Scaling Dragons

[DwarfFighter]

I'll ask my question first so you can skip all the exposition: Can anyone suggest ways to bolster the power-level of a dragon with an in-game established age-category? Templates? Character levels?


When the PCs were about level 5-6 they initialized a plot-thread involving a young adult red dragon. The plot-thread was aimed at running intermittent encounters and adventures with this plotting dragon as a recurring mastermind over the next 4-5 levels until they could deal with it directly.

The campaign took a different turn and the PCs are now back on their home turf, but are now level 10-12. This pretty much fouls up the plot-thread as I originally intended. The PCs have achieved a level of power that enables them to go toe-to-toe with the dragon, whether they intend to fight or talk. Running them through the plot thread over the next 4-5 levels means they will outclass the dragon entirely. In order to make use of the plot-thread in a meaningful manner I'll need to do something about this.

The basic problem is the dragon's power level. By the basic rules this is tied closely to the age category, and this dragon's age category is known to the PCs. The PCs haven't actually fought it yet, so its actual capabilities are still unknown.

(My gaming style is pretty fluid - I'll prepare notes and stuff, but until the it's an established in-game fact it's open for revision on a moments notice. For example, I may have intended for the orcs in the dungeon to be advised by a drow with no factional ties, but sudden inspiration may strike and I'll swap that out for an evil dwarf, thus tying the crawl to a conspiracy within the dwarf clans.)

Now, the PCs have first-hand knowledge a number of things about the dragon: It is a young adult red dragon. It's been down on its luck and is working its way back to prestige and riches. Its driving ambition is revenge against an as-of-yet undefined group of older dragons.

-DF

[AslanCross]

Character levels is a good choice. Draconomicon also offers a lot of feats that you could give it.

The dragon could also fight them in successively more dangerous areas.

[faceroll]

Sure.
Dragon Archetypes, from Dragons of Eberron, allow for substituting racial abilities for different (and often better) things. The best is loredrake- downgrade HD to d10s and gain +2 sorcerer levels of casting. Another allows you to trade sorcerer spells known for martial maneuvers, from Tome of Battle, or bonus fighter feats. A little skinny on details, though.

Dragon 313 has several psychosis templates for dragons which change their focuses and technically don't add any CR. However, the Spellhoarding template is an absolutely brilliant one, as it turns sorcerer casting into wizard casting and allows the dragon to learn ANY spell he wishes, by countering that spell cast and scribing it to his scales, consuming gems in the process. Otherwise, he learns spells as a wizard, save using gems and his own scales instead of ink and paper.

Repicking dragon feats & the draconomicon can go a long way in boosting the power of a dragon, as can clever choices of spells that complement a dragon's natural gishiness. True Dragons also qualify for epic feats, which is awesome. Can't remember the constraints on that, but I don't think it's based on HD.

Having them use their loot wisely, instead of sleeping on it, can give them a HUGE advantage. For instance, this red dragon could be getting all emo, stay in his cave, become a spellhoarding loredrake (which makes him a wizard), and not focus so much on gold and silver as he does accumulating vast hoards of useful spells and magical items.

Who the dragon hires can also play a large roll. A single dragon vs. a party doesn't have a lot of actions, but with a friendly mage or cultist, and a swarm of loyal kobolds, he becomes much more of a threat.

[Kaww]

1) Give the dragon a better stat array. +1 CR
2) Give your beloved lizard DRAGON SPIRIT CINCTURE (MIC pg. 95)
3) Consider metabreath feats
4) Play him like you mean to kill the players
5) Give him high ground advantage (a narrow pass with PCs in it and the dragon above them)
6) Give him wings of cover as a spell known
7) Equip him with items you want your players to have (Cloak of charisma, Amulet of health...)

This is roughly +4 CR to that given in MM1.

[Runestar]

You could houserule that the dragon paid for a wish or miracle spell to advance it to the next category.

Else, templates/class lvs are probably your best bet. You have cool stuff like abjurant champion or swiftblade. A young adult red dragon abjurant champion5 would be cr18 (making it a good challenge against a lv14-15 party), and benefit from elite stat array, a fairly high caster lv (making its buffs next to impossible to dispel), and other goodies like quickened abjurations (yes to shield granting +9AC).

Let's see, young adult is cr13. You could add the half-fiend template to make it cr16 (also granting it access to higher lv SLAs like SM9 and horrid wilting). Perhaps cap off with a lv of sorc (for elite stat array and 3rd lv spells), making it cr17.

[DwarfFighter]

Too bad I don't have a copy of the Draconomicon available. :( But even so, this reminds me that the GMG does allow for assigning creatures new abilities and adjusting the CR at ones own discretion.

However, expanding the dragon's portfolio of minions isn't really a bad idea. After all, the plot-thread would have the PCs co-operate with the dragon in a series of encounters/adventures of mutual benefit: The PCs eliminate some of the dragon's competition and thus enables it to expand its into that power vacuum behind the scenes.

With a reasonably low CR on the dragon itself, its minions can be more numerous/powerful.


-DF

[KillianHawkeye]

Darn it. From the title, I was hoping this thread would be some kind of elaborate pun.

[Ozymandias]

I think that the scales grow naturally; you don't need any external force to put them on.

