I am not familiar with 3E Rules concerning dragons so any advice would be much appreciated on how one goes about handling them. I realize they have an aura of fear that one must save against and that they are highly magic resistant. Just how high though is their resistance? Does anything other than melee work against them? This to me seems like a real drawback for rougues and wizards, and to a lessor degree clerics (but, IMO, if they are high enough for good buff spells and decent "to hit" ability they might fair well). Thanks.

Well I could help more if you added your character class but some things:

Try to get protection in the damage that the dragon does, so red dragon does fire damage, get something anti-fire.

Rogues and wizards can use buffing spells and there's one spell that I found useful sometimes in p&p: true strike.

For magic resistance you have to overcome the dragon's spell resistance with a caster level check and some modifiers added. So I got some spells through with my bard but it was hard since he's more melee. If the spell Power Word Stun is in the game you should check it out immediately [img]smile.gif[/img]
Anything that lowers saves is cool as well. I suppose for real damage that epic spell that does alot of damage of different types is great. Don't know if many people play a epic wizard/sorcerer as there don't seem to be much pros.

Summons, be careful though some dragons have kill spells.

first look for plot elements for killing dragons.

Second, look to your defensive ability:

either have a high AC or Stealth skill (..and shadowdancer hide in plain site is highly advantageous here). Improved invisibility also works well.

If possible try and utilize spells to protect from physical damage and elemental damage (of the damage type of the dragons breath weapon).

Have plenty of healing potions to quaff (or heal kits). The stronger the better.

Third, consider your offensive capabilities:

If your utilizing melee only:
(Note the numbers below depend on the AC of the dragon as well.. just understand that they are "guesstimates".)

with a decent attack number (under 30):
utilize weapons with elemental damage that the dragon won't resist.

with a good attack number (30-40):
use power attack (and if you have an elemental damage type weapon, use it to).

with an excellent attack number (40+):
use improved power attack (and again with the elemental damage)


For magical attacks:

look for offensive spells that have no saving throw and no spell resistance, OR

IF you have a spell you like with no saving throw BUT WITH spell resistance then use either the druids Natures Balance or the Wiz./Sor. Mordkains Disjunction (to lower the dragon's spell resistance) - and then cast the offensive spell.

Alternativly if you have a spell with no spell resistance but with savings throws then look to see what the savings throw is for (will, fortitude, reflex) and see if the Dragon is deficient in one of these areas and match the skill occordingly - OR look for a savings throw spell that has a minimum damage roll regardless of a sucessful savings throw.

Another spell choice is via summoning: try to summon a creature with high damage potentials and attack numbers like earth elementals; OR summon an elemental with elemental damage that the dragon isn't resistant to (i.e. summon a fire elemental against a white dragon); OR (if your a cleric level 18-19) summon a lich which may well cast an offensive spell that will damage the dragon.

Spell lists:
Wiz./Sorc.:
http://www.gamebanshee.com/neverwint...zardspells.php
Cleric:
http://www.gamebanshee.com/neverwint...ericspells.php
Druid:
http://www.gamebanshee.com/neverwint...ruidspells.php

IF your utilizing a rogue like character (rogue, bard, assasin) then consider the use of:

casting a spell (scroll via your skill "use magical device") under the conditions above BUT realize that if the spells damage is tied to level you won't get the same damage as a normal caster.

cast the spell true strike and perform a melee attack (under the conditions above in melee, recognizing that you have +20 for that one hit)

set traps with high damage, and set lots of them. Recognize that some dragons will see the traps and use their breath weapon to disable the trap.. so cluster them with a fair bit of distance in-between clusters (i.e. so cluster of traps is not in the breath weapon radius of another cluster.)

[ 03-22-2004, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: ScottG ]

Oh, and pick your henchwoman carefully. ;)

there are some belts that can help your resistance against slashing/piercing/blunt

Well I failed to mention that my character was a cleric and after reading what the spell Harm can do to Dragons I decided to try it. Hmmm, now dragons have something to seriously fear...