Should'nt dragon stuff be absurdly common?

[JoeJ]

Invoking science here, I think we need to start by assuming that a dragon is a sphere with uniform density.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Invoking science here, I think we need to start by assuming that a dragon is a sphere with uniform density.

Is it in a vacuum? It needs to be in a vacuum for the approximation to hold.

Why blue? That is the starting point for all physicists, after all (speaking as one).

As a physicist, I find it quite amusing that if you say "spherical cow approximation" to another physicist, they'll know exactly what you're talking about.

[Rater202]

I mean, if you really wanted to you could probably, if you were very careful about how you cut, make more than one suit of armor out of a dragon--making hide armor out of a dragon bigger than the minimum size, is one way, but it'd probably be something low quality. At bare minimum I'd keep it at full price but drop the masterwork properties, if not decrease the AC bonus or increase the armor penalties from it being a piece of junk, depending on how exactly one goes about it.

Though, as I said, that Dragon Hide Armor isn't common is probably because dragon hide armor costs twice as much as masterwork armor of the same type made of hide or steel.

Adamantine and Mithril are more expensive, but they have actual benefits when you're wearing the armor. Dragonhide armor don't give crap you can't get from mundane armor.

Dragonhide armor is harder to get and more expensive to make without any benefit justifying that cost.

Why have the King send out his elite knights to slay the Red Dragons of Red Dragon Mountain to bring back their hides to make armor to outfit the royal army when it's easier and cheaper to just put the army in normal masterwork armor?

The only people who'd want Dragonhide armor are stupid people who think it's better than it is, dragon-slayers who want a practical trophy, and people who have the coin to spend on expensive novelties and status symbols.

IE: there's no demand for it, and thus no reason to build up a practical supply.

[The Jack]

Surely when the dragon becomes Huge or Garg there's no need to double up on hide like you would do when making a leather jacket from cowhide?


Look, It has a natural AC even at low levels. What's good enough for it is good enough for you, even when it's a wyrmling. Now, it might be better to double up on wyrmling hide than not, but it's still got +5/6/7 AC from just one layer of hide and scales. This 'but it doesn't work like that for cows' stuff is nonsense.

[Willie the Duck]

Look, It has a natural AC even at low levels. What's good enough for it is good enough for you, even when it's a wyrmling. Now, it might be better to double up on wyrmling hide than not, but it's still got +5/6/7 AC from just one layer of hide and scales. This 'but it doesn't work like that for cows' stuff is nonsense.

One, no it isn't. Two, what's going on, man?

Why are you getting upset that people are taking this topic seriously? I just went back through this thread and noticed how much you are disliking the fact that people are taking this subject seriously, going through the logical steps, sometimes coming to conclusions different than you are, and you respond in a manner which suggests that they are doing something wrong. Why?

[Recherché]

This 'but it doesn't work like that for cows' stuff is nonsense.

Cows are one of the only big animals that we skin and make armor and clothing out of in the real world. Thus it's the main starting points to think about how skinning a big animal and making stuff out of it would work. Similar to how mithril doesn't exist in the real world but if there was a debate about mithril swords we'd talk about sword making techniques.

I'm not going to say that you'd get much less usable dragon hide out of a dragon than leather out of a cow. However it's a good starting point when it comes to talking about how much hide it takes to make a relatively small garment.

[Max_Killjoy]

Cows are one of the only big animals that we skin and make armor and clothing out of in the real world. Thus it's the main starting points to think about how skinning a big animal and making stuff out of it would work. Similar to how mithril doesn't exist in the real world but if there was a debate about mithril swords we'd talk about sword making techniques.

I'm not going to say that you'd get much less usable dragon hide out of a dragon than leather out of a cow. However it's a good starting point when it comes to talking about how much hide it takes to make a relatively small garment.

Based on 2 cows for just a waist-length jacket, I'd guess 6 cow-sized dragons for a full suit of armor.

[MoiMagnus]

Look, It has a natural AC even at low levels. What's good enough for it is good enough for you, even when it's a wyrmling.

No.
That's not how crafting armors from the skin of other animal works, so that's not how it works. At least if you want a realistic approach, which seems to be the initial goal of this thread.

