Context: We are eager to end the campaign after 2 1/2 years on it :P . I have been treating Lower Xin-Shalast as a series of boss fights and by passing random encounters and exploration. Because of this, I have made the Hidden Beast and Ice Demon significantly tougher given that the party got to approach these fights at full strength with all their resources.
So they will be heading to Ghlorofaex next and I'd like to give him some allies that would compliment his abilities. Additionally, the party would arrive fully buffed and ready to fight a blue dragon.
Party:
Bard
Sorcerer (preferred tactic is a quickened persistent empowered dazing fireball of any energy type of his choosing)
Inquisitor
Slayer
They regularly have stone skin, bardic performance, good hope among their buffs activated.
Any help would be appreciated. I just want to make the encounter appropriately difficult since we are not doing random encounters leading up to these fights and the party is at their peak health.
Thanks for your help!
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I gave him the Agile and Invincible mythic templates.
Remember to use full evil dragon methodology (which some people will be quick to claim make the game less fun) but your party is high level and they should be able to handle it.
Strafe the party in the open. Grab them, drop them. Keep out of range of the big melee hitters. Retreat, heal and return for more.
Remember that although Ghlorofaex doesn't have magical items a quick look at Animal Archive reveals the kind of magical items a dragon can wear. Throw some magic on to fill in the armor bonus' he doesn't have... like bracers or armor or a ring of protection or even a wand of mage armor of higher caster level?
As far as your sorcerer goes (I'm so glad I banned Dazing spell) I would consider giving Ghloro one of the other mythic templates... unless Invincible is the one that gives creatures SR based on their Hit Die... not sure.
Consider that Karzoug would be well aware that the sorc likes to throw these fireballs and he might have trickled that knowledge down to his resident big bads and that Ghloro might have gotten his claws on a wand of resist energy fire or something of the like.
When I ran the encounter Karzoug had warned Ghloro of the group's approach and so he and the ice devil formed a brief alliance to take them on. So I had them attack the group at the same time.
Don't get me wrong, it didn't do any good in the end but it was a more difficult encounter. :)
I had them believing she was a red dragon. Disguise Self as a red every time she left the lair so every eyewitness account in the city was of a red. Used the 4th level spell Dragon's Breath to mimic breathing fire. Used Hallucinatory Terrain to make her lair look like a volcanic den with lava fountain and obsidian walls, etc etc. Used Mirage/Projected Image to cast Dragon's Breath until the True Sight-casting party members got close enough to see it was an illusion, then had it breathe very real lightning damage on them. The fighter found the secret door behind the fake dragon, so the very real dragon cast Wall of Force trapping him and the bard and splitting the party.
In the end, the party went in knowing it was a dragon and buffed to the gills, and it was the toughest fight of the campaign, but it really boiled down to the need to get a Sidhedron Ring in the party's hands, so I let the dragon stay "just one more round" instead of escaping. I already played Gamigin harder than nails and let him escape, so I felt like denying the party this ring would be too tough on them in the next chapter.