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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    I do like having varieties of dragon; however, I'm honestly not a huge fan of the color-coded ones because I'm not a huge fan of the other sorts of breath weapons, or indeed the elemental affinity aspect of D&D dragons. (My DM appears to be of the same mindset, because all the dragons in his campaign breathe fire, regardless of color.) I can respect poison and acid to some degree, but breathing a straight line of lightning seems silly, not least because lightning isn't a substance in the same way that fire is, even in a fantasy setting, which makes the breath weapon seem less homologous to the fire breath of a classic dragon.

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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    Quote Originally Posted by VoxRationis View Post
    I do like having varieties of dragon; however, I'm honestly not a huge fan of the color-coded ones because I'm not a huge fan of the other sorts of breath weapons, or indeed the elemental affinity aspect of D&D dragons. (My DM appears to be of the same mindset, because all the dragons in his campaign breathe fire, regardless of color.) I can respect poison and acid to some degree, but breathing a straight line of lightning seems silly, not least because lightning isn't a substance in the same way that fire is, even in a fantasy setting, which makes the breath weapon seem less homologous to the fire breath of a classic dragon.
    Eh, both are plasmas. Same state of matter.
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  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    Quote Originally Posted by Mordar View Post
    I'm struggling to see how it is an issue of failed monster design. They are iconic, which of course leads to the path of frequent use which leads to burnout or iconoclastic choices. If they've been super-common in your campaigns (particularly if there's a high overlap of players from one to the next), I totally agree that dragon burnout would render them meaningless. I've been in too many undead-centric campaigns and they all leave the same kind of taste in my mouth now.

    I'll agree in general with the alignment issue...but the coloration is a not-terribly abstract way of representing how creatures from a particular environment have evolved. And alignment stuff is fun to subvert for some tables.

    But just because people know/learn the strategies to fight these death machines doesn't mean they're badly designed. Do you re-style all of the other "special" kinds of monsters? Make trolls that don't regenerate and aren't especially vulnerable to fire? Convert your vampires so they burn in snowstorms, not sunlight? Have half the pit fiends rocking Good alignments? Make rust monsters destroy anything non-metallic?

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    It's not just about how they're described in the Monster Manual. Dragons are represented in books and game modules and campaign worlds and so on. I used Dracula and Frankenstein as examples, because they relatable monsters with human ambitions. They are portrayed as such. They've stood the test of time because of it.

    No dragon I ever saw, including Smaug, is like that. Non-relatable, no human ambition, nothing. They are fire breathing scaly lizards, and nothing more. Now, that's a fairly bad foundation, but D&D went on from there to create something that's much worse. They went into excruciating detail about the crunch side of dragons, making god knows how many different types - and they did stuff like Dragon Lance, making dragons even more lame than they already were.

    Yes, in my youth dragons were overrepresented in games. That clearly didn't help my view of them. But my issue runs much deeper than that.

    Also, yes. Basically, I never use anything as-is from the Monster Manual. It's not that the changes are always huge, but they're always there.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
    No dragon I ever saw, including Smaug, is like that. Non-relatable, no human ambition, nothing. They are fire breathing scaly lizards, and nothing more.
    Never seen Dragonheart, then? Never read Eragon? Even Smaug was more than just a lizard. Smaug was meant to be a literary representation of greed personified. He attacked the dwarves because of their greedy hoarding of wealth that Smaug coveted. But he wasn't stupid, either. He could be tricked, but not without deliberately playing to his faults. Bilbo only survived first contact because 1) he was invisible and 2) he had the wits to use Smaug's ego to stall for time. That's not a boring encounter with a scaly fire lizard.

    I mean, being that reductive will make EVERYTHING in D&D look bland and unoriginal. I mean, Vampires? Again? How droll.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pleh View Post
    I mean, being that reductive will make EVERYTHING in D&D look bland and unoriginal.
    And yet I feel dragons are particularly lame. You could try to adress the arguments I've made .... or leave it be. Either is fine.

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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
    And yet I feel dragons are particularly lame. You could try to address the arguments I've made .... or leave it be. Either is fine.
    Based on what you've said, your encounter design philosophy seem to be picking a monster or group of monsters of the same CR as the party and letting them have at it. That's a pretty terrible way to do it. Of course dragons are consistently getting steamrolled- dragons are designed to be deployed against parties significantly weaker than them.

