Why are Dragons's under CRd?

[BearsAreBrown]

@people posting obscure and specific ways to kill a dragon, that's the fucking point. Do you need to have 2 of 10,000 spells prepared to kill a Dire Lion? a Bearded Devil?

[Grek]

1) You can get just as good results using the Fly spell and somewhat inferior but cheaper results from using hippogriffs/giant eagles/griffons. Regardless of how you do it, though, everyone in the party should have some way to get airborn starting sometine during level 5.

2) See above. You can get similar results by feeding your horse a potion of flying. It's just cooler and cheaper in the long term to do it with the giant bug.

3) Everybody in the party should be able to fly starting at level 5. It's a test for "are we good enouh to be level 5?" and failure results in you getting eaten by a dragon.

4) Up is not forward. You have to move at least your minimum forward speed in horizontal movements in order to keep from falling. If movement on the Z axis counted towards your minimum forward speed, creatures with a fly speed of less than 300' are incapable of stalling due to the fact that stalling moves you 150' along the Z axis. That would be retarded, so it's clearly not how the rules should be read.

5) Ride comes to the rescue again! You get to make ride checks to negate attacks. You can also buy armour for it or any number of other tactics that you should be smart enough to think of yourself for keeping your mount alive in a fight.

[Kaelik]

1) You can get just as good results using the Fly spell and somewhat inferior but cheaper results from using hippogriffs/giant eagles/griffons. Regardless of how you do it, though, everyone in the party should have some way to get airborn starting sometine during level 5.

Except the part where the Dragon is faster than you, and leaves you in the dust to run out of fly, and then comes back and eats you.

And except that those animals die even faster, and therefore have to be replaced even more often.

2) See above. You can get similar results by feeding your horse a potion of flying. It's just cooler and cheaper in the long term to do it with the giant bug.

Except for the big bug dying the first time you fight a dragon, and also the part where feeding a potion to your horse will a) get your horse killed, and b) wear off and you won't have caught the dragon.

3) Everybody in the party should be able to fly starting at level 5. It's a test for "are we good enouh to be level 5?" and failure results in you getting eaten by a dragon.

That's pretty much completely incorrect. No one can reasonably fly well enough to not get eaten by a dragon. A 90ft Perfect fly speed for a short period is not good enough to avoid being dragon ated, because he can just outrun you. A 60ft good fly speed is also not good enough, because he can strafe back and forth and kill your stupid mount.

4) Up is not forward. You have to move at least your minimum forward speed in horizontal movements in order to keep from falling. If movement on the Z axis counted towards your minimum forward speed, creatures with a fly speed of less than 300' are incapable of stalling due to the fact that stalling moves you 150' along the Z axis. That would be retarded, so it's clearly not how the rules should be read.

That is fucking stupid. Forward is the direction you are moving. Forward cannot be perpendicular to the direction you are moving, that is literally impossible. This does not result in the inability to stall out because the specific rules about what happens the turn after you stall (make a save or continue falling) trumps the general rules about maintaining a forward speed.

5) Ride comes to the rescue again! You get to make ride checks to negate attacks. You can also buy armour for it or any number of other tactics that you should be smart enough to think of yourself for keeping your mount alive in a fight.

So you are going to get barding, and use ride checks to reduce breath weapon damage from a faster strafing dragon...

You are an idiot.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Just FYI, there is a maximum up angle by maneuverability row in the flight table in the SRD.

	Perfect	Good	Average	Poor	Clumsy
Up angle	Any	Any	60º	45º	45º

So yes, if a dragon could be going straight up under its own power, that would not cause it to stall... but that would require it to have good or better maneuverability, or have a special ability.

[Kaelik]

This is a significantly more compelling argument than that forward is always parallel to the ground, even if you are going straight up or straight down.

So it means the poor Dragon will have to settle for breathing fire on your flying mount, and then flying 600ft away from you and coming back once he's got his breath back, and repeating until your mount is dead, and then doing the same thing to you.

[DSMatticus]

3) Everybody in the party should be able to fly starting at level 5. It's a test for "are we good enouh to be level 5?" and failure results in you getting eaten by a dragon.

