| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Environmental hazards could target the ammunition of gunslingers. The humidity of a black dragon's swamp, for example.
Or the dragon might try to sunder the weapon. Reds and whites might go for this.
Sending in minions to surround the gunslinger, thus making it difficult to reload or fire ranged attacks, might be an effective strategy. The forested terrain of greens might contain a lot of underbrush for small, weak, but plentiful mooks.
And if your dragons are famed magic users, they'd likely provide illusions for the gunslinger to take aim at first, which might make him waste ammo and actions. Would sophisticated and intellectual blues take this route?
-----------------
BUT BUT BUT I'm strongly against artificially pumping up the dragon's touch AC. That's lame. That's just...lame. It's basically GM-cheating. I think you're going to make the game less fun for yourself if you resort to artificial stat boosting.
I mean there's something tragic and poetic about a human being being able to kill a creature as majestic as a Dragon with relative ease...It might almost seem unfair, and perhaps that's something that you could weave into your story eventually. Perhaps this is related to an ongoing extinction of the dragon, and with that, major changes to the political landscape? The type of person to play a gunslinger is the type of person to throw caution to the wind, but wouldn't it be interesting for such a character or his companions to regret the change he or she represents?
Meh. But I think it's unfair to effectively take away a feature of the gunslinger, even if you justify that you're not "technically" doing that. I think the range limitations, as well as the need to reload, limits how many attacks the gunslinger can pull off with his fire arms. Yes, they hit more often, but he doesn't attack as much, so it evens out a bit.
|
well i've always found it silly that a tiny little bullet can inflict 1/10th of a dragons health in one shot. In my opinion the dragons flanks and back should be resistant enough to not be affected by touch. But you have to remember that Gunslingers ONLY benefit from touch in their first range increment, so have him fly 40 feet above the party and no more touch attacks. Also, because dragons know a ton of divine spells they probably know about gunslingers and you could have the dragon or one of his minions prepare some simple spells like damp powder or any one of the other spells meant to specifically shut down guns.
Namely: Dampen powder, Weaken powder, Destabilize powder, and Recoil Fire. All level 1-2 spells that will waste one or more turns for your gunslinger. a CR 1/2 witch can cast that.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Um... dragons can fly somewhere between 100 and 250 feet as a move action.
So... maybe it just shouldn't stay in the first range increment of the gunslinger until it has successfully debilitated him/her into oblivion via breath weapons and spells?
I disagree with Sanjiv.
Raise the Dragon's touch AC to some reasonable amount so it's at least not in auto-hit range. Split the difference between its Touch AC and its regular AC.
Say you have an Adult Black Dragon, it has 28 AC and 10 Touch AC. Just bump it up to at least 17-18 Touch AC so it's still pretty easy to hit but the Gunslinger's not nailing it on a 2 every shot.
That or have it do nothing but strafing runs like a baws.
In this case, the best defense is probably a good offense - if a gunslinger gets within 20 or 40 feet of a dragon, it's well within breath weapon range, and possibly tail sweep depending on the size of the dragon. And that's beyond the fact that it can fly upwards.
If the gunslinger isn't using a magical gun/ammunition, a simple Protection from Arrows gives DR 10/magic against ranged weapons. If they are using magic weapons, Wind Wall gives 30% miss on normal ranged attacks. Anything that grants concealment (and thus flat out miss chance) will help. Seeing as a dragon has superior senses, things like Obscuring Mist can be very useful. The dragon can tell where things are and AoE/breathe/take AoOs BUT characters would be 'in the dark' so to speak, no LoS means no targeting.
As a real nasty situation is a black dragon in a swamp, underwater. Read the dragons abilities, then think of the possibilities (and restrain yourself from cackling wildly).
|
Flyby Attack: the feat that all dragons should take. They're eligible and it's great for them.
Fly 100ft - breath weapon from 50ft away - fly 100ft. The dragon never had to come within the gunslinger's range.
In this case, you don't need to change any rules; the means to fight the gunslinger effectively already exist within the rules.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So I'm aware of all the arguments about gunslingers being imbalanced, and I think I have enough things to challenge the gunslinger in my campaign with that I can deal with that. But when it comes to dragons, I have a problem. I want them to remain dangerous and memorable enemies, which simply will not happen when dragons have touch ACs 20 lower than their normal ACs.
So my question is, what defensive ability do I give the dragons to save them from being killed by gunslingers? Some ideas I've been mentally tossing around are: giving dragons DR/- vs firearms, letting dragons apply part or all of their natural armor bonuses to firearm touch attacks, or simply decreeing that firearm attacks never hit touch against dragons.
Do any of these seem reasonable? Can you think of a better solution? I'd rather not change the general gunslinger rules, since we're in the middle of a campaign.
Natural Armor as DR.
In my experience, a dragon should NEVER actually get killed by the party unless someone crits. A dragon is too intelligent. If he's going to lose, he's going to see it, and he's going to retreat. No, he doesn't want to lose his hoard, but, he can always get a new hoard, he can't get a new life.
