Dragons: If you were to create a dragon how powerful can it be?

[Salarain]

Howdy Players/Gamers/GM,

I was pondering and reviewing some of my older game books, hint hint(2nd ED - 3.5 D&D, and Pathfinder material books). I am trying to come up with a dragon in creating for either Dragonrider from Rogue Genius Games and/or a NPC monster type for Home-Brew.

If you were to create one how powerful can you make it to be. Please detail your build and why you think that Dragon be most powerful dragon in current pathfinder. Also think outside the box.

I do like the Force and Prismatic dragons out of the "Epic Level Handbook 3.0"

[dragonhunterq]

Some more details/restrictions required, because as open-ended as that request is you just take a great wyrm time dragon, slap on all the templates you can, give it 20 levels of cleric (or other non-arcane full caster) and slap on the Kaiju subtype just for the hell of it. Add mythic ranks and/or 3pp to taste.

[wraithstrike]

We need more information. If there is no limit to what we can do, we can just grant it 20 class level in more than one class, and pile on templates, and give it magical items. Then tack on leadership so it has a 20th level caster as a minion, and it stomps anything in the game.

[GM Rednal]

Ignoring anything totally ridiculous like template stacking, I'd say the strongest is probably the Mythic Gold Dragon - CR 28, MR 10. As a 10th-tier Mythic creature, it has a variety of abilities that are preeeeeetty nasty for other people to fight against, ranging from Time Stop to DR that can't be bypassed (not even by mythic characters) to a weakening breath attack that can rapidly sap the party's power.

[Meirril]

Why am I reminded of the stats for Cthulhu from Chaosium Games? Does 1d4 characters damage per round. As in no save, no rolling damage, just 1d4 characters die each round they are in the same scene as Cthulhu.

This is honestly a ridiculous question, and on the face of it pointless and useless. If the monster is too powerful, when are you ever going to USE it? Even worse if you give it to the players, because then what they face needs to become even more powerful to challenge them.

You know, encounters are made to challenge players, right? So just going for "the most powerful" is like saying "I'll never go beyond this" because guess what? You can always make it more powerful! The only time things don't get more powerful is when the game is over.

[Tarik Blackhands]

Meirril wrote:

Why am I reminded of the stats for Cthulhu from Chaosium Games? Does 1d4 characters damage per round. As in no save, no rolling damage, just 1d4 characters die each round they are in the same scene as Cthulhu.

Still not quite as nice as Cain's statblock in World of Darkness which was 2 words long. "You lose"

[Claxon]

Most powerful dragon?

You mean aside from the dragons that are deities?

[Kayerloth]

As others have said, it's a bit open ended.

How about as a starter give it all the immunities/defensive SA of the Tarrasque, the ability to use any known already existing Breath Weapon of a currently existing non-deific dragon (using d20s for the damage dice of course) and the spell casting of a 20th level Sorcerer (archetype of your choice) with 10 mythic levels acting under the effects of a permanent haste/speed effect while radiating a 300ft radius area of Antimagic that has no effect on its abilities whatsoever.

[Vutava]

Strongest dragon I ever built was a great wyrm bronze dragon with 20 levels of druid and all 12 levels of the dragon ascendant prestige class (D&D 3.5E). I estimated her CR at somewhere around 65.

[Icy Turbo]

Here's my personal advice on creating a powerful Dragon; Just play a smart dragon. That's it.

Dragons are your apex predator. They don't really need a lot of boosts in power because Dragons will destroy you and everything you possess if you get them mad enough. If you play a Dragon logically, a party that is at the equivalent for their APL will be in for the fight of their lives. If your party is in an open field, they are dead. If the Dragon has had time to prepare it's special abilities properly, they are going to be easily routed and dead. Keep in mind that this is for an Ancient Dragon. You want to use a great wyrm? They are already dead. If you play as a dragon would, all you have to do is fly around, breath weapon the party for up to 20d8 of their corresponding breath weapon damage, then fly around until it recharges in 1d4 rounds and do it all over again. If someone casts fly, congratulations, the dragon nukes them first. If it's the fighter, you better hope they have that fly skill at a high level. If it's the wizard, the dragon will bite their head off and the parties biggest asset just got wasted.

You bring anything like a dragon into a game (pit fiend, balor, kaiju, archon, etc)? If played like the intelligent, ungodly powerful beings that they are, the party is going to hate you, but they will rightfully fear those monsters as they should.

[Claxon]

True, any smart dragon played intelligent should immediately flee (via teleport) as soon as they think they might be overmatched and retreat to fight another day. They should also make extensive use of antimagic since it will protect them, and they're still a dragon even if they don't have magic. The party not having offensive magic is much more scary for them then the dragon not having access to magic.

[The Sideromancer]

I remember when I was going to have a dragon strafe the party. The first damage it took was 3d6 falling after getting it's wings glued by a tanglefoot bag.

[Icy Turbo]

The Sideromancer wrote:

I remember when I was going to have a dragon strafe the party. The first damage it took was 3d6 falling after getting it's wings glued by a tanglefoot bag.

I have to assume that this is due to the dragon having utterly failed it's reflex check to remain flying, and was for some reason within easy reach of the 10 foot throw increment of the tanglefoot bag?

[Dave Justus]

Exactly as powerful as the plot demands. Or at least that would be the goal.

[Cuup]

Why does everyone seem to forget the Jabberwock when discussing powerful dragons?

[GM Rednal]

Because it keeps Burbling at us.