Green dragon with antimagic field

[SleepyBadger]

Party's task is to slay an ancient green dragon with an apparently self-developed antimagic field spell that covers the whole dragon and everything in 10 ft radius from it. (Either that or the DM just misread the spell desciption. Which is all the same.) Party is seventeenish level, not optimized, it consists out of a ranger, a duskblade, a mystic theurge with divine metamagic (quickened spell) and a bard/sublime chord. Party does not have access to 9th level spells as yet. The most useful previous tactic we could come up with included surprise-teleporting near the dragon (buffed and all) and trying to bombard it with enervations before it could fire up its shield and crush a party member. This tactic already failed twice so the party is currently really frustrated. (Dragon also has a few clerics and wizards as minions who would show up sooner or later so sacrificing a member and shooting at it from a distance doesn't work either as they would just dipel our buffs.) Allowed resources are PHB, DMG, PGtF and all Completes except for Complete Mage. (PHBII is not allowed, the duskblade is a one-time exception.) Do you have any better ideas? (Other than leaving the poor lizard be and pick up basketweaving?) Suggesting to find allies is nice but nobody wants to fight the dragon (we don't either but it is seemingly the only way to advance the main story line.)

[Starbuck_II]

Party's task is to slay an ancient green dragon with an apparently self-developed antimagic field spell that covers the whole dragon and everything in 10 ft radius from it. (Either that or the DM just misread the spell desciption. Which is all the same.)

Then it can't use its breath weapon, loses its DR/magic, and can't cast spells.

Party is seventeenish level, not optimized, it consists out of a ranger, a duskblade, a mystic theurge with divine metamagic (quickened spell) and a bard/sublime chord. Party does not have access to 9th level spells as yet. The most useful previous tactic we could come up with included surprise-teleporting near the dragon (buffed and all) and trying to bombard it with enervations before it could fire up its shield and crush a party member. This tactic failed repeatedly so the party is currently really frustrated. (Dragon also has a few clerics and wizards as minions who would show up sooner or later so sacrificing a member and shooting at it from a distance doesn't work either as they would just dipel our buffs.)

Allowed resources are PHB, DMG, PGtF and all Completes except for Complete Mage. (PHBII is not allowed, the duskblade is a one-time exception.)

Do you have any better ideas? (Other than leaving the poor lizard be and pick up basketweaving?) Suggesting to find allies is nice but nobody wants to fight the dragon (we don't either but it is seemingly the only way to advance the main story line.)

Do you have the Orb spells? Conjuration creation is immune to to Antmagic Field. Attack physically it as has no DR and its AC won't be that huge without magic as well.

[SleepyBadger]

Then it can't use its breath weapon, loses its DR/magic, and can't cast spells.
Do you have the Orb spells? Conjuration creation is immune to to Antmagic Field. Attack physically it as has no DR and its AC won't be that huge without magic as well.

That's true but it still has its physical weapons and it can grapple and crush etc. And of course our buffs wouldn't work either if we move into melee range. Orb spells are a great suggestion though if we sacrifice some buffs.

[tyckspoon]

Sucker it into running into a Prismatic Wall? *shrug* My first goal would actually be to cut its support out from under it- find out where those wizards and clerics live and go kill them. Or engage the dragon, fight defensively until they come out to help it, get rid of them, and then run away to prepare to take on the dragon itself.

What kind of area are you going to be fighting in? Is there any chance you can use things like Wall of Stone/Stone Shape/Earthquake to rearrange the zone for a better chance? Like, say, Wall of Stoning a dragon-sized corridor into a normal-sized one so the dragon has to squeeze to fight you there, or drop its AMF so it can try breathing down it?