On top of that, he can always hunt down adventurers and retrieve his hoard (or he can hire other adventurers to hunt them down, this can turn into a recurring villain).
Anytime I hear about a dragon being killed, it's usually because he was played by the GM as being a monumental moron, someone who didn't fight tactically, didn't use his spells, his flight (which is a huge tactical advantage), didn't full attack, etc. Someone who let the tank keep him busy rather than target the spellcaster/cleric/gunslinger/etc first, and leave the crunchy snack for last.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You also make it impossible for melee characters to engage them and make getting a distance musket/double hackbut 100% (80ft/100ft) more effective than being a pistol master.Flyby Attack: the feat that all dragons should take. They're eligible and it's great for them.
Fly 100ft - breath weapon from 50ft away - fly 100ft. The dragon never had to come within the gunslinger's range.
In this case, you don't need to change any rules; the means to fight the gunslinger effectively already exist within the rules.
Yeah, dragons are bastards.
As an aside: IIRC, in The Hobbit they killed Smaug with one well-placed arrow. Killing a dragon with bullets isn't unthinkable. (In Shadowrun some dragons get taken down by jet fighters...)
Give the dragon snake style so it can roll its AC vs a touch attack/round.
How about simply being beyond 20ft from the Gunslinger?
Not only Mr.Gunpowder doesn't get to target touch AC, he also takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls per range increment.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes, but the OP didn't mention advanced firearms (which are a bit too good in the hads of a Gunslinger, but still terrible for everything else).
There are all sorts of spells to protect the Dragon from ranged attacks, some of them are quite low level too.
Invisibility -> Grapple Gunslinger -> Fly Away and chew him slowly.
Let's see how high's Gunslinger's CMD when he's flat-footed... ^^
On a related note, I like Gunslingers, but I hate PF's firearm rules. They are terrible and make no sense!
Since this is in House rules, anyone remember 'Scintilating Scales' from the Spell Compendium? Yeah, I know it's 3.5, but this ONE SPELL changes worlds for Dragons, though not so much for virtually every other monster and character.
If you don't want to just "increase its touch ac"- just find legal ways to do it.
Kick up its dex. Give it spells and magical items to help shore up the problem. He Has magical items- right? They shouldn't just be sitting shiny in the loot pile. If gunslingers exist dragons probably know about them and will take adequate means to protect themselves.
Cats grace, Mirror Image, Displacement, Monk's Robe (+1 AC that stacks with everything), Ring of Protection to name a few.
While I agree you shouldn't just erase their AC and increase it (at least, not just against the gunslinger. increasing the AC generally and with a commessurate increase in CR is fine), there are plenty of ways to do it that are both reasonable and within the "rules".
-S
I know this is outside the scope of PF, but 3.5 Spell Compendium had a spell to convert the caster's natural armor bonus into a deflection bonus. Pretty juicy for a dragon spell caster.
Concealment works though, although it will still be sad if someone casts faerie fire or glitterdust on it.
If the dragon knows who is coming for it, a ring of counterspells with a faerie fire or glitterdust loaded into it will negate the first shot towards it.
I agree with everyone else - don't just artificially bump the creature's stats. I would find ways to use the dragon's tactics to avoid the gunslinger's massive advantage against it. In a world where Gunslingers exist regularly, dragons tactics would include ways to deal with them. One option is to start the combat with the dragon invisible, grapple the gunslinger as a surprise action taking a -20 to the CMB check to grab him solely in the mouth of the dragon (this assumes he has the grab feature.) He now can't use a two handed weapon and the party gets 1 round to try to save him before the dragon advances the grapple to a pin, then flies away with the gunslinger clutched securely in his jaws. This suggestion is not to say that you should 100% PLAN to kill the gunslinger, but dragons are the smartest of all monster. As a DM, dragons are your chance to pull out all the stops and go after your party with everything you can think of, I say go for it. If the gunslinger goes down, then the party will raise him and hunt the dragon down a second time, this time better prepared and with more motivation. Makes for a good story, if you ask me.
Snake style. One feat, simple answer.
With several years Pathfinder experience as GM the thing that helps the most in these situations are spells. In PF PCs end up with many powerful tools at moderately low levels. The vast majority of melee or ranged non-caster monsters will be left in the dust beginning, for my players, at about 5th level. I have had very similar experiences with dragons as you. However dragons are generally also powerful spellcasters in their own right, and with a decent defensive package of spells can wreak havok. Missile deflection, greater invisibility, displacement and mirror image added to fast flight, flyby attack and breath weapons, magic resistance and a ton of hit points should help. Remember also that the hp values in the manuals are just average hps, they can be higher.
gunslinger:(full attacks)
dragon:(responds by flying up, breath attacks gunslinger)
paladin: (to gunslinger)"you should probably let me handle this" (unstraps longbow from back)
dragon: (gulps)
But what I want is a way for the dragon to survive even if it doesn't have a superior tactical position. I would rather negate the gunslinger's advantage against it, rather than find a tactical way for the dragon to overcome it. Otherwise, I can't have a dragon encounter without denying the PCs the chance to prepare for it properly.This is why I posted in the homebrew forum rather than the advice forum. Maybe it was naive of me to let gunslingers in my game with no alterations to the firearm rules going in, but I'm generally okay with them except in the one instance of dragons, where the gulf between AC and touch AC is so monumental.
