The Dunefiend's Howl
Most players read the Dunefiend as a melee problem. It has a Tear attack, two of them per turn at +4 for 1d8 each, and that is enough to keep a front line honest. So the party trades blows, wins the exchange eventually, and moves on. Fine.
The mistake is treating its Howl as a lesser option. The Dunefiend can skip the Tears entirely and Howl at creatures in far range, forcing a DC check that disrupts rest. In Shadowdark, rest is not decoration. It is how you recover hit points and reset spells, and a disrupted rest is a wasted one. A Dunefiend that survives to the next rest is a Dunefiend that spends its resources burning yours, from a distance where your melee cannot answer it.
Which means the fight is not over when you decide it is. If one is loose and still breathing when the party beds down, the Howl reaches across the field and denies the recovery you came out here to get. Kill it first, or expect to pay for the delay in spent hit dice.
At the table: When the party makes camp within far range of a surviving Dunefiend, have it Howl instead of closing, forcing the DC check and voiding their rest.
Related
- Monster Tactic: The Statblock Is Not the Fight
- Stat Blocks Lie: Monster Tactic in DCC
- The Comic Relief That Bites: Seeding Ancient Dragon Encounters
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