
Unremitting Evil |

Unremitting Evil, I need a hand here.
I had these lovely little young, undead black dragons running around. They were beautiful, beloved, and my very first dragons.
A Paladin one-shotted them.
I don't want to just kill my party - then their suffering would end. I want to be evil to them.
Help?
That's a tricky one Killstring,
Were you using a standard Black Dragon with the Undead Template...or Paizo's delicious Ravener build from Undead Revisited?
Paladin's being what they are, and that being a pain in the necrotic arse, they tend to oneshot most undead criters. Even beautifuly constructed killing machines like your Black Dragons.
Magikot isn't wrong, using the environment against them is a great idea, but here are a few better:
Deplete the Paladin's Smites. Nothing like a few well place undead Grave Knights (perhaps fallen ex-dragon slayers in the thrawl of the Dragon) to keep the Paladin tied up wasting smites.
Ranged, Ranged, Ranged. You have a dragon, have it fly up and start casting spells. Nothing says your dragon's can't have a wand of Fireballs on hand to drop some ugly damage. Bow/Rifle based Paladins might still pose a problem, but all it takes is one spell to undo most ranged attacks.
Confusion/Poison/Illusions oh my! Paladins have obnoxious good saves, but if you layer on the attacks...now that's differnt. Poisoned weapons on the undead leading up to the layer, confusion spells cast at him, and Illusions of the Dragon itself can really cause the Paladin to have a bad day.
Then there is what I call the "zinger".
The moral dilemma. Lets make your undead Black's act as guardians for another worse evil. Or more interesting, having a cult of innocent non-evil humanoids worshiping them. Imagine the Paladin's horror when they have to make a choice between the easy and potentially WORSE choice of killing the Dragon, or the harder and more troubling choice of letting it go. Or biding their time until they resolve the NPC hang up before getting to touch your evil pets.
Nothing more delightful than making Paladin's sweat a little.