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[Jimmy]

After a bit more research I've decided to revise my attack plan. I'm going to try purchasing 6-8 doses of Cockatrice Grit and having my summoned monsters toss them at the Dragon instead. With no save on 1d4 Dex damage vs. its touch AC of 8, it should be over after about 1-2 rounds of combat.

[Harry Baldman]

After a bit more research I've decided to revise my attack plan. I'm going to try purchasing 6-8 doses of Cockatrice Grit and having my summoned monsters toss them at the Dragon instead. With no save on 1d4 Dex damage vs. its touch AC of 8, it should be over after about 1-2 rounds of combat.

Operation: True Grit

Anyway, that sounds like that thing where people found Shivering Touch in D&D 3.5 and proceeded to really smugly figure out how to munchkin their way out of anything with it. Admittedly, this is less cheap (literally, given one dose costs 2k gp) and broken, but still the sort of thing that I'd feel would put a reasonable GM in a vindictive mood.

The question is, wouldn't "a Fortitude save to end the effect" mean that it shrugs off the initial Dex damage after 1 round? EDIT: Probably not, since that's explicitly not how calcific touch works. Still, better hope this is not the sort of dragon that eats all of its treasure (since they totally could if my knowledge of improbable dragon biology is correct).

[Jimmy]

Just like poison effects, even if you make the saving throw in subsequent rounds, the damage that's already occurred still remains. Dexterity damage would stack perfectly well per the rules, so no trouble there either. The item text specifically says "each round that follows, the victim can attempt a DC 17 Fortitude save at the start of its turn" which means the initial 1d4 Dex damage has no saving throw, just requiring you to hit the touch AC with the attack roll (which will be all but impossible to miss for this thing).

Since the average loot for a CR 14 encounter is 15,000 gp, investing 12,000-16,000 gp into killing this thing without any risk will return approximately 24,000 gp of loot due to the triple standard treasure effect for dragons. Not bad for a day's work, especially since I happen to have a sack of 25,000 gp sitting back at my home base not doing anything particularly useful right now.

[nullBolt]

Just like poison effects, even if you make the saving throw in subsequent rounds, the damage that's already occurred still remains. Dexterity damage would stack perfectly well per the rules, so no trouble there either. The item text specifically says "each round that follows, the victim can attempt a DC 17 Fortitude save at the start of its turn" which means the initial 1d4 Dex damage has no saving throw, just requiring you to hit the touch AC with the attack roll (which will be all but impossible to miss for this thing).

Since the average loot for a CR 14 encounter is 15,000 gp, investing 12,000-16,000 gp into killing this thing without any risk will return approximately 24,000 gp of loot due to the triple standard treasure effect for dragons. Not bad for a day's work, especially since I happen to have a sack of 25,000 gp sitting back at my home base not doing anything particularly useful right now.

DM: "As soon as you fling the first potion and it makes contact with the dragon, it scurries off into the cave complex, leaving the treasure unguarded."

You're gonna get wrecked by a dragon who knows it's caves much, much better than you do.

[Jimmy]

Me: "As soon as the dragon scurries off, I open my portable hole and start shovelling the dragon's horde into it, checking carefully to make sure there's no bags of holding in it before I start. Once I have all its loot, I teleport back to my home base."

Sure, it could track me down some other day. Guess what? I'll still have 8 bags of Cockatrice Grit in my inventory when it does. Of course, that's assuming it even lasts a single round to try and escape. Combat would probably go like this:

Pre-combat: Summon 10 air elementals. Command 8 air elementals to pick up one bag of Cockatrice Grit each. Cast Haste on all 10. Optional: Give the other two a small business card with Explosive Runes on it.
Round 1: Send first air elemental to intiate combat with the dragon. Now we're on initiative. Dragon destroys creature immediately. Alternatively the GM might call this a surprise round, so that's over now too.
Round 2: Send second air elemental to soak up dragon's standard action. Dragon destroys creature immediately. The other eight air elementals use the Delay action to delay until after the dragon's turn. Unless the dragon has fled by now, they each go one after the other and chuck their Cockatrice Grit all within the same round. Combat finished.

[Criptfeind]

I'd think your GM has a serious lack of imagination (or at least, didn't prepare enough, bane of GMs that is. I couldn't blame him.) if he lets the dragon go down that easily. Dex is too classically a weakness of dragons in order for it not have some way to protect itself against such an attack. Of course, the fact that the dragons not doing anything at all to you even after you've been fucking with it sorta implies that this is the case anyway.