    Have you considered maybe..... Spending a little more time planing encounters? You're doing the D&D equivalent serving up plain spaghetti and blaming the spaghetti for being bland. Add a little sauce. Grab a few dragon powers from 4e dragons and graft them onto the 3.5/5e dragon? Fiddle with the stats? Give every dragon a secondary breath weapon? Lair actions? Do a little historical research and change the fluff to fit a different tradition of dragons?
    Last edited by Feddlefew; 2019-09-07 at 12:36 PM.

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    WolfInSheepsClothing

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
    And yet I feel dragons are particularly lame. You could try to adress the arguments I've made .... or leave it be. Either is fine.
    this is the third angry response you threw at three different people who, in your estimations, didn't address your arguments. Four, if we count feddlefew who just posted. those people were quoting you and answering point by point. You can't really say they weren't addressing you.

    If so many people are apparently misunderstanding you, perhaps it was you who didn't explain yourself clearly? Or perhaps they did address your arguments and you are not seeing it?
    Either way, angry/dismissive replies thrown at people who "aren't addressing your arguments", even when they are, are not helping your case
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    I love dragons. I play a little more loose with alignments on them, though Good metallics and Evil chromatics is still the norm, and type indicating elemental affinity just makes sense (nobody whines about fire elementals always being tied to fire). I do scrap the rankings, though; a black dragon and a gold dragon are only different by appearance, movement modes, and breath weapon. Stats, HD, and a few other things are determined separately.

    As far as running them as NPCs, I tend to lean toward four basic types:

    The Little One - The dragon is not fully grown, anywhere from just hatched to maybe 20-30 years old. Young dragons tend to be childish, and depending on the individual, can vary from feral (low intelligence and/or Chaotic Evil) to blindly idealistic (any Good), but are most defined by being inexperienced and at the same time believing they’re the strongest thing within a mile - after all, they’re dragons! In a story, they’re useful to set the tone of a story, to feel out what kinds of PCs are being played (do you kill it or try to reason with the creature killing local game that hunters need). They are, unless the game takes place over centuries, never going to be a big bad, and normally either become allies or are killed and quickly forgotten.

    The Brute - Dragons who are defined by their strength and brutality. Whether Good or Evil, a Brute is a dragon who doesn’t just think they’re the biggest and strongest thing around, but knows it, and revels in it. An Evil Brute terrorizes local villages, either in their natural form while demanding tribute, or taking a humanoid form through magic and living a devil-may-care life, slaughtering anyone who challenges their desires. A Good Brute meanwhile is not too different from an adventurer, seeking out Evil and hoping to bash its head into the ground. Neither takes much stock in building any firm alliances - such things are either beneath them or feel secondary to their goals. Brutes need not be low intelligence, even if they often are. The defining aspect for them is their solo nature. Brutes should be run as a force of nature, and work best in Black and White morality games.

    The Scholar - Normally a side character. Scholars, whether in a city or in a remove cave, are more interested in some form of study or research over actively shaping the world. A Good Scholar is often someone who during a story is to be sought out for advice or information, who themself for reasons within the story is not inclined or unable to directly interfere with the world as is. An Evil Scholar meanwhile is often the precursor to a Dracolich, or otherwise likely threatens the world/planes via their research. Scholars, obviously, are best seen as representative of the ideals and danger of knowledge, when looked at literarily.

    The Xorvinthal Player - Named after the draconic, world chess game, the Xorvinthal Player is the opposite of a Brute, and leans into the fact that dragons, especially with time, can grow to be as intelligent compared to a Wizard as a Wizard is to a common person. Xorvinthal Players may be advisors or kings, but always have contacts far and wide, and to fight them is sometimes to declare war on half the world. Xorvinthal Players prefer to leverage political power or their often vast wealth (both of which only accrue as the centuries roll by) against their enemies rather than dirty their claws personally. And, at the end of the day, even if someone survives everything else, they still have to contend with a dragon. A Xorvinthal Player is best played as someone mentioned often and seen never. “They king’s advisor suggested against it.” “The boss approved your pay.” I personally think of the Sibyl System in Psycho-Pass as a non-D&D example of this, where the identity is kept secret and only by further exploration is the truth revealed.

    ***

    That last bit emphasizes a broader point: Dragons are not fundamentally different from any other enemy. At the end of the day, they’re still a stat block. I look at that as “At their lowest point, what does this enemy have going for them?” A dragon, on their worst day if they were otherwise ruined and lost everything they owned and every ally they had ever made, is still a dangerous enemy against an unprepared party (or worse, individual). For example, see V and the Black Dragon before the deal is made.

