Why are Dragons's under CRd?

[Shadow Balls]

The youngest dragon with any sort of spellcasting ability is CR 6, and most don't get it until 7 or 8, sometimes 9. A level 5 dragon will not have any of this.

[Previn]

Though actually, Shivering Touch is good against anything big and clumsy. Dragons are simply the most iconic example.

No... Shivering Touch is a niche spell that's more powerful than is should be and still manages to be a bad choice despite this. Spectral Hand+ Shivering Touch is a gimmick.

I can think of 8 of CR 5 creatures in the SRD that naturally are completely immune to it off the top of my head, which includes a dragon. Anything that's a construct, undead or has the cold subtype is immune. Anything that can get immunity to cold is immune.

Your entire argument about killing dragons easily relies on an poorly designed niche spell out of an obscure book, that has to be coupled with another spell, a readied action, a to hit roll, and an at least average damage roll, and then not have the dragon be a white or silver...that's not convoluted and specifically optimized at all.

Do you have anything else that doesn't involve Shivering Touch?

The youngest dragon with any sort of spellcasting ability is CR 6, and most don't get it until 7 or 8, sometimes 9. A level 5 dragon will not have any of this.

Hello! Young white dragon with a level of Sorcerer here! I heard you like Shivering Touch! Can we play?

[Kaelik]

Shivering Touch is still not that great even when they aren't immune. It does on average 10.5 dex damage, and if it doesn't knock them unconscious, it's just an AC and reflex save penalty. It actually won't knock out most things that aren't Dragons, because they have normal dex scores. It won't even knock out dragons all the time.

It's only impressive if combined with the same sort of affects that also make Ray of Stupidity or Enervation or Orb of Fire really impressive. And that's an issue of free metamagic, not Shivering Touch.

[Kaelik]

DP

[Dr_Noface]

The post so nice he said he twice.

So how do you fight one of those red dragons at level 5 (outside a dungeon)?

In Pathfinder I think an archer could eqasily take it.

[Kaelik]

I doubt an archer could take it in Pathfinder, even by exchanging fire, which the Dragon probably won't let happen anyway.

Strategies for beating a CR 5 Red Dragon that you were not prepared for in the open:

1) Run and hide and "lose."

2) Use some deception to trick the Dragon so that it does a tactic that is optimal against what you appear to be, but is not optimal against you.

3) Hope your DM doesn't play the Dragon optimally, either because he doesn't know how, or because he realizes it will TPK you, and doesn't want to.

Versions of 2 are for example, if you have a Charge Pounce Barbarian and a Flask Rogue, try to get the Dragon to grapple someone else within charge and full attack flask SA range, and hope you can get enough damage done to either kill it, or, that it leaves after it kills the person it grappled, and doesn't come back for round 2.

[Prak]

Spectral hand is a piece of shit. People do not prepare or even know Spectral Hand because it is insultingly terrible. Really what you're doing is not proving your point but rather the opposing view. While it is possible to take obscure collections of specialty spells and beat almost any monster, people don't actually do that unless they have incredibly exhaustive intelligence and are outfitting themselves to fight some kind of boss monster that is going to kick their ass.

The moment you find yourself claiming that someone is going to prepare and cast a Spectral Hand / Shivering Touch combo to beat an equal CR opponent (two spells that are essentially worthless against almost all opposition), you are conceding that this particular opponent is way over powered. Because if they weren't overpowered, you'd just use generically useful tactics like casting charm monster or solid fog. If you need to prepare more than one spell that is useless in a generic situation, then the opposition is not level appropriate or normal by any criteria.

-Username17

Some things are implied heavily without being expressly stated. In this case, it is that the Spectral Hand + Shivering Touch is for when you know you are fighting a dragon, and all of the other things, that I mentioned first and more often are for when you do not have advanced knowledge of what you will fight.

Though actually, Shivering Touch is good against anything big and clumsy. Dragons are simply the most iconic example.

Bonus points: Since it's large, if it hovers within 20 feet of the ground (you know, to use a breath weapon), it creates a 60 foot cloud of debris that requires a DC15 concentration check to even cast.

Since con isn't one of the higher stats a wizard uses, he's probably got around a 50-60% chance of getting that spell off that round.

