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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kalendraf" data-source="post: 2651503" data-attributes="member: 3433">I'm running an adventure from an older Dungeon Magazine (exact name of the adventure eludes me).  In this encounter, the Deathbringer begins standing motionless inside of a summoning circle, apparently trapped.  As per the adventure guidelines, it waits until the party gets close, then suprises them by attacking, revealing that it's not really trapped (or summoned).  Not necessarily a strategy I'd normally use, but given the fact the creature is more melee-based and would prefer to have it's foes group up, it seems like a viable tactic.Party monk approached it, while the rest of the party hung back spaced out somewhat at about a 30' distance.  They didn't know what it was for sure, but assumed it was likely held in the circle.  Eventually, after enough characters were close enough, it began it's attack.  I could have begun the battle with greater dispel, but it would have only dropped 1 spell at most (greater magic fang on the monk).  The party position made the trample attack fairly useless, so the best option appeared to be a 5' move + full attack at the monk which is what I had it do.  It connected with 2 of the attacks for fairly low damage.The druid responded with a hefty flamestrike.  The monk, rogue and barbarian mostly missed.  The bard sang the "+2 song", and I think the cleric also used a flamestrike.  After that was over, the deathbringer had taken approximately 60 damage (out of nearly 200 hp), so it wasn't too bad off.Next round, I could have had it use it's negative energy burst, potentially hitting 4 characters for 10+1d8 damage (iirc) and healing itself for a like amount.  But the better option at this point seemed to be another 5' move to engage the druid via 10' reach with another full attack.  It connected on all attacks, dishing out sizeable damage, but the druid has a really high con, so it really didn't hurt him that badly.  In retrospect, I likely could have power attacked for even more damage and still hit, but even I had done this, I don't think I would have done enough damage to drop the druid in this attack.During the party's next round, the druid unloaded another flamestrike, and this time the rogue, barbarian and monk landed a majority of their attacks (thanks in part to the bard's song).  The combined damage from all of this was sufficient to drop the monster.  The battle ended before the bard or cleric even got their 2nd turn action.Looking back, given the adventure's setup here, I really don't see any easy way to make this monster live more than 2 rounds, nor any ways for it to deal significantly more damage than it did (aside from the power attack possibility I mentioned which didn't make any difference in the final outcome).  Had it elected to negative burst on turn 2, it would not have lived any longer, and the only major difference would be that it would have damage 4 targets for meaningless points rather than focusing it's damage on a single target.The party didn't use anything unsual in the way of tactics, spells or abilities, nor did it seem to get unusually lucky.  Given the results of this battle, I just do not see how the Deathbringer merits a CR17.</blockquote>

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