    But, they’re also characters which, if not children, have survived centuries and in most cases intend to live many more. Read some alignment handbooks if you need inspiration on outlooks, and then apply that to someone whose childhood was longer than you’ll likely live, and who remembers when great wars were fought and forgotten empires were at their peaks.

    If you can’t make an interesting villain, ally, quest giver, or even encounter with any of that, then that falls on a failure of imagination, not on the game designers. You’re the story teller, the game is just the medium through which the story is told. Orcs, vampires, and dragons are all equally interesting or boring, depending on the DM.
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  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    Quote Originally Posted by Esprit15 View Post
    That last bit emphasizes a broader point: Dragons are not fundamentally different from any other enemy. At the end of the day, they’re still a stat block. I look at that as “At their lowest point, what does this enemy have going for them?” A dragon, on their worst day if they were otherwise ruined and lost everything they owned and every ally they had ever made, is still a dangerous enemy against an unprepared party (or worse, individual). For example, see V and the Black Dragon before the deal is made.

    But, they’re also characters which, if not children, have survived centuries and in most cases intend to live many more. Read some alignment handbooks if you need inspiration on outlooks, and then apply that to someone whose childhood was longer than you’ll likely live, and who remembers when great wars were fought and forgotten empires were at their peaks.

    If you can’t make an interesting villain, ally, quest giver, or even encounter with any of that, then that falls on a failure of imagination, not on the game designers. You’re the story teller, the game is just the medium through which the story is told. Orcs, vampires, and dragons are all equally interesting or boring, depending on the DM.
    Well, I think you win this thread now at least. <3
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  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    I would scrapped everything for dragons, instead of red=fire, green=poison, black=acid, blue=lightning and white=cold, i went with something different. I always hated how when a hatchlings turns out chromatic they would automatically be associated with evil while metallic dragons have to be good. There are none of that in my world, dragons can be of many different colors and a colour doesn't mean a specific breath weapon and to spice things up dragons can have multiple different breath weapons. The colouring, breath weapon, appearance, abilities, physical and mental capabilities are determined by two things: A) Who the parents are and B) their past experiences and skills. There are Fire dragons who breath fire but can be of any colour but mostly red, green or brown; there are forest dragons who breath poison; swamp/jungle dragons who breath acid; I even put in cavern dragons who have sonic/sound breath weapons because those damage types are underappreciated. In the end a dragon being evil or good being dependant on whether or not their scales are shiny or not is not great, dragons like any other sentient beings can be good or evil based on their upbringing or experience

  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Feddlefew View Post
    Based on what you've said, your encounter design philosophy
    These aren't my designs. It's baffling me you would think so - I've stated, time and again, that I have not used dragons for more than a decade, and likely never will again.

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    this is the third angry response
    No - it's not. This is the third uncaring response I've given to people who insist on answering things I haven't said. Either relate to what I'm saying ....... or leave me alone.

    Either ... is fine. Really.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
    No - it's not. This is the third uncaring response I've given to people who insist on answering things I haven't said. Either relate to what I'm saying ....... or leave me alone.

    Either ... is fine. Really.
    Maybe you should summarize your arguments then to make clear what they are? From reading your posts, your main problems with dragons seem to be:

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
    I ditched dragons entirely. Sure, they are iconic monsters - but here's what: Back in 1994 or so, my barbarian had dragonscale armor from red, green, blue and black great wyrm dragons, and a full collection of horns from every race except white. Why not white? Because he couldn't arsed to find and kill one, it was too weak a foe, didn't give enough loot or xp, and basically wasn't worth it.
    and

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
    No dragon I ever saw, including Smaug, is like that. Non-relatable, no human ambition, nothing. They are fire breathing scaly lizards, and nothing more. Now, that's a fairly bad foundation, but D&D went on from there to create something that's much worse. They went into excruciating detail about the crunch side of dragons, making god knows how many different types - and they did stuff like Dragon Lance, making dragons even more lame than they already were.
    The over-use of dragons is, as has already been pointed out a campaign design problem. Dragons not having any personality is also a campaign design problem, as liches, demons, humans, elves etc. also don't have any sort of personality straight out of the monster manual. You've also started rants against the dragon-lance setting several times, but no one is forcing you to use that setting, so I don't see how it is relevant in this case.

