Darkness and the Black Dragon - Need advice

[Akaiku]

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!

Blinding effects aren't the same as not being able to see, right?

 

[Klaus]

Blinding effects aren't the same as not being able to see, right?

But the black dragon's Cloud of Darkness explicitly says creatures inside the zone are blinded.

 

[Jhaelen]

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

Imho, that's actually the BEST way to use solos:
Pick one of a lower level and add a bunch of tough allies. This is especially good with controller/artillery/leader type solos.

 

[Dr_Sage]

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.

Same deal...
1)the party members shift,
2)stays in the zone at least for now, or don't attack,
3)dragon eats them with combat advantage.
4) they scatter (they can't shift to the same place if the dragon/zone is in the middle of them).
5) dragon picks some weaker or clothie PC and attack,
6) cloud of darkness again... repeat

Dragon wins.

Or either dragon grabs someone inside the darkness. "wait, where is Jeff?" "chop chop" sounds inside the clould.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Msherman, part of your problem might have been that so much of the board was difficult terrain - I find part of what makes encounters boring is by limiting the player's moblity. If the players can't really move, they either have no incentive to do so, or when moving is required, are simply frustrated.

One of the more frustrating encounters I've ever faced was a against an elf wizard in difficult terrain - the party simply couldn't get/stay close to it long enough to actually do anything to it.

 

[DracoSuave]

Dragon wins.

Or either dragon grabs someone inside the darkness. "wait, where is Jeff?" "chop chop" sounds inside the clould.

The difference is numbers. if Party members stay spread out as above, the dragon can threaten at most 2 or 3 of the five members. That's 3 members escaping, 2 members free to attack.

So...

Same deal...
1)the party members shift,

No, they shift and move. And that's only the ones threatened by the dragon. The rest attack.

2)stays in the zone at least for now, or don't attack,

No one stays in the same zone.

3)dragon eats them with combat advantage.

They just left the zone, this does not happen.

4) they scatter (they can't shift to the same place if the dragon/zone is in the middle of them).

This is likely, however scattering isn't a bad thing against this beast. This just means the dragon is -less- likely to get more than one at a time.

5) dragon picks some weaker or clothie PC and attack,

Almost a certainty, given those clothies are the threats. But in order to do that, he has to leave the zone. He cannot leave the zone, attack, and drop the cloud in one round unless he spends an action point. And if he does, he can't do that again.

6) cloud of darkness again... repeat

The only way this works is if the dragon has so many actions a round that he can pull off shinanegans.

The dragon can: Move. Minor. Standard. He can breath acid OR attack with claws OR charge with bite OR drop cloud of darkness. He -cannot- do all four. And his OAs are countered by shift-and-run, because he doesn't have threatening reach.

So if he cannot OA, and he does nothing but drop darkness to get this Combat Advantage thing, then he is not attacking.

At -some point- his plan has to include 'Breath acid' or 'Attack' or 'charge' in order to win. At -that- point the dragon becomes an actual encounter. The dragon's smart enough to know this, so it shouldn't take more than a round of the party staying away from the cloud before the dragon switches tactics to something optimal.

Now, that said, there's nothing wrong with a single round of 'Move, drop cloud, Action Point Breath Acid'. But using cloud like that the whole fight is simply a choice the party can choose not to make.

With the party using the other tactic, the dragon is forced to use cloud of darkness tacticly. Nothing like herding the party into a cave with two entrances you can reach, covering both entrances with cloud of darkness, and forcing the party's strong line to split into two fronts, just in case. Then you burst out of one or the other, get that charge in with CA, and do some damage with breath before disappearing again to start the cycle all over again. Notice tho, this happens over successive rounds. The party can attack it over those successive rounds. Fun is had by all.

-That- is how a solo lurker fights.

Or as you said, grabbing a PC, and putting up the cloud. Hee hee. But that's not -boring.- The problem with the black dragon being -boring- or -overpowered- is when a DM plays it boring, and the players play it boring. Either one can (and should) break this cycle, and not bog down the fight.

The idea is not to make the fight easy for the players, but challenging and at the same time, winnable.

Understand, using tactics means the party only has to overcome the dragon's -weak- offense. And the dragon's offense IS weak. If the worst he can do is start gnawing on a clothy, you're still not that bad off. He can't actually kill a guy in a round, like the offense of 5 non-solo lurkers can.

 

[Dr_Sage]

We have some different oppinions, but again I thank you very much.

I asked for advice and received a ton in response.

Very much appreciated.

 

[My Lego]

I must say that I have had some compunctions about using the black dragon as written but DracoSuave has dispelled most of them. Most since almost every other monster from the monster manual is more or less fightable with the tank and spank method and the black dragon is not. I can imagine for some groups that would not feel like classic heroic fantasy or even D&D. (Even though 1ed mostly was based around fights like these).

 

[DracoSuave]

Yeah, to be honest, the brown dragon always seemed more of a tough fight to me.

 

[Noumenon]

Most since almost every other monster from the monster manual is more or less fightable with the tank and spank method and the black dragon is not.

Exactly. Even if the dragon can be beat by infinite inaccurate sniping and readied actions and waiting for him to come out, that's not D&D combat. 4th edition combat is about using your at-wills and encounters and magic items to beat things, and the darkness ability says "None of those things work." None of your powers can target, your blast 3's and burst 2's have only a 25% chance of finding the dragon, and when you ask "What am I supposed to do about this?" the only guidance is "When blinded you can make a DC (impossible) Perception check and still take -5 to hit."

This is the kind of stupid thing you'd always find in 3.5. "This monster wins a grapple on a 1! I have no chance? What can I do? Oh, I see Grease gives me +10 on escape, and I can max out Escape Artist. What? It still wins on a 1? WTF."

Lousy design. It's like a Street Fighter game with one opponent who you can never damage by punching or kicking, but only by blocking until he runs out of stamina and then throwing him for 2 damage. That's not the game I came to play.

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ANYWAY, I have one question I meant to ask before finding there was already a thread on black dragons. Can I find the black dragon in his darkness by running around with my arms flailing hoping to run into him? Otherwise when he drops the darkness I might find that I am inside his square.