win. If the dragon is optimized to the same caster level, I'd think it boils down to a matter of who rolls initiative first.

[Tshern]

Except it qualifies for epic feats due to HD, and epic caster feats due to 9th level spells; even cutting out Epic Spellcasting (I think we all know why), Multispell, Spell Stowaway, Permanent Emanation and company even up the action economy notably.

Epic spellcasting would naturally tip the scales, but as you said, we might just as well leave it out.

Nevertheless, a great wyrm gold dragon has 41 HD and thus has seven epic feats. Spell stoaway is ineffective, because you have no idea what the players will use, Permanent emanation has only a few decent options and Multispell is still quite limited, because you need Automatic Quicken Spell to make it worth the investment. Sure, the dragon will be a threat and is not something that should be dismissed lightly, but I am still more than confident that a capable party would overrun it.

[Schylerwalker]

How about, as opposed to a great wyrm dragon, a wyrm dragon and its very old to ancient mate? That would even things up considerably, in my opinion.

The point being, it doesn't make sense for a dragon to act alone. While dragons are proud, powerful creatures (And justly so), if they know the party is a group of incredibly powerful, successful adventures (And why shouldn't he? He's a dragon), he'll have gotten some help.

Also, what if the dragon is fighting in his own layer? Or in other favorable circumstances? A red dragon in a pool of water, a black dragon in a pool of acid, a gold dragon underwater...a white dragon in a freakin' blizzard! Dragons don't simply stand in a cave, arena-style, and say "Grah, fight me!!", when they know they can pick their field of battle and go from there.

A truly cunning dragon (Especially one with access to cleric spells) summons creatures and other allies before or even during the fight, at least to distract his opponents and make them use up their resources. And, don't forget, a dragon of such great age will have immense resources of his own at his disposal. Who's to say he doesn't launch an over-sized Iron Bands of Billarro at the wizard and just take him out of the fight?

My point being, dragons of this age are incredibly powerful, wealthy, and cunning opponents. They won't simply let the adventurers run in and mob them. They will make those stupid, meddlesome adventures bleed, cry, and sweat for every inch of ground into their lair.

[arguskos]

Epic spellcasting would naturally tip the scales, but as you said, we might just as well leave it out.

Nevertheless, a great wyrm gold dragon has 41 HD and thus has seven epic feats. Spell stoaway is ineffective, because you have no idea what the players will use, Permanent emanation has only a few decent options and Multispell is still quite limited, because you need Automatic Quicken Spell to make it worth the investment. Sure, the dragon will be a threat and is not something that should be dismissed lightly, but I am still more than confident that a capable party would overrun it.

Uh... take Auto Quicken 3 times, and Multispell 4 times. BAM! No more action issues. That's not even that amazing, given what epic is capable of. Not sure it's quite as "lol the dragon dies" as you might think. But, that's just me.

[Tshern]

Uh... take Auto Quicken 3 times, and Multispell 4 times. BAM! No more action issues. That's not even that amazing, given what epic is capable of. Not sure it's quite as "lol the dragon dies" as you might think. But, that's just me.

Something that a Ruby Knight Vindicator can already do, so it doesn't really matter. The dragon just blew away seven epic feats while the Cleric in question uses a couple of feats to get the same benefit.

[Claudius Maximus]

Whatever level of preparation the party gets for this should be given to the dragon as well. Otherwise it will be completely one-sided.

One thing I'm worried about is the wealth. The PCs will have over 3 million gp, while the dragon will have about 170k, far less by a longshot.

Something that a Ruby Knight Vindicator can already do, so it doesn't really matter.

RKVs are limited to one extra swift action per round in the ToS ruleset.

[Eldariel]

Epic spellcasting would naturally tip the scales, but as you said, we might just as well leave it out.

