Dragon Encounters

[note: I thought I published this a while ago. I guess perhaps I never clicked publish, and it was saved as a draft. I apoligize for it being out of order.]

How to Use – Dracolich “Suicide” Tactics

Fighting back isn’t the only way a villain can respond to the heroes’ aggression. Another way is to go after a city, or other civilians, forcing the heroes to either risk themselves in order to save the civilians, or to suffer the effects of massive unpopularity. [See below].

While there are any number of monsters that might be interested in such strategies, some tactics are too dangerous, lest the one trying get killed. Taking your focus off the adventurers attacking you is such a tactic. If they choose to let the city fall, the fact that your enemies become unpopular is nice, but also a bit too late to help.

The dracolich doesn’t have to worry about getting killed. The dracolich can come back to life.

Deadly Delaying Tactics

Combat Encounter 1 (difficulty 18)

Before building the combat encounter, let me state that having the dracolich moving around and killing people will not work. In such a scenario, it is obvious that the best way to stop it is to kill the dracolich, and nobody sane can blame them for focusing on hitting the dracolich as hard as they could. This won’t serve the dracolich at all, and will also make a very boring scenario.

(“Okay, everybody, this battle is about attacking a target that won’t fight back or change what it’s doing at all.” You might as well have them attack a wall.)

Even if the dracolich doesn’t kill directly, but instead dumps them on top of a burning building, tosses them into water, or other scenarios in which the NPCs can be saved, it will still be obvious that killing the dracolich quickly will save more lives than anything else, even if it does mean letting some people die.

Let’s look at ideas that should work:

The Burning Building 

The dracolich gathers a large number of people into a building, by announcing that it will kill anyone who doesn’t move toward the building, now! Remember to include a few corpses when describing the scene. (Alternatively, the people were already gathered, for a wedding or similar reason, before the dracolich arrived.)

By the time the players arrive, it has already gathered a large crowd, jammed the doors on them, and set the building on fire. (A black or green dracolich can do it manually.) The players need to break the building open, and clear a path through the flames to let the people escape, while defending themselves from the dracolich.  

Running the encounter: For the first round or two of combat, you might want to avoid having the dracolich attack full out. If it waits until the players are committed to the rescue, it will be more likely that they won’t ignore the NPCs, and it can benefit from their split focus. On the other hand, if it waits too long, they might rescue the people before it has a chance to utilize the distraction. Use your best judgement.

Don’t have the dracolich swoop in to doom the people at the last moment. While this would make in-game sense, it’s not fair to your players. Some things have to be sacrificed for the sake of gameplay.

Consequences of failure

These are a few penalties you can impose on them if they fail too badly, or straight up ignore the civilian hostages:

(It should go without saying that the idea is to enhance the game by giving consequences to their actions, not punishing the players.)

• Scenes of suffering, where they see the consequences. This includes grieving friends&family, families thrust into poverty with the death of the breadwinner, an NPC standing silently by a grave or picture, and more. The scenes should be scattered, and not forced down the players throats. If your players don’t react/notice, just leave it and move on. Pushing the point will make it far worse.
• Anger/hostility. The NPCs will be a lot less willing to help them with what they need. That said, make sure you leave the players a way forward. Telling them that they no longer have any way to accomplish their goals will create resentment, and wreak the game.
• Higher prices in shops, and/or less goods available. People no longer want to do business with them, or show their anger by charging more.
• Some places may be closed to them. They might not be welcomed in certain cities anymore forcing them to either find a way to do without help from the cities or to sneak in and risk arrest
• Retaliation: Most NPCs aren’t strong enough to face PCs in combat, but there are other ways to hurt them. Among them are traps, poisons, robbery, or revealing their whereabouts to enemies. Or you can get creative. For example, have them hire a hag to curse the PCs.

Encounter Variations

The Burning Building on Stilts

A variant of the above, except that the building is elevated. This can be done by placing the building on pillars, or by having the bottom floor be used for storage, with the door being on the second floor and with steps leading into the building. (Elevated building design is used to protect against flooding, rodents, and occasionally for aesthetics.)

The dracolich sets the area under the building on fire. The danger to the people isn’t from the fire directly, but from the fact that the fire will cause the building to collapse. This varies from the previous option in that the players don’t have to get the people through the fire, but they do have the difficulty of reaching the building’s second floor.

The Flooded Building

The dracolich breaks a dam, or dams a river, causing the waters to rise around the building. They have to rescue the people before the water breaks past the windows or collapses the roof and causes the people to drown. (This is most likely harder than the previous encounters, as the water will occupy a larger area than the fire would.)

The Unstable Building

The building is elevated, and the dracolich has knocked out most of the supports. The PCs have to get the people out of the building before it can collapse. Given how unstable the building is, however, the players will have to be careful not to trigger the collapse themselves when they tear the door or walls open to get the people out.

This option pretty much requires that they have some way of knowing what will and won’t collapse the building. Ideally, you’ll give them the knowledge via background, skill, or tool proficiency.

