Last weekend my group finally encountered Dragotha, and succeeded in slaying the original undead dragon, Dragotha the First. This is a report of their battle.
Campaign / Material:
- 3.5, core with very few restrictions
- some changes on high-level spells (gate, mordenkainen's disjunction; similar to pfrpg versions)
- spells from SC and other books under individual consideration; some in (revivify), some out (death pact)
- Feats from Complete series and PHB2: most allowed
- High recommendation for alternative class features from PHB2 and other late 3.5 material; in fact, almost every PC has taken one
- Items from Magic Item Compendium quite conservatively approached; though some unique effects for "Tensers Gifts" allowed
Party roster:
Emrys, female human Ranger 15 / Homebrew Ranged PrC 5; minor artifact bow, favored enemy undead, low Will save
Galliard, male human Bard 7 / Rogue 3 / Homebrew roguish bard PrC 10; low attacks, low defense, much-needed inspire courage, some tricks up his sleeve
Grimmig, male dwarf Fighter 20; greataxe
Rickas, male human Favored Soul 10 / Homebrew kord-chosen PrC 10; bufficer and luck feats, greatsword just-in-case
Pallas, male human Paladin 15 / Wormhunter 5; wields Sword of Aaqa, lots of divine and smite-related feats
Sama, male half-elf Sorcerer 10 / Fiend-Blooded 10; "the many-blooded": Celestial feats and fiendish PrC. And half-elf. Spell-list just as versatile (with a slight nod towards battlefield control)
Arexis, planar bound ghaele eladrin, armor added
Changes from adventure as written:
- Bucknard's items did *not* provide the additional benefits vs. Dragotha: Neither +10 to attack, nor +10 to saves, no nothing else besides the initial benefits when found.
- Changed Mahuudril to avolakia Cleric 21 (of Kyuss). Domains Magic and Death. I sort of needed a high-priestess :)
- Changed Venk to Warlock 20. Signature move: Beshadowed Doom.
- Dragotha had Arcane Strike instead of Maximise Spell. Quicken Breath instead of Clinging Breath.
Adventure progress so far:
- Venk and Zyrith have been avoided by PCs, thus they joined Dragotha
- Mahuudril fled the initial encounter via refuge to Dragotha
- Wormdrake fled the initial encounter via teleport to Dragotha
- All avolakia clerics have been killed
Buffs prior to encounter:
Party in general: astral projection, fortunate fate, death ward, fly, mass conviction
Rickas: divine power, freedom of movement
Pallas: freedom of movement
Other minor buffs.
Dragotha: As written + protection from spells
Mahuudril: protection from spells, freedom of movement, spell turning
Venk / Zyrith / Wormdrake: Nothing special
Status:
Party: Resources somewhat depleted (no rest since entering the tabernacle of worms)
Enemies: Full health; Mahuudril lost a few prepared spells including mordenkainen's disjunction on the first encounter
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The Tale:
After quite easily defeating the three wormcrawlers, the Diamond Knights venture further; Pallas as always going first. He is the first to be awed by the sight of Dragotha sitting on top of the ziggurat; the wormdrake standing guard in from of him, while Mahuudril and Venk/Zyrith observe from the ledge. Dragotha, much to his surprise, adresses him:
"And there finally comes the lapdog of evil visiting his grave"
"Lapdog of evil? I have come to destroy you and halt the Age of Worms!"
"No you have not. Think: Why are you here? What is your goal? And - who sent you here?"
"I am here because the prophecies speak of the undead dragon that is to usher in the Age of Worms, and so you will be destroyed"
"And the prophecies are right, whereas you are wrong! The prophecies do not speak of Dragotha, and they do not speak of a dracolich. Thus I ask again, who sent you here? I know the answer already: Lashonna! Is this not true?"
"Yes, and she is a proud silver dragon and a great ally."
"Bwahahaaa, so she fooled the fool. Don't you see it? She is a vampire dragon, long ago transformed by none other than Kyuss himself. While you were causing trouble in the Rift Canyon and here, she stole his monolith."
"I... no... "
"Leave my abode immediately, or serve as wormfood. I will count to five. 1... 2... 3..."
Pallas rushes back to his allies, who have used the opporunity to buff a bit (Rickas: mass spell resistance, Galliard: inspire courage, Sama: quickened haste + time stop + spell turning & move + displacement & move + project image & move + ready action: mordenkainen's disjunction on all enemies timed to go off as time stop runs out [We ruled this legal; your mileage may vary]. The disjunction removes all buff spells but failes to affect any magic item.
