Dracolich: Stun-o-riffic!

Kinneus

Explorer
I was flipping through the MM, and I took a good look at the Dracolich for the first time. And, holy cow, is this little bugger fond of the stun effect.

All but one of its attacks cause stun, including its close blast 9 breath weapon and an at-will immediate interrupt! I can just imagine tossing this guy at a party, only to have them stun-locked for twenty rounds.

I'm not a big fan of putting stun on players, personally. It seems to limit their fun greatly when all they can do on their turn is roll a saving throw. Considering the solo's already-bloated HP, it seems like heavy use of stun can quickly send an encounter hurtling into the deepest reaches of grindspace.

Has anybody seen one of these guys in action? Is there something I'm not seeing that makes them fun? Or, if they're the grindfest I suspect them to be, does anyone have suggestions on how to fix them? Change all the stun effects to daze, perhaps?
 

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I was running the epic adventure from Dungeon and had planned on replacing the dracolich in it with another controller dragon from draconomicon. While I haven't seen one in play, I've seen other stunners and agree that they're unfun.
 

Yeah, there's a guy on RPGnet who fought one of these, and he's been complaining about it ever since. The dracolich is not a fun monster.

That's probably an issue with controllers in general; they can make fights challenging, but too many of them or too many effects and it kills the enjoyment. In the Trollhaunt Warrens, we fought a group of troglodytes plus a couple of nothics. The nothics had a gaze attack that dazes everyone in an area, and the trogs inflict -2 attack on enemies adjacent. This led to a long, locked-down fight with lots of whiffing, which was boring as hell.
 

I used one stun-o-rific homebrew monster that was pretty fun, it had a lot powers, but the Stunning effects were the only ones that did not go over so well with the party. On the other hand, i don't think i would want my big baddies stunned either, so maybe it's just not a great condition for anyone except in very rare cases.
 

Our 8th level party (6 members) fought a down-leveled Dracolich. It was tedious.

He opens with Dragonfear, and because the attack bonus on that is 4 points too high, he beats our defenses and we stand there while he cuts us up. Next turn, he breathes on us and his attack bonus is still 4 points too high, we get hit and stand there for another turn. Finally, on the 3rd turn of the fight, we get to attack: the dwarf fighter hits him, triggering the stupid gaze attack and half of us are stunned again.

Somewhere around turn 4-5 we finally began getting actions. We proceed to use Radiant Delirium and Resounding Weapons to dazelock the dragon, but we don't have nearly enough dazing attacks to go around and he has several hundred hit points. Eventually, we're reduced to throwing stuff at him, because even though our damage is lower when we use javelins and hammers, he can't gaze us into stunlock.

We mostly got through because the wizard had a Staff of Light that we activated very early in, and the cleric could Sacred Flame the monster. But still, it was very, very tedious.
 
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Fought one with our level 16 party.

Very boring. My fighter spent 8 rounds unconscious - every time I got up, the darn thing knocked me back down again. If it had decided to take a few coup de grace attacks, we'd have been wiped out alarmingly quickly.

It was very one sided.

Mind you, having even a single character on our side with a will defence it could *miss* (other than on a 1) would've been good. All melee party has its downsides.
 

I would be pretty happy if stun was about as difficult to pull off as petrify or death on dnd monsters... so, carrion crawler = totally fine, ghoul = not fine, dracolich = right the hell out.

Similarly, _every_ stun power that PCs can get that I've seen is bad. Destructive Salutation the banner poster child of horribleness.
 

I don't mind players getting their grubby little mitts on a stun power now and then. A 'stunned until end of your next turn' Daily power is fine, for instance. I also don't mind it on a monster's encounter power... I've seen Dragon Fear used in a way that was really fun. The DM used it on our Cleric, who was isolated from the party, forcing the rest of the party to rush through fourteen or so tiles of hazardous terrain to try and come to his rescue. The Warlord was throwing off heals, my Warlock used his Wand of Enfeeblement to weaken it... it was a very dramatic moment. So I think the stunned effect is good, and I think it can work.

It does NOT work, however, as an at-will in the hands of a monster. Or as an Encounter in the hands of a player (I don't think there any offenders, though, in that instance).

As for how to fix the Dracolich, I think I'd take a standard dragon of your choice, give it vulnerable 10 radiant and resist 20 necrotic, and switch its breath weapon to necrotic damage. Bang. Done.
 

Yeah, that's fair... I don't mind something like dragon fear that much, but an at-will interrupt? Ridiculous. I mind stunned (save ends) just in general, whoever has it, and I don't like stunned on miss no matter who gets it. I also think stunned encounter powers are just a really really bad idea.
 

Our 8th level party (6 members) fought a down-leveled Dracolich. It was tedious.

He opens with Dragonfear, and because the attack bonus on that is 4 points too high, he beats are defenses and we stand there while he cuts us up. Next turn, he breathes on us and his attack bonus is still 4 points too high, we get hit and stand there for another turn. Finally, on the 3rd turn of the fight, we get to attack: the dwarf fighter hits him, triggering the stupid gaze attack and half of us are stunned again.

Somewhere around turn 4-5 we finally began getting actions. We proceed to use Radiant Delirium and Resounding Weapons to dazelock the dragon, but we don't have nearly enough dazing attacks to go around and he has several hundred hit points. Eventually, we're reduced to throwing stuff at him, because enough though our damage is lower when we use javelins and hammers, he can't gaze us into stunlock.

We mostly got through because the wizard had a Staff of Light that we activated very early in, and the cleric could Sacred Flame the monster. But still, it was very, very tedious.

That sounds frustating and fun at same time.

I like the usage of throwing stuff.
 

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