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How to assassinate a dragon...?

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Through an odd confluence of fortune and foolishness, my players now stand on an interesting precipice. They have a singular opportunity to neatly wrap up a number of troubling loose ends and secure a powerful alliance with a single maneuver. The catch of course is that pulling off said maneuver is all but impossible using only the resources available within the party.

As they reached this point through active and engaged roleplay, I would like to give them a fighting chance. Doing so without overshadowing their own contributions will be tricky however.

Mission: Assassinate a cautiously allied dragon in the midst of a larger air battle. They must do so in a single round or risk exposure as treachers.

They are an non-optimized, presently under-equipped and over-sized 11th level party consisting: Ninja, Barbarian, Ranger (2WF), Cleric (Travel), Inquisitor and 2 Sorcerers (Aberrant and Protean). The dragon is a blue, approximately CR 18. The battle will be extremely dangerous in its own right, so it is probably best to assume they will be trying this while significantly depleted.

What would you do to give them a helping hand without rendering the party and the encounter irrelevant?

Anything that deals DEX damage... poison, spells, etc. Once it is paralyzed, coup de grace at will.
Grand Lodge

An air battle, huh? Well, everything that flies needs to be able to see to steer safely. Come up with a way to blind the dragon, and it'll almost surely look like an accident. Especially since in a large air battle, everyone else will be more focused on their own foes rather than every single partner. A lot can happen very quickly in a big fight, and it's often not till the smoke clears that folks start to talk and sort out the details.

An 11th level party needs to one-round a CR 18 dragon? They themselves are not going to be able to do this. They should choose their moment to strike to coincide when the battle is particularly fierce. Ideally, whatever they do, should be more focused on disorienting the dragon or merely weakening it so that the battle at large will easily kill the dragon in the next round while avoiding a similar fate themselves. Otherwise, they stand no chance.

Just a couple of thoughts -

Allow some retraining, temperary or permenant as you see fit. Let the ranger swap something for favored enemy dragon, sorcerers change out a spell, barbarian change a rage power or a feat, ect. Let them make a single change that will help them optimize for the encounter. Don't allow something they wouldn't normally have access to.

Allow for conditions so that the players will get the ambush. For an example - Make a condition that allows for invisibility and something like 90' fly speed. The fantastic fly speed is lost when invisibilty breaks. With proper planning it should keep them out of the dragon's blindsense and allow an ambush (Surprise round 0 + normal round 1) to hopefully get a quick kill.

Presumably since the PCs will have drained resources the dragon will too. Hopefully it isn't at full strength when fighting the players either.

Some good trick that binds its wings should do the trick. Perhaps a few dabs of soverign glue in the right places? Hell, I'd they could incapicate/sever just one wing mid flight that should do the trick assuming its flying high enough.

I'll think about it. May have some other ideas.

Ohh! Release a bag of shadows on it mid flight. Incorporeal strength draining touch attacks. 0 str= plummet to the ground.

Or

Necklace of strangulation would so the job if they can get one.

Shrink item attached to a manacle. 1) attach manacle 2) readied action to unshrink giant anvil (or whatever) 3) profit.
Shadow Lodge

Anything that will prevent it from taking move actions will send it plummeting to the ground. Assuming the fight is taking place between 200 and 600 feet in the air, cursing, stunning it, or any of those will cause it to fall the entire distance in one round.

The only problem, fall damage maxes out at 20d6, or about 70 damage.

A CR 18 Blue Dragon has 324 hp, so just making it fall won't do the trick.

I like the dex damage idea. He's only got 8 dex, so if you can do that in one turn, you'll be golden. If the ninja has Pressure points, he can do about 4 dex damage with a full round attack. Add some poisons, spells, and other such on there, and you should be able to do it.

Search the srd for "Dexterity Damage" and look only at the spell results. Fleshworm Infestation's good.

3 doses of Waters of Maddening, which is stupid good, should be enough to do it. 4 just to be sure. If you are pretending to be on his side, anointing him mid combat should be easy.

