Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zergo78 Feb 14, 2010 11:55:54	So my PCs have been running around the Gray Vale and other parts of the FR collecting a few powerful magic items: the Horn, the Shield and the Spear.  Each was involved in the slaying of a powerful Black Dragon that a certain cult is trying to magically revive.  I've been paying homage to the old GI Joe Weather Dominator episodes as the PCs are competing against Netherese agents and the Cult of the Dragon. My thought is that when they finally track down the Spear, somewhere near the end of the heroic tier (they just hit 5), that they will have played directly into the hands of the Cult, assembling all of the necessary items in the same place.  This will allow them to turn the remains of the aforementioned black dragon into a Dracolich, which will then assault the hapless PCs. How should I build this encounter? This is my first time DMing 4e, and I really want this to be a great cap for the entire tier.  I want my players to walk out of the encounter (or crawl out) thinking that they are about as cool as can be, and have the feeling that they really saved the world, or at least a small part of it. Surely, someone out there has a lot of experience with this sort of thing. -Zergo
#2 adun_irving Feb 16, 2010 14:08:45	You might want to look at the "Ruling Skill Challenges" articles from D&D.com. There's an interesting bit about how to include a skill challenge as part of a combat encounter, so that the successes themselves become successes in the fight. Perhaps your players are far too weak to directly damage the dracolich, but they can futz with the other powers. Maybe, instead of outright crushing it, they can instead feel like masters of the mystic by somehow turning the dracolich's power source against it, possibly destroying the cultists in the process.
#3 novatack Feb 18, 2010 17:56:38	You might want to look at the "Ruling Skill Challenges" articles from D&D.com. There's an interesting bit about how to include a skill challenge as part of a combat encounter, so that the successes themselves become successes in the fight. Perhaps your players are far too weak to directly damage the dracolich, but they can futz with the other powers. Maybe, instead of outright crushing it, they can instead feel like masters of the mystic by somehow turning the dracolich's power source against it, possibly destroying the cultists in the process. I'd be a bit cautious about making it fully be a skill challenge... it could be a skill challenge to stop the ritual halfway, resulting in a severely weakened dragon. If you make it clear that the players could only take the dragon on because it wasn't fully revived, then they know that they just stopped a powerful creature without the resulting "If it was so powerful, how come it was only level 10?" On a mechanical side, I'd recommend a custom creature, first off (it lets you create a monster with abilities similar to both a Dracolich and a Black Dragon- I'd recommend looking at some metallic dragon stats, too, since the Dracolich and Black Dragon were both designed using the older solo-building advice). Aside, from that, build it to nova the first round or two- and definately use your action points on the first rounds. (For example, you could give it an at-will power that lets it make 3 melee basic attacks, and an encounter power that let's it do 5. Seeing your opponent pull off 8 attacks in one round is going to be scary.) The point of this is to intimidate your players. It can't sustain that level of DPR, sure, but that doesn't matter. As long as it gives the illusion of being that deadly, it will make your players think that they've overcome something much more difficult and create a sense of urgency (we can't survive much more of THAT, we need to drop this thing NOW), while keeping the encounter winnable. And, on a side note, don't use Dragonbreath or Frightful Presence immediately- sure, it may be smart, but being stunned is more annoying that scary, and, if your players have fought other dragons, they'll probably know it's a trick the dragon can only do once. Likewise, players know Dragonbreath is one attack- they don't know what the breakdown of a flurry of melee attacks is. All they know is that this dragon can pull out a ton of attacks in one round). So basically, my advice is to make your dragon look tougher than it is. Burn through all damaging encounter powers quickly to load up on damage, make sure it gets off a ton of attacks the first couple of rounds, etc- the players don't need to know that the dragon won't be able to keep it up.