Cool New Ideas for Dragon Breath

[Anonymouswizard]

A cone of sharks with gnome built lasers strapped to their heads.

Why stop there? The dragon can breath sawblades, but each tooth is a fully functional shark with gnome built lasers strapped to their heads.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Bad Breath. The dragon's breath is a stinking cloud. But has the additional property of also inflicting a penalty to social skills for a number of days.

Dazzling Breath. Glittery confetti bursts forth! Party is covered in glitterdust.

Breath of the Wild. Institutes plant growth over the area. The area is also treated as if covered by a web spell.

Breadth Breath. Characters become overweight/obese/morbidly obese. Subsequent breath attacks inflict the next step in the chain. Con/Dex penalties apply, and may only be removed through proper diet and exercise.

Wonder Breath. Even the dragon doesn't know what it will do. Similar effects to a rod of wonder.

Good Breath. Cure critical wounds. Hey, the players won't know what's coming in the first breath attack, why not make them nervous?

Reincarnating Breath. The players get a save versus death. Anyone who dies is out of the battle, but they reincarnate as the spell somewhere safe nearby.

Offensive Breath. Area hit is treated as if under the effects of an antipathy spell. Those within the area at the time must immediately save against it.

Normal Breath. Can only be used on targets in the dragon's zenith or nadir. Target's stats are fixed at 10. Treat the effects as a curse.

Breath Weapon. Breathsaber. An extruded saber of pure elemental energy coming from the open jaws. Treat it as the appropriately dragon-sized weapon. It can cut through any damage reduction and sunder armor. Bonus points if there's inexplicable acrobatics.

Short of Breath. Reduce person on afflicted targets.

Animating Breath. Animate objects on unattended items hit. The larger the dragon, the larger the objects animated may be.

Practical Breath. Area and objects hit impacted as if by a fabricate spell. Dragon is able to do anything the spell allows. (For example, if the materials are there, they surround the PCs with a wooden box or build a stone wall.)

Impractical Breath. Forces a save, but no notable effect, save any player paranoia. (Surprisingly effective, often critical-hits.)

[martixy]

I messed with that idea in my game a bit.

System is 3.5e. There exist templates you can apply to creatures.

One such template is Half-Dragon.

This template can be applied to dragons.

It is stunningly underwhelming when applied to dragons.

So I created a new metabreath ability specifically for this template when applied to true dragons:

Spoiler: Breath Admixture (Metabreath+2)

Show

Caustic breath (Acid + Cold):
The cold acid sticks to everything in the area, dealing damage repeatedly as the acid slowly thaws.
~~~
This ability deals the cold component of its damage on the first round and deals its acid damage on subsequent rounds, for 1d4 rounds. Each round creatures receive a Fortitude save to reduce the damage in half.

Corrosive breath (Acid + Electricity):
The electric energy activates the acid, creating a corrosive effect that eats at defenses and materials.
~~~
Any creatures damaged by both energy components of this ability suffer a -4 penalty to Natural Armor. If they succeed on a Fortitude save, the penalty is reduced to -2. This penalty can be removed with a Heal check that takes 1 minute and has a DC of 5 + DC of the breath, or via Restoration or a similar effect of that level of higher. Otherwise it heals naturally at a rate of 1 per day. [Think ability damage but for NatAC.]
In all other respects it works as a the spell "Rust ray". Penalties from this effect and the Broken condition stack.

Acrid Fumes (Acid + Fire):
The flames vaporize the acid, creating a cloud of choking, sickening fumes.
~~~
Living creatures damaged by both energy components of this ability are nauseated for 1d4 rounds. Those who make a successful Fortitude save are sickened instead. Treat this as a poison effect for the purpose of save bonuses and immunities.

Superconductive breath (Cold + Electricity):
The extreme cold aids the penetration of the electricity, inhibiting creatures in the area.
~~~
Living creatures damaged by both energy components of this ability are slowed for 1d4 rounds (as the slow spell). Creatures that make successful Fortitude saves are fatigued for 1 round.

System Shock (Cold + Fire):
The extreme opposites of temperature stun creatures in the area.
~~~
Living creatures damaged by both energy components of this ability are stunned for 1d4 rounds. Those who make a successful Fortitude save are dazed for 1 round instead.

Ionizing breath (Electricity + Fire):
The sheer energy discharge in the area supercharges the attack, causing it to bounce to nearby targets.
~~~
If a creature in the area of the spell is damaged by both energy components of this ability, the energy arcs to a random nearby creature within 30 ft. of the target, dealing as much electricity damage as the primary target took.

[Jay R]

Thanks for the many ideas. ImNotTrevor is right, that I plan to restrict it to things that make sense to me in a classic fantasy context. So primarily that means clouds of gas and sprays of liquids, which make sense to me as how breath works, and rays, which come from the literature. [I wonder if I’d even consider flame breath if it wasn’t the fantasy standard?]

I will definitely use these:

• Flame breath (of course)
• Frost breath (the reverse)
• Poison gas (not called by the 19th century science jargon name "chlorine")
• Sneeze (annoyance, not danger)
• Sonic scream
• Fog breath (maybe corrosive fog)
• Sand breath
• Steam breath, if they catch a fire-breathing dragon when she’s drinking.
• Stink breath

And I will put these in as possibilities.

• Slime (see sneeze, above)
• A quick-hardening liquid. I’d probably let them move normally for a round, then move at -10 feet and attack at -4, then make a saving throw to break it up before paralysis. I might even give them a clue by having the dragon use it to build up walls near his lair with it.
• Hail of gemstones spit from the dragon's gizzard
• Dizzying breath, that affects balance.
• Greek fire (1d6 per round until put out)
• Acid breath

And one idea I really like. Assuming a dragon lives near a source of raw manna. The liquid spray acts as a random potion, each time – including the miscibility effects. I’d probably make up my own potions table to get more interesting results, and save the possibility of giving a single permanent and beneficial effect to the PC of the player most frustrated in the game. [And it would be just my luck to have the party slay the dragon without ever getting caught in its breath.]

[Goblin Slayer]

Petrefication breath?
Truns those caught in them to stone
Breath of midas?
Turn depending on size of creture size certain gp of gold?

Breath of bahamut

Truns stuff into Platinium statues?

[Blackjackg]

In my 5e game I recently threw together a dragon-giant spider hybrid whose breath weapon was a cloud of tiny poisonous spiders. That was fun, and icky.

[Fable Wright]

Curses. It was briefly mentioned before, but dragons breathing primordial curses or having cursed blood is such a common thing in folklore that's never really been translated to D&D.

And since this is second edition, don't make it the wimpy kind of curse that you can get rid of with a single spell. Killing the dragon might be easier than killing the fire-breathing one, but it's guaranteed to be your last glorious adventure for a long while, if the curses don't kill you before that.

Also, Fire could actually be a gas, if you know chemistry. Chlorine triflouride being aerosolized at someone is basically indistinguishable for breathing fire, except that it's also going to be causing the sand pit and stone beneath you to burn as well.

That said, I do like the idea of breathing thunderheads. Instead of dealing damage, it creates terrain that block sight and are likely to electrocute you if you walk through them.

[Lapak]

Force, as in the dragon breathing in the PCs, attempting to swallow them. Likewise, pushing them might also be an option. Slime could also work, erm...

Instant cement like substance.

A "realistic way" to do a petrification breath.

Not an original idea, but I've seen a published dragon that did a combination of these - it vomits up a sticky tar that immobilizes the target, then uses Swallow Whole once they are helpless.