WARNING - SPOILERS - Advice Request: Dracolich Battle

[Atavar]

SPOILER WARNING: This thread has spoliers for the Shackled City Adventure Path
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Hello Everyone,

Next session my players plan to take their second stab at a green dragon dracolich. For those familiar with the Shackled City Adventure Path it is the final battle at the end of the Secrets of the Soul Pillars adventure.

The battle will take place in a spherical dungeon room about 90 feet in diameter, with a 10-foot catwalk around the widest point and a number of 10-foot wide pillars throughout the room. The opponent is a green dragon dracolich (template from Draconomicon) as well as a 14th-level wizard/loremaster.

Last session the party fought and scared of the wizard, then later fought the dracolich. The dracolich beat them pretty hard, and the party retreated. They are now planning their return, and the second battle will be different in many ways:

* The dracolich will be surprised rather than the characters, so the dracolich's usual pre-battle prep (mage armor, shield, spider climb) won't be in effect at the start of battle.

* The party plans to teleport into the room, while the first time around the dragon managed to keep them out of the room.

* The wizard will be there, too, to help the dragon out.

I think the biggest points against the dracolich are that he can't know when the party is coming (or can he?), so he can't prep as well, and the nature of the room (rather confined, for a dragon) makes the battle much harder for him than the first time around.

So, does anyone have any advice for me on how to make this a memorable and challenging battle? My biggest fears are that the battle will be a cakewalk for the party, or else I somehow make things too strong for the dracolich and end up with a TPK.

Any advice is appreciated!

Take care,

Atavar

 

[shilsen]

Three words: Greater Anticipate Teleportation.

 

[Atavar]

Three words: Greater Anticipate Teleportation.

Is that in Spell Compendium?

 

[frankthedm]

This dragon's caster level is what? Mage armor lasts hours and it has a sorcerer spell stack. Mage armor IS going,

 

[Squire James]

Sometime, you just have to accept that the party is going to get the drop on a monster and let stuff happen. Still, there are things the dracolich can do.

Mage Armor lasts practically forever. The dragon will at most be casting this one twice a day, and he's covered.

Forbiddance will kill the teleport and present other problems, though I doubt the dragon's powerful enough to do it and the level 14 buddy probably didn't think about it or he would have covered the whole area with it to begin with. If the dragon has access to other level 11 clerical casters, however, having one up is a real possibility!

Commune can yield information the dragon isn't supposed to know, perhaps enough to guess within a span of minutes when the party will make their entrance. Certainly good enough for 10 min/level spells, and perhaps good enough for some 1 min/level spells (I'd say the dragon blows 1d3 spell slots per buff spell that will be up when the PC's enter for 1 min/level spells). Forget about round/level spells.

Don't forget that one or two "swing spells" can help even if cast during combat. If the PC's are the close-combat types, Haste and wait for PC's to close works great! If the PC's are already close, not so great.

Finally, don't let them Teleport at all unless they've seen the place. If they got a look or two (scrying is normally only good enough for "casually seen" since "studied carefully" takes an hour), be sure to make them do the error roll. If they roll "similar destination", pull out that Age of Worms module with Dragotha in it - they found the wrong dracolich!

 

[Filcher]

Dragon collapses lair. Teleport is now to a "false" destination, PCs get to have fun rolling percentile against mishaps, or end up in "similar location" (arguably another monster's lair).

A dracolich should be well enough versed in strategy to know that IT needs to choose the battlefield, not the enemies. A confined space just don't make no sense for a monster with a lot of time on its hands.

 

[FatherTome]

As one of the players involved in this encounter, I really don't think anyone expected it to go like it did.

The party consists of six characters:

1.) A Shifter Barbarian/Warshaper/Weretouched Master (me)
2.) A Warlock/Cleric/Eldritch Disciple
3.) A Warlock/Beguiler/Eldritch Theurge
4.) A Scout
5.) A Sorcerer/Mage of the Arcane Order/Arcane Demonwrecker
6.) A Spellscale War Mage/Dragon Prophet, with the Smoking Eye

I feel sorry for Atavar sometimes because the campaign path assumes Core, and we are playing in Eberron with few restrictions on character class, feats, or spells. We are all 12th level.

In short, we spent a day in town buying equipment, and after resting the next day we teleported in, in two groups (using the 'Seen Once' table) - with the Sorcerer, Cleric(esque), and myself in the first group, and the rest in the other.

Atavar had us roll initiative, and party members who went before the party members casting teleport (Wizard and Beguiler(esque) delayed until after the teleport went off. We didn't realize this at the time, but the purpose was to establish a clear initiative order for actions, as neither us nor the enemy would be surprised.

Immediately, the second group had a mishap upon teleportation, and ended up in the other room with the soul pillars in it. The remainder of the group suffered a lightning bolt (which only was able to hit two of three party members, and the dracolich used his own readied action to drink a potion.

The wizard had used Greater Anticipate Teleportation, and both the wizard and dracolich had had three turns to cast preparatory spells. The dracolich had moved into position right above the party on the wall (with Spider Climb).

When the combat played out, however, things went sour for the dracolich and the wizard. An attack of opportunity caused the dracolich's potion to be sundered before he could drink it, and a buffed, Enlarged, Shifting and Raging barbarian and a fully buffed Cleric(esque) took down the dragon with one full attack from each (due to luck; the correct mirror image was hit the first time). The rest of the party Dimension Doored into the room on their action and stomped the wizard.

Could that encounter have been a Total Party Kill? Unlikely; at worst we would lose one or more party members before the remainder were able to make a fighting retreat. That's hindsight, however. I, at least, and probably the rest of the party figured we were in serious danger and prepared accordingly. It's unsurprising, in that vein, that things went as they did.
Atavar certainly surprised us greatly, and had things gone slightly differently (if the dracolich used Shield instead of Mirror Image, for example) things could have gone much worse for the party.

Despite that, I feel that the dracolich and wizard performed very well in their role as antagonists. The wizard managed to kill a party member and escape, while the dracolich forced the PCs to frantically retreat (and caused a humorous and suitably heroic moment where a party member, panicking, shuts the door in the dracolich's face, only to have the dracolich rip the door off its hinges). The final showdown with a prepared, informed party went as well as could be expected.

For DMs preparing to run this encounter and looking to make it more interesting and exciting for the PCs, I strongly recommend taking a page from Atavar's book and pulling the rug out from the PCs whenever possible. If the PCs are using material from non-core books, ensure that your major villains are such using material as well - and it doesn't have to be the same as the PCs use.

Major kudos to Atavar. We don't always make it easy for him, but he finds ways to turn the tables on us.

- Veegy
"Protection from Rays? What?!"