This is our third and final post on drakes, covering the two species that appear in the Monster Vault but not on the Monster Manual. It’s is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

Ambush Drake

This species seem to be a Monster Vault original. At least, it doesn’t seem to appear on any of the Monster Manuals. According to the MV, Ambush Drakes “roam the plains” and frequently attack lone travelers or even whole caravans. No mention seems to be made of domesticated ambush drakes.

These Medium drakes are Level 6 Skirmishers with 71 HP, making them slightly more dangerous than even rage drakes. They run at speed 6, and fly at speed 4 (clumsy). They’re also trained in Stealth. This tells me they likely use their flight ability to scout their surroundings or to silently approach unwary prey from above, but when they fight it’s with feet on the ground.

Their basic attack is a claw, which can also be employed in a Shifting Strike that allows the drake to shift 1 square before or after the attack. When bloodied, they grow Ravenous and gain the ability to shift 2 squares towards a bloodied enemy as an at-will minor action.

Bloodseeker Drake

These Medium drakes first appear on the Monster Manual 2. As their name implies, bloodseekers have a keen sense of smell that’s specially attuned to blood. Domesticated specimens are prized for their tracking ability and used as hunting and patrol animals, but they get a bit hard to control when in the presence of too much blood.

Bloodseeker Drakes are Level 4 Soldiers with 53 HP. They run with speed 6, and are trained in Perception. They attack with a bite that does extra damage against bloodied targets, and if a bloodied enemy adjacent to the drake shifts, they can make a bite as an opportunity attack against that enemy. This is useful because shifts don’t draw such attacks normally.

The MM2 version has a few additional traits that were removed - it was immune to fear while within 2 squares of an ally, and had an extra +5 to track bloodied creatures on top of its Perception training. I don’t see any problem in reinstating these abilities if you want to. Them being gone seems to be more due to a general hardening of the “only show combat-relevant information in stat blocks” stance in the MV than due to any balance concerns.

Final Impressions

This ended up being a short article, since only those two species didn’t appear in the first Monster Manual. I like the bloodseekers, but ambush drakes feel a bit context-less to me. “Wild creature that attacks on sight” is not exactly something that stands out in D&D, you know? Giving them a function when tamed by humanoids would help giving them some more flavor.