Questions about Running the Black Dragon

[Delgar]

Okay I'm going to be running Raider's of Oakhurst tonight so I just thought I'd post a couple of questions about running the black dragon.

1) What is the recharge of his darkness ability?
2) If the paladin has his mark on him and he uses his breath weapon and it hits more than just the paladin does he take 8 damage?
3) Is it just me or does it's darkness ability just about shut down what the pregens can do to it? I mean no ranged attacks, if your in the darkness attacking it your considered to be blind? Plus it only costs a minor action to sustain?

Specific to the adventure:

4) if the dragon is swimming in the water would you give him cover from ranged attacks or just not bother?
5) what DC athletics check would you set for someone in the water in the module?

 

[deathdonut]

1) Recharge 3,4,5,6
2) No. Only if the attack doesn't include the Paladin.
3) It's rough, but I believe players can still target squares where the dragon "should be". Of course he has full concealment.
4) Judgement call. An arrow actually has more ability to hit something underwater than a bullet. Then again, we're talking about a dragon and magic missiles here, so realism really doesn't have much place. I'd probably let the PC's attack at a -2 if the dragon is in the shallow area, but not if it's in the deep area.
5) 10/15/20 for easy/medium/hard checks. All depends upon what the PC wants to do.

 

[Adam72]

I have a couple questions as well.

A) [module specific] I have totally missed the mechanics about surprise in 4E. Specifically for the encounter with the dragon I am assuming Nightscale will be hiding in the lake and just pop up and breathe on the party when they arrive. How did everyone else handle it?

B) [general rule, marking] If I’m right, the fighter and paladin can’t both mark the same target, but the fighter can mark multiple targets on successive rounds.

C) [general rule, Warlock’s Curse and Hunter’s Quarry] Are these just straight up damage that get done to the targets, or is it additional damage that gets done on a successful attack? I ask because the description says +1d(6 or 8 respectively) and not just 1d(6 or 8)

Thanks for the help.

 

[Wystan]

A) [module specific] I have totally missed the mechanics about surprise in 4E. Specifically for the encounter with the dragon I am assuming Nightscale will be hiding in the lake and just pop up and breathe on the party when they arrive. How did everyone else handle it?

B) [general rule, marking] If I’m right, the fighter and paladin can’t both mark the same target, but the fighter can mark multiple targets on successive rounds.

C) [general rule, Warlock’s Curse and Hunter’s Quarry] Are these just straight up damage that get done to the targets, or is it additional damage that gets done on a successful attack? I ask because the description says +1d(6 or 8 respectively) and not just 1d(6 or 8)

Thanks for the help.

A. No Clue
B. As far as I know one mark per character, and one mark per target. So the can mark one target or the paladin can mark that target, but they both only get to choose one target.
C. These are Damage Enhancers, they apply to a successful hit.

 

[Maximillian]

Delgar,

I haven't run the whole adventure, but I did run a party of all six pregen PCs against the dragon. From the wording on the wizard's light power, compared to the wording on the dragon's darkness power, I operated under the assumption that the light trumped the darkness. We probably won't know this for sure until we have the PH, or at least H1 in May, but we wound up with a TPK, even with the dragon's darkness made mostly useless.

Anyone see any reason why this shouldn't be so?

 

[FadedC]

I don't see any reason why the wizar'ds light cantrip would trump the dragon's darkness sphere....nothing in either ability says anything to suggest this in any way. The light spell doesn't seem do anything that a torch would not.

 

[WampusCat43]

The darkness ate our baby, as well. If the DM hadn't shut it down - no chance.

 

[LostInTheMists]

The darkness ate our baby, as well. If the DM hadn't shut it down - no chance.

I don't remember who it was that mentioned this in another thread, but they allowed the Wizard to make a "battle of wills" with the dragon to use their light cantrip to cancel the darkness by rolling Int vs. the dragon's Will. Seemed like a good idea to me.

 

[The Human Target]

Yeah, I'm running the dragon tomorrow in a game as well.

I'm going to outright change the dragon's cloud of darkness power.

It kinda spits in the face of fun to me. I'm either making it an encounter power or changing the recharge to a 5,6.

It seems too harsh the way it is, and would just get really annoying very fast.

 

[HandofMystra]

Yet more questions

I am running this mod on Sunday and have whittled down my questions to one [general rules] for ranged weapons there are two numbers listed eg 10/20. The second number is the max range; what does the first number mean?
thanks