Let's see... 50-60% chance to make a DC 15 check comes out to be a +4 to a +6 modifier. At level 5.

Yeah, I think it is safe to ignore anything and everything you say.

Shadow, I want a round by round tactics description for your hypothetical basket weaver party (yes, I'm calling a party specifically built to take down dragons basket weavers, I think it applies). You're the one claiming that Dragons are powerful, but not a big deal, the burden of proof lies on he who makes the extraordinary claim.

Like Frank said, I'm sure it's possible to kill a level appropriate dragon, but you need a hyper-specific build.

What the fuck?

1: A basket weaver party would get slaughtered by an at level dragon. They'd also get slaughtered by an at level anything else. That is what being a basket weaver means - incompetence.
2: It doesn't require being built specifically to take out dragons. At most it requires you to fucking recognize that flying enemies are increasingly common at these levels, and you had better be able to do something about that.
3: The actual words that I actually said about dragons is that they are tough but overhyped. Bullshit like claiming you need hyper specific builds to do is is a good example of that overhyping. It doesn't change the fact that they are not nearly as uber as they are being made out to be. Stop crying about Garchomp.

I'm pretty sure optimizing to slay dragons also sets you up to kill just about everything else too. You won't be as awesome at it, but you're still going to have good saves (vs. good basketweaving), good SoDs (vs. good basketweaving), good ability to eat damage (same as before), and probably a fair amount of utility (again, vs. a fair amount of baskets).

I always saw uselessness as a key part of basketweaving. If you're themed but also competent, that's totally different

Not to mention that most of it requires nothing that is specific to killing dragons, and is just standard things you should do anyways.

...wow, I didn't know they stacked shit that high.

---------------
Downdraft is standard and something you should always have? A Spectral Hand+Shivering Touch combo? Seriously?

[Josh_Kablack]

I have no idea about Pathfinder, but in Core 3.5, a single classed level 6 archery ranger with 14 dex, 14 str, 14 con, 11 Wis Resist Energy prepped, a wand of Cure Light, chainmail and a masterwork bow mighty (+2) composite longbow, Favored enemy: dragons wins all by himself against that CR 5 red dragon using just "fly away until breath weapon recharges, then return and strafe" tactics. He outheals the damage the breath weapon does every 1d4 rounds and he gets damage through on the dragon out to 1100' while the dragon has no way to heal. It takes him like 16 charges off of the wand and roughly 52 arrows, but he wins.

Sure, it only takes the dragon one and a half full attacks to shred the ranger's 16 AC and 42 HP to dead, dead, dead....but the ranger can counter that using "wand heal + move away, taking the AoO" - which means that the dragon is limited to hitting with a pair of 2d6+5 attacks each round, and the ranger is healing 1d8+1 back - the dragon totally wins that exchange, but it takes him three full rounds of doing nothing but charging the ranger to pull it off - that's three rounds in which he's within flankable melee reach of the rest of the party. The dragon can minimize that by hovering just far enough off the ground to use bite reach and stay out of PC sword reach - but that fails if the PC meleers have reach weapons and also lets the ranger avoid the threat of full attacks by merely 5 ft stepping back - at which point it becomes optimal for the ranger to forgo self healing and full attack rapidshot the dragon while the party healbot keeps him standing - at which point the dragon should forgo meleeing and use it's breath weapon on the ranger + healbot standing next to each other, and possibly even take the AoOs to get the rogue or fighter who's flanking with a polearm in that cone. But if the dragon reverts to breath weapon strafing, the ranger outright wins and we're back to the first scenario.

So while the PCs cannot win unless they find a way to stop it from flying away at a 150' move x4 run or the dragon uses slow suicide tactics, the dragon doesn't exactly have an easy time of it either. In order to win, the dragon absolutely has to alternate between using breath weapons when the party is clustered, and threatening full melee attacks against party members who are separated by more than their charge distance, and using single bite while hovering above sword reach.

Yeah, I spotted the ranger 1 level above the CR, but that's hardly an optimum build, and while I gave him the dragonslaying FE pick, he had all of one magic item. And it's easily possible to have a party of 5th and 6th level characters fighting a CR 5 challenge.

