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 Plenty! Fresh foes and advanced versions of classic critters lurk within Monster Manual III, waiting to add complexity to your campaign and a new edge to encounters. This fully illustrated collection of creatures offers many new enemies and a few potential allies, each heading its own page for ease of reference and from-the-book use. DMs will especially appreciate the tactics sections and world-specific advice on incorporating these monsters into particular campaign settings such as the Forgotten Realms and Eberron. Wherever your story unfolds, however, now you can populate it with a whole new menagerie of menaces.
Ambush Drake
 Medium Dragon
Hit Dice: 7d12+28 (73 hp)
Initiative: +6
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), fly 30 ft. (poor)
Armor Class: 18 (+2 Dex, +6 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +7/+10
Attack: Bite +10 melee (1d8+3 plus poison)
Full Attack: Bite +10 melee (1d8+3 plus poison) and 2 claws +8 melee (1d6+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Breath weapon, poison
Special Qualities: Dark-vision 60 ft., immunity to magic sleep effects and paralysis, low-light vision, scent, spell resistance 16, telepathic link 30 ft.
Saves: Fort +9, Ref +7, Will +5
Abilities: Str 16, Dex 15, Con 18, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 9
Skills: Hide +16, Listen +12, Move Silently +12, Spot +12
Feats: Alertness, Improved Initiative, Multiattack
Environment: Temperate plains
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (3-12)
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Usually neutral evil
Advancement: 8-14 HD (Medium); 15-21 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment: --
About the size of an adult human, this dragonlike creature bears distinctly lupine features in place of the more common feline attributes of traditional dragons. Its jaw is elongated and its build muscular, although its wings seem stunted for its size.
Most creatures perceive ambush drakes as deadly draconic hunters of limited intelligence. However, they are social creatures among their own kind. Ambush drakes share the classic dragon mentality of hoarding treasure, but a pack doesn't believe in individual ownership. While one ambush drake might use an item at any given moment, the pack owns the treasure, and tomorrow another ambush drake might use it.
An ambush drake prefers to move about on all fours, only using its undersized wings when necessary.
An ambush drake typically weighs 200 pounds and has a 5-foot-long body. Its scales display dark shades of gray or black.
Ambush drakes can speak Common and Draconic, but rarely choose to do so. Instead, they communicate telepathically with their kind.
Combat
Ambush drakes generally stalk their prey as a coordinated pack. They start by using their breath weapons and focus attacks on affected creatures, ignoring quicker fleeing prey.
Breath Weapon (Su): 30-foot cone, once every 1d4 rounds, slow (duration 7 rounds),Will DC 17 negates. Ambush drakes are immune to the breath weapons of other ambush drakes. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Poison (Ex): Injury, Fortitude DC 17, initial and secondary damage 1d6 Dex. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Telepathic Link (Ex): Ambush drakes share a communal consciousness, enabling them to communicate telepathically with other ambush drakes. A group of ambush drakes within 30 feet of each other are in constant contact. If one is aware of a particular danger, they all are. If one in the group is not flat-footed, none of them are. No ambush drake in the group is considered flanked unless all are.
Skills: Ambush drakes have a +4 racial bonus on Hide checks.
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