If this isn’t possible [quite likely], you’ll have to provide an NPC who can guide them. Have the dracolich recognize someone in the crowd as having the proper skillset, and pluck them out of the crowd in order for them to tell the PCs about the building’s unstable position.

(After all, it can’t expect the PCs to believe it. Nor does it mind the NPC helping them. It wants them to try and fail, not to be unable to even try.)

The Burning Granary

If you don’t want to use a hostage situation, you could have the dracolich set fire to granary. Since evacuating the granary won’t be possible, the players will have to put out the fire instead. (If the granary is on stilts, it will be easier.) If they don’t manage, the people will starve.

(Since starvation is somewhat unknown these days, I would try to foreshadow the people being short of food before, and flesh out the consequences a bit more if they fail.

With a Single Hostage

You can also run such a scenario with the dracolich just taking a single hostage, and locking him inside a burning house. Since the players won’t be as motivated to risk themselves for one person, have it be somebody especially important, or someone that they need for quest reasons. Ideally, it should also be someone that they know. It could also be an item that they especially need.

Since rescuing one person is so much easier that rescuing a crowd, you might want to place two or three obstacles, such as both high up and on fire, together. (The dracolich destroyed the stairs or bridge, and also set fire to the walls.) Or the hostage could be tied up, so that the players have to go inside to free him.

In this scenario, the dracolich will focus on stopping the players, forcing them to spread out more in order to get past it. If you want to be nasty, you could have the dracolich change tactics at some point, and focus on a specific PC. Since the players’ attention is split, they may not realize until too late.

This is the only variant that you might be able to use after having used a previous one, or vice versa. Even so, there will need to be a half-dozen or so sessions in between, minimum.

Dying with my Enemies

Combat Encounter 2: (difficulty 19)

The dracolich might try to outmaneuver the players via the previous scenario once, and perhaps to plot to kill them via minions a few times, but once it shows up to take them down, it will hit hard. Using the fact that it can return from death and they can’t, it will target the PC that it sees at the biggest problem and focus everything it has on taking them down.

The dracolich will take advantage of the fact that it doesn’t have to survive to grab a PC and bring him into an absolutely lethal environment. If it can take down the entire party and/or survive itself, all the better, but even if it just kills one PC, that’s still a win.

If you don’t want to have the dracolich target a single PC, then instead adjust the above as following: In its zeal to kill the PCs, it will ignore its own safety. It will grab one PC and drag them into a lethal area, knowing that the others will need to either follow, or consign themselves to being killed one by one:

Areas which the dracolich will use include:

Lakes: While not even lethal to it, this is an extremely difficult environment for the PCs. They need to breath, and it doesn’t. They most probably aren’t prepared for water combat if it just swoops down on them. And with both of them slowed due to water, and many of the PCs ranged options shut down (They can’t cast any spells with verbal component underwater), its superior reach will be a massive advantage for it.

Fires: The dracolich sets fire to a nearby forest or city (preferably in several places, as that will virtually guarantee the spread of the fire), or takes advantage of a fire that started on its own. Either way, it grapples the PC of its choice, and flies with him into the middle of the fire. While the fire will damage the dracolich as well (assuming it isn’t red), the dracolich is more capable of absorbing damage, of breaking out after the battle, and can reincarnate.

Swarms of Monsters: The dracolich grabs the PC and dumps them into an area thick with monsters. You want to choose a monster type that is unintelligent, relatively weak, and lives with a large number of its own kind. Ankhegs, blights, ettercaps, and ghouls are among the various options.

It will be hard for a PC to survive being attacked on all sides, especially by himself, and hard for the others to join him in a hurry. The dracolich will mostly work at playing interference, stopping that PC from escaping and the others from rescuing him.

If there are multiple monster nests in the area, (and if you feel that the players can survive such an attack), the dracolich can try to come after the rest of the party and dump them one by one into different such monster nests.

The monsters might attack the dracolich, but probably won’t. In the first place, it obviously isn’t edible. In the second place, it’s probably obvious that it is not an enemy to mess with. I’ll also remind you that even after the players have become immune to its fearful presence, the monsters around them might not be.

I should mention that the tactics suggested for each basic dragon are still appropriate for the dracolich of the same color. The difference is that the dracolich is going to be that much more vicious, seeking to overwhelm and kill them, and without any tendency to play with them first.

Combat Encounter 3: Until Final Death (difficulty 21)

Reaching the Phylactery

If fighting a dracolich in the open is a vicious fight, the lair (by which I mean where it keeps its phylactery), will be a hundred times worse. Over here, the dracolich can’t afford to lose, and will go for the kill immediately.

The Phylactery’s Location

The phylactery will be in a well-hidden place, and you’ll need an oracle or some other out of the ordinary method of letting your players know about it in the first place. Unlike the lairs of most dragons, this one won’t be in a high up place, as the dracolich will want to keep it secret from other dragons, who it sees as its main foes.