Edit: If that's not what you meant, I think a Climb check with DC 10+Dragon HD+Dex mod should work.

[PetterTomBos]

What about advancing it to another age category, and make it a plotpoint? I mean, you told them it was a young adult, but not how long it had been a young adult...

I don't know if/what the rules say about ageadvancing dragons, but: What about having your players finding the dragon in a pile of red scales, sheathering them off, his body allmost grown to the size of a larger dragon. Have them kill minions and nail him with arrows as he flies away in his weak, undefended body. Have those arrows get stuck in him for the duration..

[Kaww]

What about advancing it to another age category, and make it a plotpoint? I mean, you told them it was a young adult, but not how long it had been a young adult...

I don't know if/what the rules say about ageadvancing dragons, but: What about having your players finding the dragon in a pile of red scales, sheathering them off, his body allmost grown to the size of a larger dragon. Have them kill minions and nail him with arrows as he flies away in his weak, undefended body. Have those arrows get stuck in him for the duration..

He has the same size category for the next 301 years. I don't think it's that dramatic. The way the book says they age they shouldn't have a metamorphoses.

[Ossian]

Darn it. From the title, I was hoping this thread would be some kind of elaborate pun.

Same hopes here

Still, off the top of my head I would say that a better set of stats (+2 to all?) and levels in Cleric never hurt.

Can't you just throw in a bunch of extra HDs?

[PetterTomBos]

He has the same size category for the next 301 years. I don't think it's that dramatic. The way the book says they age they shouldn't have a metamorphoses.

Do the players know that? ;) But that pretty much shoots it down, yeah. Thought was to remove some of the awkwardness of letting the dragon "evolve" conveniently while the players lvl.ed, by showing them the process :)

[EccentricCircle]

Yeah, I also thought from the title that this thread was going to be about Climbing up Dragons.
actually that would be an awesome thread... one moment...

[MarkusWolfe]

He has the same size category for the next 301 years. I don't think it's that dramatic. The way the book says they age they shouldn't have a metamorphoses.

I don't think that's 'metamorphoses' as much as it is a snake shedding its skin.

Also, check the Draconomicon. They have some dragon only items and spells you may be interested in.

[DwarfFighter]

I think that the scales grow naturally; you don't need any external force to put them on.

Edit: If that's not what you meant, I think a Climb check with DC 10+Dragon HD+Dex mod should work.

: clap clap clap :

How very droll, sir.

-Df

[mabriss lethe]

1. Spell selection: Don't go by the "typical spells" list provided. Hand pick every spell from all of your available sources. Give your dragon a good selection of battlefield control spells, save or lose, etc.

2. Feat selection: Keeping in line with #1, customize your dragon for a bigger, nastier encounter. I think Martial study/stance would surprise the heck out of the party.

3. Templates: There are various templates that you can use to boost the threat level without actually increasing the size category. They're expecting a Red Dragon, but are they expecting a Phrenic Dark red dragon? (or whatever tickles your fancy)

4. Equipment: Have your dragon actually *use* its loot. A nice challenging dragon should have at least a few quality magic items on hand. Maybe a necklace of natural attacks with a nifty +1 enhancement on it. Maybe a cloak of either charisma or resistance.

5. Minions: Solo monsters tend to die quick deaths in D&D. Give him some muscle to hide behind, maybe an evil bard and a tribe of fearful goblins led by a Half-Dragon Hobgoblin warblade (a distant relative). Maybe he's cut a deal with Devils for more power and has a chain devil or two as an attendant (not to mention access to extra feats and goodies via Faustian pacts.)

[JaronK]

Dragons are smart, play them as such. One nasty trick I pulled was a red dragon that had made its lair up in the high mountain peaks, and used permanent illusion spells to make his lair look icy. He always wore a ring of chameleon power outside and used it to look like a white dragon. As such, when the PCs went after him, they expected a dumb dragon who was immune to cold (no sense memorizing Shivering Touch) and weak to fire, and found themselves in a serious mess when the dragon was much smarter than expected and shrugged off their primary attacks. You could try a similar trick.

JaronK

[DwarfFighter]

Dragons are smart, play them as such. One nasty trick I pulled was a red dragon that had made its lair up in the high mountain peaks, and used permanent illusion spells to make his lair look icy. He always wore a ring of chameleon power outside and used it to look like a white dragon.

Heh. I pulled a similar trick when my PCs encountered a green dragon that used Disguise Self to appear to be a blue dragon. It took quite a few rounds before they caught on and started using lighting-based spells.

-DF

[LordBlades]

As others have said, the easiest things you can do to make a dragon more formidable, without giving him templates and Sovereign Archetypes is pick it's feats and spell selection.

A dragon can do anything, from optimized BFC with BFC spells, entangling exhalation, animate breath and the like, to a melee machine, with stuff like Imp. Rapidstrike, Mage Slayer (you usually have enough feats to use Practiced spellcaster to offset the CL loss) and Wraithstrike.

[Vulaas]

Have your dragon be cursed with awesome, paying a caster to Bestow Curse on him to effectively move him to the next age category.

[TroubleBrewing]

Have him get an older, more powerful dragon to cast Genesis, creating plane where time moves much, much faster, and have him age to the party's appropriate CR.