[DF] Critique My Western-Style Dragon as a Solo Boss Encounter

[Anthony]

Okay, this is going to be heavily dependent on the character builds; a knight with spellcaster support is very different from one without. Therefore, I'm going to go into a lot more detail. The basic characters are:

Knight: ST 16, weapon master (broadsword), Broadsword-20, Thrown Weapon (Axe)-16. Traded 5 points in quirks for extra money (per DF23, $2,500), so total gear is $3,500. Uses a thrusting broadsword (normal quality) and a medium shield, and wears Unyielding Partial Plate of Lightness (DR 7 on head/torso, 5/3(mail) on limbs, 5 (gauntlets/sollerets) on hands and feet). Encumbrance is Light, Move 5.
Attack: broadsword thrust-20(1d+5 Imp), broadsword swing-20(2d+7 cut); thrown axe-16 (2d+4 cut)
Defense: DR 7 (5 on limbs; 3 vs crush on limbs), Dodge 11 (base 9, +2 for shield), Block 14, Parry 16.
Scout: ST 13 with Weapon Master (Bow), Signature Gear (Composite Bow; 2), Weapon Bond (Composite Bow), Night Vision 2, background skill points spent to increase fast-draw(arrow) to 16 (incl combat reflexes). Wears Unyielding Heavy Leather of Lightness (DR 3), and is at No encumbrance.
Attack: Composite Bow 1d+4 (2) pi (I have no idea where you're getting 2d+2 damage from; bows do Thrust+X, not Swing+X, and there's zero reason to have ST 14 on an archer, as Thrust for ST 14 is identical to ST 13).
Defense: DR 3, Dodge 11
Cleric: Detect Evil, Power Investiture 5, 22 spells. Relevant spells include Major Healing, Might, Shield, and Sunbolt. Gear includes a Power Item(10 fp).
Attack: Mace-14 (1d+5), Innate Attack-14 (varies)
Defense: DR 5, Block-12 (medium shield), dodge-9 (medium enc, medium sh)
For the fourth character, we'll toss in a thief; while a wizard would be more valuable in the fight, he's staggeringly complicated to analyze. I won't bother with combat stats for the thief, since he's not going to be effective.

More detail in subsequent posts, now that I have a baseline.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Incard

Don't forget that the dragon's mobility should usually allow it to easily escape if it becomes obvious that the PCs are more of a threat than the dragon anticipated.

Oh yeah, almost trivially easy unless they take immediate and effective action to immobilize it or have powerful Movement magic. Barring that, this thing isn't going to fight to the death unless you get a very lucky shot like in Gnome's example, or it wants to.

With just the base template, and assuming that it can't simply escape by going straight up, it can shoot a cone of fire off along its intended escape route, forcing everybody there to either Dodge n' Drop (removing them as an obstruction) or eat the fire (for a possible Stun+Knockdown, removing them as an obstruction), then take a Move and Attack (Slam) against the most distant enemy standing in that path, Slamming everybody between them as a free action because of the multi-hex creature rule, aaaaand next round it's gone.

Originally Posted by Incard

Of course fighting to the death for no good reason is not unheard of in DF-style games, and some dragons might prefer death to giving up their hoard of goodies.

This looks like a job for a Miserliness check!

[Anthony]

Okay, now we'll look at combat situations. The script for the adventure, which the PCs may or may not actually follow, is:

PCs start out in a town.
Dragon attacks the town. The dragon's objective is to burn down the town, not get into a slugging match with adventurers, so during this fight he won't land. We will assume that the dragon has a stall speed and must thus take a move action every turn -- he can either strafe (ranged attack at -2) or do claw-by attacks (at -4, max 9). Unless the PCs can force an engagement, this will make the knight fairly useless, though he might be able to hit on a claw-by attack. Assuming a flight speed of 20, ranged attacks will be at -6 or -7 for range/speed and +4 for SM. The scout, firing every turn, has an effective skill of 21 (18, +1 for weapon bond, +3 for Acc, -1 for heroic archer), which usually drops to 18, reduced to 10 for firing at chinks, 9 for eye shots. The cleric might fire up a sunbolt; if he aims for four turns his effective skill is 19, modified to 16 by the dragon's size and speed. Our goal for this encounter is that the dragon should be driven off after doing some damage.

