Darkness and the Black Dragon - Need advice

[DracoSuave]

To Claudio: the power list would be extensive, but they don't have much in the forced movemment department. As you can see they dont have a fighter or warlord, and the wizard's phantom bolt can't effectivelly used in this situation (LOS problem).

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I am happy to see that I am not the only one who sees issues with such creature, not becuse it's unbeatable - no. But becuse the fight can be extra-boring for 1/3 of most parties.

Many sollutions proposed or powers mentioned so far (like crown of glory) are simple not for the 4th level party.

I fully agree that the Young Blue Dragon is even worse. Again not becuse it's unbeatable, but becuse either winning or loosing, the game session would last forever (even running the dragon can chase...).

I love the whole concept of solo monster, and I think some parties may be defeated from time to time, but I just felt like this creature is 10x harder tham the Young White Dragon for example (his defenses technically goes up 25+ versus 18+ of the white dragon).

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To FireLance: I agree with most of your points, you seem to have grasped my problem. I don't want to run a 6 hour encounter of 20 rounds. No matter the result , it will be boring.

Noone answered my question: can he recharge a power while sustaining it? I think he can. So the idea of waiting in cover seems very complicated. The dragon could fly from the darkness to the party position (landing in the middle maybe), put the darkness there, and hail opportunity attacks all over the PCs trying to leave the area. Am I right?

The fighter/paladin will effective loose his readied action, dismantling most of the DracoSuave tactics.

The fighter can't charge the dragon when it lands, which is the first moment the trigger is legal?

I never said it was -easy- for the party once the dragon starts fighting smart. But it's not -unfair-, and by no means is it as unfair. That dragon will want to do something other than fly and cloud, fly and cloud. And the party can spread out in such a way the dragon can't hold more than one or two in melee. So the dragon decides to melee one or two. The other three are free to continue execution of the play, the party's still hitting the dragon, and those in threat range can shift-move to safety before re-grouping.

The dragon's still not putting out offense. The dragon -has to attack- to win. Which means at some point, in some round, the dragon isn't going to be content to fly, cloud, fly cloud, fly cloud because that's a losing strategy.

But regardless, at the point where the dragon is mobile, the fight becomes -interesting-. The dragon is now -truly- deadly, because it's 'defense' is now its 'offense'.

The dragon should be hitting and running anyways. Set up cloud, charge from cloud, breath and attack the party, then put up the cloud and retreat until it can do this again. Perferably with some minion back up so that the party has something to deal with in the intervening rounds.

But the dragon's attacks are pretty anemic. A white dragon does way more damage, let's face it, breath weapon followed by a dragon's fury will kill the hell out of their target should it connect. The black dragon can barely put up any offense in comparison. It's definately designed for a longer, more methodical fight.

 

[FireLance]

The fighter can't charge the dragon when it lands, which is the first moment the trigger is legal?

Not if it lands within 2 squares of the fighter, which it might very well do without metagaming on the part of the DM if it wants to catch as many PCs as possible in its breath.

I never said it was -easy- for the party once the dragon starts fighting smart.

But it should be easy - at least, not significantly more difficult than any other level 4 encounter. Here's a simple rule of thumb: do you think the average level 4 party is going to be able to defeat a young black dragon without the use of daily powers? That means no lead the attack, no flaming sphere, no brute strike, no radiant delirium, no blinding barrage, no armor of Agathys? If the answer is no, then it seems to me that it really shouldn't be a level 4 encounter.

 

[Klaus]

@ Dr. Sage: Rogues and Invokers have lots of forced movement powers. What's the Invoker's Covenant?

Also, the MM2 solos and elites have all dfenses 2 points lower than similar monsters in the MM1. So you wouldn't be too far off if you knocked 2 points off the dragon's defenses.

Third, think of it as a trap. When you put a trap in your game, you have to give the players and characters a decent chance at avoiding it. In the case of a black dragon, what can the characters do (powers aside) to overcome the dragon's darkness?

- The dragonborn paladin can use his breath weapon (a blast, so no penalty to hit) and can mark the dragon (doesn't require LoS). As long as he makes an attack (like shooting a crossbow or whatever), he'll keep the mark up. So the dragon will be at -2 to attack anyone else, and take radiant damage if he does it. That ought to force the dragon to come out and play.



- The rogue can use daggers, giving him an extra +1 to hit.

- The characters can pile up on alchemical grenades.

- The characters (like the dragonborn paladin, see above) could trick the dragon into following them through a narrow (2-square wide) corridor, with half of the party waiting to jump in behind the dragon and bottleneck it there. This is where you, as the DM, have to place one such bottleneck in the dragon's lair.

- The characters can try and Bluff the dragon into a berserker rage, making it forego its safer tactics for the pleasure of chewing on the soft adventurers.

- Heavy use of the DC and Damage by Level table. Let the character try anything, within reason. Assign a DC and (if appropriate) a damage value. Combat isn't restricted to powers.

 

[Dr_Sage]

@ Dr. Sage: Rogues and Invokers have lots of forced movement powers. What's the Invoker's Covenant?

He is a preserver invoker. No much pushing... he is a 60 year old sage, follower of Ioun, very wise guy, but hardly the wrathfull type.