Initiative is rolled.
Round 1:
- Zyrith and Venk fly past the projected image of Sama; using beshadowed doom and a flyby attack to little effect (and both not making the Will saves to disbelief the illusion)
- Dragotha breathes his death wind into the party's faces. Thanks to death ward, there is very little effect; only Galliard is blown back a bit.
- Emryss uses her bow's special ability to invoke a "lightning ice storm" (call lightning + ice storm); Venk falls of saddle in the process [I deliberately added this effect to enhance the impresson of the bow's power which was used for the first time, because I didn't think that Venk would do much of a difference anyways, and because, well, I thought it was a cool effect]
- Rickas uses a bead of karma.
- Mahuudril recasts protection from spells, now including all except Zyrith and Venk. Too bad her mordenkainen's disjunction has been spent already!
- Galliard casts fugue (SC), affecting only Zyrith and insinuating that he should attack his hearest target: Venk, who is subsequently grappled. Hooray for the bard who just neutralized two opponents!
- Grimmig flies towards the ledge, drawing a successful attack of opportunity from Dragotha; failing his Fortitude save and thus ending his turn paralyzed. The aghast party registers the truly deep wound just one bite of Dragotha inflicted and painfully remembers that they have been told of the danger of paralysis.
- Sama casts quickened orb of cold on Mahuudril to no effect. His meteor swarm fails to penetrate Dragothas SR, but the other meteors inflict some damage on the Wormdrake.
- Pallas calls his combat spirit (alternate clas feature) and uses divine shield (only a move action thanks to a unique shield that was gifted to him from Tenser for turning in the rod fragment)
- Arexis casts plane shift on the Wormdrake, but to no avail: The area is dimensionally locked!
- The Wormdrake full attacks Arexis, landing some hits.
Round 2:
- Dragotha full attacks the paralyzed Grimmig, ripping through all his hit points including those granted by fortunate fate, thus ending the astral projection. Grimmig finds himself unbuffed in Tenser's castle.
- Emryss full attacks Mahuudril with her deadly arrows, inflicting 268 points of damage. 6 left.
- Rickas casts flame strike on Mahuudril, killig her.
- Galliard continues to concentrate on fugue, thus inflicting damage on the grappled Venk through Zyrith
- Grimmig drinks a potion of fly and is wondering about his options, and whether the others would join him in defeat.
- Sama casts time stop + acid fog (on the area the wormdrake, Zyrith and Venk were in) + some minor buffs + moves + readies a otto's irresistible dance on Dragotha to go off as time stop runs out. He failes to overcome his spell resistance! And is now standing right next to the gargantuan dragon. The panic on the sorcerers face is all to well visible.
- Pallas moves forward and activates sun devotion (feat from complete champion).
- Arexis moves back a bit and casts disintegrate on Dragotha, inflicting 5d6 points of damage, slightly annoying big D.
- The Wormdrake cannot move due to acid fog, forgets his ability to greater dispel it, and thus full attacks close-by Zyrith who apparently went rogue. Zyrith is down to a few dozen hp.
Round 3:
- Dragotha full attacks Sama, whose displacement grants him concealment, and shreds the sorcerer to pieces. But, behold, fortunate fate activates, and after two futher attacks from Dragotha - Sama lives! He has 13 hp left, and cannot believe his luck. Dragotha smiles and obliterates his astral projection with a quickened fire breath.
- Emryss full attacks Dragotha and inflicts moderate damage. Very uncommon for her, only few of her rapidly shot arrows strike true! Worse, she fumbles [critical fumble deck] and receives a bad injury to her arm! Dragotha down to about 650.
- Rickas casts mass heal, failing to penetrate Dragothas SR, but healing Zyrith (!) and Arexis in the process, and curing Emryss.
- Galliard continues his fugue; and thus Zyrinth finally kills Venk.
- Grimmig and Sama greet each other, far away in Tenser's castle, and begin re-buffing.
- Pallas moves towards Dragotha, the dragon's opportunistic attack fails to hit the brave Paladin! He returns the favor with lay on hands and inflicts 135 points of damage! [Does SR prevent lay on hands? I ruled that no, since there is no caster level] Dragotha down to about 520.
- Arexis fails to inflict damage to Dragotha with something I forgot. Probably a heal spell.