Nevertheless, a great wyrm gold dragon has 41 HD and thus has seven epic feats. Spell stoaway is ineffective, because you have no idea what the players will use, Permanent emanation has only a few decent options and Multispell is still quite limited, because you need Automatic Quicken Spell to make it worth the investment. Sure, the dragon will be a threat and is not something that should be dismissed lightly, but I am still more than confident that a capable party would overrun it.

For Spell Stowaway, I was thinking of Time Stop mainly since that's the principal action economy rape PCs have available, and with Spell Stowaway, PCs can't really use it efficiently ('cause the Dragon benefits just as much; spending an action to give you and your opponent an equal amount of turns seems like a bad trade) while the Dragon is free to Time Stop away.

I don't think any other Spell Stowaway is worth it, but I'm fairly sure Time Stop would come in handy. And yeah, the Dragon can at least somewhat match the PCs' casting. PCs cast ~9 and 6 each turn, Dragon can cast ~4-6 9s on its turn and if the Dragon uses Time Stop while thanks to Spell Stowaway limiting its usefulness to the party, he could actually be ahead on actions; provided he doesn't die before he gets a turn (which of course comes down to Initiative, equipment, Wards and so on; assuming a Great Wyrm uses most of its treasure for actual usable equipment and leaves just ~100000 gold pieces for a nice comfy bed, it can have decent defenses).

That said, none of this is true for any chromatic dragons except Great Wyrm Red; that's the only evil Dragon that has 9th level spells without class levels, and that's a CR 27 or something. CR 27 should be pretty tough for an optimized level 20 party. Good Dragons are, of course, better off in this regard with most of them qualifying by Great Wyrm-stage and many of them of substantially lower CR. Since epic feats for non-casters aren't amazing (I mean, Dire Charge and Exceptional Deflection are handy in this environment but other than that...), Dragons without 9th level spell access are just of vastly lower power level.


Of course, if we open sources beyond SRD, things change dramatically with PCs gaining access to a vast number of other action economy rapes and the Dragon having far more trouble containing them all. Then again, the Dragon gets more interesting epic feats like Epic Counterspell which enables infinite free action counterspells and such, so...yeah, things change.

[Tshern]

Claudius Maximum: Thanks for pointing that out. Nevertheless, the Cleric would stand at three spells a round against the five of the dragon and we're just talking about one person of the party and the dragon has wasted all of its epic feats. And, as you accurately mentioned, the wealth is a big deal.

Eldariel: If the dragon ever gets the chance to use that. At epic levels I wouldn't go anywhere without Divine defiance, which pretty much nullifies whatever the dragon is trying to do.

How does the Test of Spite deal with Celerities? Just wondering.

[Eldariel]

Eldariel: If the dragon ever gets the chance to use that. At epic levels I wouldn't go anywhere without Divine defiance, which pretty much nullifies whatever the dragon is trying to do.

It requires an immediate action though; the Dragon can cast more Time Stops than the party has Immediate Actions (I recall; I don't think there are relevant ways to get extra Immediate Actions). While Epic Counterspell is an action-free way to stop any spells.

Though of course, e.g. Battlemagic Perception, Eyes of the Oracle, Duelward and various other action-granting spells alter this dynamic greatly.

How does the Test of Spite deal with Celerities? Just wondering.

Through ban in the actual tournament, I recall. Though exhibition matches and the various challenges, depending on parameters, allow it (as their point is to showcase why it's banned, duh).

[Claudius Maximus]

Celerity is not banned in the ToS at this time. You just can't obviate the daze it gives you by any means.

[Tshern]

Even if the dragon gets the Time stop through, I really want to see it getting past all the defenses the party has in place.

[Schylerwalker]

Even if the dragon gets the Time stop through, I really want to see it getting past all the defenses the party has in place.

Mordenkainen's Buttrape?

I mean Disjunction. Yes, that's what I meant.

[ex cathedra]

Spells, Spell-Like Abilities, Maneuvers, and Powers

Spoiler

Show

• Celerity's dazing effect cannot be obviated even by immunity.

It's otherwise usable, but that significantly reduces the amount of exploits it can take part in.