After he hits 0 dex, he will drop from the sky. Your heroes go to "make sure he's okay." Then, coup-de-gras and return with the sad news that the fall killed him.

Ahh. I didn't realize the falling rules were capped.

*blink* so how is killing the dragon any use at all in a game where an escape from death is 5000 gp away?

If I am understanding this battle, they don't need to kill the dragon, they just need to make the dragon the focal point of enemy attacks until it's dead without being caught doing so.

Of course doing that might make them the NEXT target of an enemy that just killed a dragon that they couldn't kill on their own.

So the most important question to me is whether the party needs to have "their side" win the bigger battle but have the dragon killed, or if having the dragon killed is really the only critical aspect of the battle.

If they need to win the overall battle, then they'll probably need the dragon to help them until the battle is virtually won, which will make the timing tricky.

You still need someone to cast it or a contingency spell on you. If you destroy the body only a true resurrection, miracle or wish is going to be of use.

I think there's going to have to be a gm fiat of some kind. Just the right cursed item or a one time use high level spell effect.

A magic jar that was heightened could do the trick. Just needs to beat sr and the will save.

If they REALLY need it to die, but don't quite have the resources a at the moment, I'm sure Asmodeus or one of his associates would be MORE than happy to lend them a hand :]

Buri, you're quite right. On paper this would be a completely one-sided massacre. I don't especially want that to happen. In sandbox style play there's always the risk of getting in over one's head, but in this case I want to reward the very enjoyable roleplay that took us in this direction instead of handing them a gruesome death out of hand. And if they follow your sound advice, my job will be easier... though I don't expect it. They've been plagued by recurring villains a bit too much to leave it to chance.

I like the idea of poison, but the timing of its use will be tricky. A great idea if it occurs to the PCs, but I don't think I can have it occur offstage. Wingbinding, or even a failed attempt at wingbinding that briefly encumbers the beast sounds good and clouds of smoke will be an entirely believable part of fog of war. Retraining is another thing that will have to be at the party's initiative, but I'm always open to it within reason.

Shadows are out. There will actually be a number of them present, along with the lich that has been throwing them against the PCs throughout the campaign. But if they play a major role it will be perceived as having their glory stolen by an NPC, which is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to avoid.

Taking these ideas together I think I know how I shall proceed. The 'powerful alliance' I alluded to is with a red dragon. An elixir that allows the party to share in his smoke vision would allow them to operate with relative impunity for a round or two when the blue, his mobility impaired by wingbinding and Dex damage, disappears into the inevitable smoke left behind by this or that fireball. Give them a slightly expanded crit range to represent the rents in the dragon's hide and of course significantly reduced hp and they might pull it off.

Of course if they fail to do so promptly, they'll royally piss him off and then they're one breath weapon away from dead. Pretty much as it should be.

@Adamantine Dragon, the party's side needs to win. Specifically they need to win just barely, so that most of the combatants are in no shape to become a threat again anytime soon. So yes, timing will be critical.

@Broken Zenith, you're quite right in that a fall could do much of their work for them, but this definitely falls into the realm of 'if the players think of it, great'.

@Movin, the party has reason to believe that Contingency is no longer in effect on the dragon, as it very recently escaped another big battle by that method. And should it die, there are various elements in play that will keep it from coming back anytime soon. Call that the DM fiat if you will. When they made it clear this was something the party wanted to do, I opted to set a stage that shied away from 'futile and impossible'.

@Zefig, Any other time I'd be happy to tempt them with a deal with the devil, but there's already a fair amount of that going on in the campaign. Going that route would mean denying the players the opportunity to feel like they are at least a little bit in control, which I don't wish to do.

The Dex damage option is a good one, though unfortunately difficult to come by at 11th level. Waves of Exhaustion has no save and reduces Dex by 6, allowing for a moderate poison application to finish off the rest in a round or so. However it's a 7th level spell. Polar Ray is similarly good against Dragons but similarly high level. Poison is not an amazing option unless they can hit him with a Bestow Curse or other save-reducing abilities, and catch him with a particularly concentrated dose. Dragons tend to have high fort saves.