- The Wormdrake inflicts some damage to Zyrith.
Round 4:
- Dragotha is a bit unsettled by the damage taken, but as he has more than half his hp left, and there is a Paladin standing right in front of him, he full attacks with arcane strikes that use an 8th level slot. He inflicts murderous damage, well over 300, but the Paladin's good health and fortunate fate leave pain-wracked Pallas at 30 hp.
- Emrys, facing a very hard to hit target, does not use rapid shot. The plan is good, the result even better: She hits him four times, inflicting 209 damage. Dragotha down to about 310 hp. He becomes a bit wary; it does not go according to plan.
- Rickas buffs himself and moves closer.
- Galliard continues the fugue. The wormdrake takes only a few hits from Zyrith.
- Grimmig and Sama continue their preparations to return.
- Pallas, deeply wounded, stands in front of his nemesis. This is the enemy he believes must be killed in order to prevent the Age of Worms! Or so he thought only a few moments ago... What is real? What are the lies? He finds comporture, and focuses on the task at hand: Kill Dragotha! Survival is optional! Recklessly, he neglects self-defense, withdrawal or healing. Instead, he full attacks, smiting each time + divine might! All or nothing! Life or Death!
His fate is resolved: 17 - Hit! 18 - Hit! 19 - Critical hit! [Automatically confirmed due to bless weapon; ability to critically hit undead thanks to Wormhunter PrC] 18 - Hit! Four strikes hit! The Sword of Aaqa inflicts extraordinary amounts of damage to the mighy dracolich, each one marrying his old bones. The final hit is enough - Dragotha falls, his skeletal figure falling apart, and turning into age-old dust even before hitting the hard ground. The First Undead Dragon is no more.
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Lessons Learned:
- I forgot Dragothas paralyzing gaze. Make sure you don't.
- Weaker monsters (e.g. Zyrith, Venk) are a liability, especially if the party employs mind control
- Fortunate Fate is too good a spell. I had previously increased it's level to 8, but still - the duration is so long that it doesn't matter. I will rule it out, or revise it's duration. 1 min/ level seems a good idea, since then the caster has to decide whether to spend the slot (and on whom).
- A paladin optimized for fighting undead is truly a remarkable force. As is a ranger optimized for fighting undead. Consider this when comparing the power-level to your group. And remember that mine has six PCs, so be careful not to overdo it.
- Battlefield control is good! Don't forget the Wormdrakes ability to greater dispel at CL20 at will to undo some of it.
How to make it even harder:
- Change Dragothas spells into good buffs [which would have been moot in my case]
- Add a level of sorcerer to Dragotha: 9th level spells. Foresight is a good idea.
- Let him use some of his equipment; for instance, his Cha bonus is superb, so that he could profit well from the wishes granted by the talismans of Zagy. The prospect of a CR27 Dracolich having some wishes at his disposal is appealing...
- If you steal the idea of Mahuudril beeing a high level Cleric with the Magic domain, make sure that she has a mordenkainen's disjunction left, perhaps on a scroll. Of course, that depends on your ruling of MDJ. The 3.5 core version would be outright brutal.
- Give Dragotha an antimagic field. I reserved this trick for Kyuss...
Good Times! My group just beat big D last session. It lasted 17 rounds!
Changes I made to him:
-Retrained some feats, most notably his flying ones. Gave him spell focus evocation, arcane strike, practiced spellcaster, and skill focus: spellcraft.
-added 1 level of archmage. took the high arcana that gives +1 CL (CL 23! dispel that!)
-gave him time stop as a 9th level spell. retrained some of his spells, giving him life ward, ray deflection, repulsion, superior resistance, shield, radiant assault, blinding breath, and probably some other stuff. (those last 2 were brutal with the status effects they caused.)
- made him use his greater maximise rod. 120 point horrid wilting? yes, please! Also made sure that the druidic scroll-skull had a widened antilife shell on it for him to UMD during timestop.
-used 2 earthcancer centipedes and a mindkiller scorpion for mooks. (I love that mind-killing aura of the scorpion)
In the end he was done in by a gated titan who hung back and used his at will greater dispel SLA every freaking round. I should mention that my group consists of 6 level 19 pcs, a lvel 16 cohort, and a level 15 cohort. I allowed the Bucknard artifacts to work, but they were at half strength (+5) and only affected one person instead of a 30' aura. I should also mention that IMC, astral projection and Disjunction are under a sort of non-proliferation agreement: the group doesnt use them on me, and I wont use em on them. This happened after the group lost darn near all their belongings against Darl a few months back. I guess you and I are in a race to see which group finishes first! Time to completely pimp my Kyuss!