If I wanted to talk about players who freakin' knew their characters were going to be facing a bossmonster dragon fight and prepped for it, they would have done something clever, like gotten energy resistance and temp HP for everyone; or not been a single-classed ranger, or had the Wizard scribe some scrolls of that rare and broken spell Magic Missile for the rogue to UMD on, giving two characters each 10.5 guaranteed DPR out to 150', figgered a way to get a cold-substitued a Flame Arrow off, or used that powerhouse spell Summon Monster III to have Hector's +15 grapple mod and DR 5/magic and 33 (45 with Augment) HP keep it wrasslin' for a couple rounds. Heck, even though the dragon has a 55% chance to make the save, Slow limits its tactical options enough that the rest of the party pretty much wins and the dragon's chance for escape is vastly reduced if it fails.


Sure the dragon should be CR 6 or 7 instead of 5, and sure the movement speed is crazy when compared to the rest of the game, but this fight is nowhere near as lopsided as some people are claiming.

[Shadow Balls]

Though actually, Shivering Touch is good against anything big and clumsy. Dragons are simply the most iconic example.

No... Shivering Touch is a niche spell that's more powerful than is should be and still manages to be a bad choice despite this. Spectral Hand+ Shivering Touch is a gimmick.

Admittedly, big clumsy enemies are less common at level 5 than later. It's still a one shot if you are prepared, and if not use one of the many other methods that I detailed first instead of sperging about that one.

Your entire argument about killing dragons easily relies on an poorly designed niche spell out of an obscure book, that has to be coupled with another spell, a readied action, a to hit roll, and an at least average damage roll, and then not have the dragon be a white or silver...that's not convoluted and specifically optimized at all.

And yet, this is the board that invented the Flask Rogue, something far more convoluted than using a spell that does Dex damage to do Dex damage and abuse the Helpless rules.

Do you have anything else that doesn't involve Shivering Touch?

Um yeah. How about you go read the thread here, and you will see what else I have?

Hello! Young white dragon with a level of Sorcerer here! I heard you like Shivering Touch! Can we play?

Yes, because picking one of the two out of ten types that the one tertiary tactic you are sperging over and giving it class levels after bitching about obscure, atypical things is a great way to make an argument! Well done! Truly you are a Real Man of Genius(tm)!

Except that such a dragon does about no damage, so even though it can get up to AC 26 you totally don't give a fuck.

The post so nice he said he twice.

So how do you fight one of those red dragons at level 5 (outside a dungeon)?

In Pathfinder I think an archer could eqasily take it.

You know, I just figured out Kaelik's posts. He's assuming this is a Pathfinder party, and the casters are either piking or don't give a fuck. That explains why he claims it would bitch slap the party around while they could hardly touch it.

But in 3.5, non casters are not quite that pathetic. Even the Barbarian is charging for 40 and hitting on a 4 without even trying that hard.

Downdraft is standard and something you should always have? A Spectral Hand+Shivering Touch combo? Seriously?

Your retardation aside...

A spell to take down fliers is standard in a party that is too fucking stupid to deal with fliers.

But then, you are too fucking stupid to read what you are applying to, so go fuck yourself sheepboy.

Speaking of being fucking stupid, all of this herpaderpies about how dragons are impossible instead of just hard but beatable is really fucking stupid. Now if it were an optimized dragon, 3 levels higher than you you might have something to cry about. I'd still call you a little bitch, because this is an optimizer forum, which means you're supposed to take hard fights and make them your bitch. But there would be some legitimacy to that argument. Because an optimized dragon 3 levels higher totally could sweep a non basket weaver party. But merely at level? What the fuck is this shit? No, really. What the fuck is this? I don't even...

[Orion]

First of all, due the to incredible coarseness of the 3E level system, there's really no wiggle room for errors in CR assignment. To concede that a CR 5 critter should be "CR 6 or 7" is to concede that its current CR assignment is gamebreaking and grossly negligent. For fuck's sake, a CR 7 is supposed to be twice as powerful as a CR 5. You're saying that dragons are rated at literally 50% power. Now, some observations on the way to CR system works in general.

--The test to see if a monster should be CR 5 is not "is it possible for a prepared level 5 party to beat this monster." If it's sufficiently challenging to require preparation to defeat, and it's not easy to run away from, it's not CR 5.

