Dragons as Spellcasters

Table 2–2: Jump DCs to Crush Opponents

Target Minimum —— Dragon Speed 40 ft. —— —— Dragon Speed 60 ft. —— Size Jump Height Standing DC Running DC Standing DC Running DC

Small 4 feet 18 14 10 10 Medium1 8 feet 34 26 26 18 Large2 16 feet 90 50 58 34 1 A dragon must be Gargantuan to crush Medium opponents. 2 A dragon must be Colossal to crush Large opponents.

Creatures that succeed on their saving throws take half the dragon’s crush damage. They remain in their spaces— because the dragon is at least three sizes larger than they are, they can occupy the same space as the dragon. Creatures that fail their saving throws take full damage and are pinned. Roll the crush damage once and apply the result (or half of it) to each affected character.

Pinned characters cannot move. They take a –4 penalty to their Armor Class against all opponents other than the dragon, but they are not helpless. 4) On its turn, a pinned creature may try to escape. A character that makes a successful opposed grapple check (as a melee attack) or Escape Artist check (as a standard action) is no longer pinned but is still grappling with the dragon. If a character makes two successful opposed checks against the dragon, the character has escaped the grapple entirely. 5) On the dragon’s next turn, it can choose to maintain the pin or to release pinned characters. If it tries to maintain the pin, it makes a single grapple check opposed by grapple checks made by all pinned opponents. Creatures who beat the dragon’s grapple check take no damage, while other creatures take the dragon’s full crush damage. If the dragon decides not to maintain the pin, it can act normally, without regard to the creatures that share its space (since they are necessarily at least three sizes smaller than it is).

Tail Sweep: When making a tail sweep attack, a dragon chooses half of the area it threatens with its tail slap attack—a semicircle with a radius of 30 feet if it is Gargantuan or 40 feet if it is Colossal (more for certain dragon types, notably gold and white, with their longer tails). Creatures within that area are affected if they are four or more sizes smaller than the dragon—Small or smaller for a Gargantuan dragon, Medium or smaller for a Colossal dragon. Affected creatures take the dragon’s tail sweep damage (including 1-1/2 times its Strength bonus), or half that amount if they make a successful Reflex save against a DC equal to that of the dragon’s breath weapon. Roll the tail sweep damage once and apply the result (or half of it) to each affected character.

Two feats, described in the next section of this chapter, can enhance a dragon’s tail sweep. Whirlwind Tail Sweep allows the dragon to affect a circular area rather than a semicircle, while Tail Sweep Knockdown knocks prone any characters who fail their saving throws.

DRAGONS AS SPELLCASTERS

It is both a recognition of the limitations of dragons’ innate spellcasting ability and a testament to their incredible combat prowess that, as a rule, a dragon’s physical attacks and breath weapon are more effective than its spells. In general, a dragon casts spells as effectively as a sorcerer some five to eight levels lower than its Challenge Rating, so that most dragons are not the spellcasting equals of the characters they typically fight. This fact means, among other things, that a dragon’s offensive spells are rarely effective in a combat against equals, as useful as they may be in terrorizing villagers. The saving throw DCs for a dragon’s spells are easy for a character to make if his or her level is about the same as the dragon’s CR. A dragon’s best use of spells is to alter the conditions of the fight in its favor, rather than directly targeting characters who will succeed on their saving throws most of the time.

Dispel magic is a good way to remove the carefully prepared protections and wards that most adventurers cloak themselves in before venturing to fight a dragon. Unfortunately for the dragons, the disparity between their caster level and their opponents’ levels makes dispel magic a longshot gamble. The dispelling breath spell (see page 78) is a slightly better option than dispel magic: It lets the dragon use its breath weapon and make a targeted dispel attempt against every creature that fails its saving throw against the breath. The dragon’s caster level check is still going to be hard to make, but the dragon will get more chances to roll high and dispel some of the opponents’ protection. Every successful dispel check is one more factor adjusted in the dragon’s favor.

Altering the battlefield is another way of adjusting conditions in the dragon’s favor. With its array of special abilities and immunities, a dragon’s best strategy is to create conditions that hinder its opponents without hindering itself— at least not as much.

A dragon’s blindsense is perhaps its single best quality for this purpose. Blindsense gives a dragon a distinct advantage over characters who rely on sight (whether regular vision or darkvision), and a smart dragon maximizes this advantage by using spells that impair its opponents’ vision, such as deeper darkness. Dragons certainly enjoy seeing their foes’ expressions of dismay, and want to be visible to inspire the proper amount of terror in their opponents, but in a tough fight, swathing the battlefield in magical darkness is functionally equivalent to greaterinvisibility.

Even a minor spell such as obscuring mist or fog cloud hinders a dragon’s foes while imposing no obstacle to its blindsense, and thus offers the dragon a distinct advantage. Other fog spells, such as stinking cloud, cloudkill, and incendiary cloud, add injury to insult by dealing damage (or inflicting nausea) in addition to restricting vision.

Along the same lines,solid fog limits opponents’ mobility while granting a dragon concealment. Black dragons,