It poses an interesting challenge for sure, and I would be interested to hear the outcome. I like your idea of waylaying him under a cloud of smoke giving them some extra time to get the job done, but as you mentioned, that is VERY dangerous.

Good luck!

letting them kill a CR 18 dragon in one round would be cheapening the dragon too much in my opinion. Perhaps the dragon is using a simulacrum instead of coming himself, though I do not have a very good idea what that should look like I'd go with something like :

12 HD Gargantuan Dragon, hp 162

feats weapon focus (bite), improved critical (bite), combat casting, improved initiative, hover, multi-attack.

bluff, intimidate, perception, spellcraft, survival, knowledge (arcana, geography, history, local) +20 all, stealth +2, fly +0.

saves F +15, R +7, W +13

bite +21 (4d6+18/19-20), 2 claws +20 (2d8+12), 2 wings +20 (2d6+6), tail slap +20 (2d8+18)

breathweapon (120 ft line, 10d8, DC 23), frightful presence (300', DC 21), crush (4d6+18, DC 23), desert thirst (DC 23)

sorcerer level 6 spells known : 7/4/2/1

lvl 0 - same but remove bleed and mending

lvl 1 - mage armor, shield, true strike, unseen servant

lvl 2 - false life, resist energy

lvl 3 - haste

spells/day X/8/6/4

CMB +28, CMD +37 (41 vs trip), concentration +11

SLA (CL 12) ghost sound, minor image

electric aura 1d6 5'

SR 24* (from 29)
AC 31* (from 36)

All other stats should be the same.

I estimate the CR at 13, so that is what I based the SR on. The AC should be lowered some I guess, I would lower it by 5 points or so.
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Give the dragon a stove pipe hat, have it free its minions (slaves) then get it some tickets to the theater
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Clearly the party needs an explosive powerful enough to blast a whole in the fabric of reality that leads to the astral plane.

AO, if they were taking the dragon on alone I could see that. However, they're just a small part in a large battle. Weird stuff happens during a fight. It could work.

Indeed, Raelynn, ye olde bag of holding and portable hole trick. Probably requires a sacrifical pc, but they may be able to rig a mechanical trap to glue onto it then jump away.

It's not dead, but it is lost, and maybe that works better for the party anyways.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Killing most dragons (and most any other creature) is really easy. Just throw some dust of choking and sneezing in their face, then coup de grace them with Dastardly Finish. The ultimate one-two combo.

You could always give the players a scroll of Shivering Touch (Frostburn 3.5) but that's not always a good idea. Definitely limiting it to a one off is best if used.

RD, that's amazing. That pretty much just changed my rogue's standard gear from here on out.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Cult of Vorg wrote:

Indeed, Raelynn, ye olde bag of holding and portable hole trick. Probably requires a sacrifical pc, but they may be able to rig a mechanical trap to glue onto it then jump away.

It's not dead, but it is lost, and maybe that works better for the party anyways.

There is also the possible side effect of him returning as elder evil from beyond the stars fighting dragon jesus.

Shadow Lodge

Do any of the casters have access to Calcific Touch? It deals a d4 of Dex damage on a touch. With enough scrolls of it, they could guarantee him going to 0 Dex in one round, which would petrify him. When the dragon-statue falls from the sky, it'll shatter on the ground, and it'll just look like some wizard got lucky with a Flesh to Stone.

If they have NO WAY of doing this through straight up combat then you could do a "Rule of Names" thing where they have to go on a long freaking adventure, find a rival dragon that is in human form and hiding using his polymorph abilities, force him to reveal his true nature and make THOSE dragons have an epic battle.

If this has all happened because of roleplay, roleplay ends it neatly.. It avoids the "traitor" thing because the other dragon did the dirty work...

.....but it also means that there is a new dragon to contend with....

