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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8233092" data-attributes="member: 5948">The challenge with Dominic isn't defeating him, it's finding out firstly that anyone is mentally controlling half of Dementlieu high society in the first place, and then secondly finding out who it is.  A Dominic story is set up to be much more of a trust-no-one intrigue and detective plot rather than a combat plot, and how well that works in the execution is hugely dependant on the DM, and whether the playing group buys in.  Dominic's big advantage is that nobody knows he's the bad guy, or even that he's anything other than a career politician.  He's not even the nominal ruler of the domain.Which is a bit of a two-edged sword.  The protagonists being the only people who know anything's wrong while everyone else naively goes about their business is of course a horror staple - but if everything's so relatively normal, how do the PCs find out about it in the first place?  And if the players have the expectation that they're in a horror game in which there are Darklords, then they arrive in a place which is relatively un-beset by slobbering monsters, what do they actually do?  In-character, S has the advantage over 99% of the population of Ravenloft in knowing that Darklords are even a thing, so she's actually looking for one when she arrives here.  The dynamic of Dementlieu would vary wildy depending on whether your PCs also share that knowledge.And of course there's the matter of Dominic's protectors, the ones who actually guard him from physical threats.  They're talked of as 'powerful,' but what does that mean in the context of Dementlieu?  The listed highest-level NPCs in the domain are the Brain at 9th, a private detective at 10th, and the elderly, near-death high priestess of Ezra at 14th.  Dominic himself is 10th level but is an Aristocrat, the old 3rd-ed NPC class which is much weaker in combat than any PC class, and I suspect he really only had these levels because under the 3rd ed system skills are capped with level, and they wanted him to have good social and political skills outside the use of his mental abilities.  Also, who ARE they?  PCs are more likely to get in combat with them than with Dominic himself, if the book is going to give us any stat blocks, theirs are surely more useful than his.</blockquote>

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