--The core definition of CR 5 is that a 5th level party who randomly stumble on a lone CR 5 monster are certain to defeat it, most likely with minimal but nonzero resource expenditure. In other words a CR 5 Monster should take a couple of spells to defeat OR do a bunch of damage to the party. I think all the discussion up to this point makes it obvious that this is not true for dragons.

--A pair of CR 5 monsters is also supposed to be an easy encounter for a level 7 party, and 4 of them are supposed to be easy for a level 9 party. I think these are actually true because the dragon's big tricks-- AoE damage with saves, grappling, big AC -- scale really poorly against higher-level opposition. This is one instance in which the CR is appropriate.

--However, CR can also scale up another way. Bringing out two CR 5 monsters is supposed to create a scary and challenging fight, but fundamentally the players are still supposed to be certain to win. I think 2 CR 5 Dragons working together have a good enough chance to TPK a level 5 party that their CR is out of line on this benchmark.

--Finally, even when sent against 4 CR 5 monsters, a level 5 party should have some chance for victory. That's equivalent to a mirror match, so unless the monsters have serious situational advantages the PCs should have some chance. I think it's pretty clear that 4 CR 5 dragons will TPK a level 5 party with no chance for escape, so this benchmark also fails.

[Previn]

I have no idea about Pathfinder, but in Core 3.5, a single classed level 6 archery ranger with 14 dex, 14 str, 14 con, 11 Wis Resist Energy prepped, a wand of Cure Light, chainmail and a masterwork bow mighty (+2) composite longbow, Favored enemy: dragons wins all by himself against that CR 5 red dragon using just "fly away until breath weapon recharges, then return and strafe" tactics. He outheals the damage the breath weapon does every 1d4 rounds and he gets damage through on the dragon out to 1100' while the dragon has no way to heal.

Well, he doesn't really do the damage out to 1100' as that's a -20 to hit. At roughly +10 to hit (2 dex 6 bab 2 weapon) you can't actually hit the dragon once it gets around half the total range of your bow, and that's assuming that you've got a clear line to fire at the dragon at that distance.

Sure, it only takes the dragon one and a half full attacks to shred the ranger's 16 AC and 42 HP to dead, dead, dead....but the ranger can counter that using "wand heal + move away, taking the AoO"

It can also grapple a PC and fly off with them. In the case of the ranger that prevents the bow attacks, essentially negates the wand usage and once the dragon is high enough up a breath weapon with no reflex save and then simply dropping the ranger is going to take 10d6+4d10 damage which averages 57 damage, enough to take the PC in the example from full to dead. Doing so the dragon is probably going to take some damage due to the reduced speed, but it's now got the wand from the ranger and one less PC. And it can repeat that tactic.

It could also do something like sunder the bow, or go find some suitable large rocks to drop on the PCs from high up and let the falling objects rules one shot any PCs he hits. As a red, starting fires using his breath weapon could be advantageous as well.

To say that it's going to be limited to 1 of 3 methods of attack to be effective is short sighted.

[Previn]

Admittedly, big clumsy enemies are less common at level 5 than later. It's still a one shot if you are prepared, and if not use one of the many other methods that I detailed first instead of sperging about that one.

It's not a one shot. It has a chance of being a one shot, if you have it, another spell and a readied action, and don't miss, and roll at least average damage. So it's going to take you average 5th level caster 3 rounds to get the point where they can even try to hit the dragon.That's 3 rounds of you doing nothing else, and where the dragon has a chance of outright killing the caster with a single breath weapon on the first round.

The other methods you detailed? Downdraft? It's a terrible option that's even more limited than Shivering Touch would have been, and almost assuredly not something you have memorized if you even bothered to learn it.

Tanglefoot bag at a -20 to hit? With a +4 dex mod and BAB of 5, you still only hit the dragon an natural 20 with a touch attack. And it gets a save to avoid it even then which is passes at least 50% of the time, and then it makes the str check to break free from that 50% of the time....

That's been the limit of your attempts thus far. And besides Shivering Touch, nothing actually kills or disables the dragon.

And yet, this is the board that invented the Flask Rogue, something far more convoluted than using a spell that does Dex damage to do Dex damage and abuse the Helpless rules.

TGD didn't invent the flask rogue. It's also core.

Um yeah. How about you go read the thread here, and you will see what else I have?

Right-o. You have nothing else. Got that already.

