An ancient red dragon’s average wisdom saving throw after it uses its piddly three legendary resistances is 19.5. Getting a spell save DC of 20 is not hard (I was wrong when I wrote the OP, forgot that saver wins save DC ties), you can accomplish it RAW by being level 17, having a charisma of 20, and having an incredibly puny magic item - any +1 spellcasting focus. (DC = 8+6prof+5chr+1=20.) Once you’re there, dragon indeed fails 50% of its saves against vicious mockery. Get yourself a better +3 focus and magic items that let you go up to 24 in a stat, and you could be rocking a DC of 24, still RAW. At that point dragon fails 70% of its saves.
All the bard needs to do is survive. They don’t even have to escape the fear effect! It doesn’t matter that they have disadvantage on ability checks and attacks - vicious mockery is neither of those. Saying “the dragon gets advantage on their saves then” is not RAW, it’s houserule. Not that it would matter, the dragon can only use the fear once, and the bard is bound to save eventually.
Red dragons are the fucking idiot barbarians of dragons. All those fuckers can do is damage and fear. Those out of turn actions? More direct damage. And… a perception check. Good job, SUPREME DARK RULER D’ARN’CUTHUL, you see the bard. They are insulting your mother.
Their breath attack doesn’t have nasty save effects. It’s just… damage. Not only that, but everything except the breath attack is NONMAGICAL! It’s not that hard to get items that give you resistance to nonmagical physical damage, nor is it hard to get resistance to fire. RAW, you can do it without magic items! By being BARD 17, BARBARIAN BEAR TOTEM 2. That’s still not even max level. Get yourself some items and stats that help you make the breath save, and you could be taking quarter damage most of the time. Oh, 22 damage? I thought you were mean, mr big dragon.
Bard’s rich. Hires a garrison of clerics and buys a town’s worth of healing pots. Maybe gets himself some of those resistances if he’s looking to save some money on the pots. Game set match. QED. Game over. Fatality. RIP supreme dark ruler d’arn’cuthul. Killed when bard asked what the fuck kinda shoes he was wearing.
And that’s like, the lazy way. I’m sure some minmaxers out there can find more economical ways of surviving 58 (3 for legendary saves) rounds with a dragon.
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