Take for example a 30th level Dragon. If a bard were to throw a magical +3 dart with lethal poison on it, and it hit the dragon, and the dragon failed it's save, it would be dead. If there's nothing, any item, spell or effect which makes the Dragon immune to poison (you need a +3 weapon to hit it though) then the Dragon would die, as being a dragon does not give natural poison immunity.
You can think of other ways to instantly kill it too, a natural 20 with a vorpal weapon, psionic disintegration, etc.
Here's an interesting scenario. If an Avangion ego whipped (is that power in 3E as well?) a dragon, it could only cast up to third level spells which the Avangion, with it's dome of invulnerability, is immune to.
A lot of your problems seem to be screaming about the horribly flawed 2e mechanics, rather than the 3.5e mechanics. But I've not really delved into the rules lately, so I could be mistaken.
its just as easy to psionically destroy a dragons mind as it is to kill them by poison. which isnt very easy at all.
No intelligent Epic character with both magic and psionics is going to let themselves die without three or four contingency plans to come back. They have worked too hard for too long to get where they need to be.
And you all are forgetting things like clone and astral seed and the like. Seriously, no dragon should ever die from anything less than another dragon and an artifact. The only reason it worked in the PP was because it was 1) many artifacts and a failed/untested epic spell (kalak) or 2) it was Rajaat's Artifacts.
No intelligent Epic character with both magic and psionics is going to let themselves die without three or four contingency plans to come back. They have worked too hard for too long to get where they need to be.
Clone is the best.:evillaugh
Seriously, no dragon should ever die from anything less than another dragon and an artifact.
I don't know about this, remember that the Order was able to puree an Avangion's mind, essentially ripping the being to Smithereens. A fully metamorphed, if I recall Avangion. Of course, all order members are at least 20th level Psions
But man........... it's a good thing their philosophy is the natural use of psionics and they don't use it to conquer, otherwise, they are the most powerful organization on Athas! If they can shred an Avangion's mind, they certainly could do the same with Borys, any champion of Rajaat, the mind lords, you name it. The only one I can think of who might be able to put up a fight, though I still don't think it would be easy for him, is Rajaat himself.
Unless, perhaps the being (Dragon, Avangion, mind lord, not Rajaat) had some heavy mental defenses. Though I don't know any psionic power or spell, that gives any mental defense against an attack of the magnitude of thirty 20+ level psions.
In 2E, you had to contact the being first, before you could start wrecking havoc with it's mind. If you could see the being by some means, there was no penalty in doing so, otherwise it depended on how far away the being was, but the order could contact SK after SK, shredding them one by one from the safety of the dragon's crown hundreds or thousands of miles away.
because i had played for so long with only a single character and managed to survive i earned many friends and foes. these allies forged for me a weapon to fight the SK's. a Dragonslayer.
I still have my axe and it is AWESOME! puts Rajaats toys to shame.:D
Absorbs defiling magic, immunity to telepathy, high resistance to psionics, provides initiative, and so much more. autocasts slay living each hit... Ah the good ol days!
Killing a SK is hard. Period. And they have been around for thousands of years. They know how to protect themselves.
In my campaigns, killing an SK is way harder than it sounds like in your campaigns.
If it was the real Nibenay and not a proxy/clone/illusion/polymorphed follower he could cast through.
Killing a SK is hard. Period. And they have been around for thousands of years. They know how to protect themselves.
In my campaigns, killing an SK is way harder than it sounds like in your campaigns.
Just gotta get to them when they are in the process of transforming. make it much easier. which is how i killed the Oba. Nibenay was tougher, of the party of epic heroes i was the lowest level and the only survivor.
like i said, a fandom game.:D
Its also difficult to prepare properly and PCs often vary their attacks to bypass defenses. In the original 2nd ed setting a reasonably large (5-6 PCs) party of 10+ PCs would have a reasonable chance at killing an advanced being in a more or less fair fight.
If it was the real Nibenay and not a proxy/clone/illusion/polymorphed follower he could cast through.
Killing a SK is hard. Period. And they have been around for thousands of years. They know how to protect themselves.
In my campaigns, killing an SK is way harder than it sounds like in your campaigns.
I guess so, but it says they are still just 21st level psions and 21st level defilers, they should have a lot more experience, considering how long they've been around. How long though, do you think it takes for someone to become a dragon? From 3rd level psion or defiler, to 20th level psion AND defiler. There was Farclun, but we were never given any of his life history. Presumably, as a non champion of Rajaat, with no ageless-type immortality, he was born either in the green age or age of Sk's/brown age, and could have used the life extension spell more than once, or the protection from time spell every week.