I would say that the foot of a mountain would be the most logical place, with a swamp or other inhospitable terrain in front of it, probably with a large number of lesser monsters living there. There will be too many for the PCs to fight, so they’ll have to figure out a different way through if they don’t want to enter the lair/vault with virtually no HP left.

The Phylactery Traps

The traps will be built to be simple, but devastatingly strong. (Dragons tend to prize strength, not subtlety. Green [and silver] dragons are admittedly exceptions.)

Trap 1: The Flooding Chamber

The players will enter a large room (keep in mind that all rooms have to be sized for the dracolich to be comfortable inside them) which starts filling with water. There are several wooden doors at the side, which if opened will release more water and fill the room faster. (So that the dracolich won’t have to wait around.)

The stone door that is the actual exit can only be opened when the room is full. (This can be done through air pressure, or with levers along the top that have to be pushed up by the water. You can decide whether to let your players be able to push them manually. If you don’t want that option, put them behind bars or with narrow tunnels leading up to them in the ceiling.

Even once the room is full, it will still take considerable strength to pull the door open.

I would also suggest that runes be set to activate a casting of Dispel Magic when the room is full, as otherwise it will be very easy to survive.

Trap 2: The Trapped Descending Ceiling.

Should the players smash the ceiling, they will find that it was a container, filled with acid. Also, the exit is above them, and soon blocked by the ceiling. The dracolich shoves the ceiling back up with physical strength.

Trap 3: Using the Dragon’s Natural Immunity.

A black dracolich will have a trapdoor in the ceiling letting loose a constant rain of acid, with pipes or teleportation to draw it back up. Either that, or a basin of acid through which it swims.

A blue dracolich will have metal columns letting off lightning bolts, and a red dracolich might use hot springs to raise the temperature of the area, or coat an area in oil, making it easily ignitable. Add darkness, and they might easily ignite it before they realize it.

All dracoliches are immune to poison, and any of them could therefore have a door handle or rocks that need to be climbed that are also smeared with poison. If you want something special for a green dracolich, place a misleading goal.

For example, the passage is blocked by a portcullis, and there is a lever on the other side of a chasm. The ledge under the lever is filled with loose rubble, which will sweep whoever lands on it into the chasm. The lever is a decoy, however, and will release a trap instead of opening the portcullis. (The portcullis isn’t fixed to the ceiling, and can be shoved out of the way.)

The Final Boss Battle

For the last battle against the dracolich, I would suggest a large underground cavern, with a ledge running along the edge and a large column rising from the bottom to form a large platform in the middle.

On that platform is a dead dragon, with the dracolich’s phylactery clutched in its claws. If they kill the dracolich before claiming the phylactery, it will immediately come back to life.

The cavern is wide enough, and high enough, for the dracolich to fly around in. In addition, its wing attack will have the capability to knock the PCs down, and potentially cause them to fall into the chasm.

You might want to decide that while they are on the ledge, they can’t be knocked off by failing a save, as they have the wall to their back. In addition, they’re near the side, so if they fall they might just fall a small bit, and land on a ledge. Once they try to cross to reach the phylactery, though, they’ll be out of luck.

If they do kill the dracolich, and force it to reincarnate, its priority will be to escape with its phylactery. You might want to let your players know that, and then restructure the rest of the fight accordingly.

Summary: Nine Deadly Dracolich Encounters

1. The dracolich can come back to life after it dies. That means that it can employ suicidal strategies. Trading its life for even one PC life is a good trade for it.
2. Have it trap a bunch of civilian NPCs in a building which it sets on fire. The players will have to figure out how to rescue the civilians while fending off its attacks at the same time. If they abandon the civilians, they’ll sink their popularity in-game.
3. Some houses are built on stilts. The dracolich lures the PCs onto/into such a house, perhaps by attacking NPCs, and has fire set to the stilts. Escaping mid-combat will be difficult, and having the house collapse under them will be a big disadvantage.
4. The dracolich sets a fire to get rid of an important NPC or item. At first, the dracolich will work to stop their rescue. They’ll have to spread out to get past it, and the dracolich can focus on an NPC of choice before they realize that it changed targets.
5. The dracolich grapples a PC and dives into a lake. It doesn’t need to breathe, they can’t cast spells underwater without opening their mouths, any PC that goes unconscious is pretty much dead, even with healing… What’s not to like?
6. The dracolich grabs a PC and dumps him into a swarm of monsters. The monsters won’t be stupid enough to attack a dracolich, and even if the PC wins, he’ll be at low HP and an easy target.
7. The dracolich will hide its phylactery at the foot of a mountain, with inhospitable terrain in front of it (example: swamp), and that terrain swarming with monsters. It it’s there, it can dive bomb them to drop boulders as they try to cross.
8. The phylactery cavern is vast, big enough for flying in. The players enter onto a ledge running along the side, and the phylactery is in the center, held by a dead dragon. Kill the dracolich before capturing the phylactery, and it will come back to life.
9. (Alternative.) The dracolich will grab the phylactery, and try to escape. If the area is at all big, the players will have to simultaneously guard the exit and attack the dracolich.