Black dragons in a swamp have the advantage of swimming under water. Water provides total cover, which means even if he hits, he has a 50% miss chance, and then on top of that, unlike arrows, bullets have little or no penetration on water (a foot of water will stop a bullet but only slow down an arrow due to the speed differences). Plus water bad for powder. :)
There are other spells that ruin any ranged attacker, like obscuring mist, by the time he can see the dragon, the dragon can full attack him. No gunslinger can go toe to toe with a CR appropriate dragon hand to hand. The dragon will make mince meat of him, and if he's losing, the dragon can fly straight up and breath the entire obscured mist area.
Again, though, this is tactics. There is nothing mechanical you can do other than boosting the dragon's touch AC (deflection bonus, dex boosts). One thing you might want to consider is giving the dragon some class levels in Monk (Wisdom to Touch AC for the win). Other than that, it's tactics, just like it's tactics for the gunslinger to use his abilities to his advantage (not closing too close, etc).
It's really not as serious as all that.
If your dragon is fighting PCs in close range, you're doing it wrong.
Dragons are powerful and intelligent creatures. They would never fight the party in a disadvantageous situation. If they are in such a situation, they'll take the fight elsewhere or simply fly/run away, even if they have to take attacks of opportunity to do so.
Thus, a dragon should never let a gunslinger fire within their first increment. And even then, the dragon should have other ways to deal with them.
In my experience, a dragon should NEVER actually get killed by the party unless someone crits. A dragon is too intelligent. If he's going to lose, he's going to see it, and he's going to retreat. No, he doesn't want to lose his hoard, but, he can always get a new hoard, he can't get a new life.
On top of that, he can always hunt down adventurers and retrieve his hoard (or he can hire other adventurers to hunt them down, this can turn into a recurring villain).
Anytime I hear about a dragon being killed, it's usually because he was played by the GM as being a monumental moron, someone who didn't fight tactically, didn't use his spells, his flight (which is a huge tactical advantage), didn't full attack, etc. Someone who let the tank keep him busy rather than target the spellcaster/cleric/gunslinger/etc first, and leave the crunchy snack for last.
I've had at least two dragons die during the retreat - they realize they're losing, turn around to leave, and get shot (and critted for some reason) from behind from the party's archer, dropping them into negatives and causing them to plummet to their demise.
Perhaps they should have left earlier, but it's amazing how quickly HP can drop...
1st: Are you allowing "advanced" firearms?
2nd: How available are magical firearms/ammunition in your campaign?
By not really allowing either of these concepts nto your world makes a huge difference. I could argue all day that the introduction of mechanical/industrial devices replaces the magical devices of an older generation. I Pathfinder gives rules for magical firearms/ammunition, but would a magic-user really enchant/craft such a device that could alter the course of his/her own destiny? Technology is generally in opposition of Magic.
I've had at least two dragons die during the retreat - they realize they're losing, turn around to leave, and get shot (and critted for some reason) from behind from the party's archer, dropping them into negatives and causing them to plummet to their demise.Perhaps they should have left earlier, but it's amazing how quickly HP can drop...
Yep, I usually have them bail at 25%, and then heal up and come back for one last pass or two and then retreat. Then they plot revenge for a couple of years, and show back up down the road in game. :)
I have had a couple end up cutting it too close and losing initiative and getting hosed, or critted as yours did. Still, that's evolution in action. :)
I think this has interesting ingame implications for dragons reaction to guns and gunslingers in general. They should probably be very wary of them and opposed to gun manufacture.
Although I could see a house rule where you apply maybe a third or a quarter of your natural and or armour bonus to AC vs the gun touch attack. (Do magic bonuses count?)
A 2inch thick dragonscale should offer at least some protection as should imho the heaviest of heavy armors.(that dwarven stone armor?)
Armour as DR with a Defense Bonus System. I use 1/2 B.A.B. rounded down with a minimum of 0. It nerfs Casters and Gunslingers.
depending on the dragon I'd would :
displacement and mirror image to make AC less relevant, wall of force to provide (invisible) cover and split up the party, obscurement to make targeting from far harder, false life, mage armor and stoneskin increase his durability.
Use grapples, flight and breath weapons strategically, abuse his immunities and resistances with area traps, environmental hazzards and area spells cast by minions.
The dragon probably has time to prepare if the gunslinger fired his guns anywhere near his lair, possibly have a scrying spell handy and use what the dragon learns against them.
I think a clever dragon is a challenge for any party, don't panick and just play the dragon smart, have it retreat if things go badly, healing spells might get him ready for another round sooner than the pcs expect.
Dragons have keen sense. If they don't recognize the smell its time to start buffing. If the dragon's default spells are not that good change them. Disarming the gun is also a good idea. Fight in an area that is to the dragon's advantage also. Having him in a cavern where he can't fly might not be a good idea no matter what the module says.