Young Green Dragon's Instinctive Flyby

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

Quick question about the Young Green Dragon's Instinctive Flyby trait. This allows the dragon to use a free action to use Flyby Attack on the initiative count of 10 + its actual initiative.

Flyby Attack is a Recharge 5/6 action. Does it have to have the action recharged in order to use it in its Instinctive Flyby? Or does Instinctive Flyby let the dragon use Flyby Attack every round it wants to?

 

[RangerWickett]

I would assume the intent was that it does it every round, and that it doesn't count toward the recharging of the ability if it wants to do it on its own turn.

 

[keterys]

As written... it needs to be recharged, and expends it if charged.

As intended... yeah, I have no idea.

What I'd do? Dunno, really. Avoid using the dragon maybe

A middle point might be to let it make a recharge roll before the instinctive action, as well.

Edit: This sounded familiar, and I see that I reported this for possible errata or clarification 3.5 months ago "Young Green Dragon – Intended that its instinctive action is a recharge power, so often unusable?" So, yeah, fun times.

 

[Nullzone]

I would consider the instinctive action to be completely separate from recharges, personally. It gets to do this every turn regardless of the state of the recharge.

 

[lostingeneral]

Same here; that is how I played it when I ran it in an encounter.

Since, as a solo, is intended to replace several monsters, only allowing the instinctive flyby to be used on a recharge cripples its action usage, and it becomes a lot less capable in combat.

 

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

Since, as a solo, is intended to replace several monsters, only allowing the instinctive flyby to be used on a recharge cripples its action usage, and it becomes a lot less capable in combat.

That's a real good point, and I should state that this will be the first solo monsters I've used, so I don't really have a feel yet for just how bad-ass they are intended to be.

Then again, it's a dragon - it should be pretty terrifying in combat.

There seems to be close to consensus that the recharge only affects the standard action Flyby Attack that it can use on its actual turn, so I guess I will go with that. I suppose I can always forgo the extra attacks if it is obviously way too devastating to the party.

 

[lkj]

I used this dragon recently. I would highly suggest giving it the flyby every round with the recharge referring to it's standard action.

It was a very entertaining fight. Without the flyby every turn, it would have been much less so.

AD

 

[lostingeneral]

Agreed. It would have been far less interesting and challenging without the trait.