So, I've gotten in a wonky game where some of us play Great Wyrm dragons (30HD), and other players play dragon hunters (lvl 15-20). I've elected to be one of the dragons, and selected silver as my species. Now, since I am an average player where it comes to Pathfinder, and because I expect the hunters to be cheesed out, I'd love some advice on how to survive encounters with these hunters once they inevitably find my lair. For purposes of 'balance' (hahah, how precious), I start without money (my hoard just got stolen). Other then that, we're free game. I need some build advice (feats, spells) and some information on what to expect of these cheesed out dragon hunters and some tactics on how to counter them. I was hoping you lovely folk here could help me with that.
Oh, and no 3.5. It's banned. Pure pathfinder.
Antimagic field. Cast it first and go for the guys who rely on gear aka the fighters. If the antimagic field stops cast feeblemind on the arcane casters and watch them bug out when their int and cha drop to 1.
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Heh nothing special really, you have 30 HD, so like what 15 feats? and as a great wyrm you have sorcerer spells known as CL 19, which by the way for a silver dragon you get to cherry pick from the cleric and sorcerer/wizard spell lists as arcane spells. But something to keep in mind, since you start with no gold/treasure some spells are terribly useless to you at the moment.
like you would be tempted to take gate or wish as spell known but without money, these 9th level spells are terribly useless. Not sure how long your party plan to have you without money.
Also as a silver dragon, you can take advantage of change shape to walk around as any kind of humanoid, yeah don't show up as a dragon catch them by surprise.
Antimagic field. Cast it first and go for the guys who rely on gear aka the fighters. If the antimagic field stops cast feeblemind on the arcane casters and watch them bug out when their int and cha drop to 1.
Antimagic field is too small.
Heh nothing special really, you have 30 HD, so like what 15 feats? and as a great wyrm you have sorcerer spells known as CL 19, which by the way for a silver dragon you get to cherry pick from the cleric and sorcerer/wizard spell lists as arcane spells. But something to keep in mind, since you start with no gold/treasure some spells are terribly useless to you at the moment.
like you would be tempted to take gate or wish as spell known but without money, these 9th level spells are terribly useless. Not sure how long your party plan to have you without money.
Also as a silver dragon, you can take advantage of change shape to walk around as any kind of humanoid, yeah don't show up as a dragon catch them by surprise.
Oh I'll get money in time, and there is no party, just me solo.
Oh yeah, sorry bout that. My group has a house rule that antimagic field extends 10 ft from the caster, a lot of groups have similar rules as well so ask your gm. If not you can have the widen spell metamagic feat for a 20ft radius to make it 10ft from you. You said 30hd, great wyrm silver dragons only have 29hd, do you get 1 level of a class because that brings in a whole bag of fun or just an additional hit die?
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alright here's what I would do if I am solo:
9th- Time Stop, Shapechange (Keep a scroll of wish around when you get money), shapechange will cover a lot of basic and help you keep alive rather easily, time stop is just a beast.
8th - Greater spell Immunity, Prismatic Wall, Polymorph Any Object, [choose whatever spell you want]
7th- Spell Turning, Greater Teleport (you need to go places] , 2 other spells you can choose
6th - Heal (best healing spell ever), Contingency , choose rest of spells.
Polymorph Any Object.
Polymorph something in your lair to look exactly like you, so that the inevitable first round nova hits the mouse you had around looking like you since last morning.
Oh yeah, sorry bout that. My group has a house rule that antimagic field extends 10 ft from the caster, a lot of groups have similar rules as well so ask your gm. If not you can have the widen spell metamagic feat for a 20ft radius to make it 10ft from you. You said 30hd, great wyrm silver dragons only have 29hd, do you get 1 level of a class because that brings in a whole bag of fun or just an additional hit die?
Hmmm, it would definately make it worth it. It would mean my damage resistance works and in a Magicless melee I'll kick the behind of anything getting close, I would think.
Polymorph Any Object.
Polymorph something in your lair to look exactly like you, so that the inevitable first round nova hits the mouse you had around looking like you since last morning.
Precious. :)
alright here's what I would do if I am solo:
9th- Time Stop, Shapechange (Keep a scroll of wish around when you get money), shapechange will cover a lot of basic and help you keep alive rather easily, time stop is just a beast.
8th - Greater spell Immunity, Prismatic Wall, Polymorph Any Object, [choose whatever spell you want]
7th- Spell Turning, Greater Teleport (you need to go places] , 2 other spells you can choose
6th - Heal (best healing spell ever), Contingency , choose rest of spells.
Why shapechange exactly? All the others I agree with except greater teleport. Normal Teleport would suffice I think, and with quicken spell a great escape trick.