Yes, because picking one of the two out of ten types that the one tertiary tactic you are sperging over and giving it class levels after bitching about obscure, atypical things is a great way to make an argument! Well done! Truly you are a Real Man of Genius(tm)!

You made an absolute statement; dragons under CR6 don't have spells. I disproved that with less than 10 seconds of thought. I made it a white dragon because I thought it would be more fun as an example of why Shivering Touch is still a poor point. As what I did was explicitly stated in the core books and used only the core book material, I'm unsure how it is either obscure or 'sperging.' Heck, it's got it's own section that's 5 decent sized paragraphs long under... Improving Monsters.

So I again reiterate the statement I came him here with: I don't think you've actually played 3.x.

[Dr_Noface]

Upon reconsideration, in Pathfinder, a party with a level 6 archery focused ranger, paladin, or fighter could easily take the dragon on. They need Manyshot and their second attack.

[Previn]

Upon reconsideration, in Pathfinder, a party with a level 6 archery focused ranger, paladin, or fighter could easily take the dragon on. They need Manyshot and their second attack.

Eh, 6th level it gets easy to take out a CR 5 red even in 3.5 ; Wood Elf Paladin 6, Hippogriff mount. +1 icy lance, running Bull's Strength from ally, running Divine Sacrifice from self, Spirited Charge feat:

To Hit of 19 (6 base +6 str +4 smite +1 enhancement +2 charging)
Damage of 97 average (3d6 lance +6d6 cold +3 enhancement +27 str +18 smite +5d6 Divine Sacrifice)

And that's playing it safe and saying that the damage from Divine Sacrifice isn't multiplied by the charge from 5d6 to 15d6.

[Kaelik]

but in Core 3.5, a single classed level 6 archery ranger with 14 dex, 14 str, 14 con, 11 Wis Resist Energy prepped, a wand of Cure Light, chainmail and a masterwork bow mighty (+2) composite longbow, Favored enemy: dragons wins all by himself against that CR 5 red dragon using just "fly away until breath weapon recharges, then return and strafe" tactics. He outheals the damage the breath weapon does every 1d4 rounds and he gets damage through on the dragon out to 1100' while the dragon has no way to heal. It takes him like 16 charges off of the wand and roughly 52 arrows, but he wins.

1) Which is why he uses something besides the dumbest possible tactic, and just grapples the archer, flies 210ft straight up, and then drops him for 20d6 damage.

2) Great, the guy who uses a Cure Light Wounds wand while having resist energy up is totally going to survive. Meanwhile, everyone who didn't have resist energy up is dead. Not impressed.

Upon reconsideration, in Pathfinder, a party with a level 6 archery focused ranger, paladin, or fighter could easily take the dragon on. They need Manyshot and their second attack.

Instead of repeatedly saying "in Pathfinder X" could you explain what about Pathfinder makes archery focused parties do 10 times the damage per round of a 3.5 party?

[Shadow Balls]

Yawn.

It's not a one shot. It has a chance of being a one shot, if you have it, another spell and a readied action, and don't miss, and roll at least average damage. So it's going to take you average 5th level caster 3 rounds to get the point where they can even try to hit the dragon.That's 3 rounds of you doing nothing else, and where the dragon has a chance of outright killing the caster with a single breath weapon on the first round.

The average damage is just high enough for a one shot.

The other methods you detailed? Downdraft? It's a terrible option that's even more limited than Shivering Touch would have been, and almost assuredly not something you have memorized if you even bothered to learn it.

It brings fliers down from the sky. In this party where apparently no one can deal with flight even as it is becoming available, bringing enemies to the ground so that they can do something instead of holding your sack and being slaughtered is a good tactic. That was the second tactic I mentioned, after Kaelik called the Wambulance because he found that dealing 96 damage to something with 18 AC in 3 rounds at level 5 was inconceivable.

Tanglefoot bag at a -20 to hit? With a +4 dex mod and BAB of 5, you still only hit the dragon an natural 20 with a touch attack. And it gets a save to avoid it even then which is passes at least 50% of the time, and then it makes the str check to break free from that 50% of the time....

Why would it be -20 to hit? You throw it when the dragon is at its closest point, which apparently is 40 feet. That's range penalties, but nowhere near -20.

TGD didn't invent the flask rogue. It's also core.