    I mean, if you don't like dragons because you or your DM's have overused them, then that's fine, but you're presenting 'dragons are bad and you shouldn't use them' as a universal rule, rather than your personal opinion.
    Last edited by DeTess; 2019-09-08 at 04:09 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by DeTess View Post
    Dragons not having any personality is also a campaign design problem, as liches, demons, humans, elves etc. also don't have any sort of personality straight out of the monster manual.
    I can confirm that all the liches I've ever seen in a D&D games where just "I need a powerful undead creature, and we're not in a pyramid so I can't take a mummy lord" or "I was asleep in my tomb and you tried to pillage it so I will kill everyone of you". Vampires were not better, they're essentially just liches that can fly, and have enough charisma to actually disguise as the "evil count of the village that isn't at all a vampire".
    Demons do not even have the subtlety of actually caring about having any emotion other than hatred, and I've never encountered one that pronounced more than one full sentence before trying to destroy everything.

    However, human, dragons, devils, gods. I got convincing enemies with actual motivations, ambitions, and personalities. (And I also got brainless enemies from them, of course).

    The plot of one of the (unfinished) campaign I've played was "A dragon secretly control the human empire, as the (shapeshifted) husband of the queen, from generations to generations. Using its intelligence and wisdom, he is guiding his human empire toward technology and high-level magic, so that he can ultimately (in ~1000 years) launch an invasion of all the planes, exterminating every extra-planar beings (including demons, devils and gods), and becoming the one and only god of this human-dominated universe."

  14. - Top - End - #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by DeTess View Post
    I mean, if you don't like dragons because you or your DM's have overused them, then that's fine, but you're presenting 'dragons are bad and you shouldn't use them' as a universal rule, rather than your personal opinion.
    Everything I say is my personal opinion. I refuse to attach a disclaimer to every thing I say to make that clear - it really should be obvious that since we're talking about something that has no absolute science, everything anyone ever says is an opinion. I'd also like to point out that I've stated that already, and added that I'm not asking anyone to agree with me, or tell them to feel the same.

    I don't dislike dragons because GM's have overused them. I dislike them because they're overused - and used deplorably poorly - in every bit of source material I know of.

    Someone brought up other media - novels and movies. There are occasional glimmers of light there. Eragon is ... awful. But Dragonheart was decent. I've also, in the meantime, remembered one dragon from an actual RPG that wasn't just filler crap: Dunkelzahn. So it's not entirely without exceptions.

    This doesn't shake my conviction in the slightest however.

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    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    I can confirm that all the liches I've ever seen in a D&D games where just "I need a powerful undead creature, and we're not in a pyramid so I can't take a mummy lord" or "I was asleep in my tomb and you tried to pillage it so I will kill everyone of you".
    enters the lich esmeralda.

    half a millennia ago, esmeralda was an adventurer. even after she married and raised a family, she still wandered around with her party after loot from time to time.
    once, in her quests, she killed a young dragon. she didn't consider that the dragon had a mother, and the dragon's mother killed emeralda's family and bound their souls (yes, I totally got that from vaarsuvius).
    esmeralda spent the rest of her life looking for her family, but the dragon disappeared. as it became clear she would be unable to complete her task within her natural life span, she sought to become a lich.

    nowadays, esmeralda is still looking for her family. she is always developing new divination spells that would hopefully succeed where the previous ones failed, and this makes her the world's best diviner by a fair margin. she sinks a lot of money into her research, so she will often sell her services, at a premium. and she let everyone know that the moment her family is recovered, she will destroy herself to rejoin them, and all her possessions will go to whoever helped her.
    she is kind and grandmotherly, and she offers tea and biscuits to any who comme visit her. she does not look evil, though the negative energy of a lich would drive crazy anyone who is not. some theorize that she found a workaround for that. few actually know that from time to time she looks for a good happy family in a remote part of the world and kill them all, to ensure that she stays evil. she doesn't like doing it, but she muses that at least they'll stay together.

    esmeralda was a plot device that the players could contact whenever they were stuck with some mistery or needed more info. later, they managed to solve the puzzle of her lost family; it was the first time they really broke WBL


    Demons do not even have the subtlety of actually caring about having any emotion other than hatred, and I've never encountered one that pronounced more than one full sentence before trying to destroy everything.
    After many trials, the party finally defeated for good their first archvillain, the elf Tharivol Amakiir, expert in plotting and manipulation.
    Tharivol's soul went to the lower planes, where demons conscript souls to fight and expand their dominions.
    Tharivol was to face a similar fate, but he started talking. he'd always been good at talking. He managed to persuade the pit fiend Babaugon that his skill at plotting would make him more valuable as an ally than as a minon.
    Within a few months, Babaugon and Tharivol became genuine friends, conquering vast swates of lower planes together. Tharivol even attracted a succubi girlfriend, Roxy, who was impressed by his evil, and especially his cunning ways of being apparently kind while sowing evil in the long run.