<dramatic music>

@Sesharan, I am unfamiliar with Calcific Touch. It almost certainly isn't on the Sorcerers' lists and neither of them can scribe scrolls anyhow.

@Rob Duncan, The party was already working on such a 'Rule of Names' approach to their larger troubles. This opportunity depicts the party's attempt to shorten that longer adventure with something of a hail mary play that takes a lot of complications off the board all at once.

@Raelynn, Explosively tearing open a planar breach of any kind is a fun trick but not a subtle one. Now if the party wants to go that route, fine, but I don't expect them to find it prudent.

I don't believe I framed some elements of the situation properly. Offing the dragon (his name is Nihil), is only a means to an end. He's not a pivotal foe of the campaign and the immediate battle can be won whether he lives or dies. But if the party goes big here, they risk exposure and prominence, something they desperately wish to avoid because the whole campaign focuses on would-be heroes playing entirely out of their weight class. As such, I expect they're going to try for subtlety over flash. A number of ideas here are perfectly acceptable in my book. The worst that happens is that they deprive themselves of the tense fun of the encounter and we just move on.

Do you use the Hero Point rules? Now would be a great time to use a Hero Point. Or 3.

Baleful polymorph? Assuming you can overcome SR 29 and a +21 Fort negate, +19 will to the save...

Creative casting might save the day. Do the sorcerers have the ability to create magical distractions allowing the party to win the day and stay under the radar?
Silver Crusade

Calcific Touch is a level 4 sorcerer/wizard spell. They wouldn't have to scribe the scroll themselves, just buy a few already scribed. Or spend 3000g gold buying a wand of it with 50 charges. Or 2 wands with 25 charges. Or 5 wands with 10 charges.

I'm sure you get the point.
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Ask a Thrush
Thomas Long 175 wrote:
Ask a Thrush

Sadly, the only red dragon in the story is the one the party is trying to ally with. Thrushes, what with the whole ancient enmity thing and all, would probably just add complications and can't really be trusted. I can see it now... the party unfurls their desperate plan only to be thwarted before it began by an irate dragon. "How did you know?" they cry. "A little bird told me".

Dang it... now I kind of want to add that in.

@B.A. Ironskull, We use something similar to the Hero Point system and I expect it to come into play. Numerous distractions are available to the party and hopefully they will choose to make use of some. This is not a strong area for the players and I'll try to nudge them in that direction.

@Bigdaddyjug, I quite like the visual provided for that spell and if that's the way the party wants to go, the resource will prove fairly easy to come by. If they start asking for ideas I'll even throw it their way. After recent nasty encounters involving spell reflection, the debate ought to prove quite entertaining.

Given the will save , baleful polymorph is one option ...

Bestow Curse > Amnesia. :D

But, anyway, let us know how it goes!
Ravingdork wrote:
Killing most dragons (and most any other creature) is really easy. Just throw some dust of choking and sneezing in their face, then coup de grace them with Dastardly Finish. The ultimate one-two combo.

If any sane GM allows this they deserve the outcome. Making specific cursed items like this is taking the rules and bending them until they scream.

Don't forget the dragon's SR, any spell you use against the dragon will have to defeat it's 29 SR. A caster level well below 20 will have a hard time doing so.

Mutliple Touch of Gracelessness into Ray of Exhaustion / Bone Shatter. The biggest problem would be getting past it's SR enough times. You could stack the odds in your favor with a trip to ye' olde' necromancer shop for some scrolls and making sure the party has good UMD. That way all the party memeber can join in on the fun.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

No love for Dunkelzahn and Super Tuesdays?

Getting past that SR is going to be the big problem.

16,000 pound iron ingot heated red/white hot, shrink item, bluff "let me feed you this healing potion." Command word to re size the iron, dragon goes pop?

I once killed a dragon by throwing a feather token tree in its mouth and then activating.
Tree: A token that causes a great oak to spring into being (5-foot-diameter trunk, 60-foot height, 40-foot top diameter). This is an instantaneous effect.
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