Yet it is known as the Frank build. Whatever the case, it's not core. It relies on the wording of Rogue bonus feats to get PTWF.

You made an absolute statement; dragons under CR6 don't have spells. I disproved that with less than 10 seconds of thought. I made it a white dragon because I thought it would be more fun as an example of why Shivering Touch is still a poor point. As what I did was explicitly stated in the core books and used only the core book material, I'm unsure how it is either obscure or 'sperging.' Heck, it's got it's own section that's 5 decent sized paragraphs long under... Improving Monsters.

When someone says "a dragon" it is generally assumed that they mean "a dragon" and not "a dragon with class levels". If it is a dragon with class levels you are referring to, you must specify this as that is an exception.

The sperging part comes because I have mentioned three things, in order. Since you are very slow, I will list those things once again:

1: Simply murder the dragon, doing damage equal to or greater than 96 to AC 18 in 3 rounds. You win, no one dies. Kaelik calls the Wambulance, as he finds this task to be too hard for his GIANT MANLY BRAIN to handle.

2: Cast Downdraft, so that your party will stop standing around watching the pretty flying dragon and actually do something to kill it. Several other people join Kaelik on the phone, as apparently anti flier spells at one of the first flying levels are considered edge case spells now. Perhaps that is why they have no answer to fliers?

3: Cast Shivering Touch, since apparently you are the only one in your party worth anything to just one shot the dragon by themselves. The Wambulance call center has a service outage from overuse.

And yet, despite my mentioning three things, everyone is sperging over the last one, completely forgetting about the other two, that were mentioned sooner and are better. To the point of denying their existence entirely by claiming that the third is all I have when it clearly fucking isn't.

And for all of that, what did you get for it? A dragon with the weakest breath weapon in the game, so even if strafing were worth a damn, and it isn't it will never, ever fucking kill anyone with its 3d6 breath. Dragonfire Adepts are more dragony than this actual dragon. What the fucking fuck? It also has 76 HP, which is 20% less than 95 and is Medium with 15 Str so it will basically never kill you with its melee attacks either.

So I again reiterate the statement I came him here with: I don't think you've actually played 3.x.

Aw, how cute. The noob that thinks dragons are impossible claims I've never played the game I've been playing for years.

[BearsAreBrown]

1. Not that easily done. See the Ranger discussion.
2. Why the fuck do you have Downdraft readied? See everyone else dismissing this idea for the same reason.

People focused on 3 because you failed to provide details on 1, and because 2 is dumb.

Orion's explanation of the CR system really clears this up. A properly optimization party can beat a Dragon at CR 5, for sure. A niche character who's ready for it might even be able to solo, I agree. As the fourth encounter of the day? Or four at the same time? You're kidding yourself.

edit: reworded for clarity, thanks orion

[Orion]

To be fair, it's not 4 dragons as the fourth encounter of the day. You're supposed to lose horribly in that scenario. Against 4 CR 5's you're supposed to have a chance of victory when fully rested.

[K]

If a spellcaster had Downdraft and/or Shivering Touch + Spectral Touch memorized, I'd question their ability to take on other level-appropriate challenges most days since they'd be filling their slots with spells that are useless in most situations.

Optimizing to kill a dragon is easy. Optimizing to be able to handle unknown challenges is the real trick, and it's directly opposed to focused optimizing.

[Previn]

The average damage is just high enough for a one shot.

Yes... after 3 ROUNDS OF DOING NOTHING, you have a chance at disabling the dragon. RNG show me some results:

•3d6(5,4,1)=10
•3d6(6,6,1)=13
•3d6(4,4,3)=11
•3d6(2,5,1)=8
•3d6(2,2,6)=10
•3d6(1,1,5)=7
•3d6(3,2,3)=8
•3d6(1,6,2)=9
•3d6(2,6,1)=9

and that is why it's not a one shot.

It brings fliers down from the sky. In this party where apparently no one can deal with flight even as it is becoming available, bringing enemies to the ground so that they can do something instead of holding your sack and being slaughtered is a good tactic.

You're wasting a 3rd level spell slot on what is an utterly garbage spell. You can have the actual Fly spell at that point instead. Really I cannot express this enough, Downdraft is a terrible, terrible spell. You're going to be targeting the reflex save of flying creatures and then you'll only moving it down 50 to 100'. That could literally do nothing. Even if you do bring it down, it can immediately go back up.