    when the party went to the lower planes on an unrelated quest, they met the whole cadre. there, Tharivol thanked them for defeating him and causing his death, as he was much happier there than he was while alive. the demons were also quite happy to meet the adventurers, saying they owed them a favor.

    when the party had to manage a large war, they were able to call some demons to fight for them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post

    I don't dislike dragons because GM's have overused them. I dislike them because they're overused - and used deplorably poorly - in every bit of source material I know of.
    Ah, well, fine with that. we all agree that they were overused, and used poorly most times. we are repliying that they can be used well, though, and each one of us has developed some way to give them compelling motivations.
    we are not arguing against your personal dislike. we were just arguing that while they were used poorly, that's a problem of how they were used, and not of dragons themselves.
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    For me, the central fact about dragons is that they have hoards. Specifically, all adult dragons have one specific thing (including metaphysical concepts) that they hoard, that they covet, that gives them energy. A dragon in possession of a suitable hoard needs only very little mundane food, and that only if injured. Their energy comes through their connection to the hoard.

    Young dragons usually have an idea of what their hoard will be, and are trying to build it as fast as possible. Which makes them brash and dangerous to those around them. When they gather enough, they metamorphose during an extended sleep period (years or more) into adults. Depriving an adult of his hoard is suicidal--it will take any means necessary to rebuild it or destroy you. Because you effectively cut off its food supply and thus pose an existential threat.

    Examples of hoards that have come up are:
    * A black dragon (now turned dracolich unwillingly) who hoards butterflies.
    * His mate, a gold dragon, who hoards political influence.
    * A white dragon who hoards magical items. Any magical item.
    * Three dragons (a silver, a gold, and a bronze) who together hoard a particular city-state.
    * A brass dragon who hoards stories of adventure. To the point that she "invites" interesting people into her den to hear their stories and to tell them her stories. Whether they want to attend or not. She always pays them well, but still. Part of her draconic name translates to "oh will she ever shut up?'[1]
    * A gold dragon who hoards architecture. Buildings. Goes by the name "The Landlord". He doesn't care about people at all, as long as they maintain the buildings he considers his (which is all of them within his territory, a partially-ruined city). Uses paralyzing breath almost exclusively so as not to cause damage to structures.

    [1] this one is a former player character, a dragonborn sorceress transformed into a true dragon via divine providence at the end of a campaign. She's one of the rulers of a particular city and generally a nice person. Except if she wants you to tell her a story and you try to refuse.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Esprit15 View Post

    If you can’t make an interesting villain, ally, quest giver, or even encounter with any of that, then that falls on a failure of imagination, not on the game designers. You’re the story teller, the game is just the medium through which the story is told. Orcs, vampires, and dragons are all equally interesting or boring, depending on the DM.
    +1 to this.

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    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    Ah, well, fine with that. we all agree that they were overused, and used poorly most times. we are repliying that they can be used well, though, and each one of us has developed some way to give them compelling motivations.
    we are not arguing against your personal dislike. we were just arguing that while they were used poorly, that's a problem of how they were used, and not of dragons themselves.
    I've never seen them used well. There was a dragon fight in some old module, I forget what it's called. Wasn't even the final encounter, that was some old elf king. But the encounter was well designed, mechanically. A very tight fight, I liked that. The elf king was even better.

    But it was still 2 dimensional. There was some fluff background to both elf and dragon - but the GM had to inform us of those things afterwards. Maybe there was some clue we totally missed? =)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
    These aren't my designs. It's baffling me you would think so - I've stated, time and again, that I have not used dragons for more than a decade, and likely never will again.
    {scrubbed}
    Quote Originally Posted by Feddlefew View Post
    Based on what you've said, your encounter design philosophy
    An Encounter is not the same thing as a monster. An encounter, by loose definition, is a desecrate challenge the party faces. This includes traps, by the way- a spike trap is an encounter in the same way that an ogre is an encounter. Ditto for talking it out with the local lord, or doing a mine cart chase.

    A dragon is not an encounter. A dragon is not a dragon's stat block. A dragon is a tool you use to build an encounter. {scrubbed}

    Since you seem to equate a Stat Block with an Encounter, that means my initial assumption-

    Quote Originally Posted by Feddlefew View Post
    Based on what you've said, your encounter design philosophy seem to be picking a monster or group of monsters of the same CR as the party and letting them have at it.
    -is correct.