A few more notes:
Quicken Spell-Like Ability (fog cloud) is a must have, as well as Quicken Spell with Obscuring Mist. With your Fog-Sight this should lend you a significant advantage against ranged attackers, and even melee will have issues.
Also, you have control weather at will. The weather around your lair should never be anything but incredibly foggy. Massively foggy, and perhaps even stormy weather to ruin ranged attacks.
Action economy will be the largest challenge for you, by far. If you have any means of knowing your enemies are coming, use them. Alarm, a 1st level spell, can be cast at crucial travelling locations if necessary.
Stone shape may be another option for you. Feel free to stone shape yourself into your lair, then teleport in and out as needed. I'm unsure of the terms of your combat, but never fight in a situation where your opposition has you surprised if at all possible.
High level magic is a crazy game to play and often whoever acts first can win. I wish you the best of luck and may your horde grow plentiful!
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If they're coming to attack you in your lair....
Make a tunnel that goes straight down (stone shape? there's gotta be some spell), with a big pool of lava sitting at the bottom of it. Make sure you know they're coming, some alarm spell or something. But make an antimagic field near the bottom of the tunnel. If they're flying from the use of any kind of spell, it'll go off and they'll plop down into the lava. You're waiting at the edge of the lava pool to say "hello" to them.
A good tip. They are expecting a Silver Dragon and will be expecting cold damage. Pack a few fire, lightning, or acid spells to throw the party for a loop. For a 4th level spell Dragon's Breath is pretty decent, with maximize and/or empower on it potentially deadly, and can throw off some potential pc's. "Wait, did that silver dragon just breath fire?"
Great advice guys, keep it coming!
How do I stick an antimagic field somewhere permanently?
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Probably easiest way would be to make it a trap but you could just cast it when you know that they are coming. Cast the spell alarm at the entrance of your dungeon, so you get a mental alert that they crossed inside. Prepare the antimagic field. after all antimagic field last 10 min/cl which means 190 min at cl 19.
Probably easiest way would be to make it a trap but you could just cast it when you know that they are coming. Cast the spell alarm at the entrance of your dungeon, so you get a mental alert that they crossed inside. Prepare the antimagic field. after all antimagic field last 10 min/cl which means 190 min at cl 19.
... but it's centered on myself.
You'll actually want to take Eschew Materials, since otherwise you need a spell component pouch, and you apparently aren't allowed to start with one.
Bleh, there are so many things that would be good to have and that you can't use because you've been hamstrung budget-wise. (Like spell-turning, or a scroll of Clone).
I assume your lair also has no defenses.
I'm curious as to whether the DM will change his mind about the dragons having no treasure once a couple of the dragons get curb-stomped.
As a silver dragon, you should have friends and allies, and you're probably protector of a region, and SHOULD be able to call upon some substantial help if your hoard got stolen and you know murderhobos are coming for you.
Take leadership.
A permanent anti-magic field would require money, which you don't have.
You're a silver dragon. Live in a cloud if your regular lair is stripped of defenses and you can't get allies. Edit: Yeah, you should totally make them fight you inside of a cloud. You can see fine. They can't see jack-squat. You can have full concealment against them at all times if you do it right.
Avoid melee unless you're confident you'll get a kill. You don't beat Stoneskin, so you're only going to do 1/2 to 2/3rds of your full damage. Though, one hilarious option - take Dimension Door as a 4th level spell, and take Dimensional Agility, Dimensional Assualt, and Dimensional Dervish. If you do this while hasted you can essentially take 7 attacks on someone who closed with you and then blip away 60 ft. Though if your opponents know what they're doing, they'll be able to close with you again immediately.
Oh, wow. True Courage is a COOL ability - you have a better version of Die Hard, and when killed you get one more round where you can act normally. In light of what that does, be sure to take Quicken Spell, and take Deathless as a 4th level spell. While it's out of the Mythic book, you can still take the non-mythic version of the spell.
While Deathless is up, you can heal yourself normally. So if you get stabbed to death, you can use your True Courage round to do something like Quickened Deathless -> Time Stop -> Cast a couple Heals and some other goodies. True Courage doesn't actually have an activation limit, so it'll kick in every time you're re-killed, allowing you to fix being killed, until the dragon hunters think to do something that physically destroys you, like Disintegrate.
Miracle isn't a bad choice for a 9th level spell - it gives you enormous flexibility for spell duplication (only costing money if the duped spell does), and becomes MUCH more interesting if you ever get money.