Why would it be -20 to hit? You throw it when the dragon is at its closest point, which apparently is 40 feet. That's range penalties, but nowhere near -20.

You're right, it would be -10. So... a roughly 50% chance to hit, and the dragon has a 50% chance to save, and it then has a further 50% chance to break out immediately even if it fails that save... what what a 12% chance of working? And even then, it's not a kill.

Yet it is known as the Frank build. Whatever the case, it's not core. It relies on the wording of Rogue bonus feats to get PTWF.

Frank may have come up with a build, but it's been done before and certainly core. Ref. here

When someone says "a dragon" it is generally assumed that they mean "a dragon" and not "a dragon with class levels". If it is a dragon with class levels you are referring to, you must specify this as that is an exception.

No I don't. A dragon with class levels is still A DRAGON.

1: Simply murder the dragon, doing damage equal to or greater than 96 to AC 18 in 3 rounds. You win, no one dies. Kaelik calls the Wambulance, as he finds this task to be too hard for his GIANT MANLY BRAIN to handle.

You have yet to prove you can do the required damage, let alone be assured of bring the dragon down. Again... YOU HAVE FAILED TO PROVE THAT POINT.

2: Cast Downdraft, so that your party will stop standing around watching the pretty flying dragon and actually do something to kill it. Several other people join Kaelik on the phone, as apparently anti flier spells at one of the first flying levels are considered edge case spells now. Perhaps that is why they have no answer to fliers?

As the dragon is dropping rocks on you from 200' up, you cast Backdraft and it fails it's save and... is now 100' up. Backdraft is a bad spell, and you're only showing your inability to think by repeatedly trying to leverage it as an effective tactic when it is clearly not and not something anyone would have when they have better options available for dealing with flying foes.

3: Cast Shivering Touch, since apparently you are the only one in your party worth anything to just one shot the dragon by themselves.

Expect it takes you 3 rounds of doing nothing to do so, in which case you or other party members are long since dead. Heck, dropping a clinging or lingering breath on the first pass assures you're dead before you ever do anything to the dragon.

And yet, despite my mentioning three things, everyone is sperging over the last one, completely forgetting about the other two, that were mentioned sooner and are better. To the point of denying their existence entirely by claiming that the third is all I have when it clearly fucking isn't.

That's because the other two are so ineffective that only an utter idiot or amazingly terrible player would try them, and they don't actually kill or disable the dragon.

Let me say that again; Downdraft and Tanglefoot bags DO NOT KILL OR DISABLE THE DRAGON.

Anyways, I'm out and you get the privilege of being the second person I've ever ignored on an internet forum. Grats.

[tussock]

First of all, due the to incredible coarseness of the 3E level system, there's really no wiggle room for errors in CR assignment. To concede that a CR 5 critter should be "CR 6 or 7" is to concede that its current CR assignment is gamebreaking and grossly negligent.

Generously speaking, it's a designer trick to make everyone use Dragons as the hardest fights the PCs will face.

DM thinks; 5th level party, EL 7 mini-boss encounter, grab three CR 4 dragons.
Boom, a couple characters die, the rest hide and lose, as intended.
Everyone goes online and says "dragons killed my Monk!" (or Bard, or Paladin).
Designers all give out secret low-fives, and we all get shared memories of how fucked-up hard dragons are to fight in 3e, despite their otherwise moderately well balanced encounter design system.

They also intended that Wizards be much more powerful and easy to play, and that everyone would want to play a Cleric, and that Bards would no longer be secretly the most powerful class in the game.

[Draco_Argentum]

Monte's explanation was that they assmed you would face the Dragon as a boss encounter and therefore be prepared specifically to beat it. Thats why the CR is so low.

[Shadow Balls]

If a spellcaster had Downdraft and/or Shivering Touch + Spectral Touch memorized, I'd question their ability to take on other level-appropriate challenges most days since they'd be filling their slots with spells that are useless in most situations.

Optimizing to kill a dragon is easy. Optimizing to be able to handle unknown challenges is the real trick, and it's directly opposed to focused optimizing.

Downdraft: Cleric 3, Druid 3.