But then, you can rule that in your universe, dragon hide and scale is "absolutely perfect" as to make armors and you can use every single bit of the dragon without any loss, and all part are exactly in the good proportion of what you need to make an armor out of it.

[Resileaf]

You know what a dragon isn't in the shape of?
A human.

[JoeJ]

You know what a dragon isn't in the shape of?
A human.

Unless it's used it's Change Shape ability to become a human. Then it is.

[Max_Killjoy]

Unless it's used it's Change Shape ability to become a human. Then it is.

But then the person crafting the "armor" has to force the dragon to put lotion on its skin every day for a while before making the "armor".

[The Jack]

One, no it isn't. Two, what's going on, man?

Why are you getting upset that people are taking this topic seriously? I just went back through this thread and noticed how much you are disliking the fact that people are taking this subject seriously, going through the logical steps, sometimes coming to conclusions different than you are, and you respond in a manner which suggests that they are doing something wrong. Why?

I'm not, I'm either writing wrong or some of you are misleading me. I do find the 'in x edition' a little frustrating and the most painful 'well, in YOUR setting you can do that' when I'm just reading straight from the 5e corebooks (with no older stuff)

I've been swayed by many arguments in this thread. But some of them (cows) look faulty to me. Why would you need the layering when the scales are comparable to steel?

[Rater202]

Similar to how mithril doesn't exist in the real world.

Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim

While no substance with all of those properties exists, the "metal" version--a corrosion resistant, silver colored metal that is both lighter and stronger than steel--accurately describes titanium and many alloys thereof.

Wanna discuss Mithril swords, titanium alloys would make for a good starting point.

[awa]

Why would you assume a perfect transfer of ac from the dragon to you? No edition of d&d that im aware of has the scales be as good as the original ac.

you seem to be working off 5th edition so ill try and use that even though i'm less familiar with it.
So that means the wyrmlings whose full body coverings are less effective than full plate have inferior defense than metal.

At a glance the adult bronze dragon appears to be the lowest Cr dragon with a natural armor better the full plate. Thats CR 15, the purple worm at the same CR is a much dumber and larger monster, with harder natural armor.

Many of the things that make hunting dragons so difficult simply dont apply to a purple worm, so its easier to catch is not capable of cooperative defense, provides more material of superior durability. Though at CR 15 that still an exotic material only the very wealthiest could ever own.

looking back down the list the monster with the nat armor better than full plate and the lowest CR is a
ropers looks like they have much better ac and are only CR 5, honestly dont think we will get better than that.

[Recherché]

Based on 2 cows for just a waist-length jacket, I'd guess 6 cow-sized dragons for a full suit of armor.

Hmmm so seamstress math time. A relatively fabric efficient jacket like this uses about 2 yards of 60" wide fabric. So let's make things simple and say there's 1 yard of fabric equivalent per cow. An average pair of jeans is about 1.5 -2 yards in my experience which is backed up by this pattern. My experience with making late medieval hose backs this number up with the past pair I made coming in at 1.5 yards. Gloves are half a yard or less. The last time I made medieval boots I ended up using around .75 of a yard of leather. While I have never made a leather helmet my guess is that it would be around .5-1 yards. This gives us a total yardage of 5.25-6.25 yards. With one yard of leather per cow we'd be looking at around 6 cows worth of leather for a simple suit of armor. However that does not translate to 6 cows worth of dragon. The directionally of the scales means that I can use the leather less efficiently and therefore I'd be looking at maybe 7.875-9.365 cows worth of dragon hide. Maybe less because I'd be more willing to accept scarred dragon hide not just the pretty parts and I'd be motivated to use every scrap I had. Maybe a lot more given that the dragon hide has holes it from where adventurers beat up a dragon. But there's my baseline.

This post has been brought to you by a historical seamstress giggling like a maniac about calculating fabric in cow's worths

[The Jack]

Why would you assume a perfect transfer of ac from the dragon to you? No edition of d&d that im aware of has the scales be as good as the original ac.

you seem to be working off 5th edition so ill try and use that even though i'm less familiar with it.
So that means the wyrmlings whose full body coverings are less effective than full plate have inferior defense than metal.
.

