Shadow Dragon Lair.

[SMac8988]

So firstly I was wondering if anyone has used the shadow dragon template before? I have an uncoming game and I plan to use one as my big bad for a bit. The dragon will be an adult blue, whom has a half dragon son who has protected him and formed a cult while the dragon has rested on a fault line to the shadow plane.

The dragons goal is to complete his transformation, then transform into a dragon lich. I know the book says that shadow can't become lich, but I decided to change that since he is gonna be their returning villian.

For the lair I was thinking under ground, with sand flowing from above, stelagmites on the ground and vents of shadow energy leaking out.

My lair actions I went with was.

1.) Since he is a blue dragon I felt lightning between the stelagmites would be a cool to keep. Also makes the players have to be aware of the battle maps.

2.) Shadows summoned as adds from the vents. Have darkness spread for the first round, and second round 1d4 shadows spread In the location of the vents.

3.) With the beats of the dragons wings the sand would fly everywhere creating difficult terrain and slowing the parties movements. Potentionally burying some players making str checks to dig out. Failed checks would begun to sufficate.

They are currently level 7, and when they first meet and dragon he will psudo enslave them giving them the chance to adventure for him and get strong bwfore they rebel. Aiming for the part to he level 10 ish before the fight against him.

[kife33]

The second one could unbalance the fight as a lair action. Every other round being able to put 1d4 shadows on the field could make it pretty crowded unless the party is taking them out as fast or faster than they can be summoned. Making it a concentration effect would balance that out though. The 3rd one I could see the sand flying everywhere, but not so much that it could bury a character unless you are in the desert, and even then in the lair it would be situational as to whether there was that much sand in there. I like the idea of a black tentacles/quicksand mix. Black tentacles reach up and drag you down into a pit of sand that you were able to walk over, but is close enough to quicksand that the pulling from the tentacles is enough for you to sink.

[Mortis_Elrod]

i'm with Kife33.

For the beat the wings sand thing, i wouldn't do bury, i would do Blind. has a nice effect on everyone, maybe have it be an action to save again to get sand out of eyes. more importantly you can still fight blind just ... disadvantage, which means that its a choice to lose a turn.

choices are nice.

[dreast]

Having shadows show up is cool, but you should balance it by removing it as a Lair action and just having it happen once on the second round and then, perhaps, once on the fifth round if the fight's gonna go that long, to really make the players sweat, and make the number nonrandom (one per every two party members, rounded up, seems about right). They should be stealthed coming in so they can ambush backliners if possible (it makes the low STR mages sweat bullets to take 1d4 strength damage per hit).