Worst case scenario is that you fight no flying enemies today, and you cast a CSW or SNA3 instead. Yes, such a terrible inconvenience...

What's more, even if they save they still fall 50 feet, taking some minor damage and more to the point getting swarmed by the party. So in this instance of the dragon being 40 feet off the ground it is a lose or fucking lose.

The Shivering Touch combo I have already stated to be something you do if you need to specifically prepare and have the ability to do so. You get no points for stating the obvious.

I'm not even going to bother correcting Previn's long wall of the herpaderpies, because if he were capable of being corrected he wouldn't be repeating false statements that have already been corrected.

One more time. Here is how it works:

The dragon tries to use its little strafing thing since it thinks that actually works.

You wait until it's in range.

You say: Downdraft, lose or lose bitch.

The dragon loses or loses, taking some minor falling damage (14), and then gets charged by the Barbarian for 40 who hits on a 4, and gets stabbed by the Rogue for like 15-20, and then gets shot by a weak little Magic Missile for 10. And at this point it's down 79-84, so it has 11-16 HP left, and it's up again. It does one of the following:

It fucks off and tries to fly away. It gets AoOed and dies like a little bitch.
It full attacks, but since it's only a CR 5 dragon it doesn't kill anyone. It then gets beaten down and dies like a little bitch.
It breathes, doesn't kill anyone, but is still surrounded. It then gets beaten down and dies like a little bitch.

Notice how there is no outcome in which the dragon does not die like a little bitch? That is because dragons are overhyped, so stop fucking crying about them you fucking fuckers.

[LR]

Downdraft: Cleric 3, Druid 3.

That spell isn't on this list, so the party Cleric hasn't even heard of it, let alone prepared it. If one enemy requires you to prepare an obscure and shitty spell from a book that wasn't out when the MM was printed, then that enemy is too powerful. I've read through the entire Spell Compendium multiple times, and I couldn't have told you that Downdraft existed before this thread, because it was too useless to be worth remembering. Whipping it out like it's some sort of trump card is conceding the argument. Get that through your head.

[Krusk]

Are you arguing that a level 5 wizard has the following spells. I gave 20 int, cause thats not unreasonable on either side.

Level 0 - 4 - BS we don't care about.
Level 1 - 5 - Cause Fear, Charm Person, Comprehend Lang, Obscuring Mist, Expeditious Retreat
Level 2 - 3 - Alter Self, Spectral Hand, Hold Person
Level 3 - 2 - downdraft, shivering touch

You are seriously arguing that downdraft and shivering touch have a place as the only 2 level 3 spells the average wizard gets? Over say, dispel magic, hold person, tiny hut, Ray of Exhaustion, Fly, and Haste? I feel like thats an insane arguement on its own, and now that you are actually seeing what spells they get laid out instead of (benefit of the doubt) remembering it wrong you will quickly recant the arguement that people prepare this stuff for their general adventuring day.

Really you keep falling back to "If you spec to defeat a dragon, you can defeat a dragon of your CR" which no one is saying is crazy. Thats pretty obvious, and would make for a crappy system. "I specialize in fighting dragons. But they always beat me."

Pretending that you are a cleric who will swap downdraft out for CSW is insulting, because that is a huge loss. If you have to cast this spell you are wasting the slot. A druid gets more mileage out of SNA but you won't know until the last encounter in the day whether or not you will need it. So you have this dead slot you don't use every fight, because "Crap downdraft might be handy later". Instead of blasting a sweet level 3 spell while you know you need it, saving some level 2 and 1 spells, you are hording potential "This might be handy later on" spells.

God help you if your party has a sorcerer instead of wizard. Don't even pretend he knows downdraft. He literally does not have level 3 spells. And if he did, his only one wouldn't be downdraft. In fact, he gets 4 ever, and I doubt he would ever bother.

You are making this arguement with the average wizard, and people are fighting you. Imagine if you took a more middle of the road class, gave an average build and tried it. That would be the real convincing arguement. If an average level 5 bard or monk can deal with a dragon and only expend 1/4th its resources. Then you would have a legit point to make and people would agree with you. As it stands the arguement of "A specialized prepped wizard can beat a dragon of equal CR occasionally" isn't paticulalrly convincing when trying to sell people on the idea of "Dragons aren't under CRed."