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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DracoSuave" data-source="post: 4882602" data-attributes="member: 71571">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...No, they shift and move.  And that's only the ones threatened by the dragon.  The rest attack.No one stays in the same zone. They just left the zone, this does not happen.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.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.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.</blockquote>

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