Still, a psionic barrage of thirty 20+ level psions, is no small attack! I think even one member of the order would put a reasonable fight (or victory) with an SK, if it were strictly psionic combat, though getting hit psionically may disrupt spell casting just the same as a physical attack.
We had multiple psionics users in our party, and Nibenay bit the dust in 1 round, no artifacts needed.
LOL, so much for Gallard, Gnome Bane/The Shadow King. Did they display his Draconic Corpse hung up in the City Square?
There is a sort of curse attached to it. The wearer feels compelled to begin the Dragon Metamorphosis, and is single minded in this goal. Once they successfully cast Defiler Metamorphosis IV, the Skull of the Shadow King merges into their body, and all of the powers it possessed become inherent to the former wearer. The new Dragon now has to deal with a psychic imprint of good ol' Nibs bothering them, like Baron Harkonnen "haunted" Alia in the Dune saga. Nibenay is actually interested primarily in fighting off the Rhulisti invasion from the Messenger, and will try to compel his "host" to fight them at any cost, and gain as much of their equipment as possible, for use and study.
The host also is the anchor popint for the Living Vortex Nibenay had, and thus can grant Templar spells. By demonstrating this power, and desecrating the remains of the Shadow King in the middle of town, the wearer(Khajja Dasylijic, one of my PCs), became the new ruler of Nibenay. He largely leaves the administration in the hands of the Templars, and spends a LOT of time in the Naggaramakan studying and , recently, producing Rhulisti artifacts. He is also in possession of a set of psionically enhanced Warmaster's Vonduun Crab Armor and a psionically enhanced Amphistaff (from SW d20).His Amphistaff can channel psionic energy to increase the damage dealt(for every 4 pp invested, an extra 1d6 dmg done for every strike made with it that round,for another 10pp, Deep Impact for the duration of the round, for 2 pp, use of the Stand Still feat for the round, for 10 pp, it will drain half of the damage dealt as PP which are channeled to the wielder, the user must expend their psionic focus to use any of these abilities, and can use them all on a single psionic focus expenditure. The Amphistaff was grown from a culture imbued with pieces of the bones and organs of Nibenay, which made them very receptive to psionic and magical enhancement. Also, the user can sacrifice spell levels (1 per 2pp) to pay the Amphistaff's costs, if they choose.
The parts of Nibenay not destined for use are still on a spike in the middle of town. For some reason, they just don't want to decompose.......and sometimes they twitch, according to witnesses whose claims are dismissed as paranoia or drunken imaginings,..........
I made his skull into a helm .VERY powerful psionic\magical artifact, grants 200 extra PP, +10 intelligence
Why didn't Gallard not have such an item to begin with?
1) many artifacts and a failed/untested epic spell
Speaking of that, I just read forest maker, and in that (spoiler ahead) Abalach-Re casts a spell that allows her to make several jumps in dragon levels, and it actually DOES work, if the PC's don't stop her.
Why didn't Gallard not have such an item to begin with?
He had a very powerful psicrown that granted him the PP and a couple of the other things, but the main reason he didn't have that specific item is because it's made out of his skull:D
He was packing a pretty good set of equipment, and some of it was the inspiration for the abilities the Skull of Nibenay grants. A lot of the abilities it gives are also based on attributes he possessed as a character and dragon, such as the improved metamagic and metapsionic feats, and he had the feat that allows a manifester to apply more than one metapsionic effect per Psionic Focus expenditure. The Shadow casting is because IMC Nibenay used the Black to power his spells, and the groves of Trees of Life and such were just a front to keep anyone from guessing he had a different source of energy, and also for the use of his defilers (he didn't teach them Shadow magic because that was his ace in the hole.
Fighting the Dragon
For most parties, confrontation with the Dragon means certain death. Make this explicitly clear to players who are unaware of it. Try to stage the uneven battle with many opportunities for heroic death scenes. A fighter might rush the Dragon and wound it bitterly as he dies; a mage might engulf both herself and the enemy in a colossal fireball; a thief might backstab the Dragon, sacrificing himself but distracting it at a critical moment so that a companion can escape. Let the characters damage the Dragon severely; it can heal after they are dead, and it makes their passing more dramatic.
Tactics in an even contest: Campaigns using the Dragon Kings supplement may have characters above 20th level. Conceivably a heavily armed and well-organized band of high-level characters could match the Dragon’s power. These parties would take the Dragon by surprise; it never expects a mere band of intruders to present a true threat!
As soon as the party lands a significant blow, though, the Dragon sees its mistake. It teleports elsewhere in the Sanctum (usually less than 1,000 yards away), to one of its many buried caches of potion fruits and treasures, takes as many potion fruits of extra-healing as necessary to heal completely, ctivates its danger sense and other defenses, and defines a teleport trigger that will take it to the opposite side of the Sanctum from the party when it is reduced to 25 hit points or less. Then the Dragon dons a ring of invisibility and inaudibility, takes a wand and staff (roll randomly for type), and teleports within sight of the party.
