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I have read a lot of the threads about running dragotha but I am still nervous that I will forget something. Any last tips/tricks to blast the pc's with? Launching both breath weapons on the opening round is the plan so far...
P.S.
6 pc's
fighter/rogue/ranger/wizard/cleric/monk and they have all of Balakarde's fragments
Keeping track of the effects of his pyramid was a pain in the neck--make sure you post-it note those on your screen. And don't forget Arcane Strike--he has enough spell slots to use that on every round he makes melee attacks (you'll have to retroactively remove his power attack in that case; he needed all the attack bonus he could get with some of our guys).
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Keeping track of the effects of his pyramid was a pain in the neck--make sure you post-it note those on your screen. And don't forget Arcane Strike--he has enough spell slots to use that on every round he makes melee attacks (you'll have to retroactively remove his power attack in that case; he needed all the attack bonus he could get with some of our guys).
He doesn't actually have Arcane Strike in the stat blocks as written. The insert was a leftover.
He doesn't actually have Arcane Strike in the stat blocks as written. The insert was a leftover.
You're absolutely correct--but I'd strongly recommend restoring it to him. He'll need it.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Thanks guys! Where can I find the info on arcane strike? I might not have the supplement :(
It's a feat in the Complete Warrior. Basically, it allows you to sacrifice a spell slot to give +1 to the attack roll per spell level sacrificed and add 1d4 damage per spell level sacrificed. Therefore, a character with this feat could burn a 4th-level spell slot to grant a +4 bonus to hit and +4d4 damage to their next attack. I believe using the feat is only a swift action.
So how did it go? Lets hear the gory details.
Whoops! Wish I caught this thread earlier. I would've suggested giving him Dire Charge (Draconomicon; can perform a full-attack at the end of a charge). That and Arcane Strike (Comp. Warr.) is a sure way to make your players pack up their stuff, go home, and never return your calls...in a good way, though...right?
I believe using the feat is only a swift action.
Even better, it's a free action. That means that Dragotha can use a quickened breath weapon and make a full attack in the same round as he uses arcane strike. (See my above post for a sick opening gambit idea.)
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I will be posting the gory details very soon in the obits thread haha. 3 of the 6 pc's died in the fray and it was very memorable :) A question for the other dm's out there.. Would you allow a wish to change dragotha's fire immunity to fire resistance 30? I had to make the call on the fly and decided that the resistance 30 was fair.
Since that is a waste of a WISH spell, I would say "Sure, suckers!".
I finished running Into the Wormcrawl Fissure recently, and overall found it to be a good fun adventure, better than expected especially since I was worried it would get bogged down and take too long. I do have one suggestion for any DM's yet to run it... (skip to the end for that if you don't want the long version).
With the right amount of focus from me and the players, we whizzed through the easy fights (which was almost all of them), had some fun non-combat encounters, and got to Dragotha half-way through the third session, faster than me or the players expected! It's amazing how high-level fights can go really quickly if the right number of "save or die" type spells are thrown around (e.g. prismatic spray took out two dragons early, sending one to another plane and killing another outright).
By that stage, the PC's had recently rested up so were at near full power, and had all the fragments of Bucknard as well as having enlisted the personal help of the Lillend (the party Ogre/Fighter is now pledged to be her personal love-slave for a year as soon as Kyuss is defeated).
Now, I hate to customise a published adventure too much, especially if it involves tweaks designed specifically to help or hinder the specific PC's involved. So I ran Dragotha as written, simply tweaking his tactics a bit on the fly. I did have him accompanied by the "left overs" from earlier, i.e. Brazzemal and the derro warlock on her wyvern mount, but that makes sense and is the way the adventure is written.
Now, due to a misunderstanding between a player and me, the Lilend wasn't summoned until half-way through the fight, and by that stage Dragotha was alone and the PC's had pretty much figured out how to defeat him, so she didn't really do anything of note (I saved her wishes for if the party got in real strife). His support crew were a non-event, with the CR23 Brazzemal being killed by a lucky prismatic spray, and the derro and her mount were funny but ineffectual. Dragotha's buffs went the same way as all the other dragon's buffs, which is to say one good greater dispel magic stripped him of everything. The party's own buffs meant Dragotha's own spells and breath weapons were, basically, insufficient to cause them any real concern. In the end, I decided that a lone Dragotha didn't have enough time to heal himself or to try and dispel the party's buffs (they were too spread out, and the chance of him dispelling much was too low). So I had him become desperate, and try to kill at least one PC before his hp ran out. As it turned out, a few bad rolls meant Dragotha couldn't even kill one PC in a full attack, then he was dead before his next action (having three melee types taking full attack actions tends to do a lot of damage at this level of play!) My idea of grappling a PC was pretty much ruined too, because the party fighter/sorcerer makes regular use of the Giant Size spell, and has also recently taken Limited Wish to add Righteous Might and Divine Power on top of that too, so he's able to be colossal in size and a better grappler than nearly all monsters. He even cast Tenser's Transformation against Dragotha, which was risky and kind of overkill, but hey, he wanted to go all out so it was fun.