Cmon Claudio, the +1 dagger was kind of funny.

Thanks for all the advice. I will take all that into consideration. My amusemment was not with the encounter per se, but the fact that it smells paragon (powers, tactics and items) and its way harder that the simmilar encounters.

PS: You are 100% right regarding MM2, I think they simple messed up with all monsters defenses in MM1.

 

[Mesh Hong]

I am happy to see that I am not the only one who sees issues with such creature, not becuse it's unbeatable - no. But becuse the fight can be extra-boring for 1/3 of most parties.

There is an issue with the black dragons darkness power, like all encounters it should be considered when designing the encounter. If you don't like the power then change it, remove it, replace it or add elements to the encounter that can affect it.

At the end of the day a boring encounter is probably the DMs fault. Why blame the monster designer when you chose to use the creature?

Many sollutions proposed or powers mentioned so far (like crown of glory) are simple not for the 4th level party.

Sorry but this was an actual play example, forgive me if I somehow suggested all PCs could use these powers. I just wanted to give my own experience. I will add that I waited until the PCs were level 10 before I used a black dragon precisely for the reason that I didn't think it would be a fun encounter any earlier.

I love the whole concept of solo monster, and I think some parties may be defeated from time to time, but I just felt like this creature is 10x harder tham the Young White Dragon for example (his defenses technically goes up 25+ versus 18+ of the white dragon).

I too like Solo's, but I don't really think they should be used at very low levels and should always be given a couple of hard stares to make sure they are appropriate. The only Solo I have been happy with from the MM1 is the Beholder Eye Tyrant, and I changed that for my own use.

Noone answered my question: can he recharge a power while sustaining it? I think he can. So the idea of waiting in cover seems very complicated. The dragon could fly from the darkness to the party position (landing in the middle maybe), put the darkness there, and hail opportunity attacks all over the PCs trying to leave the area. Am I right?

The fighter/paladin will effective loose his readied action, dismantling most of the DracoSuave tactics.

Interesting, I think he can recharge it while sustaining it too. But maybe it would be more reasonable if he couldn't. You are right in your example of how he could fly from darkness, place new darkness and wait for the opportunity attacks.

 

[DracoSuave]

Sorry but this was an actual play example, forgive me if I somehow suggested all PCs could use these powers. I just wanted to give my own experience. I will add that I waited until the PCs were level 10 before I used a black dragon precisely for the reason that I didn't think it would be a fun encounter any earlier.

I ran the dragon at level 4, and the party had little problem with him, and that wasn't because they used pushes, aoes, or anything else like that, but simply stayed away from the darkness.

And this was in a cave with underground waterways for the dragon to swim in to play keep away, an encounter designed to make the dragon -more- intense, not less.

Interesting, I think he can recharge it while sustaining it too. But maybe it would be more reasonable if he couldn't. You are right in your example of how he could fly from darkness, place new darkness and wait for the opportunity attacks.

And the party can shift and move away, leaving the dragon giving no offense again. Not exactly a winning strategy for the dragon either. The dragon MUST attack to win.

 

[msherman]

I ran a similar encounter, at level 5 with a 4 PC party. The cave was mostly difficult terrain (swamp), and the encounter ended up being painfully boring.

I did give the party one round of help from the darkness -- the dragon had a drow captive, who was kept starving and weak. She used all of her energy to get off her Darkfire power, but the strain knocked her out. The mood shift in that round was amazing -- the entire party fired off a barage of dailies, and everyone was cheering. But then things got boring again.

The dragon got away (it fled through an underground river out of the cavern system after it hit 25% hp), so I'm planning to have it come back in a couple levels to avenge the loss of its horde. I'm foreshadowing it -- in the next session (L6), the party will see a boiling cloud of darkness flying overhead, as the dragon tracks them overland. A couple sessions later, I think he'll send a group of minions to attack the party, but I'm not sure what -- any suggestions for a level 7 party? Then a couple games after that, he'll attack them himself.

So, any suggestions for what I can do with a young black dragon to make him a more interesting fight for a level ~8 party? I'm thinking I'll level him up to 6 or 7, but adjust the solo rules per the MM2 examples (reduce defenses and hp, and add some damage bonus when bloodied). I should probably include some other creatures with him, too. The terrain this time will be out in the open, so less constricting than the underground swamp with all the difficult terrain that the players found so boring last time; but with rivers, so the dragon won't be completely disadvantaged. That, combined with the party knowing he's gunning for them with all the foreshadowing, should make things better than last time?

 

[superpriest]

I would never run a solo of a lower level than the party. It would be a laughable threat.

 

[FireLance]

I would never run a solo of a lower level than the party. It would be a laughable threat.

Just add additional monsters, traps, hazards, etc. A solo monster doesn't always have to fight the party by itself.

 

[Klaus]

Here are a few options to circumvent the Darkness:

Dust of Disenchantment (AV - level 10 item) - Daily power: suppress a magical effect or item. So sprinkle dust on the unattended darkness effect and it goes poof!

Helm of Vigilant Awareness (AV - Level 7 item) - Daily power: use an immediate action to negate a blinding effect on you. Presto! That darkness zone can't affect you!