My players currently have 3rd-level PCs exploring an abandoned

>>53292746
>Dracolich approaches
>Priest spouts holy mumbojumbo commanding the monster to flee
>Dracolich eats priest

Your move PCs...

>>53292746
What roleplaying opportunities is there by introducing an incredibly powerful, outright evil undead dragon to the party?

>>53292854
My players have no idea what the dracolich really is - they'll go find someone to answer some questions about how to defeat it when they realize they can't defeat it; they'll always go look for an NPC when they have a problem. That is, assuming they make it out alive.

>>53292746
Have there be a pit trap that slides them out of the castle after the first turn.

Let them die if they don't get the hint. Your job isn't to save PCs from themselves. If they go in and die? Let them die. They'll get tired of filling out character sheets eventually and play smarter. And this leads to them LEARNING rather than never learning because the DM coddles them and spares them from ever facing consequences or dying.

>>53293908
I don't know, I could see a dracolich casually smashing a hole in a floor or bash a tower into a moat if it is getting annoyed from that spot specifically, giving the party a couple outs that would be terrifying as all hell. The party would be really insignificant to the lich, perhaps too much for it to care if it killed them or not and just assume that a bout of dragon style redecorating did the trick.

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>>53292746
Why not a proper dragon instead? A bloated or overly arrogant dragon might be amused with such a lowly group making it that far into it's lair, and toy with them.
Your players may have to roleplay their way out of being dinner. Draw some inspiration from the debate between Bilbo and Smaug (for christ's sake, the book, not the film) to build some tension for your PCs.
Terrified doesn't have to mean "runs screaming".

>>53293818
all the castle traps are nonlethal. they just take you about a mile and a half down the valley into a small pond.

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>>53292746
The Dracolich is actually very bored and geriatric from its spells being fucked with, leaving him slightly addled and mad. He wants to hire the PCs, either mistaking them or just having a senile old time by bargaining with them. See if the PCs will accept levels of dark classes or death swords or whatever in exchange for doing really weird and seemingly neutral favors.

Let the PCs stay good despite sliding into 'evil' while having to become the groomed servant-knights of a Dracolich doing the equivalent of squatting in an abandoned nursing home overrun with goblins.

>>53292746
>>53292901
>the dracolich has been geased to not kill characters of PC races entering the castle.
>it occupies the great hall and prevents them from entering the treasure sanctum
>NPCs offer clues from history
>the proper command word will cause the dracolich to let them enter the sanctum
>the dracolich doesn't like his lot in unlife and wishes to mess with them in ways that don't kill them
>the sanctum has a hidden trap that can kill
>the dracolich knows this, and wants the party to go in in such a way that they trigger it
>so he tries to persuade them with lies.
>if the party carries out the body of a dead PC from the sanctum, the dracolich immediately eats him, destroying the character forever,
>because there is a second geas on the dracolich making him eat corpses there to keep the area clean.