Now that's not right. The only person who gets the fly class feature by level 5 is the wizard and similar, and it costs him one of his most important and few spell slots for a few minutes of fairly slow flying. Now you can blow gold on expendables to get some fly ability, but that's a bunch of bullshit because it's really easy for it to not work out that way unless you have a ye olde magic shop, the prepared DM, or some free-time and crafting, and you decide to go directly for a giant bag of fly potions or something.

The fact that there are things a fifth level character can do is not a proof that fifth level characters should be able to do those things. And the fact that a fifth character level can do those things is not a good bar for them being a fifth level challenge.

As for the flight rules debate, RadiantPhoenix beat me to the punch with the up angle thing. A dragon with poor maneuverability can only fly 45 degrees upwards with respect to the ground, and that means 75ft parallel to the ground and 75ft up. Not 75ft straight up. Even with this, though, it just means the dragon has to do some turning but I'm pretty sure it's still getting a bite every round it cares too, and in exchange you are getting 2-3 attacks (one AoO, your attack on your turn, and a third AoO if you have better reach than the dragon AND combat reflexes).

The dragon needs flyby attack to strafe, which is a pretty solid choice but not every dragon in existence will have it. Those that do breathe you to death with impunity, or trade blows with you on a 1-for-1 basis. Both of which win the day for the dragon, in most cases. Dragons travelling 150ft on either side of an attack pretty much win the day unless your party has enough long-range combatants to murder it.

[Koumei]

The dragon needs flyby attack to strafe, which is a pretty solid choice but not every dragon in existence will have it.

The chances are much better than those of, say, the Cleric preparing Downdraft and everyone wearing the Anklet of Translocation.

[DSMatticus]

The chances are much better than those of, say, the Cleric preparing Downdraft and everyone wearing the Anklet of Translocation.

Incredibly. The dragon has, what, 4 feats by then? Either it has flyby attack or some really awesome metabreathes or is retarded. Which is okay I suppose, because not all NPC's are optimal and maybe this is Bob the Dragon who took skill focus (cooking virgin princesses) because he's not really into the whole killing adventurers thing.

But yeah, nobody's wearing an anklet of translocation and no cleric ever prepares downdraft even if they can spontaneous it into a cure because they could have an actually fucking useful spell and also spontaneous it into a cure if they need it. Nevermind that 3.5 dragons existed for like five fucking years before either of those things so arguing that they were the balance point for dragon encounters is a bad joke.

Shadow Balls is being retarded and doesn't understand the difference between char op pre-preparation theorycraft and how the game is actually played, even by roughly optimal characters. No argument from me there.

[Kaelik]

I'm pretty sure every dragon will have it.

I mean, it's one of the suggested feats, it's the obviously most useful one, and it's the one that is most stereotypically dragon.

[Shadow Balls]

Erm... Shadow... talking about how other people are dumb doesn't make your argument valid. The only reason Kaelik and K and Frank get away with it most of the time is because their arguments are valid, and the obscenities are sort of their "Ha! I'm right so I get to create noise pollution!" dick-waving tactic.

Don't wave your dick if you can't support your own dick-waving. We're still waiting on why your party caster prepares downdraft over another spell that's moderately useful, and how that can totally end in the devastation of the dragon. Thus far, it appears that you limit the dragon and really piss it off, and then it runs away to come back with the durations are over, and proceeds to do its business all over your face.

Me: Only if your entire party can't do 96 damage in 3 rounds. If you can't figure out how to do 8 fucking damage per person per round, please die in a fire and make the world a better place.

Now doing 96 damage to AC 18 from 1 character in 1-2 rounds is a bit harder (read: requires non zero effort) so I will give angel the benefit of the doubt that he honestly does not know as opposed to being a troll.

Dragonborn Water Orc Leap Attack Pouncing charge. Gee, that was hard. As for how you get it on the ground, that is what Downdraft is for, which you don't even need unless your party can't do at least 8 damage per person per round which means...