As a basic scheme for dragons, 5 ST and DR 1 per hex of size seems like a good scheme; a SM +4 dragon is 8-10 hexes, and thus 40-50 ST and DR 8-10. Without any other durability enhancements, this runs a high risk of an anticlimactic battle, either because the priest lands a 15d-15 sunbolt (against DR 10/ST 50, that still averages 55 damage after DR) or because the scout lands an eye shot (no inherent DR as 'eyes as chinks in armor' doesn't apply to innate DR as far as I can tell, x4 wounding modifier for the brain, average 30 and almost certain stunning). The priest can basically do that once in a battle and takes seven turns; in the same time the scout probably averages 3 eye shot hits; this discounts dodge, which is a particular problem for the priest as it means he's either very potent or useless. Without the eye shot hits, the scout can still hit for an average of 16 with vitals (chinks) shots against DR 8-9, 13 against DR 10; brain (non-eye) shots will be 18 or 14. If we use the 10 hex dragon, give it Nictating Membrane-5, and Dodge-10 (basic speed 6, combat reflexes) eye shots will average 9 and are reasonably likely (50%) to blind the eye, the sun bolt will average 27); add high pain threshold so it doesn't just get stunned and fall out of the sky, and while the dragon will probably retreat, it's got a very good chance of escaping. Due to the limits of high speed turning, the dragon will probably need a fair amount of time to do its strafing runs (at 1g and move 20, it takes 12s to do a circle); if dragon breath is an area, it winds up very difficult to defend against, particularly if the area is large, so I don't recommend extremely high damage; probably just Thrust/Burn (5d+2 for our 10 hex dragon). That's still enough that the dragon can one-shot the scout, but the scout is very unlikely to get killed by that blast.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Anthony

PCs start out in a town.
Dragon attacks the town. The dragon's objective is to burn down the town

Mission Accomplished; just track how many breaths it uses up starting the conflagration before the defenders realize that it's on and get their poop in a group.

Originally Posted by Anthony

, not get into a slugging match with adventurers, so during this fight he won't land. We will assume that the dragon has a stall speed and must thus take a move action every turn -- he can either strafe (ranged attack at -2) or do claw-by attacks (at -4, max 9). Unless the PCs can force an engagement, this will make the knight fairly useless, though he might be able to hit on a claw-by attack.

Assuming that this dragon did not just get Banestormed in from a non-DFy Fantasy setting, this is exactly why it won't do claw-by attacks from the air unless it thinks that it clearly has the upper hand (ie: the big, fully-armored dude is already lying face down and on fire - there is no telling how tough this guy is going to be just by looking, and intelligent enemies will assume buffs on him if there seem to be any squishy spellcaster types present). If it has already set the town on fire and has no breaths left after a couple strafing runs, it'll just shrug, declare victory, and go home to recover its breath and have a couple cold ones.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Assuming a flight speed of 20, ranged attacks will be at -6 or -7 for range/speed and +4 for SM. The scout, firing every turn, has an effective skill of 21 (18, +1 for weapon bond, +3 for Acc, -1 for heroic archer), which usually drops to 18, reduced to 10 for firing at chinks, 9 for eye shots.

Firing at the Vitals without chinks is probably better if he's using bodkins and the goal is to drive it away. As soon as it realizes there is an actual threat, it's out like it stole something.

Originally Posted by Anthony

The cleric might fire up a sunbolt; if he aims for four turns his effective skill is 19, modified to 16 by the dragon's size and speed.

Sure, he could blow his whole wad on a single iffy attack, assuming the dragon hasn't already left by the time he's ready to go... or he could ping it in the much-more-easily-hit Face repeatedly with 1d-1 Sunbolts, forcing a HT check to avoid blindness every time...

Originally Posted by Anthony

if dragon breath is an area, it winds up very difficult to defend against, particularly if the area is large, so I don't recommend extremely high damage; probably just Thrust/Burn (5d+2 for our 10 hex dragon). That's still enough that the dragon can one-shot the scout, but the scout is very unlikely to get killed by that blast.

I'd probably call the target area a narrow ellipse as wide as the cone should be rather than a round AoE on a strafing run, unless it gets directly above them and plunges straight down. Don't forget wide-area damage if these guys aren't in sealed full-coverage gear, though.

[Stripe]

It has little to do with this exercise, but I plan on having the dragon be encountered in a cave so that it cannot fly or escape.

I'm not just trying to make a dragon for one specific group or encounter. I'd like to make a good baseline for all DF dragons.

Originally Posted by Gnome

We all agreed afterward that the party was looking at a likely TPK had they not gotten lucky with the critical hit.

Well, for players who either choose to fight an adult dragon with full-frontal assault or are forced to do so, I'd think that would be about the only outcome.

