The text for the Life Stealer ability says, "By spending an action and a bonus action, Dracula breathes inward, sucking away the life force of creatures within 40 feet of him. Creatures within the area of effect must succeed on a DC 21 Constitution save or take 21 (6d6) necrotic damage; half of this damage is granted to Dracula as temporary hit points."
That's not there to be a main mode of attack, but I suppose he could rely on it. Consider instead throwing Dracula into a group of peasants. They'll all certainly fail their saves (DC 21!), die from 21 necrotic damage, and then rise the next night as a vampire spawn. One could easily transform dozens of people into vampire spawn
in a single night using an ability like that, especially while shapechanged into a bat. Even more if they came back the next night and commanded those spanking new vampire spawn to start catching people for meals/more traditional vamping.
Let's stay on the offensive thread though because I think it's satisfyingly chewy. In an average round of attacks, Dracula here will bite somebody for 7d6+5, smack three folks for another 16 a pop, and then gets to legendary actions. To get the same damage output using Life Stealer, he'd have to fit ~
pulls on thinking cap~ 4 targets inside of an 80-foot diameter circle.
Let's check out some other big bads for comparison.
Ancient Black Dragons will pop off for 58 damage before LAs if just smacking things (compared to Dracula's 82), but can do a 90x10 ft line for 15d8 acid! That's not bad, but it's a line (harder to nail as many targets as a 40-foot radius will), and more importantly it's a Dexterity saving throw which means rogues, monks, and anyone wearing a
ring of evasion will take half or no damage. It's also a basic energy type which means it's not hard to snag some resistance. Otherwise it doesn't do anything
for the dragon, nor does it create servants for later, and it has to recharge.
That's a CR 21 creature though--let's kick up a notch!
Ancient Blue dragons! They're chomping away for 63 damage a turn (still behind big D) and get an even longer, more damaging and difficult to avoid line (120 feet!) but again, no extra frills and will give away a ton of Get-Out-Of-Area Free cards because it's a Dexterity saving throw, and it has to deal with accessible damage resistances. If they're fighting on an isolated mountaintop and everyone's trudging up the trail? Awesome. In almost any other scenario I think I'd want to have Life Stealer—there's no wait between uses, the monster regains hit points, its area is just so great, and most importantly it forces a party (which probably has a paladin giving off aura effects) to disperse or suffer while reinforcing their foe. Plus it'll make adventurers poop themselves when their maximum hit points take a hit from an area effect.
He doesn't
need it though. Dracula's got that mostly for easily overtaking settlements.