[aquaticrna]

i would say use some of your substantial resources to figure out where these powerful minions are and drop in and kill them first, you've met them so that makes scrying not too hard, though if you can lure them out in a fight and get a little blood on your sword it's even better. then once the reinforcements are gone go for the dragon (as soon as possible). once you teleport in use your surprise round to shut it down as much as possible, either dish out a flurry of maximized damage spells or hit it with some hold monsters and other save or lose spells. when the amf comes up start in with the orbs or other no SR spells, there are a surprisingly large number of them. Anyone without the ability to fling spells at it should engage and do what they can before getting grappled, they should only need to survive for a couple of rounds while keeping the dragon busy. some smoke sticks could be handy as an easy way of getting mundane concealment to ease the hurt a little

edit: partly ninja-ed

[Aharon]

I don't want to derail the thread, so first an suggestion: Reach weapons? Enlarge the Ranger and the Duskblade, now they can stand outside the AMF and attack the Dragon with reach weapons. (That's just what first came to my mind, because I actually just want to ask something )

Could you please explain why you think your DM's reading of the AMF is wrong? I always thought it worked that way, too.

[SleepyBadger]

i would say use some of your substantial resources to figure out where these powerful minions are and drop in and kill them first, you've met them so that makes scrying not too hard, though if you can lure them out in a fight and get a little blood on your sword it's even better. then once the reinforcements are gone go for the dragon (as soon as possible). once you teleport in use your surprise round to shut it down as much as possible, either dish out a flurry of maximized damage spells or hit it with some hold monsters and other save or lose spells. when the amf comes up start in with the orbs or other no SR spells, there are a surprisingly large number of them. Anyone without the ability to fling spells at it should engage and do what they can before getting grappled, they should only need to survive for a couple of rounds while keeping the dragon busy. some smoke sticks could be handy as an easy way of getting mundane concealment to ease the hurt a little

edit: partly ninja-ed

Ehm... sorry I wasn't specific enough. Getting rid of the minions was easy enough the first time but for the second encounter the dragon seemed to have recruited new ones so I guess we have to assume that he has a standard supply of them and can call for assistance or something. Maximized spells are out I'm afraid as our mystic theurge doesn't have the feat and we can't afford a rod as we are very low on our budget because of the repeated true resurrections. We could buy some cheap items like scrolls but that's it.

[tyckspoon]

Could you please explain why you think your DM's reading of the AMF is wrong? I always thought it worked that way, too.

Technicality of how points-of-origin work in D&D. They don't come from 'the creature' as a whole- you actually pick a grid intersection as the starting point and measure out from there (which means that your typical 10-foot radius, for example, actually extends further to one side of a standard 5-foot-space creature than the other.) For an especially large creature, this means a smaller emanation like, say, an AMF.. can actually fail to cover the entire thing, especially if it wants any area extending outward to cover its opponents too. A lot (probably a majority, really, because this is a very technical and annoying part of the rules) of people just play it that the area of the effect starts at the boundaries of the creature's space instead, which effectively extends the area of these effects by a fairly large amount.

[SleepyBadger]

I don't want to derail the thread, so first an suggestion: Reach weapons? Enlarge the Ranger and the Duskblade, now they can stand outside the AMF and attack the Dragon with reach weapons. (That's just what first came to my mind, because I actually just want to ask something )

Could you please explain why you think your DM's reading of the AMF is wrong? I always thought it worked that way, too.

No, I guess not quite. An antimagic field is a 10 ft radius emanation and the description specifically states that a creature that is larger than that would have body parts outside the barrier, which would be unaffected by the field. (So I presume we could attack its tail or something or of course ready spells to hit its neck.)

What kind of area are you going to be fighting in? Is there any chance you can use things like Wall of Stone/Stone Shape/Earthquake to rearrange the zone for a better chance? Like, say, Wall of Stoning a dragon-sized corridor into a normal-sized one so the dragon has to squeeze to fight you there, or drop its AMF so it can try breathing down it?

Hm, that's a suggestion... although its main cave is quite gigantic... how would you lure it into a corridor?

[aquaticrna]

hm... well it sounds like you've got a pretty limited set of resources... in that case i would say either, do something else for a while to earn money, or look into spells like "hide from dragons" so you can move in to optimal position without the dragons notice or use it to escape...

