Common Red Dragon

Common Red Dragon (Villain; CR 15)

Chaotic Evil - Huge - Dragon

Lore:	Know (Arcana)
28		48
Basic DC		Full DC

Initiative

29

Perception:
40	+30
Passive	Active

Ambush:

10+

on a d20

Senses:

• Standard Senses

Movement Types:

Defense

AC

38

Man Def

38

Monster Health
1,716	858	29
Hit Points	Bloodied	Hit Dice

Saving Throws
Fort:	+17
Refl:	+17
Will:	+17

Strong Against:

• DR 15/Common (Bludgeoning,  Crushing,  Piercing,  Slashing,  Slime)

• ER 15/Common (Acid,  Cold,  Fire,  Lightning,  Sonic)

• (Villain Role) Immunity (partial 7): Villains are immune to the first seven conditions applied to them during an encounter. If an eighth condition is applied to a villain, it is resolved normally. A 'condition' is defined as any non-instantaneous harmful effect applied to the monster, other than damage, but is most commonly one of the defined Status Conditions (but it doesn't have to be). Statuses related to damage (such as injured, bloodied, staggered, dying, or dead) are not 'conditions', and cannot be negated or avoided with this ability.
• (Dragon 1) Immune (no effect): magical sleep (drowsy, sluggish, asleep), paralyzed, stunned
• (Dragon 2) Immune (no effect): sonic (energy, common)
• (Dragon 3) Immune (no effect): fear
• Immune (no effect): Fire (energy, common)

• Immune (no effect): Sonic (energy, common)

Weak Against:

Offense

Size:	Huge
15 ft.		15 ft.
Space		Reach

To-Hit

+22

Man Off

+25

Action

5

Points

Standard Attack (Melee):

• 1x Red-Fanged Bite +22 (4d10+38/x2)
  as crushing (physical, common)
  plus: Burned
• 1x Reddened Claws +22 (4d6+16/x2)
  as slashing (physical, common)
  plus: Bleed 15

Full Attack (Melee):

• 1x Red-Fanged Bite +22 (4d10+38/x2)
  as crushing (physical, common)
  plus: Burned
• 2x Reddened Claws +22 (4d6+16/x2)
  as slashing (physical, common)
  plus: Bleed 15
• 1x Jagged Red Tail +22 (4d10+38/x2)
  as bludgeoning (physical, common)
  affects all enemies in a 3x3 square area, plus: Bleed 15
• 2x Red-Tinged Wings +22 (4d6+16/x2)
  as buffeting (physical, uncommon)
  affects all enemies in a 2x2 square area, plus: Burned

Standard Attack (Ranged):

Full Attack (Ranged):

Siege Damage:

• 1x Reddened Claws +25 (1d6+1)
  

Statistics

33

STR

29

DEX

31

CON

27

INT

27

WIS

25

CHA

Skills:

• Bluff: 27
• Diplomacy: 27
• Knowledge (Arcana): 27
• Perception: 30
• Sense Motive: 27
• All other skills: 20 (no ranks)

Languages: Draconic, High Draconic, Common, Ackakakl, Reave

Feats:

• Combat Reflexes (EFFECT: Monsters with this feat make up to 4 attacks of opportunity per round instead of one.)

Special Abilities

Addling Roar (Ex)

As a standard action, the dragon may emit an ear-shattering howl of unimaginable power. This attack affects all creatures within 100 feet of the dragon's space. The dragon must have line of effect for this power to operate, but does not require line of sight. This power inflicts 4d10+40 points of sonic (energy, common) damage. Addling Roar allows a Fort save versus a DC of 27 to take half damage.

Red Dragon Breath (Su)

As a standard action, the dragon may emit a vast and deadly blast of white-hot flames. The Breath Weapon affects a 30 foot cone. This breath weapon does 5d10+44 points of fire (energy, common) damage, and all enemies caught in it must make a Reflex save versus a DC of 27. Those who make their save take only half damage from the breath. Those who fail the save take full damage and gain the Burned status, which inflicts additional fire (energy, common) damage at the start of each of the burning creature's turns. Burned persists until the end of the encounter, the burning creature dies, the dragon which caused the Burn dies, or the creature uses a standard action to extinguish the flames.