Full plate is solid pieces, dragons have many smaller pieces so it would be better to compare them to... scale, perhaps heavy chain or splint.
Thus they perform favorably in comparison to steel.

[Max_Killjoy]

Wanna discuss Mithril swords, titanium alloys would make for a good starting point.

We've been over that a few times on the iterations of the "real world weapons etc" thread, but the short answer is... no, unfortunately, titanium doesn't make better swords than steel.

For starters, it doesn't hold an edge.

[awa]

Full plate is solid pieces, dragons have many smaller pieces so it would be better to compare them to... scale, perhaps heavy chain or splint.
Thus they perform favorably in comparison to steel.

those armors have gaps, dragons scales when worn by a dragon does not and its ac would account for that.

[The Jack]

those armors have gaps, dragons scales when worn by a dragon does not.

Mail or splint do not have more gaps than a dragon would.
Scale is debatable.

[awa]

read the description scale mail has gauntlets but no head or feet protection

while plate adds heavy boots (leather) and a helmet

so actually since dragons have scales on their feet there better than full plate as well

[Resileaf]

read the description scale mail has gauntlets but no head or feet protection

while plate adds heavy boots (leather) and a helmet

so actually since dragons have scales on their feet there better than full plate as well

Of course they have scales on their feet. It's the only thing adventurers are able to hit with their swords.

[Max_Killjoy]

Hmmm so seamstress math time. A relatively fabric efficient jacket like this uses about 2 yards of 60" wide fabric. So let's make things simple and say there's 1 yard of fabric equivalent per cow. An average pair of jeans is about 1.5 -2 yards in my experience which is backed up by this pattern. My experience with making late medieval hose backs this number up with the past pair I made coming in at 1.5 yards. Gloves are half a yard or less. The last time I made medieval boots I ended up using around .75 of a yard of leather. While I have never made a leather helmet my guess is that it would be around .5-1 yards. This gives us a total yardage of 5.25-6.25 yards. With one yard of leather per cow we'd be looking at around 6 cows worth of leather for a simple suit of armor. However that does not translate to 6 cows worth of dragon. The directionally of the scales means that I can use the leather less efficiently and therefore I'd be looking at maybe 7.875-9.365 cows worth of dragon hide. Maybe less because I'd be more willing to accept scarred dragon hide not just the pretty parts and I'd be motivated to use every scrap I had. Maybe a lot more given that the dragon hide has holes it from where adventurers beat up a dragon. But there's my baseline.

This post has been brought to you by a historical seamstress giggling like a maniac about calculating fabric in cow's worths

And that reinforces my point -- they'd have to slaughter dragons by the truckload to outfit a significant number of troops with dragon-hide or dragon-scale armor.

(BTW, thank you for the detailed elaboration. It's nice to know I was at least roughly on target.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

And that reinforces my point -- they'd have to slaughter dragons by the truckload to outfit a significant number of troops with dragon-hide or dragon-scale armor.

One truckload of dragons isn't very much, unless you have a very large truck...
But yeah. Commercialization of dragonscale armor is going to be...difficult.

[Max_Killjoy]

One truckload of dragons isn't very much, unless you have a very large truck...
But yeah. Commercialization of dragonscale armor is going to be...difficult.

I work in industrial-level inventory management, and part of that is 53' semi trailers, so I tend to think in very large trucks.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I work in industrial-level inventory management, and part of that is 53' semi trailers, so I tend to think in very large trucks.

When you put it that way...

I also guess you could save space by chopping off the wings first--it's not like they have usable hide on them anyway.

[Forum Explorer]

Let's do some fun with cubes and surface area.
Med: 6
Large:24
Huge:54
Garg:96+

Of course, dragons aren't cubes, but these multiplications should be useful to us when determining surface area. Large is x4, huge is x9, gargantuan is at least x16

(art basically only depicts ancients I've assumed)

If we assume 1 wyrmling, which is medium, offers enough for a full suit of dragon armour (Reasonable assuming no magical excuse, or that the size is all wingspan, which would make dragons very weak. I've kinda assumed wingspan isn't included) Then a young dragon offers 4 suits, an adult 9 and an ancient at least 16.

