shirak at [unixtime wrote:1182981992[/unixtime]]
"Oro" as a question is a habit I picked up from Rurouni Kenshin. It doesn't actually mean anything, it's just a generic question, usually implying I didn't get what you said. So, what did you say?
Manga's not my thing so I missed that! What I said was "Kid, is it now? I wish!" in response to your use of the phrase "tough kid". I'm afraid I'd be hard-pressed to justify referring to myself as a "kid", although it'd be great if I could!
shirak at [unixtime wrote:1182981992[/unixtime]]Really, I think this behavior, to stay away from your enemy and breathe on them until they melt, should come naturally at dragons. Ingrained instinct or something.
Perhaps, but you're relying too much there on a DM that *wants* to TPK the party. The idea of this is that it looks plausible until you play it. There's a 1d4 round gap between breaths and plenty of time for a DM to realise that if he keeps going this way he's going to kill the party with an incidental encounter.
Look at the way I statted the first one. All the DM has to do is follow the very first scene direction and the party is mostly dead before he has a chance to realise what's going on. 48 points of damage, Reflex DC15 for half, is almost certainly going to leave at least one player dead. Unless he has the bad guy fall on his sword in remorse, there's little way he can avoid dispatching most of them if they don't run.
If he followed your original scene directions - which is what most DM's are likely to do - then the dragon doesn't have much chance of either surviving or wiping out the party.
For the wyrmling scenario to succeed without chance of failure, he has to deliberately and with malice aforethought perform actions designed to TPK. I'll illustrate below.
Amra at [unixtime wrote:1182974158[/unixtime]]
*sigh* Thought as much... I'll do it tomorrow!
Yay!
shirak at [unixtime wrote:1182981992[/unixtime]]The dragon already is in range. It's beneath the boat and breathing on it.
So it's only 30' away; a move action for a character with a Swim speed.
shirak at [unixtime wrote:1182981992[/unixtime]]The PCs might not even be aware of it until the boat starts to leak like crazy.
Again, that's heavily reliant on DM complicity. Unless the person running the campaign was out-and-out trying deliberately to kill the party off, he'd give them a chance or two to notice something was amiss. There's just too much time to realise that if he tries his utmost he's going to completely screw the party and you can't rely on that.
shirak at [unixtime wrote:1182981992[/unixtime]] All the dragon has to do is stay away from the fighter. It can reasonably expect a human to not surpass it's maximum breath range while swimming (there must be jokes around about how slow humanoids swim). If the human suddenly sprints underwater the dragon will be surprised and probably suffer one attack.
Which, at that point, is going to be a grapple if the fighter has any sense, which gives the party time to join in.
shirak at [unixtime wrote:1182981992[/unixtime]] At which point it runs away and observes the humans.
Taking an attack of opportunity as it goes.
shirak at [unixtime wrote:1182981992[/unixtime]] It may return when it sees the spell's effect passed (a spell is a very reasonable explanations for the human's behavior and the dragon understands the concept of Duration ie powerful casters' spells last a lot).
No, you're making too many assumptions about how the DM thinks. This wyrmling dragon has no ranks in Spellcraft and little life experience. You could just as easily argue that the DM says "the dragon doesn't have any idea how long your spells will last and so leaves you alone until you reach the shore".
shirak at [unixtime wrote:1182981992[/unixtime]]
Amra at [unixtime wrote:1182974158[/unixtime]]Assuming the party aren't complete bread-heads, he'll have a piercing weapon, and/or grab one as he jumps overboard.
Actually, the more I think about the wyrmling encounter, the more I think it's somewhat approaching "pretty tough but fair".
I disagree. This is a guaranteed TPK if the dragon is played as I outlined which a reasonable behavior for a dragon anyway.
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It's nowhere near a guaranteed TPK, and your idea of "reasonable" and that of the DM who's running it may well not gel. Even IF the DM does try his hardest, the dragon's a long way from definitely winning.
A Sorceror with a Familiar and
Alter Self - which is pretty reasonable - could take the dragon, or at least interfere with it enough that the rest of the party can get in on the act. If there's a Speed Swim for the barbarian and/or summoning spell or two around as well, the party's victory is even likely.
The dragon's breath weapon is a standard action so it can't move, breathe and move again. If the party had any inkling there would be extended travel in a rowboat before setting off, they'll have prepared as best they can.
This is a TPK *if*:
1) the DM is prepared to wipe the party out, deliberately, taking a period of many rounds to do so whilst the players in front of him whine and cry
AND
2) the players don't have access to one or more of several common spells that could shift the balance of this encounter
Anyway, all of this is taking valuable time away from statting the other encounters!