For a 7th level spell, Bestow Grace of the Champion is a cool option. No matter what it'll give you +8 or so to your saving throws. If you can confirm that one of the dragon hunters is evil, the Smite from this spell will let you tear that person to pieces - +Cha hit, +9 damage, ignore DR, etc.
Mind blank is a great choice for an 8th level spell - you're immune to divination while it's up, making your VASTLY harder to locate and hunt down, and making greater invisibility, displacement, and mirror image viable defensive spells. Or disguising yourself as normal person while blending into a town.
And don't hesitate to teleport away - if you have no hoard or allies to defend, whatever cause you serve won't benefit from you allowing a bunch of psychos to kill you and skin you.
Actually, if you have no hoard or allies to defend, there's no reason for you to even be in a lair. Go human form, mind blank yourself, and go into the mortal lands to find who the hell took your hoard. You're untraceable if you want to be.
That's... that's hopefully enough for now.
While you are waiting for them go do what dragons do go raid and pillage and plunder villages (just not the ones too close to your cave) build up your horde make "friends" with a magic blacksmith have him make you magical armor
Just thought of this can the dragons team up? I assume all dragons lost thier gold so they all in same boat teaming up makes to where 5 dragon hunters might be able to kill one dragon but can they kill 4 dragons?
Edit: some people would say dragons won't team up due to pride or something but dragons are fairly intelligent so I think if it was life or death only red dragons would choose death or a prideless thing to do
There are actually a few silver dragons in the game (and a few other metallic dragons) so cooperation is far from impossible, although since all are great wyrms there's probably a lot of ego involved.
Already considered Leadership, checking with the DM to see if he's ok with it.
Really loving the widened Antimagic field idea. It hurts the dragon hunters more then it hurts you I think, since dragons aren't gear dependant.
Spellbane (9th level) against Antimagic Field, Dimensional Anchor, Mage's Disjunction.
Now you're immune to those three, so the Antimagic Field you have on yourself wont get rid of buffs (such as fog cloud, heroism, haste, mage armor, shield, greater invisibility, mind blank, resist elements, greater magic fang, freedom of movement, mirror image, righteous might, etc.) and yet they still have to fight without buffs near you.
Contingency (Teleport or Planeshift), upon the condition that you think to yourself "I'd like to go to my happy place instead of be here". Since you are immune to dimensional anchor, there are very limited ways they can prevent your escape.
Protect from Scrying via Mind Blank every day.
Teleport Trap + Blood Money + Heal (or Lesser Restoration) means that you take some strength damage, which you quickly repair, and can still ward your lair against Teleportation even with no money for 19 days.
Your frightful presence dragon power is Charisma based, so increasing your charisma via items or spells increases it's DC.
Charm Monster + Polymorph Any Object can help you fill your lair with many dragons that want to stick around and be your friends.
Dazing Explosive Runes make for great stocking stuffers for curious adventurers. Feel free to line the walls of your lair with them.
Your touch armor class and dexterity stat are your biggest weaknesses. Try to find ways to shore up your defenses against them if at all possible.
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Use fabricate to craft a suit of armor for yourself. Just dig out your layer of rock by turning it all into diamonds, there you have money now, and a lot of it. Use said fabricate to craft a suit of mithral breastplate, or a mithral chainshirt. Use fabricate to get material components for all the spells you want to cast. If you want to be really mean baleful polymorph a pc into a spider and use them as the spell component for a spiderclimb spell.
I would love to be a dragon in this game lol might of chosen a umbral dragon they seem meaner
That's not how Spellbane interacts with Antimagic field, Randomroll. :)
New developments;
1: I can pick 90 HD worth of monsters to protect my lair (although it has to be cleared with the DM first, so no tarrasque I think).
2: I know there's at least 2 Zen archers among the opposition that will try to hunt me. Any tips on how to counter those?
That's not how Spellbane interacts with Antimagic field, Randomroll. :)
New developments;
1: I can pick 90 HD worth of monsters to protect my lair (although it has to be cleared with the DM first, so no tarrasque I think).
2: I know there's at least 2 Zen archers among the opposition that will try to hunt me. Any tips on how to counter those?
Hire a dwarven clan of zen archers? Or maybe two of their champions or something. Maybe a few cloud giants to build your fortress in the sky if you really want one.
Post got eaten! You're right about spellbane, I'll let my twinky caster friend know.
Good alignex outsiders and swarms may be good use of protective minions.
Have minions sunder bows or quivers if possible. Spell "fickle winds" to help with archers, as well as fog spells.
One of the weaknesses I see is that a dragon has a very low touch AC. Any way to boost that to the levels of my normal AC?
Raising touch AC is pretty hard, so getting it up to the 40-something of your regular AC probably won't happen.