The whole operation takes about five rounds.
Now the Dragon inspects its opponents closely, searching for weakness or relaxation; it may spend many rounds stalking the party this way (letting down most of its psionic defenses if it needs to save PSPs). If the party seems ready to leave the City of Doom, the Dragon attacks to prevent this. When ready to attack, it first telepathically calls in its kaisharga and a few companies of troops to wear the party down. Then, when the party appears weakened, it attacks with life draining or death field, as described in the Wanderer’s Journal entry.
If the Dragon has gotten a wand of illusion, it uses it to good effect, creating an illusion of itself to draw the characters’ fire before revealing itself. If you use the Dragon Kings supplement, the Dragon should also have several psionic enchantments ready, such as dome of invulnerability or rift (to increase the strength of its kaisharga).
In any case, the Dragon fights to kill dangerous opponents, but never fights to its own death if it can escape to fight another day.
What if they win? Even in the unlikely event that the PCs encounter and fight the Dragon, they should not be able to destroy it. If properly run, the Dragon is able to defeat even a party of the highest level adventurers.
The Dragon has had thousands of years to prepare its defenses. It must have many contingency spells, and possibly clones, to ensure its survival. The realm of psionic enchantment opens up still more amazing possibilities. You have many devices to keep the Dragon alive —if you want to.
Killing the Dragon is less an issue of firepower than of campaign direction. Without the Dragon, the Tyr region’s balance of power changes completely.
Unless the party demonstrates incontrovertibly that its power surpasses the Dragon’s— an unlikely case— chaos ensues. orcerer-kings forego the struggle for supremacy long enough to unite against the player characters. Scenarios would be much different in this new world, now divorced from the established DARK SUN™ campaign background. Still, that may appeal to you and your players. After all, if the issue arises, both players and DM have clearly demonstrated a sense of adventure. There is no other way to survive the Valley of Dust and Fire.
I also met a guy who claimed to have beaten Tiamat, on the 1st layer of Hell, one on one! Sure you did. 
Killing the Dragon, or for that matter, killing any of the DKs would/should be quite the undertaking. To even have a chance, you would need access to someone on the inside who knew the typical defenses the DK usually applied. You would also need to know where the clones are located. No doubt there would be a contigency spell or two involving teleport. Dimensional anchor anyone?
You would have to treat the SK like a group of Professional thieves treat a big score; months of planning, research, and preparation, just to have a chance. There is no way you could just attack the DK's palace, find the DK alone (yeah right), and beat him/her in a fair fight. Unless...
The DM took it easy on you and let you win. I wouldn't do that. :D
Nibenay got taken down through tactical planning and swift application of awful, brutal force. This was assisted by the fact that our party was composed entirely of psionics weilders (and one character who could use magic, but preferred Psionics) who were posing as Defilers in search of work. They all knew a few powers each that the Erudite in the group had developed from spells (Expanded Erudite class ability). They gave absolutely no clue that they knew any psionics at all, and were very careful to carry legit spellbooks and components with them, and make appropriate gestures and such. Plant death was accomplished by manifesting a quickened version of a Lv. 1 power we specifically developed for this purpose (Defoliate - Kills plants within a small radius, and creates a VERY THIN layer of ash , just enough to look like defiling, but does not actually ruin the land. )
The party arranged a meeting with Nibenay, claiming to be looking for employment as Royal Defilers, and claiming knowledge of the location of both an Avangion and the capital city of the Kreen Empire (Both true, but the Avangion was a friend and they were in the direct employ of the Kreen ruler (my Kreen Dragon, the T. Vortexa). The group decided on their own to take out Nibenay, as it fit with the goals of their Avangion friend and their employer. They were carrying items with them to boost their Charisma scores, to assist with Bluff checks. After feeding Nibenay the absolute truth about the Avangion and the Kreen Dragon, Nibenay granted them the opportunity to display their defiling skills. Passing their Bluff checks to hide their motives, the whole group started doing gestures for Power Word : Kill spells, which were supposedly going to be cast at a group of slaves brought in as targets.
During the gestures for the spells, which contained a sweeping motion of the arms, they all simultaneously (Technically, one right after the other) manifested their maximized and quickened, maximized Crystal Shards at Nibenay. Nibenay had readied an action to counterspell, just in case, as any wise SK would if strangers were about to start casting spells in his presence. Having failed his Sense Motive check, he had no idea they were actually Psionics Users and not Spellcasters, and the fact that one in the party was actually capable of casting spells and they were all carrying magic items meant they all had several magical presences on their persons, completing the subterfuge. Anyway, Nibenay ended up uselessly wasting his only chance to react by trying to counterspell against Psionic powers, and was ripped to shreds for his mistake. The Templars of Nibenay all instantly lost their spellcasting abilities, and so were essentially useless and very frightened, thus, easily intimidated. Siemhouk revealed where Nibenay's Astral Seed was germinating, and we squashed it.