[SleepyBadger]

hm... well it sounds like you've got a pretty limited set of resources... in that case i would say either, do something else for a while to earn money, or look into spells like "hide from dragons" so you can move in to optimal position without the dragons notice or use it to escape...

Yep we would need the hide from dragons spell just to do something else and earn money as it knows us well enough now And we don't want to fight it on its own terms...

[aquaticrna]

so out of curiosity, exactly how much money do you have to spare right now?

[SleepyBadger]

so out of curiosity, exactly how much money do you have to spare right now?

It's about 15000gp between the four of us.

[Metahuman1]

Transmute rock too lava? On the cave roof?

Thats my first impulse anyway.

[NNescio]

Transmute rock too lava? On the cave roof?

Thats my first impulse anyway.

You have better things to do if you have access to 9th-level spells.

[Slipperychicken]

A tactic I've heard thrown around the forums with regard to AMFs is dropping shrunken items down into the AMF, possibly using an unseen servant or something to do the dropping for you. Shrunken Item (preferably something really big beforehand like a boulder) hits the AMF, returns to normal size and deals quite a bit of falling damage (I read it as only the distance-damage maxing at 20d6, while weight isn't capped. might need a more expert opinion on that though). Along that train of thought, you can make your ranger feel useful by getting truly massive ammunition, shrinking it down, and having him fire it into the AMF, at the dragon; again, let the munition expand for massive damage. The hat-trick might also be helpful for escaping.


One of the above posters made me think, if you have access to lava, Shrink Item a bunch of it into clothlike material (then perhaps wrap it around your rangers arrows) and shoot it at the dragon, in the AMF. Dragon is now covered in lava. And since Shrink Item is a 3rd level spell with no material components, you can do this until you feel you have enough d6s to take it down.

[Anderlith]

As long as the Duskblade has blade of blood, shocking grasp, & a teleport spell they could throw at least 8d6 plus quick cast an extra 5d6 in addition to whatever weapon/buffs/etc. Just send him in & have them teleport & strike a few times

[aquaticrna]

drop about 5k into alchemist fire, place in bag of holding, cast fly and hid from dragons, teleport in above the dragon, empty bag, if he's still standing finish off his few remaining hit points... works better against white dragons, but should do just fine, if you want to make it more likely to work, teleport in with hide from dragons only on the dropper, wait for the amf to go up then drop them so there is no way he can magically prevent the damage. Worst case scenario you just did 250 damage to him and even if he's a great wyrm he's at half heath.

edit: you can put in 10k to make it 500 guaranteed damage assuring his one round doom.

[SleepyBadger]

A tactic I've heard thrown around the forums with regard to AMFs is dropping shrunken items down into the AMF, possibly using an unseen servant or something to do the dropping for you. Shrunken Item (preferably something really big beforehand like a boulder) hits the AMF, returns to normal size and deals quite a bit of falling damage (I read it as only the distance-damage maxing at 20d6, while weight isn't capped. might need a more expert opinion on that though). Along that train of thought, you can make your ranger feel useful by getting truly massive ammunition, shrinking it down, and having him fire it into the AMF, at the dragon; again, let the munition expand for massive damage. The hat-trick might also be helpful for escaping.


One of the above posters made me think, if you have access to lava, Shrink Item a bunch of it into clothlike material (then perhaps wrap it around your rangers arrows) and shoot it at the dragon, in the AMF. Dragon is now covered in lava. And since Shrink Item is a 3rd level spell with no material components, you can do this until you feel you have enough d6s to take it down.