Unless your DM allows Dreamscarred Press psionics, in which case you could take a Tactician ally or cohort.
Even then, Cat's Grace would give you a +2 Dex bonus; a Shield of Faith at 18th level will give you +5 deflection; a psionic character could give you a +6 to +8 insight bonus; blessing of fervor can give you +2 dodge. And that's all I can think of at the moment that'll help touch AC without taking a level of monk, which would also let you add your wisdom.
90 HD of critters...
Planetars or Star Archons would be great allies, since they're tough and pack a lot of spellcasting.
Thematically, you could also have another silver dragon between age categories 6 to 12 to represent your current mate. Whatever the GM lets you get away with.
Mirror Image and concealment spells are your best tools to defend against touch attacks, from what I've been able to figure out. Wish I had a better answer than that for you, but without magic items being available for purchase I think those are your best bet.
That, and frlying while projecting a widened antimagic aura, I think. Most hunters don't have natural flight. :)
For a silver dragon, that fire vulnerability is troublesome. Might grab resist energy or protection and cast that, in case AM field goes away.
That, and frlying while projecting a widened antimagic aura, I think. Most hunters don't have natural flight. :)
Ask your gm what optional combat rules from the UC are being used. If you guys are using called shots your wings can get clipped since they extend outside of the bubble.
Most of the questions you will want to address is how much of that 90HD of lair defense can be spent on Spies and agents. Frankly at the level you are playing knowledge about your foes is going to be far more important than any static defenses in your home.
in fact were I given the choice I would just use the whole 90HD for a global network of spies and informants any critter that could live in your Lair with you strong enough to be a threat at that level also runs the risk of being turned on you.
Now if you can just go nuts for an agent I would pick a Veiled master with some class levels.
if not a Human bard could easily serve.As for dwellings you could do worse as a Silver than an Iceberg. mobile ice mountain, morphic to how much you want to carve out of it and large as you desire it to be.
Control water could serve as a decent deadman switch, 38 feet of water coming into the bottom of your iceberg's moon pool could sink the thing enough to frighten the hell out of any adventurers.Archery is no problem for you, you have Control weather and Control winds as at will SLA's, hurricane force winds prevent any projectile based ranged attack roll up to and including siege weapons.
Lacking a horde to keep track of you can drop this spell effect and engulf everything in the area with it.
Fickle winds will be a much more targeted method to specifically murder ranged combatants. Likely that your hunters will have concocted an answer to it as well.
Control weather at will means you get to choose what sort of weather your lair happens to have around it at all times.
Also means whenever you go hunting you can bring a 2 mile wide fog bank with you.
All of this is brilliant. Great great ideas. The point about information being key to your survival is absolutely true, and the defensive concepts are solid ones.
I managed to get a sky temple inside a cloud (perpetual fog). Unfortunately I can't take humanoid servants, and my minions need to be alignment fitting (so nothing evil, really). So I ended up with some decent beefy critters, got the early warning covered and got some intelligent minions that won't just bash their heads against the hunters until they keel over. So I think I'm good. Thanks all! :D
Do all of your HD have to be racial HD?
As a dragon your best combat advantage is your blisteringly fast fly speed. Take flyby attack. If you can keep your dex up to 15, take wind stance for a free 20% miss chance vs ranged attacks every time you move even 5 feet.
Take spells to manipulate your lair. Be like GLaDOS, master your home and make them regret trying to cross you within it.
EDIT: Winds of Vengeance is a 9th level spell you can cast when you get prewarning that acts like a personal wind wall and a lot more.
vs Zen Archers, use Fickle Winds and/or Wind Wall. they can't shoot through the spell effect, and it doesn't deter you at all.
if you don't have true sight and det invis on your spells, you deserve to be fooled by the PC's or sniped at range.
There are multiple magic items that allow PC's to see through fog. It's much harder for them to see through DARKNESS, and they likely won't be expecting it. Combine the two, and you've an absolute visual advantage.
With anti-magic shell you can focus it on your head, and do a Greater Vital Strike on one of the fighters. They'll lose their Con booster and you're going to be doing close to 200 damage. You might kill them with one bite.
Energy Immunity best be on your list, as well as Prot/Energy and/or Resist Energy.
Note that if you use Shapechange to shrink a few sizes, your Dex goes up, but your Str goes down. you probably want Death Ward on your list of buffs to avoid enervation and similar attacks with no save.
Control Winds can make it impossible for archers and any non-huge fliers to move. Something to keep in mind.
Foresight prevents them from suprising you. There's probably no more important spell then that. Mind Blank comes in second to prevent them from scrying you.
==Aelryinth