Anyway, I think the fight against Dragotha and co took nearly two hours, and it was fun - he didn't go down like a chump, but I would say he didn't pose a significant threat to my party either. I think the only way he could have would be for me to have meta-gamed him, i.e. optimised his tactics specifically based on information I knew about the PC's. but which I figure Dragotha wouldn't really have known. After all, I figured this ancient Dracolich was pretty arrogant and considered himself pretty much invincible, so it was a mighty surprise for him to find himself up against a party which was well protected against all his usual attacks, and (with Bucknard's spirit) able to get through his own formidable defenses. By the time he worked that out, it was too late. It makes a pretty cool story that way, too, which is exactly how my players saw it unfold too.
I've seen here that a number of groups found Dragotha to be a bit of an easy fight, and I'd say my experience was about the same (especially since they could have had the Lillend appear earlier and contribute more). I was hoping the fight would be a bit more "edge of your seat", with ebbs and flows, the PC's using at least one Wish to haul themselves back from defeat, etc, but no, they were never really pushed anywhere near the limit. So...
One piece of advice I'd give to people running this: the easiest way to make the fight against Dragotha more of a challenge, is simply to scale back the assistance that Bucknard's spirits give. So instead of a +10 to SR checks, make it +5. Instead of +20 to hit, make it +10. Those two tweaks alone, would have meant that my players were not guaranteed of success in all their actions, so Dragotha would have lasted longer. As written, your spell casters will basically always get past his SR, and your fighters will only have to worry about how much power attack to add, not about whether they will even hit at all.
And lastly, CR27 for Dragotha is crazy, given the benefits that Bucknard's fragments give out. I threw XP out of my campaign a while back, so for me it's a non-issue, but if I was using XP still I'd have given the party a CR25 award, figuring the fragments make the fight at least half as deadly as it would normally be (and that's generous - really, without the fragments the fight is a forgone conclusion as almost no party could buff themselves enough to damage him without rolling close to 20's, assuming they knew all the right buffs etc to counter his gaze and so on).
My Players will face Dragotha on October 13, and I'll post the gory details on my thread, "Killer GM runs age of worms." The greater dispelling does pose a threat to the big guy, but I've spotted him a Ring of Counter spells, which should help to soak up the first Greater Dispel attempt. Also, aspiring killer GM's have got to change some of Big D's spells. At the very least, give him an Anti-Life Shell, which will require the PC's to beat his SR 36 in order to physically attack him. Likely very difficult for most... at least until a targeted Greater Dispelling gets through. I've got a Contingency in place to try to rectify that problem, potentially, assuming that the contingency itself doesn't go down under a greater dispel. I've also had Big D precast a 9th level scroll of Breath Weapon Admixture, and although the PC's have a +10 luck bonus on reflex saves and Evasion if they make it, a DC 34 (down from 44 with the luck bonus) will still be hard for some to make), and any PC's who fail, take a total of 44 D10 which I suspect will likely kill any PC who fails the reflex save.
Be careful what you post Allen...well, we trust Turin anyway, right? Good thing some of those others don't read these forums. Nice plan, sounds like they should be eating some serious pain.
My Players will face Dragotha on October 13, and I'll post the gory details on my thread, "Killer GM runs age of worms." The greater dispelling does pose a threat to the big guy, but I've spotted him a Ring of Counter spells, which should help to soak up the first Greater Dispel attempt. Also, aspiring killer GM's have got to change some of Big D's spells. At the very least, give him an Anti-Life Shell, which will require the PC's to beat his SR 36 in order to physically attack him. Likely very difficult for most... at least until a targeted Greater Dispelling gets through. I've got a Contingency in place to try to rectify that problem, potentially, assuming that the contingency itself doesn't go down under a greater dispel. I've also had Big D precast a 9th level scroll of Breath Weapon Admixture, and although the PC's have a +10 luck bonus on reflex saves and Evasion if they make it, a DC 34 (down from 44 with the luck bonus) will still be hard for some to make), and any PC's who fail, take a total of 44 D10 which I suspect will likely kill any PC who fails the reflex save.
Ouch! Ouch I say! ~wistles~ Damn and another Ouch!
Be careful what you post Allen...well, we trust Turin anyway, right? Good thing some of those others don't read these forums. Nice plan, sounds like they should be eating some serious pain.
Oh, I imagine you are rather correct Yasha. I fully expect all but one or maybe 2 characters to die horribly in the opening salvo the bad guys offer up. I have done what I can to prepare my character for the onslaught - that preparation by definition cannot extend to the other characters. Only so many spells remain prepared, only so many gp was available for swag.
If you're looking for some last minute tweaking for Dragotha, check out the Draconomicon. The dragon feats--especially metabreath--help you really customize the fight. If you need to drop a feat, I'd suggest losing Maximize Spell. Cool as it is to do big, fat damage, he doesn't have a spell list which makes the most of it, and it becomes dead weight if you give him Arcane Strike.
He already comes with a couple of metabreath feats (Quicken, Recover, and Clinging), but how does Heighten Breath strike you? (By increasing the time you have to wait to use your breath weapon, you can increase your save DC by one, on a one-for-one ratio [+1 round/+1 DC], up to +5/+5.) Makes sure your breath weapon does its job.
BTW, Dragotha's description for his breath weapon(s) says that he still has to wait 1d4 (plus whatever extra, due to metabreath) rounds to use either breath weapon, regardless of which one he uses. You might be thinking of the wormdrake (same adventure) who can use one breath after another.