[andrea]

alternatively, the family of the dragon decides to get a big revenge against you and everyone related to you.

or the dragon turns out poor and you lost money.

or the hoarde is trapped and next time you try to withdraw from your portable hole, you blow up.

before doing such exploits, be sure your GM will like them, or be prepared for consequences. Also, always remember the rule 0, that can get in the way of such brilliant schemes sometime. ( it can also help them however. In a campaign I played in, we used gaseous poison to clear a mine from kobolds, in a way that I am sure is not exactly as written in rules. sadly, the poison turned out to be permanent, requiring gas masks. but that was a nice flavor and appropriate penalty for skipping the challenge)

[scriver]

@Dragon omni-virility: I think it's fair to point out that this is usually because of dragons' habit of metamorphing and slumming it up with the lesser races, not because dragon spring-water has some magic ability to impregnate anything it happens to fall upon, be it living underwear or not.

[Jimmy]

Hey, if the dragon's family wants some action, bring it. Same trick would work on them too. I'll carpet my home base in red dragon leather.

Ultimately the strategy is exploiting the two glaring weaknesses of dragons: low touch AC and low Dexterity. Now, typically it's not a problem since most effects that inflict Dexterity damage or drain are either poisons with a fortitude save before they work, or spells that are subject to the dragon's extremely good SR. It just so happens that this one item manages to bypass both defences completely. I'll most likely get a pass on this strategy for the current encounter for creativity, then there'll be a houserule that it's banned from future games.

Frankly, I see it as fair turnaround for the DM throwing a creature at us that's 5 CR levels higher than the party average. It's pretty much expected that we'll have to find some loophole to defeat it, since there's zero chance of us surviving a straight up fight. If the intention was for a balanced encounter that involves standard combat, we should have been given a monster that was level appropriate. It's certainly not like I haven't investigated alternative methods of completing the encounter. I initially approached the dragon diplomatically, offered it a 1,000 gp tribute, stroking its ego and doing the best I could to attempt to have a nice peaceful chat. It demanded all my character's equipment instead, then tried to fry me with dragonbreath when I declined. So now we're at the point where only one of us is walking away alive, and I intend for that to be me and my party.

As for traps at the end, if the DM wants to play sore loser and screw us over on the loot, that's not something I can control so I'm not gonna worry about it. I'll still have the rogue check the horde over for traps and give it a good old scan with Detect Magic before we loot the thing though, because you can never be too paranoid.

[nullBolt]

To be honest, I can think of at least six ways that I as a GM could screw you guys up royally that you aren't planning for without me doing anything too naughty.

One would be to have the dragon wake his legion of kobold slaves, send them down the tunnels at you and then firebreath the entire party whilst you're tied up in combat. Or get said kobolds to light smokey fires and then beat the living daylights out of you in smoke that you can't see in whilst the dragon can see perfectly fine.

But, as others said, your plan involved walking away from a dragon and resting and any GM that allows that is very inexperienced.

Considering the spells even Adult Red Dragons have, you shouldn't be able to get into it's lair without it knowing and wrecking you.

P.S. The GM isn't a sore loser. It isn't a game about you versus them. That isn't how P&P works.

[Bohandas]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/c-d/cockatrice-grit

Does that site have an option anywhere to download a local copy of their content?

[Neonivek]

Ok I am going to do the stupid, the insane... and make another game... >_<

But THIS time, I am going to create the first 5 sessions worth of content!

Also checked out "Out of the Abyss" and I REALLY didn't expect them to stat out all of the major demon lords.

As well MORE impressively they aren't made to CR (to an extent)... Honestly if 5th edition had a more customization with character creation it would probably be one of the better dnd games.

"Ohh no we have no rogue, that means we can't do 50% of what the adventure asks us"
"Don't worry, I took some rogue skills!"
"Ohh no we lack a healer!"
"Don't worry, we can just take a rest"
"Ohh no we have two fighters and they both want to use Longswords!"
"Don't worry, we can give them different builds"

[My Name is Immaterial]

Ok I am going to do the stupid, the insane... and make another game... >_<

WOOOOOO!!!

[SOLDIER First]

hopefully i will 1. exert effort and 2. participate this time

[TheBiggerFish]

WOOO GAME!