I'm not sure how you'd want to account for ages between those dragons. Is there a steady increase? Is a dragon big enough to offer 8 suits a young dragon or an adult in stats, or something between?

According to the monster manual, each category has dragon age at.
Wyrmling (5 years or less)
Young (6-100 years)
Adult (101-800 years)

For comparison, a cow takes two years. From what I've read elsewhere, dragons can mate when they're young (though chromatics don't typically care much about their young till they're older)




You could farm young dragons. The CR of young dragons (colour depending) is surmountable by NPCs (who will likely be equipped with the relevant dragon-hide which provides resistances, if the poison doesn't work) and you don't need such a big area for it (food may be a concern) and the NPCs will have all the advantages they want.

Now of course, just because it's doable doesn't make it easy, but making metal armour isn't easy either: Mining is hard, dangerous and often unrewarding. Your land may lack the resources to do it in the first place, and your refinement techniques may not be good. In addition, Dragon armour (in 5e) provides nice advantages that'd be useful on a battlefield where people cast spells.

My goodness, where to begin with this line of thought?

For starters, you don't get a hundred percent recovery ratio. Besides the damage you do in killing the dragon, quite a bit of it is, well useless. Take say the skin around the joints. It'll be nigh impossible to cut it off and get a useful piece of hide that you can sow into a garment. The only part you can really typically use is the torso of an animal. So using me as an example, the amount of armor you could make from me (as a perfectly normal human male) wouldn't be enough to make a T-shirt's worth of armor.

And this is, of course, assuming that a young dragon's hide will be all that useful as armor to begin with. Theyre still developing, their scales and hide are almost certainly not going to be as tough as an adult dragon's would be.

Second is this. Their hide is significantly weaker, and thus simply isn't worth as much. Like, how hard do you really think it is to make plate armor, and why do you think it's easier to go hunting for dragons? Even working on the assumption that armor made from the hide will give you 100% of the same armor as the dragon, which is wrong for multiple reasons, that still means you need to be hunting Adults to just match Plate Armor.

2.5 is that if you aren't working with ideal materials, you likely need to either bring the entire corpse back to be worked on, or bring the expert with you. This is more an inconvenience, and can be worked around, but it plays into the above. Why bother?

Third is, again, these are intelligent beings. Even as a Wrymling they are smarter then the average human (besides Whites). They are perfectly capable of recognizing a hunting party and just flying away before the fight even begins. Killing a Wrymling might not be very dangerous for a well equipped party, but it's still a big pain to actually track one down and trap it.

Look, It has a natural AC even at low levels. What's good enough for it is good enough for you, even when it's a wyrmling. Now, it might be better to double up on wyrmling hide than not, but it's still got +5/6/7 AC from just one layer of hide and scales. This 'but it doesn't work like that for cows' stuff is nonsense.

What I know is that you are weirdly attached to this idea. There are both realistic and fantastic reasons on why mass hunting of dragons is a bad idea and doesn't make sense.

[Rater202]

We've been over that a few times on the iterations of the "real world weapons etc" thread, but the short answer is... no, unfortunately, titanium doesn't make better swords than steel.

For starters, it doesn't hold an edge.

Maybe not, but Steel-Alloys with Titanium alloyed into it on the other hand... There's no strict given limit on how much lighter or stronger it has to be than regular steel. Maybe some titanium chips folded into the steel as it's being forged or a shell of one metal around a core of the other

(Honestly, though, I think a Light Bludgeon of some kind would be the ideal way or making a weapon out of Titanium based alloys, though.)

Honestly, the highest qualities of steel would be better than the highest qualities of titanium, but I seriously doubt that a medieval setting could make steel or titanium in the highest qualities on a reliable basis.

That aside, I don't think there's much more to say on the topic at hand: Making things out of hide, leather, or other forms of animal skin takes a lot of hide and you can't Frankenstein it together from too many animals, you need it to be at least a certain level of quality or it won't work out so well and not every bit of an animal is that quality and Dragonhide is a pain in the ass to get and not in any way better than much cheaper armors.