Terrible Majesty (Su, Fear)

Once per round as a free action, the dragon can exude its Terrible Majesty upon all enemy creatures within 100 feet of the dragon's space, forcing them to make a Will save versus a DC of 26. Terrible Majesty requires line of sight, but does not require line of effect. The first time an enemy creature is subjected to this effect, if it fails the save, it takes 4d8+26 points of psychic (energy, uncommon) damage, and receives the Trembling condition for the rest of the encounter. Furthermore, upon failing the save, a wispy Dragonborn Blazespawn Minion appears adjacent to the enemy creature. Those who succeed on the save take only half damage, and instead gain the Nervous condition until the end of their next turn, and no minion appears adjacent to them. Each subsequent use of terrible majesty after the first only creates new minions; it does not inflict damage nor any fear effects on any creature which has already made a saving throw (regardless of whether the save succeeded or failed) against that dragon's Terrible Majesty. Dragonborn Blazespawn Minions are made of solid fire, appearing out of the heat shimmers on the battlefield. They act autonomously on a separate initiative tick than their dragon, fervently expending their brief existences to destroy their dragon's enemies. They have all the powers and attacks and abilities of a Dragonborn Blazespawn, but only one hit point each. Note that these minions can survive the death of their dragon, and will keep right on attacking until they are destroyed. The first time the dragon uses Terrible Majesty, the only limit on the number of minions possible is the number of characters who fail their saves. Thereafter, Terrible Majesty can only summon a maximum of 4 minions total, and it does nothing unless there are fewer than 4 minions present. When used while there are fewer than 4 minions present, the ability summons a number of new minions sufficient to bring the total back to 4. However, the total is always brought back up to 4, even if all enemies succeed on their saving throws. In such a case, these unplaced minions appear anywhere on the map that is no closer than 15 feet from an enemy creature. Neither the Trembling nor Nervous conditions caused by Terrible Majesty can be prematurely ended by moving further away from the dragon; they must either be allowed to expire as described above, or cured through some other means.

Melee Mastery (Ex)

Red dragons never provoke attacks of opportunity from enemies.

Indignant Response (Su)

The first time a red dragon is reduced to zero or fewer hit points, as a triggered reaction, the dragon slams itself into the ground with a thunderous impact, and a wave of roiling fire billows out 12 squares (60 feet) from the edges of the dragon's space. Those in this radius may make a reflex save, DC 27, or they take 4d10+40 points of fire (energy, common) damage and are pushed to an unoccupied space outside the radius and knocked Prone. While each space of a push must always be further away from the dragon, the dragon may choose exactly how each push is resolved as long as it follows the Push rules. Those who succeed on the save take only half damage, are pushed only 4 spaces and are not knocked Prone. In addition, the dragon immediately sheds any conditions it is suffering under, regains half its maximum health (858 hit points), and its initiative is reset to the current tick, interrupting the creature whose turn was used to drop the dragon to 0 or fewer hit points. Note that this nearly always results in the dragon acting twice in the round it is first reduced to zero hit points. Once the dragon completes its turn, the interrupted creature may complete its turn as though its initiative was immediately after the dragon, but they to not regain any actions used prior to the dragon's Indignant Response.

