Turning Dragotha

[OutlawJT]

I just wanted to post my frustration. Our group just completed the battle against Dragotha last night. We had a solid strategy going in but there was an inordinate amount of buffs stacked against us to prevent it from being possible. Basically, my character with every buff he can get going and a decent roll can turn a 47 HD undead (something he had kept a close guarded secret for a long time leading up to this fight, never using all his turn resources no matter how desperate a fight looked) and he can destroy anything he turns instantly. In the first round we even threw down a Consecrate to negate some of the penalties we anticipated I would be facing. STILL wasn't enough somehow!!!! I almost maxed my turn check (so I could turn the 47 HD without trouble) and made the turn damage for that without even rolling.

Our GM wouldn't break down HOW Dragotha managed to resist that, just saying that I had been unexpectedly close. Would've been nice to know how he stood up to it after the battle was over.

Anyways, we had to go on to win the battle the hard way. We ended up narrowly winning because Dragotha fled using plane shift and a Solar our favored soul gated in cast miracle to ask his deity (Kord thank goodness) to pull Dragotha back to finish the fight instead of letting him flee like a coward. A lucky percentile roll to let that work and a Con draining nova attack from one of us later and Dragotha was dusted. Still, Could've been an epic 2 round battle of 'I can't believe he just did that'. Instead we had to slug it out the hard way for 6 rounds, in spite of considerable investment and months of discreet research IC to specifically avoid that.

[Cylyria]

Well, my guess is that the GM decided that since Dragotha is supposed to be one of the top 2 fights in the AP, that 1-shotting him wasn't gonna happen. I know when my group gets to this fight there will be nothing like that going on.

What abilities/feats/prestige classes are you using to get to insta-gib a 47hd undead?

[wordelo]

I've actually seen dragotha's stats, and I don't want to go against your DM for not telling you but I'll just say that 47 is simply not enough.

and what he said ^^^ so even if you did have enough it probably still wouldn't happen. there is a such thing as unturnable undead. death knight in MM2.

[Angelus789]

Holy necromancy Batman!

But yeah, I'm on the GM's side on this one as well. There are some 1-shot-I-WIN combos that both players and GMs alike should just have a gentleman's agreement just won't work.

Using said combo during the epic battle against an opponent that a majority of the AoW have been building up to is among those things.

It's about the same level as having some bard max out his Diplomacy to +107 by the end of the campagin.

Que the FINAL BATTLE AGAINST KYUSS!

Epic ++diplomacy player: "I tell Kyuss that he's a ducebag, and that I want him to serve me for all eternity. And grant me 9719027309 gp worth of stuff. Oh, and I tell him his mother was a hamster." -rollrollroll- "My modified Diplomacy check is 110... I suppose you are going to hit me twice with the -2 modififer, but according to the rules for Epic use of Diplomacy, Kyuss is now a fanatical follower of me. We win guys!"

[Kobold Catgirl]

Equally Dickish GM: "Yeah, that sounds like an Intimidate check. What's your bonus in that? +20? Ooh, too bad..."

[Sir Gallhand]

Cylyria wrote:

Well, my guess is that the GM decided that since Dragotha is supposed to be one of the top 2 fights in the AP, that 1-shotting him wasn't gonna happen. I know when my group gets to this fight there will be nothing like that going on.

What abilities/feats/prestige classes are you using to get to insta-gib a 47hd undead?

I am also curious about that build. I have built turn specialist clerics before and never got close to that high.

[Tiaximus]

A lot of 3.5 classes had some pretty ridiculous powers. There was some Pelor worshiping class or prestige class that could blast the pants off of undead, so there might have been some of the non-pathfinder stuff involved.

Or maybe they honestly just don't know how to do turn undead right.

[Turin the Mad]

The tail end of 3.5 had where, if you really tricked out for it, including the Pelor-specific PrC, you could definitely take down high-HD undead. I know I had a cleric in AoW that could have done so. It took a combination of a specific PrC, certain feats, alternative class features and magic items to do it, but by the time Dragotha is in the equation, it's difficult, but possible.

IIRC, 3e undead generally had a low CR-per-HD because, well, undead HD kinda sucked eggs as the default rule wasn't that they gained Cha bonus to hp instead of the +0 hp/HD for a -- CON. Later MM undead showed up with "unholy grace" or whatever as a special ability that provided the PF-default-to-undead-type bonus we're now familiar with.

It was because of the 'higher CR undead have gobs of racial HD' that the PrC came into play to begin with. Irony.

[Mykull]

I bet Dragotha was thinking to itself, "Self, you know you're the only dracolich, right? And you know there's this map of the White Plume Mountain region that points right toward you, right? And, Self, let's be honest, you work for a guy who wants to bring about the end of basically all life in the realm, right? Hmmm, ya might want to stock up on some anti-positive energy stuff. I hear Demogorgon's death knights can't even be turned anymore. Self, you should definitely check that out."