All of that together means that outside of people who are both Druids and fabulously wealthy, the only people who are gonna want Dragonhide armor are Dragonslayers making a trophy out of their kills and rich jerks wanting an expensive status symbol and not caring that there's a non-zero chance that someone died to get the materials needed to make their fancy new clothes.

[DaOldeWolf]

I am kinda creeped out by this topic. Mass killing of sentient creatures for their skin sounds really disgusting especially when there are complains about how not enough it is gained in the process. I doubt that dragons would simply allow the extinction of their race. I doubt every other sentient creature in a world would simply allow such massacre. If the setting includes a dragon deity, I dont think they would just watch and see their creations be slaughtered. I dont see how this creepy idea would work by any metric of the word.

Putting my feelings aside, the plan wouldnt work. There is too many variables involved even if you expect the rest of the world to just watch.

For such a plan to work the following would be needed:
1. Healthy dragons with a body in perfect conditions that could be easily taken down without harming the body.

2. A group of powerful individuals that could track down such creatures with relatively small cost and capable enough to defeat any and all dragons that you need without circumstance or luck getting in the way.

3. Find a cost effective transportation method to transport the body of the dragon without damaging it on the process.

4. Find a group of people with talent and time with the right equipment to create the dragon armors. You also need a space and a system of work.

5. The money, luck and influence to manage the whole thing.

And I would be surprised if anyone though that it would be really easy to set all of this up and expect it to work smoothly.

Good thing, humanoid races are not used for the materials in the creation of armor. At least, I hope so.

[Quertus]

So, for the much more efficient regeneration techniques...

Trying to farm or murder dragons en-mass sounds basically exactly like the only thing that would get all the dragons to band up and work together. Like one or two unique suits would be annoying for them, thousands would be cause to get a whole flight together to torch that kingdom to the ground. It'd be something you'd hear about - like that desert used to be a fertile land, until the week of boiling breathe.

Yes, one of the advantages of the plan is that, if I'm lucky, my XP comes to me, rather than me having to hunt it down.

Better yet if it's wealthy adventures bringing me loot and XP.

Ignoring for a second all the many many problems in the various plans for farming dragons, it seems to me that if you somehow managed to pull this off you are probably going to find yourself dealing with some very nasty undead somewhere down the line.

I dont know about you, but when the spectral dragon comes a knocking I dont want to be wearing its skin.

I mean, what's better than dominating the Dragon, body, mind, and spirit?

Please, send me undead to enthrall.

bet there aren't many dragons (particularly dead ones you have access to) that are free from scars, defects, sores, etc.

Just my regenerated ones.

knowing the number of natural attacks and of damage the modern uberchargers gets it is of no surprise that there is barely any matter left from the dragon after it is killed.

I'd think that "one attack for all your health" would be one of the best ways to have maximum Dragon hide intact.

Dragonhide armor is harder to get and more expensive to make without any benefit justifying that cost.

Why have the King send out his elite knights to slay the Red Dragons of Red Dragon Mountain to bring back their hides to make armor to outfit the royal army when it's easier and cheaper to just put the army in normal masterwork armor?

The only people who'd want Dragonhide armor are stupid people who think it's better than it is, dragon-slayers who want a practical trophy, and people who have the coin to spend on expensive novelties and status symbols.

You have forgotten my clever plan to return to the better days of 2e, where Dragon hide was better.

Why would you assume a perfect transfer of ac from the dragon to you? No edition of d&d that im aware of has the scales be as good as the original ac.

In 2e, it was 4 worse than the AC of the Dragon "donor". Which, if you enchanted it to +5, meant it was 1 better than the AC of the donor.

I am kinda creeped out by this topic. Mass killing of sentient creatures for their skin sounds really disgusting especially when there are complains about how not enough it is gained in the process. If the setting includes a dragon deity, I dont think they would just watch and see their creations be slaughtered.

Sure, it's creepy. But I'm looking forward to wearing Tiamat armor if she interferes.

[Forum Explorer]

So, for the much more efficient regeneration techniques...

Somewhere along the line the edition changed to 5e, where you can't do it to a captive dragon. You can turn into a dragon and do it to yourself, but again, why would you do that? And you can't turn back and will lose your most powerful spells.