Me: If you can't figure out how to do 8 fucking damage per person per round, please die in a fire and make the world a better place.

Now you could do all of this obscure shit, but newsflash: You don't fucking need to do that.

3) Everybody in the party should be able to fly starting at level 5. It's a test for "are we good enouh to be level 5?" and failure results in you getting eaten by a dragon.

One of the few useful things still coming from this thread. Certainly more useful than the constant stream of herpaderpies about things that won't even need to come up if your group is remotely competent as you will for example figure out how to deal 8 fucking damage per person per round, which means that no one is grappled, which means that you don't need an Anklet and Feather Fall to lol at the dragon.

[fectin]

Most CR 5 dragons have a +8 will save. Hypnotic Pattern has a good chance of going off, and since it's 2nd level, you can try it more than once.

Rope trick lets you bypass the encounter. Tiny hut lets you bunker down and recharge.

Summon swarm wins at night.

Pyrotechnics messes up red or gold dragons.

Overall it's a nasty fight that you will probably lose, but not nearly impossible, even for core-only, unoptimized characters.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Now doing 96 damage to AC 18 from 1 character in 1-2 rounds is a bit harder (read: requires non zero effort) so I will give angel the benefit of the doubt that he honestly does not know as opposed to being a troll.

You said it was something a single decent character could do by themselves in 1-2 rounds. That was the text I quoted asking you to back it up.

Dragonborn Water Orc Leap Attack Pouncing charge. Gee, that was hard.

I notice you never answered the question on the other thread as to how this character has Leap Attack at level 5. The feat has a prerequisite you can't meet until level 5, and it's not available as a Fighter Bonus Feat.

As for how you get it on the ground, that is what Downdraft is for, which you don't even need unless your party can't do at least 8 damage per person per round which means...

Is your Water Orc providing his own Downdraft? No? Then it is not something a single character is doing by himself.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Summon swarm wins at night.

What.

[Kaelik]

No guys, you can totally just do 8 damage per character per round to AC 18... to a flying Dragon.

Sure the Wizard isn't doing any damage, and the Dragonborn Water Orc Barbarian that doesn't have Leap Attack has a dex of 12, and can't shoot a bow worth crap, and yeah, the Rogue can't do any SA, because it's outside 30ft, and yeah, there's a better than 50% chance your Cleric was either built to cast spells, or to hit things with a mace, or some combination of both, and he also has a 12 dex and can't sling a bullet for shit.

But no guys, even though basically no single member of the party can average 8 damage per round to a flying creature, you totally just have to do 8 damage per character.

Certainly there are characters that exist out there that can do 8 damage per round to the dragon. But I notice that each time Balls actually starts to spell out a character, that character can't do 8 damage per round.

First he spelled out Wizard, then Flask Rogue and Charging Barbarian. So now we have three characters, none of whom can average 8 damage a round against the Dragon.

Turns out, that means that the fourth guy needs to greatly exceed 8 damage per round. In fact, in order to kill it in 2 rounds, as Balls originally claimed, he would need to do 48 damage per round to AC 18 while it flies by at 40ft up.

[fectin]

Bats. But they are only available at night.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Bats. But they are only available at night.

I don't understand how that wins anything.

[fectin]

Dragon doesn't have any way to damage it, and it has a [concentration+2] duration. Tiny hut, summon swarm, and the dragon either leaves or loses.

[fectin]

Oh, and if you happen to be a cleric, animate dead continues to win everything ever.

[Koumei]

No way to damage them? I understand that you'd need some kind of area-of-effect attack to hurt them, I get that much, but... if only dragons had some kind of area attack. If they could breathe fire or something, we'd be golden.

[Kaelik]

Dragon doesn't have any way to damage it, and it has a [concentration+2] duration. Tiny hut, summon swarm, and the dragon either leaves or loses.

???

So he "leaves" by going 35ft away, and then comes back and kills you when you stop concentrating.

Bonus points for picking a spell with a range so short he can murder you with his breath weapon while staying out of range.

[fectin]

Tiny hut doesn't appear to let breath weapons through. The swarm appears inside the short range, then moves wherever it feels like, just like any other summon.