Yes I heard that too, although I guess we would start arguing about how much damage a large chunk of wood would do if turned into ammunition via shrinking and shaping... the lava sounds great though

drop about 5k into alchemist fire, place in bag of holding, cast fly and hid from dragons, teleport in above the dragon, empty bag, if he's still standing finish off his few remaining hit points... works better against white dragons, but should do just fine, if you want to make it more likely to work, teleport in with hide from dragons only on the dropper, wait for the amf to go up then drop them so there is no way he can magically prevent the damage. Worst case scenario you just did 250 damage to him and even if he's a great wyrm he's at half heath.

edit: you can put in 10k to make it 500 guaranteed damage assuring his one round doom.

Are you sure about this? Wouldn't items in a bag of holding be inaccessible in an antimagic field?

As long as the Duskblade has blade of blood, shocking grasp, & a teleport spell they could throw at least 8d6 plus quick cast an extra 5d6 in addition to whatever weapon/buffs/etc. Just send him in & have them teleport & strike a few times

That's assuming we were quick enough to enervate him, otherwise this tactic does not work in an AMF with a 10 ft radius measured from the dragons hide.

[Tvtyrant]

Disjunction the AMF and then go at it as normal? Gate/Planar Bind a grapple machine and let it try its hand.

[SleepyBadger]

Disjunction the AMF and then go at it as normal? Gate/Planar Bind a grapple machine and let it try its hand.

No can do. We can only use 7th level spells. Our bard can probably try and read some 9th level scrolls but with a low success rate.

[Deathslayer7]

Are you sure about this? Wouldn't items in a bag of holding be inaccessible in an antimagic filed?

If you are within range of it, most likely. But you need only be outside it's range of the anti magic field and above it to drop those alchemist fires on it.

[aquaticrna]

you don't open the bag of holding in the field, you fly over the top and just drop them on him, any flask that hits him does d6 any flask that misses does 1 splash damage, so even if they all miss, you're still dealing a few hundred damage. if he's not dead first round he takes 6d from each flask that hit round 1, granted he can take a full round action to prevent that, but then he's wasted a full round!

[SleepyBadger]

If you are within range of it, most likely. But you need only be outside it's range of the anti magic field and above it to drop those alchemist fires on it.

Hmm... that would suggest we'd have to do this in the open as the invisible flyer needs to be safely outside its blindsense range... which rules out rearranging its cave with walls of stone, but a combination of this and the shrunken lava boulder or tree or whatever could possibly do the trick... and we could still get lucky with the enervations Thanks all, these are great ideas

[aquaticrna]

hide from dragons specifically makes them imperceptible to dragons in all ways including blindsight

[SleepyBadger]

hide from dragons specifically makes them imperceptible to dragons in all ways including blindsight

That's a real spell? Not in the allowed resources I'm afraid So our mystic theurge would have to research it and who knows what level it would be and what components it would require...

[aquaticrna]

yeah, it's in spell compendium i think... it's a 2nd or 3rd level abjuration spell, lasts 1min/level or something like that, works for 1 person/level, very specific spell, but very useful when you need it.

[SleepyBadger]

yeah, it's in spell compendium i think... it's a 2nd or 3rd level abjuration spell, lasts 1min/level or something like that, works for 1 person/level, very specific spell, but very useful when you need it.

Wow will immediately check it out... how could I miss that? Spell Compendium isn't allowed either but it could still be used as a researched spell... Thanks

[excruciarch]

Get to a big city. Find a strong NPC Barb/FB mercenary. Diplomacy (dominate, whatever) him into supporting you, buff him, make him charge and kill the wretched thing (spend a limited wish to autohit at least once, just for lulz, if it is a leap attack it can be like 250 or something damage). If he fails: go to the city and find a new one. :D

[Captain Caveman]

You say that the tactic of teleporting in and popping some spells off before he gets his field up has failed several times. To me this demonstrates you either have a reset button or you can escape easily. If either of these two things are the case teleport in and cast every single Save or Die spell you know at that dragon, eventually he will roll that 1 and fall over like an obesely above the CR of the party bag of rocks.

A slightly more practical option would be to counterspell his antimagic field.

Also if you want things specified for combating dragons look in the Draconomicon.