The Ember Smolders (Su)

The second time a Red Dragon is killed in a battle, it emits a gigantic Death Scream as it collapses to the ground. All enemy creatures within 100 feet take 4d10+40 points of psychic (energy, uncommon) damage as the awful blackened soul of the beast gushes forth in a terrible boil of psychic flames. Affected creatures may make a Will save against a DC of 26 to take half damage, and then may proceed to loot the beast's hoard. Optional: But this is not the end. If any of the Red Dragon's Cult of Personality (see below) survive, then after 1d10+1 days, one lucky member of that Cult finds themselves to be the blessed vessel for the monster's rebirth. Once the fiendish wyrm begins to regrow, it takes three days for it to regain its full strength. If allowed to return to life this way, the Dragon will resume its depredations, but it will harbor a long, slow-burning hatred in its black, fire-riddled heart for those who visited such indignities upon it. And it will begin to plot, and spy, and send minions to harass, and whisper words into the ears of enemies, and generally make itself a terrible, terrible nuisance. The only sure way to destroy a Red Dragon is to first hunt down and exterminate its entire Cult, root and branch, and then slay the beast on the piled corpses of its evil followers.

Two Steps Ahead (Ex; Villain Role) Auto Upon Death

The first time in an encounter that a Villain is reduced to zero or fewer hit points, three things immediately happen, granting a rare glimpse at this foe's true cunning: Instead of dying, the villain is revealed to have been one of its minions in disguise THE ENTIRE TIME! To make things even worse, this minion dies in a massive explosion, dealing 4d10+40 points of fire (energy, common) to all enemy creatures within a 4 square radius (20 feet) of the villain's space. Affected creatures may make a Reflex save vs. a DC of 26 for half damage. (GMs may change this damage type to any other common Energy or Physical damage type, if it would be more thematically appropriate for the Villain in question.) Immediately after the explosion is resolved, four minions are spawned, or enough to bring the total up to eight, whichever is less (as per the rules of Surrounded By Idiots). The villain is removed from the encounter until the start of its next turn, immune to all damage and effects, and it cannot be targeted by any skills, talents, or abilities until then. At the start of the Villain's next turn, the villain can appear either in any space that has at least partial cover from all enemy creatures (e.g., around a nearby corner), or in a space where one of its minions currently stands. If the latter option is chosen, the minion is killed to make room for its master. At that time, any conditions the Villain was suffering under are immediately cleared, all accumulated efforts to pierce its condition immunity are removed, and its hit points are set to half its normal maximum (858 hit points). Once this has occurred, the Villain's immunity to damage expires, and it may perform its turn as normal. The Villain is killed for good the second time its hit points are reduced to zero or less.

Surrounded By Idiots (Ex; Villain Role) Free Action 1/Rnd

Up to once per round as a free action during their turn, a Villain may summon four minions, placing them in any unblocked space the Villain can perceive, as long as the space is large enough for the minion to occupy without squeezing. Any time this special ability is used and the total number of summoned minions present would exceed eight, it only summons enough minions to bring the total to eight. Of course, any minion that is killed reduces the number of minions present...

Keep Your Friends Close (Ex; Villain Role) Immediate Action

Once per round as an immediate action, the Villain may apply all of the damage of a single attack just made against them to a single ally within 30 feet of their space, instead. The Villain takes no damage from the attack, and any secondary effects of the attack (such as status conditions) are resolved against the allied creature instead. This ability may never be used more than once per round. If the Villain has no allies within 30 feet, they cannot use this ability.

Alpha Assault (Ex; Villain Role) Always On

A Villain may expend up to two action points in the same round.

Common Red Dragon

This creature possesses the Villain role, and therefore counts as 4 monsters for purposes of encounter size, XP award, and treasure.

Red Dragons are the dragons everyone thinks of when they think of dragons. Red dragons are the quintessential dragon. They breathe fire, they are vicious, endlessly tough, intelligent, horrible opponents, and if a red dragon shows up, it is wise to give it whatever it wants before it decides to make the effort to take it for itself. Red dragons are unusual among many of their kin, in that their claws deal siege damage, which means they can rend the walls of a castle to dust as easily as rending flesh off bones. Red dragons are a calamitous force of nature, and if one decides to inhabit a spot near your town, you would be well-served to move.