That said, you're right. It's not nearly as clear a win as I thought. In fact, it's mostly a stand-off until the dragon gets bored or stupid.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Dragon doesn't have any way to damage it, and it has a [concentration+2] duration. Tiny hut, summon swarm, and the dragon either leaves or loses.

What? Swarms of creatures that size may be immune to weapon damage, but they take +50% damage from any AE attack, including breath weapons.

Also the swarm is mindless, uncontrolled, slow, and has worse senses than the dragon. Even if the dragon didn't want to waste a breath on it, it can just send that thing on a wild goose chase forever.

And what's the tiny hut good for? It's glaringly conspicuous, so you can't actually hide from the dragon in it. And it doesn't provide more protection than concealment from actual attacks, which is worthless against an AE.

Oh, and if you happen to be a cleric, animate dead continues to win everything ever.

I don't understand, is it your plan to have 20 1-HD skeletons archery the thing? Or send a horribly gimped flying creature to do battle? Neither of those seems like a win by itself; though they're definitely solid contributions.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Tiny hut doesn't appear to let breath weapons through.

I find that a difficult argument to take seriously. The hut 'provides protection against the elements, such as rain, dust, and sandstorms. The hut withstands any wind of less than hurricane force, but a hurricane (75+ mph wind speed) or greater force destroys it.'

That is what the spell does. Later on it specifically say that some things like arrows and 'most spell effects' pass through the hut without affecting it - so despite the fact that a sword is probably more disruptive than wind, the hut will survive being stabbed through. But nowhere does it say that anything besides visibility and inclement weather is actually impeded by the force effect.

[Winnah]

A method of cancelling flight would be advantageous. I can't think of anything with a reasonable chance of success against an dragon already in flight.

-entangled is good.

-forcing it to move less than 75 feet per round will cause it to descend.

-grapple could work...If you can dumpster dive for a large, flying monster summon. Druid is your best bet here. Spontaneous summon natures ally for 1d3 hippogriffs. Large and 18 strength. Still at a major disadvantage in a grapple, even if the caster gets lucky and summons 3.

All the core stuff I can see at low levels either has limited range or offfers an easy saving thow.

[fectin]

What? Swarms of creatures that size may be immune to weapon damage, but they take +50% damage from any AE attack, including breath weapons.

Source? I thought that was the case too, but went looking recently and couldn't find anything of the sort.

Also the swarm is mindless, uncontrolled, slow, and has worse senses than the dragon. Even if the dragon didn't want to waste a breath on it, it can just send that thing on a wild goose chase forever.

It really can't. Bats "see" perfectly for 20 ft, and move 40. They either reach you fine or do nothing.

And what's the tiny hut good for? It's glaringly conspicuous, so you can't actually hide from the dragon in it. And it doesn't provide more protection than concealment from actual attacks, which is worthless against an AE.

Are breath weapons spell effects, weapons, or missiles? Because that's the complete list of things that go through the walls. It's an opaque sphere of force with some weird interactions listed. I can't extrapolate what it does outside those interactions, because they don't make sense to start with. Like, at all. It says it allows you and 9 other medium creatures inside. What happens when a tenth tries to enter? What happens with large creatures? There's nothing there to say. I'm much more concerned about what happens when the dragon walks into the hut and buzzsaws the wizard than about it playing games with breath weapons, but there is literally no description for how that goes.

Oh, and if you happen to be a cleric, animate dead continues to win everything ever.

I don't understand, is it your plan to have 20 1-HD skeletons archery the thing? Or send a horribly gimped flying creature to do battle? Neither of those seems like a win by itself; though they're definitely solid contributions.

We're not going into this, because animate dead makes everything stupid. It's dumpster diving through every MM ever, followed by an arguement about whether a DM would allow it, backed up by MTP anecdotes. Whether I choose a horde of zombie stirges, or a zombie hellwasp swarm, or a bazillion sprite skeletons, or a half-dragon, half-fiend, flying, shadowed kython zombie, the point is the same: animate dead makes things stupid.

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