Congratulations!!
Some input about what is to come is always a good thing, even if we are waaaaaaaayyy behind you two (just began TFoE in my case).
Guess they will have some questions for Lashonna... you dont' have some pics of your players' faces during the revelation, do you?
I guess you and I are in a race to see which group finishes first! Time to completely pimp my Kyuss!
Above all: Congrats; I will cherish this encounter as a hallmark of my DM career, and so will probably you :)
Woha! 17 rounds... that must have taken ages...Good call on the flying feats; they don't serve any purpose in this terrain.
The Bucknard/Balakarde artifacts are super-overpowered and I think it's the right thing to power them down or rule them out. My thinking was that with them, it would have ment that Bucknard wins, not the PCs. Who's the hero here?
The mindkiller scorpions are cool! yet my PCs have taken pains to have mindblank active for fear of scry and die.
Time stopping Dragotha... nice and evil!
Seems as if your Dragotha would win against mine any time :) Your PCs must be tactical geniusses :)
The race to Kyuss is on! We will play again this coming saturday - our last session, as one of the players will move away. Thus I will have to make heavy cuts from DoaNA (I will leave out Lashonnas dungeon and place the unlife vortex under the new spire).
As far as pimping K,
- I will rely on the antimagic field trick in the beginning - you know, the sentence "Deities and artifacts are unaffected by mortal magic such as this" has ever since gnawed on me :)
- I have given him three unique epic spells
- He has multispell and advanced spell capacity to quicken two harms / rd.
- I'm still pondering the idea to give him access to spell stowaway: time stop...
- Oh, and Kyuss will not be gimped by fighting despair and/or destruction of the unlife vortex, but psssht, keep it quiet :)
you dont' have some pics of your players' faces during the revelation, do you?
I really wish I had... you know, the Paladin was even hoping of getting romantic with Lashonna, as she had played it quite nice: After LoLR, they were worried about her since they could not contact her, to the point that they assumed murder/abduction, broke into her mansion, and interrogated her staff. Later during KoTR, she sent him (the Paladin) a sending, that "my dear paladin" should not worry, and all would soon be well.
Bwahaha! The revelation of truth was the best roleplaying moment of the whole campaign so far :) Make pains to build it up, it's worth it.
Good call on the anti-magic field! Consider that stolen! You'll definately be beating me to the punch with big K then. Good luck to your pc's, they'll need it.
edit. My group isnt so much tactical geniuses, so much as they are a LARGE group of powergamers with a lot of splatbooks available. (I allowed pretty much all non third party stuff with the exception of anything that allows crits against undead.)They also have two clerics who basically dedicated themselves to healing and removing status effects. And 17 rounds equated to right around 6 hours. spells were exhausted, rages were ended, and durations were runnin out!
double edit. Pcs that gate in a titan and immediately make it gate in a solar tick me off.
- Weaker monsters (e.g. Zyrith, Venk) are a liability, especially if the party employs mind control
Doesn't the entire Tabernacle structure have an Unhallow effect on it? This includes Magic Cicle Against Good, meaning that no evil creatures can be mind-controlled while within it. It also means that no NON-EVIL creatures can be summoned or conjured (summoning or calling) into it either. Since those spells gain the descriptor of the alignment of the creature summoned, Good PCs can't summon evil creatures to do their bidding, and same probably goes for Evil Titans being conjured.
I guess you and I are in a race to see which group finishes first! Time to completely pimp my Kyuss!Above all: Congrats; I will cherish this encounter as a hallmark of my DM career, and so will probably you :)
Woha! 17 rounds... that must have taken ages...
Here's what happened in my Dragotha encounter. 11/12/2011
8 characters 1 NPC a Solar ranger / 5 from dragon magazine!
Dragotha had 3 minions, an undead Spriggan, An undead Cleric of Vecna missing the left hand and an undead Kenku assassin! Whom they had met and slain before, this is a change to the printed module.
Also I adjusted the spell list.
The minions. We're dealt with in three rounds the solar fought 3 nightcrawlers in the tunnel leading to the lair.
On the fourth round one character hit Dragotha with a +1 Mace with Disruption and slew the dracolich outright!
Disappointing? Hell yeah!