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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7004398" data-attributes="member: 42582">How much damage does a blow from Achilles's spear do? Let's say 8 for a max damage roll, +5 for STR, +3 for sundry other bonuses, = 16. How much more dangerous should an ancient dragon's claw be than Achilles's spear?Different people will have different view on this. My feeling is that 17 seems not too far off the mark. It makes senseto me that it hurts less than having a giant's rock land on top of you! (30-ish damage.)As far as dragons are concerned, I envisage the risk of sudden death to a hero coming from the breath weapon rather than the claw attack.I don't really follow this.In 4e, a raging dragon being able to inflict fire damage out to 25' (5 sq) is an existing ability. JRRT's dragons have a similar capability, I think - the heat of their bodies drives away their enemies, and the fumes that they breathe are poisonous in a way that is better modelled by some sort of aura than by D&D's breath weapon mechanic.As far as "new abilities that appear only when bloodied" - I'm not sure what you're referring to. In 4e, dragons that are bloodied recharge and use their breath, just as described in the Youtube video. This is not a new ability; it's a type of action economy/pacing thing.Again, I'm not sure that I follow.I remember reading the Deathlock Wight entry, and being really struck and impressed by the design of it Horrific Visage:Fear, psychic * Recharge 4 5 6 Attack: Close blast 5 (creatures in the blast); +7 vs. Will Hit: 1d6 + 6 psychic damage, and the wight pushes the target up to 3 squares.The idea that the wight could make its enemies recoil in horror captured my imagination; the use of the blast AoE to model a gaze (ie only one side of the wight is affected, namely, the side it is looking at) struck me as a clever use of the base design elements).When the PCs in my game encountered a deathlock wight in my game, there were pits in the room and one PC nearly fell down. But for some reason (I think because the passage leading down to the wight's mausoleum was sloping) the players had decided that the characters would rope themselves together; and that paid off, as the dwarf made a successful STR check to stop the other character (maybe the elven ranger) falling down the pit.For me, that was a good moment in play. The deathlock wight's horrific visage was experienced in play, insofar as at least one adventurer recoiled in terror; and the roping together paid off. I don't understand how descriptive text is a substitute for this: I can describe away as much as I want how horrific the wight is, but no player I've ever played with is going to free narrate his/her PC recoiling in horror so as to full down a pit.4e uses a whole other framework for non-combat resolution, namely, skill challenges. There's plenty of discussion to be had about how to frame skill challenges; and how to integrate them with combat (which is one of the bigger technical challenges of GMing 4e).But the monster stat block is not intended to carry this non-combat resolution.For instance, when I adapted the Robin Laws HeroWars adventure Demon of the Red Grove to 4e, I had to decide how to handle the trapped demon's terror inducing screams in 4e:None of that required anything in the stat block of the glabrezu, because it is managed via the framing of checks and consequences in a skill challenge. The monster stat block isn't the place where this non-combat stuff is handled in the 4e system.</blockquote>

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