Dealing with a Shadow Dragon?

[Legildur]

Okay, our party had some dramas with an old black dragon recently.

Our tactics relied on trying to avoid the breath weapon (as much as you can) and using the Fly ability (spell or potion) to combat it in the air (since it wouldn't land). We prevailed, but it was tough.

Now we are preparing to set an ambush for an old shadow dragon (looks black but has shadows around it etc).

Any hints about preparation? Any good way to force it to land?

Not looking for metagame solutions, just sound tactics. One Wizard and one Cleric. Plenty of swords. Average level about 9-10th (I know that is low for the encounter, but we have little choice). Probably be a night encounter, as that is when it is active (we are in surveillance mode at the moment). We are in a forested environment.

 

[maggot]

Death ward.

 

[kirinke]

Locate the lair. Avoid the shadow dragon. Then go find a bigger dragon, bribe him or her with lots of sparkly things and sic said dragon on shadow dragon. While they are otherwise occupied loot the shadow dragon's treasure horde.

Welll.... On a more serious note do some major scouting, locate it its lair and stay low until you acess it's capabilities. Once you do, trap it inside the lair. Heck, if you have it, use a horn of blasting to collaspe whatever lair its in on top of it. If you can't here are some more helpful hints.

Polymorph is your friend. By now, you guys should have access to it. Use it. Change into a half-way ghost-like creature and start going in and out with your swords. Should be fun. Um, Cones of cold, Flame strike, bless, and summon nature's ally are also fun spells. Baleful polymorph the shadow-dragon into a squirrel if you can. Then roast it. Hold monster, the various summon monster spells, stock up on healing potions and wands. Basically, stay as far away from the dragon as possible and hit it with as many varied attacks as you can.

Confuse the heck out of it. Heck, throw rocks at him. Gusts of wind. the various wall spells. Drop a fire wall on its head. All are good tactics. Never, ever go into a fight with a dragon half-prepared. If you can, buy lots of dragon-slaying related gear and weapons. Hire mage and cleric cohorts/hechment to supplement whatever magicker's you have. You will need them.

 

[Derren]

A old shadow dragon should kill you easily especially at night.

Imo the only chance for you to win is either pure luck (and lots of it), the DM lets you win or the DM doesn't know how to play dragons.

Especially at night there isn't much you can do. You attack spells will fail most of the time and melee attack also wouldn't hit very often. And this dragon is almost equal to your spellcasting power, so don't expect your spells to survive a dispell from it.

But thats basically also true for black dragons, so maybe you have a chance (because one of the tree situations I described above is true) although a shadow dragon is quite a bit stronger than a black one.

How many party members are there in total, have you time/ressources and the possibility to buy equipment and can you set the time of the encounter? If you can, don't attack at night. Thats suicide.

Your best hope ist that this isn't a shadow dragon, but a black one who used its darkness ability when you watched it.

 

[Thanee]

Bah, you need to read more shadowrun novels.

Never deal with a dragon!



We had to deal with a shadow dragon once, we employed the Blindsight spell to see in darkness (Deeper Darkvision would work, too), which the dragon was quite fond to veil himself in for obvious reasons. It'd also help to protect against the breath weapon (if you know that it drains levels, because that can really ruin your day ). Other than that, it's still a dragon, of course, and therefore a quite dangerous opponent.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Mephistopheles]

If your characters are reasonably sure that it is a shadow dragon and they have some idea of what a shadow dragon is capable of I'd suggest some of the following. Use the counters for the abilities your characters know about, ignore the ones you don't know about, make sure you pack a pillow to bite on and hope for the best. Normally I'd tell you that you should also make funeral arrangements before you head off to fight it, but as Derren noted if you were able to defeat an old black dragon in your game then you might have a shot at an old shadow dragon.

* Shadow Blend: Good use of daylight spells, possibly cast on the armour of your melee fighters who you expect to get within 60 feet of the dragon.
* Negative level breath weapon damage: Death ward (or negative energy protection if you're playing 3.0), probably also on those with daylight on their items as they'll be closest and possibly most likely to catch the breath.
* Dimension Door: Dimensional anchor. Your wizard should be able to make the ranged touch attack easily enough, there is no saving throw, and creatures don't get spell resistance against it. Should help to cut down the dragon's mobility a little and cut off some potential nasty surprise tactics it could pull on you with dimension door.
* Spells: Pack a few dispel magic spells as the dragon only has a caster level of 9 so you will have decent odds of getting rid of any buffs and/or protective spells it manages to cast on itself.
* Spell Resistance: Your casters will have pretty poor odds of penetrating its spell resistance so I'd probably sink all your magic into the spells listed in the above points (as suits your characters knowledge of the dragon's abilities), along with buffs and protective spells spread across the party to avoid having all your buff eggs in one basket.

Good luck!

 

[Derren]

Problem is that the dragon can as easily dispell the buffing magic on your party than you can dispell the dragons spells.

Without knowing how many people there are in the party (it seems to be more then 4 when you say "lots of swords" I really can't give an estimation if you have a chance or not, but my guess is no. Basically if your group gets succesfully hit once by the breath weapon you loose.

Do you use things from the Draconomicon? If yes start making a new character. (A Dispelling breath followed by a clinging, lingering energy draining highened breath is no fun)

 

[Gort]

Problem is that the dragon can as easily dispell the buffing magic on your party than you can dispell the dragons spells.

Nah, that's not true - the dragon is less of a dedicated spellcaster than you are, so its caster level is lower, and thus won't have as easy a time dispelling. Plus, there's two spellcasters on your side, and only one on his - any rounds he spends casting dispel is a round he's not fighting your fighters, and you can just recast the buff the next round.

Just to emphasize - Death Ward.

 

[Derren]

Nah, that's not true - the dragon is less of a dedicated spellcaster than you are, so its caster level is lower, and thus won't have as easy a time dispelling. Plus, there's two spellcasters on your side, and only one on his - any rounds he spends casting dispel is a round he's not fighting your fighters, and you can just recast the buff the next round.

Just to emphasize - Death Ward.

The caster level of the dragon is only one lower than the one of the wizard or even equal. Not a very good protection from diespelling

Also while the party has two caster, they have also more targets they have to rebuff while the dragon only has to buff himself. So there is not really a big advantage when the party gets dispelled.
Also the dragon has the advantage of speed. Unless you can trap it, the dragon can decide if it wants to fight or flee and wait till your buff runs out.

But without exactly knowing out of what characters the party consist of we can't really say much.
Avarage level 10 can mean one level 15 and one level 5 character after all.

 

[Legildur]

Okay, found a pillow in a colleagues bag of holding, but it already has teeth marks in it.

Nah, unfortunately it is definitely a shadow dragon.

Party has 9th and 10th level Paladins, a Ftr7/Pal4, Wiz8, Clr9, and a couple of decent NPCs (Ftr/Rog/Shadow Dancer) and Ranger of unknown levels. Also 9 henchmen (Ftr4). But we tend have more powerful magical items than expected for level, and individual stats are good. But I still don't think we have enough firepower.

Okay, seems night time is bad. Which is a pity, as that is when it is let off the leash. Terrain isn't very useful either.

We don't tend to use many buffs, so dispels are not a big threat.

What sort of save for the energy drain? Is it Reflex or Fortitude?