The dragons lair

[Dwarfi]

The barb never jumps... or at least not till now.
He will rage, +haste  and simply walk over there to hit him once + aoo if the dragon pounces one of the others.
and he drank a pot. of inv and of mirror image. Well the inv doesnt really give him much, except that the dragons AC goes down... not that it was high to begin with. ^^

They are very buffed, anti dragon aura of course, dragonskin, mirror image, potion of invisib, anti fear...  and all that stuff. So he will have a hard time and with all the mirror images I really wonder if he can actually do much damage. ^^

I think I will do it like this. The evil aura dissapears from the focus (they all llok on one spot where the dragon came out once) after which the cleric will look around to find it again and will see the dragon some ft away out of the gold. then the ini would be rolled. If he (for some reason) doesnt look around I will make a move silently vs listen check to see if he can surprise pounce them.

Thinking: I could simply spawn a swarm of hoard scarabs to eat up some mirror images. ^^

Outside of the cave are 5Lv11 elfes waiting. I am planning on that too, but I expect the group to loot/ rest before going out anyway. They could summon a big animal outside and send it in during the night to be nasty. A big scorpion or centipede for example.

[ksbsnowowl]

Yes, mirror image is a big help.  When I ran the rage drake in my game, he had been hit with a ray of dizziness, but he could still partial charge.  He charged the Beguiler, and only got one actual hit on him due to Mirror Images.  It's a good defense.

[Dwarfi]

Yea I think I will let a swarm out.
One of the gold pieces they grab actually bites back. ^^
Then the swarm comes out. At the worst it just eats up one or two aoo spells, at the best it kills some mirror images and a little CON dmg, though I really doubt that anyone wont make the save.
And it gives the dragon enough time to come out somewhere else and position himself without giving the group a free shot round.

The only weapon that actually works would be 1d3 torch or the flaming hammer of the barbarian. Though only the 1d6 fire dmg applies.

That should stop them from looting before the dragon is dead.

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A little planning ahead: The elfs wait at the exit of the cave which leads into a pit. From there only a stairway leads 40ft up. Thats where the 5 Lv11 elves are waiting.
Group:
1.Archer type - he would be dead already, but he got mauled into unconciousness and taken hostage by our group. Later freed by the elves, who never actually showed themself to the group, but they know they are there. Thats why his stats are lower than before - he got looted. ^^
2. Assasin: She hates humans, has a human bane dagger and favorite enemy humans. Her spells might come in handy if she decides to go into melee combat.
3. Cleric of Hexxtor. Basically the same ord. champion as our cleric. He will grow thanks to righteous might and buff the elves up. His ace is his only Lv5 spell: "Death throes"
4. Wizzard, nothing special, mass enchant, dom. person, and dmg spells.
5. Warblade - Originally it was a really strange fight/ X/ X mix so I just rewrote it to a warblade. She has an unholy sword that deals nice extra damage, but except for 1 or 2 manneuvers she has mainly conters to bug the melees.

Plan: If the group stays in the cave to rest they send a summoned animal in to disturb them.
Maybe they place something small in the entrance hall as an alert signal when they are coming.
The wizzard prepares a wall of dispel agic at the entrance while the clerics starts to buff.
The two melees will be positioned a little down the stairs and fight our melees head on. While the other 3 stay on top and attack from the distance.

[Dwarfi]

Thanks a lot for the help. I ran the encounter yesterday.

Here is the full report:http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4863.new#new

In short: The hoard scarabs caused some confusion and ate some spells. Actually they scorching ray did more damage to the 2 players inside than to the swarm. ^^
The dragon made a charge on the cleric, (safe to hit version)  and gave him the full damage without any power attack. Of course the cleric failed the grapple and got another round of rake dmg.
Our rogue accidentially hit the cleric in the grapple which brought him to down to "Die hard saved me".
Finally the wizzard swapped places with him and inst. teleported himseld 10ft away afterwards.

Now the dragon turned to the barbarian which got only hit by a claw, the rest was absorbed by mirror images.

The beast finally died in a maximized, empowered fireball, which melted a big chunk of the hoard (although I didnt change the share for that)
It surely was a tough beast and the cleric was forced to use up is last "heal" spell from a staff of healing, leaving only a heal light wounds behind.

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Next up are the elves, like descibed above. Thanks to the plane -  summoned monsters dont disappear. Basically they summon 2 waves of monsters before midnight (when the elves regain spells) and send them in every 4-5 hours. Just enough so that the players wont get enough sleep. They will still regain spells I guess. But beeing fatigued is pretty lame too. Although the cleric surely will have some spells for that.

3 howlers maybe for the 1st round
and for the 2nd...

a gigantic monstrous scorpion... shadow mastiffs....or some giant wasps... those worked well the last time too. ^^