Dragons are so different from every other creature that they have their own unique classification. They have four legs, although the front 'feet' are dexterous enough to serve quite well as hands. They also have two or more completely functional wings, and they are powerful and speedy fliers. They have a large and dexterous prehensile tail, and seeing a monster as big as a dragon hanging from a branch is a sight you will remember for the rest of your life, however long that might be.

Dragons are intelligent and terribly alien. What a dragon considers important is not what other races consider important. They are also frequently, but not always, intensely malign. Some rare dragons may be allies with lesser races (all races are lesser to a dragon, as they see it) or even genuine friends to others. Most dragons, even those traditionally considered "good," are vain and jealous things, consumed with petty grievances and cruel enough to punish every slight, no matter how small or imaginary.

Dragons will hunt at great distances. Due to their powerful and magically enhanced metabolisms, dragons need to eat far less than would seem 'natural' for a beast their size. Rather than a blessing, this is a terrible curse upon the world, because things as awful as dragons should be rare, and, as the name "common red" might imply, they are not. Even worse, since dragons need far less food than is natural, they tend to be horrifically picky eaters, and have been known to kill an entire herd of cows to find the tastiest one, or rampage through an entire town looking for the prettiest maiden.

Dragons also have a tendency to 'play' with their food in most terrible ways. If you want to rescue that prettiest maiden, best to be quick about it. It is often speculated that dragons are deliberately wretched in their behavior, in order to force would-be dragon-slayers into action 'before they're ready', and so increase the dragon's long-term safety. Indeed, many dragons are far too intelligent and clever for their own good. There are hundreds of stories of adventurers taunting dragons into foolish actions, and it is true that, in a battle, it is hard for a dragon to take any 'lesser' race seriously. In a dragon's mind, the only creatures worthy of consideration, much less respect, are other dragons.

The world belongs to the dragons. The rest of us just live here.

Dragons tend to be categorized into loose species-groups based upon their physical appearance and traits. Most common among these are the white, black, blue, green, red chromatic dragons, followed closely by the bronze, copper, silver, gold and platinum metallic dragons. Other species groups exist, such as the earth dragons (brown, gray, yellow, and ocher), the spirit dragons (force, prismatic, empyrean, and tellurian) the gem dragons (crystal, onyx, jade, sapphire, ruby and amber), the drifting dragons (cloud, mist, shadow, sand, and dust), and the tempered dragons (iron, steel, mithril and adamant), to name the most common. In addition there are many odd dragons which defy categorization, such as coiled dragons, nested dragons, radiant dragons, sea dragons, celestial dragons, star dragons, moon dragons, sun dragons, fairy dragons, and many, many more besides.

While the physical appearance of the dragon is the easiest means of distinguishing them from one another, a dragon's coloration isn't a drab monochrome. Red dragons, for example, tend to have iridescent scales which shimmer through all the colors of red, orange and yellow depending on the available light. But in all cases, they are strongly associated with the powers of fire.

Red dragon lairs tend to be elaborately decorated, often resembling a finely appointed temple to a god. They enjoy many comforts and vices, and also enjoy influencing the affairs of nearby nations and peoples. They have been known to take on worshipers as though they were truly deific, though reports of clerics of specific dragons being capable of casting spells or invoking the dragon's holy power are unconfirmed.

Combat Tactics

In general, the red dragon's plan is to set everyone on fire and then beat the hell out of them. To complicate things, red dragons prefer to attack in areas of darkness, relying on their bursts of flames (and their darkvision) to hinder their opponents with no repercussions to the dragon. Even worse, they spawn a steady flood of minions who are terribly mobile, and made even more so by every dragon breath they breathe forth.

On the first round, the dragon will spend an action point to breathe on as many targets as they can, order their minions to position themselves for flanks or harry the back ranks of the attackers, and then close to melee. By closing into melee, the dragon's Terrible Majesty will be triggered, the wrenching wrongness of the monster's evil tearing at their enemies' minds. On the following round, the dragon will use their remaining action point for an addling roar, and then perform a full attack action, again placing minions to bottle up their enemies, set up flanks, harry and harass, and generally be a right mess. Red dragons love to scrap toe-to-toe with their foes, but will also take full advantage of their Melee mastery to move about the field of battle any time things start to set up unfavorably. Due to their size, red dragons can step over or through sized-medium (and smaller) creatures without worrying about squeezing or even finding unoccupied spaces to end their moves.