Glad to hear it wasn't a TPK, though. Those suck.

Good info.

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Make use of the awesome mobility, too - Go on strafing runs against the party to soften them up if you have room to fly, and use free Big Creature Movement Slams (4e Basic p 392) all over the place once they're up in its grill.

Oh, sure. Otherwise, it would be like a jet fighter landing to fire its guns at ground troops. XD

I'll look at those rules for big creature movement. Thanks again!

Originally Posted by Gnome

Casting Flight on the Knight was absolutely necessary when my PCs faced the dragon. Without the ability to face the dragon on its level, the battle is almost hopeless.

Good to know. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

Pretty nice so far.

One thing I've done with big predators is give them smaller, or at least better protected, eyes. Sure, eyes are -9 on SM 0 and he's SM +5 so he's got -4 eyes. Make them -7, say. Where is the extra -3 coming from? Eyes are inset slightly and surrounded with bone and scales. Throw Nictatating Membrane on it at similar DR to the rest of the critter. Or make them normal but not a shortcut to the brain - not every critter needs it to sit in the head.

Man, that's great advice! Thanks! Means a lot to me coming from a DFM co-author! :)

Originally Posted by Incard

Don't forget that the dragon's mobility should usually allow it to easily escape if it becomes obvious that the PCs are more of a threat than the dragon anticipated. Of course fighting to the death for no good reason is not unheard of in DF-style games, and some dragons might prefer death to giving up their hoard of goodies.

Absolutely. Good to note.

Originally Posted by Anthony

More detail in subsequent posts, now that I have a baseline.

Cool. You might chill until I get a little more done first, though.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Sure, he could blow his whole wad on a single iffy attack, assuming the dragon hasn't already left by the time he's ready to go... or he could ping it in the much-more-easily-hit Face repeatedly with 1d-1 Sunbolts, forcing a HT check to avoid blindness every time...

That 16 to hit was for a torso shot; with one turn of aiming, to the face, hit chance is 8-.

Originally Posted by Stripe

It has little to do with this exercise, but I plan on having the dragon be encountered in a cave so that it cannot fly or escape.

My theory was 'Adventure Phase 1: dragon attacks town, is driven off. Adventure Phase 2: PCs track dragon to its den. Adventure Phase 3: PCs fight dragon in its den'.

On the topic of eyes, you can do pretty much whatever you want for less than 5 points -- just take IT(No Eyes), Limited (Has Eyes, but....).

[Gnome]

Dragons tend to have disadvantages. I sometimes give them Overconfidence, for example, so that they don't approach the party with as much caution as they probably should use in a world where DF characters exist. This makes them more beatable.
Greed and Miserliness are old standbies (for traditional western dragons), motivating the dragon to do all kinds of stupid things and fall for ploys that a being with its IQ should probably see through...

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That 16 to hit was for a torso shot; with one turn of aiming, to the face, hit chance is 8-.

My bad; managed to mix that up with the Scout going for the eyes in my head.

Originally Posted by Anthony

My theory was 'Adventure Phase 1: dragon attacks town, is driven off. Adventure Phase 2: PCs track dragon to its den. Adventure Phase 3: PCs fight dragon in its den'.

Yeah, that's how I'd proceed from there... the lair should be at least 24 hours away overland (preferably from broken terrain, not sheer distance, because otherwise why this town?), so it can recover its breath by the time they can force a confrontation...

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

My bad; managed to mix that up with the Scout going for the eyes in my head.

Man, if a DF Scout is going for the eyes in your head, you're in big trouble my friend. ;)

[Stripe]

Question: What SM would a miniature that uses a 50 mm round base be? 40 mm?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Anthony

My theory was 'Adventure Phase 1: dragon attacks town, is driven off. Adventure Phase 2: PCs track dragon to its den. Adventure Phase 3: PCs fight dragon in its den'.

Oh, yeah, that's cool, man. Please, continue here when I get the chance to work on this guy some more. I'll be happy to read it.

I'm not real up on flying combat, so it will be educational for me. Never have really used flight rules much besides some rare flight spell stuff. I like gargoyles and harpies both, but I normally have them perched on high; not really flying.

Originally Posted by Anthony

On the topic of eyes, you can do pretty much whatever you want for less than 5 points -- just take IT(No Eyes), Limited (Has Eyes, but....).

Or, perhaps just a leveled perk (Inset Eyes, -X to hit) with X being the level of the perk. Yay/nay?