So... we just wrapped up a years-long campaign with an epic battle against a red dragon and his minions.
Not to go into great detail, but it went something like this:
Party is all 8th level.
*Pre-combat*
1. Party rogue scouts ahead invisibly, discovering dragon "resting" in his lair. Returns to party apparently undiscovered to report.
2. Party druid lays out tactics, asks sorcerer to "greater invisibility" the druid, the party rogue and the party sorcerer with his three available slots (greater invisibility is the only fourth level spell the sorcerer has).
3. Party druid asks party rogue to use rogue's "invisibility" wand to cast invisibility on party barbarian and druid's AC.
4. Party druid casts "greater magic fang" on tiger AC bite, casts "magic fang" on tiger claws and casts "cat's grace" upon herself.
5. Party moves as quietly as possible into charging range (now round 4 since initial buffs cast)
6. Party initiative results - Rogue - Druid - AC - Sorc - Barbarian.
*Round 1*
1. Rogue moves into dragon lair attempting to get behind dragon to gain flanking.
2. Druid holds action waiting for AC
3. AC charges invisibly into lair, pouncing on dragon. Dragon does not react, with buffs in place, lion hits with all five attacks, and critical hits on his bite. Does roughly 70 damage.
4. Druid 5 foot steps to position as far away from dragon as possible while still having a clear shot and full-attacks with bow. All three attacks hit, four arrows do roughly 30 damage to dragon.
5. Sorcerer moves into lair and magic missiles dragon, does 15 damage.
6. Previously unseen enemy rogue appears suddenly behind party barbarian, sneak attacks for 21 damage.
7. Previously unseen enemy sorcerer unleashes 11d6 "chain lightning" on party, all party members are in range except druid. raw damage is 44, half damage is 22. AC (initial target) and rogue make save, take no damage (each has "evasion"). Sorcerer and barbarian fail save, take 22 each.
8. Dragon 5 foot steps away from party AC and uses breath weapon, managing to include AC, sorcerer and barbarian (but not rogue or druid). AC fails save, takes full 59 damage. left with 3 hit points. Sorcerer makes save, takes half damage (29) reduced to 2 hit points. Barbarian fails save, takes full damage. Dies before being able to move.
*Round 2*
1. Party rogue realizes that at least some of the enemy party can see invisible. Decides to 5 ft step and full attack (unable to gain flanking due to dragon moving away from AC). Hits twice, does 11 total damage.
2. AC 5 foot steps and full attacks dragon. Bite attack and one claw succed, dragon dies.
3. Druid sees dead barbarian, also sees sorcerer badly injured. Realizes the sorcerer cannot get away from both the sorcerer's spells and the rogue's daggers, so sorcerer is easy prey. Decides to withold action to allow sorcerer to move.
4. Sorcerer runs out of dragon's lair, drops strategically placed fireball in spot that it only hits enemy rogue. Enemy rogue turns out to be immune to fire damage, so fireball does nothing.
5. Druid decides to focus on saving sorcerer and so summons a tiger, giving up a fourth level spell to spontaneously summon. As a lion shaman can summon cats as a standard action, so drops the tiger so it can charge/pounce enemy rogue. Yells to sorcerer "Get behind me!" Then moves into dragon's lair in position to engage enemy sorcerer or enemy rogue on next turn.
6. Summoned tiger charges, bites, claws and with successful hit, attempts to grapple enemy rogue. Grapple is successful.
7. Enemy rogue attempts to escape grapple and fails.
8. Enemy sorcerer drops "wall of fire" around him to keep party rogue at bay. Wall of fire does five points of damage to party rogue.
*Round 3*
1. Party rogue ignores fire damage and leaps through wall of fire, taking 24 damage, which is almost, but not quite, enough to drop him. Uses spring attack feat to allow sneak attack. Sneak attack kills sorcerer.
2. Animal companion moves to attack grappled enemy rogue. Bite attack is successful, enemy rogue dies.
* Combat Over *
Party uses gold from treasure to hire cleric to resurrect barbarian. Party druid returns most loot to rightful owners, party distributes the rest as reward.
Impressive and rather detailed. I'm always amazed that it is possible for fights to take all of three rounds to end, especially when there are so many enemies involved. How much real time did this take?
How did the barbarian take the fight? I assume he was bummed that he didn't even get a single round of rage in before being crisped.
The barbarian was bummed. We actually tried to make him feel better by picking up his hammer and using it on the unconscious rogue to deliver the coup de grace.
The fight took a bit less than an hour, but that includes the up front buffing time. I'd like to say that our party is a well-oiled tactical machine, but that's not true. Even with a (supposedly) napping dragon down the cave we still spent probably fifteen minutes deciding what buffs to cast. Our rogue didn't want to use up his wand charges on other party members and our druid had to convince him to do so.
The saddest thing of all is that it had been two months since our last session and our druid forgot she had a wand of energy resistance that would have kept the barbarian from being killed outright. He would still have been down and probably would have been out of the fight, but he wouldn't have died.
Yeah, I'm the druid player. Sigh...