Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

This post is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

These beasties seem to be new to Fourth Edition, at least as presented here. If I remember correctly, the things 3.x called Drakes were related to dragons - they had the Dragon “monster class” but weren’t technically dragons themselves. As a GM you would use drakes when you wanted a “lite” dragon encounter.

Here, the name is basically another bit of Behemoth-like medieval taxonomy employed by the people people who live in the 4e implied setting. A drake is a clawed, carnivorous reptile that’s not big enough to be called a Behemoth. There are several species of drake: some walk on two legs and have limited manipulation capability, some walk on all fours, some even fly!

I’ve heard that this means they correspond to the smaller varieties of dinosaur, but I think that’s not quite true. While several of them are similar to certain species of dinosaurs, they’re less so than behemoths (where you often can draw a direct visual parallel between a given behemoth and the real-world counterpart).

Drakes in the wild are aggressive and territorial predators, more likely to attack a group of humans than a wolf or bear. Despite this, they’re rather easy to tame, and can be frequently encountered not only as guard or attack animals, but as pets or even mounts!

In short, drakes pretty much fill the same roles as dogs. If you want to make your particular version of the setting feel more fantastical you could even say that it has no dogs, since the sapients here never domesticated wolves. It’s all drakes all the time.

The Monster Vault kinda backs down from this idea a bit, saying that drakes are more aggressive and “alien” than corresponding domesticated mammals and such tend to be feared by common people, though they are often encountered in the service of hostile humanoids. Personally, I would disregard this bit completely and keep them as a common dog-substitute for all sapient peoples.

Both books agree that the larger varieties of drake are harder to domesticate, which would mean good old warhorses are still more common than rage drakes.

All Drakes are Natural Beasts with the Reptile keyword. Between the Monster Manual and the Monster Vault there are quite a few of them, so we’ll split this single entry into multiple posts. This is part 1.

Spiretop Drake

Present only in the MM, this Small drake is a Level 1 Skirmisher with 29 HP. It waddles at Speed 4 but flies with speed 8 and hover capability. They’re a social species that likes to nest in high places, which means clutches of the things nest in towers and spires in large cities and swoop down to steal shiny things from unwary passerby.

Unusually, it has two basic attacks: a bite with its toothed beak that works as usual, and a claw attack that targets Reflex. The claw attack does a measly 1 damage, but a hit also allows the drake to steal a small object from the target, like a single coin, vial or scroll. The fact that the snatching claw is a basic attack is important, because it means the drake can use it as part of a Flyby Attack, where it flies 8 squares while immune to opportunity attacks and performs a basic attack at any point along the movement.

So yeah, having your small, shiny, plot-critical McGuffin stolen by a pack of spiretop drakes is a hazard in urban adventures. Ideally they’d nest atop a crumbling abandoned tower filled with enough bad stuff to count as a dungeon. As a level 1 monster it’s not really affected by the math bug, so you can use it as-is.

Guard Drake

In the wild guard drakes are pack hunters, but they got this name because they’re very commonly used as guard animals, since it’s very easy to train them for this role. Basically, if someone in the real world would use rottweilers for a job, they’ll use guard drakes in D&D. Yes, even as pets.

This Small drake has nearly identical stat blocks in both books. It’s a Level 2 Brute with 48 HP and a single bite attack that does extra damage if the drake is within two squares of an ally. This makes then pair well with any melee monster.

The only difference between the MM and MV versions is that the MM version is immune to fear, which is an interesting detail. I’m inclined to keep it, since it’s flavorful and unlikely to make a PC completely ineffective even at this level.

Needlefang Drake Swarm

From what I hear people saying on the Internet, needlefang drake swarms have been responsible for more PC deaths than most other monsters in this edition. Let’s see why.

Needlefang drakes are cat-sized bipedal lizards, though I guess they’re more like angry chihahuas in temperament. A single individual is not really dangerous, and I imagine some people might want to keep one as a pet. In the wild, they gather in large packs that can take down much larger prey and “strip it to the bone in seconds” according to the book, which also implies some people keep whole swarms of them as “living traps”. Beware needlefang drake hoarders!

A swarm of needlefang drakes is Medium in size and counts as a Level 2 Soldier with 38 HP and the Swarm keyword. Like all swarms it takes half damage from melee and ranged attacks, and extra damage from close and area attacks. It’s immune to fear, and has a Swarm Attack aura 1 that allows it to make a free basic attack against each enemy that begins its turn inside.

This swarm has two actions: a Swarm of Teeth as a basic attack, which deals extra damage against prone targets; and Pull Down, which targets Fortitude and does no damage, but knocks the target prone on a hit.

So why are needlefang drake swarms so dang deadly? Well, as MM1 soldiers, their accuracy is 2 points higher than it should be (something which would be fixed by the new monster math). So a swarm has no reason to ever spend its standard action on anything but Pull Down, which will hit even tough fighters very reliably and set them up for an increased-damage free attack from the aura which will hit even more reliably due to combat advantage.

To make things worse, if you have multiple swarms in play they can position themselves so that anyone they knock down is subject to aura attacks from all of them. That amount of damage per round can take a level 1-2 PC down to 0 quite fast. And to top it off, there’s no in-setting reason for needlefang drakes to follow the sort of combat etiquette that prevents them from attacking downed PCs, so they can potentially keep making free attacks until those PCs hit their death threshold.

These tiny terrors are just the thing to spruce up a kobold lair or the hideout of a sadistic villain, but don’t overuse them. Or at least make sure your wizard knows Thunderwave before using more than one swarm at a time.