Rage Drake: What am I missing?

[CM]

Rage Drakes have the at-will power Raking Charge which has this effect:

Effect: The drake charges and makes the following attack twice against the target of its charge in place of a melee basic attack (+10 vs. AC for 1d6+4 damage).​

Its basic attack, bite, is also at +10 vs. AC and deals 2d10+5.

Somethings seems to be wrong to me. Its basic attack deals an average of 16 damage, while the raking charge deals 15 (if both attacks hit). I guess if I were to fix it, I'd change it to an encounter power that recharges when bloodied the first time, and boost the damage to 2d6+4.

So am I missing something? As-is it feels lackluster, even for a brute.

 

[nikadeemus327]

If bite misses you lose all of the damage. However, one raking charge attack can miss and the other can hit.

 

[keterys]

Your idea of making it an encounter, recharge bloodied, for 2d6+4 instead sounds fine.

Could probably also just add 2 damage if you want to keep it at-will, but the spike of damage is fun so your way works

 

[Gryph]

Rage Drakes have the at-will power Raking Charge which has this effect:

Effect: The drake charges and makes the following attack twice against the target of its charge in place of a melee basic attack (+10 vs. AC for 1d6+4 damage).​

Its basic attack, bite, is also at +10 vs. AC and deals 2d10+5.

Somethings seems to be wrong to me. Its basic attack deals an average of 16 damage, while the raking charge deals 15 (if both attacks hit). I guess if I were to fix it, I'd change it to an encounter power that recharges when bloodied the first time, and boost the damage to 2d6+4.

So am I missing something? As-is it feels lackluster, even for a brute.

The charge is slightly better when the drake is bloodied because both attacks get a +2 to damage where the at-will gets a single +2 to damage. But, yeah, even with the reprint in DM's Kit it suffers from some of the monster design problems of MM1.

I would probably take it to 2 attacks at 1d+6, 1d6+8 bloodied. With the extra accuracy from charging that would make it a little better than the at will. Or let it attack two targets for the 1d6 expression, but boost the damage against a single target.

 

[DracoSuave]

Just did a quick DPR analysis.

The bite does more damage when not bloodied, the claws do more damage when bloodied.

 

[keterys]

Yep, 1 less before bloodied, 1 more when bloodied. Though, charging is its own sorta limitation so it'd be fine for it to perform slightly better.

Or just be an encounter power. Either way, it's bad that it's potentially a trap for DMs by default. (albeit not a very important one)

 

[frankthedm]

It's of limited usefulness unless the target has good AC or somehow is Vulnerable All.

 

[keterys]

Or if a leader monster is giving it a damage bonus. Those are pretty rare, but do happen.

 

[mneme]

Raging Mount (mount)
While the drake is bloodied, its rider gains a +2 bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls with melee attacks.


It's a mount that hands out +2 to hit while bloodied. Does it need that much else, either as a low level player mount or as a monster mount?

 

[CM]

Thanks for the replies.

As-is, I know that I've passed the rage drake by several times when selecting creatures because of its lack of an encounter power (I like variety).

I admit that I am totally clueless on player mounts in 4e because my players have so far taken no interest in acquiring them. As a player mount, an encounter power might be OP, although even the level 1 Monster Vault horse has the incredibly effective Trample.

I guess it would be nice if there were a power swap available for creatures with the mount keyword that they could use if riderless. I don't think rider bonuses should take up any of the creature's power budget. Perhaps Trample would be a good fit for the rage drake.