I was fully prepared to let the party get killed if Nibenay had succeeded on his Sense Motive checks, but the PCs planned everything out excellently, and thus, killed an SK.
I once met a guy who claimed his character killed ALL the demon lords in the 1st ed MM. Without missing a beat, I asked him if he DMed the campaign himself! He just gave me a dirty look and walked away!
Killing the Dragon, or for that matter, killing any of the DKs would/should be quite the undertaking. To even have a chance, you would need access to someone on the inside who knew the typical defenses the DK usually applied. You would also need to know where the clones are located. No doubt there would be a contigency spell or two involving teleport. Dimensional anchor anyone?
You would have to treat the SK like a group of Professional thieves treat a big score; months of planning, research, and preparation, just to have a chance. There is no way you could just attack the DK's palace, find the DK alone (yeah right), and beat him/her in a fair fight. Unless...
The DM took it easy on you and let you win. I wouldn't do that. :D
Far from it, i played DS with my mul for over 7 years;) believe me i earned the kills. When we took oba we had an Avangion and a legion of preservers with us. I got lucky and claimed the kill as the Oba was trying to Flee. The Avangion and 11 other players along with over 1,000 npc's died in that battle.
When dealing with Nibenay, His Own Templar Wives aided us. it was a frontal assault (distraction) on the city gates with mock battles between the templars and the Army of Freemen (liberated peoples from new raam, balic, draj.) while the entire time a smaller group traveled the forgotten tunnels under nibenay. nibenay had his clone beating on the main army when the smaller group popped up inside his ziggurrat palace. 3 of our members were epic psionicists, and started countering his buffs, 8 others were preservers and elementalists who began debuffing nibenay, while our grand patriach (34 lvl cleric) summoned the Composite Elemental King (huge 30HD monster)
and the warriors -Me mul glad.dragonslayer, 2 thrikreen glad/psi's, 4 halfgiant fighter/clerics (all earth) and a halfling ranger/psi (sniper) took on the dragon. and alot more!
Something to know, for an entire year the group quested to learn how to fight defiling magic,psionics and the dragons in a more professional manner. we had an Elder Avangion(29lvl) and a Lvl 22 Avangion helping us forge the right weapons and enchanting them with the super anti buffs. for a whole year we quested all of athas nearly. in the end everyone got 1 item to help them and mine was a Battle Axe.
before we took the oba i had been a part of 3 wandering dragon battles, each ending in the dragons death. then we took the oba, then nibenay. we were going for Hamanu when the whole dregoth campaign came out, we killed dregoth like 5 times total before he finally died. i think we lost every PC any of us made over the years except for a few. i managed to keep my mul alive with all his limbs.
the DM didnt give us the wins. we took them.;) and it was the greatest games i have ever played in. all my other PC's were killed but its ok. ( we each ran 5 PC's) there was 11 of us in the group.
we had huge games and our DM (Mr Scotly) was awesome.my mul would be in the high 20's low 30's right now but i got cursed and lost the ability to gain XP. it's ok cause i got loot.
I ran a fight with three PCs against Turaglas, Demon Prince of Hunger over the Bridge of Oblivion. They survived a while, but were pretty much toast. In the end they just shoved him into a Dimension Door with no destination and called it a day.
I once had Blackguard who challenged Yeenoghu. I brought all of my followers (100+) and a couple party members, and in the end, I managed to cut off his arm with a limb-sever (From the Star Wars RPG Heroes Guide), but took so many hits from that damned flail that I had to fall back through the rift and flee back to my castle with all 20-something of my followers.
These things are tough, but not invincible, and that's the way it should be. Still, I have an unholy crusader who's missing a handful of teeth who certainly hopes that's true.
Kudos to those who have actually managed to take one of these super-powered bastards down.
And yes, awesome stories about those who have done it. Sounds like a tough contest.
My players right now are getting ready for a big fight, but not nearly epic. It will be tough. If any of them are reading this: many of you may die. No pulling punches.
And this is just a level 15 t'liz defiler. A dragon would be a complete terror.
i would describe the battles with dregoth and his minions but it would require like 100 posts.:D lots happened.
if i ever get the 3e rules i may continue to run DS and try and get the curse lifted from my mul so he can become epic, he maxed at lvl 18.
watching others gain like 10 levels and not getting 1 xp the entire time wasnt easy, but i OUTLASTED THEM ALL!! lol. they hate me for that.