After their Indignant Response, they will frequently take to the air, their powerful wings letting them fly with fluid ease, and pour down fire and addling roars upon any foes who survive. If they are completely defeated, then in any subsequent battles after the smoldering ember brings them back, they will know their foes, and will be much, much more sneaky and vicious in their counterattack. Almost the worst thing you can do is defeat a Red Dragon, and fail to crush every last Ember.

Out of Combat

Red Dragons are the very definition of arrogant megalomania. Indeed, they almost always have their very own Cult of Personality, the core of which is a considerable cadre of Dragonborn Blazespawn. Around the loyal Dragonborn the creature will seek to gather up more and more worshipers, reveling in their doting attention, and indeed, large and well-established Dragon Cults are religions in fact, with the worship of the Wyrm allowing it to gift profane power to the lesser fiends that grovel in its red-lit shadow.

Such Cults can have long tentacles indeed, with thousand of innocents caught up in their webs of intrigue. Perhaps even worse, once a Red Dragon has established it Cult, it becomes nigh-unkillable! Like some nightmarish beast of legend, as long as even one Cultist retains true faith in the wyrm, the beast can plant itself in the mind of one of its true believers 1d10+1 days after its defeat. It takes three days to grow back to full power, during which time the nascent beast has the same stats as a Dragonborn Blazespawn.

There have been many tales of heroes who have slain a Red Dragon, followed by days, even weeks, of frantic hunts as they sought out and purged every last Ember of the dragon's Cult.

Sometimes, the heroes even succeed...

Die Another Day (Villain Role)

Villains often live to fight another day. In most encounters, a villain shouldn't even be present. However, in those encounters that include villains, GM's should strive to set up the fight in a way that the PC's can achieve victory without actually needing kill the villain. This can include saving imperiled civilians from some dastardly trap, stopping a horrible ritual, or retrieving the McGuffin before the villain can, etc. GM's are cautioned that having a villain escape 'just because' is often very frustrating for players. However, if they escape because the players were busy doing something else, that's usually seen as reasonable.

Rewards

XP: 204,800 (Villain role included.)

Treasure: Sellable Goods worth 160,625 gp. (Villain role and Dragon bonus included, which is 5 greater than normal for this CR.)

Weight: 600 lbs.     Volume: 24 cu. ft.

Optional Treasure Rules: Roll a d20 on Table 1 below once per encounter (NOT per creature). Any items discovered are in addition to the normal treasure for the encounter.

Table 1: Remnant(s) Found
1 - 5	Nothing Found
6 - 10	1 Languid Remnant (tier 1)
11 - 14	1 Pale Remnant (tier 2)
15 - 17	1 Bright Remnant (tier 3)
18 - 20	Roll on Table 2
###	Nothing to see here!
###	Or here. Move along.

Table 2: Remnant(s) Found
1	5 Languid Remnants (tier 1)
2 - 5	5 Pale Remnants (tier 2)
6 - 10	1 Intense Remnant (tier 4)
11 - 14	1 Blazing Remnant (tier 5)
15 - 17	1 Vital Remnant (tier 6)
18 - 20	Roll on Table 3
###	Or here. Move along.

Table 3: Remnant(s) Found
1	5 Bright Remnants (tier 3)
2	5 Intense Remnants (tier 4)
3 - 6	5 Blazing Remnants (tier 5)
7 - 10	5 Vital Remnants (tier 6)
11 - 14	1 Prime Remnant (tier 7)
15 - 17	1 Mythic Remnant (tier 8)
18 - 20	1 Empyrean Remnant (tier 9)