    Other posters have thoroughly discussed the non-combat aspect of running a big, powerful monster. So let's focus on the encounter building a bit more.

    That said, there are some pretty badly designed monsters in the game. Did you know 5e Ice Devils don't have cold immunity? That's a pretty big oversight for something that does cold damage with every attack!

    This leads to my next point: I frequently modify stat blocks. Sometimes I just change out weapons or attack elements. Other times I radically edit abilities to make the monster more or less difficult for the party. I've significantly buffed Ice Devils in my own game so that they're CR 15-16 controllers, because I didn't like how they were designed in 5e.

    Quote Originally Posted by Feddlefew View Post
    Of course dragons are consistently getting steamrolled- dragons are designed to be deployed against parties significantly weaker than them.
    Another thing you have to consider is that not all CR X monsters are equivalent. D&D has certain assumptions about how you will use monsters, but 5e doesn't really talk about them. This is a pretty big design flaw IMO, especially since 4e had a very good tagging system for this sort of thing! CR should be treated as a very loose guideline, a way to search for monsters by approximate power level. However, there's a host of monsters which should never be deployed against an equal level party.

    The Gibbering Mouther, for instance, is a CR2 monster that creates difficult terrain in a 10 foot radius around itself, requires a wisdom saving throw every round to avoid being effected by confusion (even if you saved previously), and hits like a truck. It can also blind creatures at a range, and has 67 hp. This thing will eat (literally) entire parties of level 2 adventurers. The Gibbering Mouther was probably meant to be a low level minion for something nasty, or a non-combat encounter. But the monster manual doesn't explicitly state this.

    Here is the crux of it. The way you apparently believe powerful monsters are supposed to be used is setting yourself and your players up for disappointment. And you are blaming the game designers for that. Multiple people have tried to explain that you are doing encounter- adventure design, really- poorly, and, as far as we can tell, {scrubbed} . For me it's less about trying to convince you than it is about preventing other people from also making these mistakes.

    I learned early on in my DMing career (thank you, TPK courtesy of a CR1 spider swarm) that CR and stat blocks aren't what make encounters go. It's the stuff you, the DM, do with the tools at your disposal. If every fight takes place in a 5x5 box then your players are going to get bored. If your DM is designing encounters this way, or overusing a particular encounter setup, you should probably start poking them about it. Add cover. Use lair actions. You have so many tools available, use them.
    Last edited by Peelee; 2019-09-08 at 01:31 PM.

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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    Quote Originally Posted by Feddlefew View Post
    {scrub the post, scrub the quote}
    {scrubbed}
    Last edited by Peelee; 2019-09-08 at 01:40 PM.

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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
    {scrub the post, scrub the quote}
    Maybe I am missing something, but this seems like a really harsh response. As far as I can tell, your objections boil down to basically 2 things:

    1) You don't like dragons as they are portrayed in officially (TSR/WOTC) published material.
    2) You don't like dragons as they are portrayed in media.

    Ok... How does that invalidate anything other people have said? Obviously they don't like how dragons are portrayed all that well either if they are thinking outside the basic stat block/description text. It is like you are saying that it doesn't matter what is said if no one can prove that dragons are fine how they were published 30 years ago.

    Personally, one of my favorite portrayals of a dragon is Mokeleb from Hambly's "Dragonsbane". While I think the rest of the series isn't as good as that first book, the changes that Morkeleb goes through are pretty interesting, though it is definitely a different universe. I also like how the dragon Earthquake is portrayed in the book "Giftwish", though she is certainly more of a force of nature than anything you would want to take on as an adversary.
    Last edited by Peelee; 2019-09-08 at 01:41 PM.

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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    I don't particularly like the D&D approach to dragons, so I don't use them - and while there are a number of things I dislike there the color coding is pretty high on the list. Shortly after it is the generic spellcaster with generic spell list problem; were I to not just go for the big dangerous animal approach (which I favor) I'd at least want to do something with magic that isn't just the same spells everyone gets. Granted, that might be more a function of disliking the D&D approach to magic than anything.

    I also don't tend to actually use them, or for that matter monsters much at all. The overwhelming majority of active opposition in basically any of my campaigns is other humans, regardless of genre. There's probably something else in most genres (even a historical game might have you see an angry horse or rampaging elephant), but outside of automated drones in certain futuristic settings they're making a pretty minimal appearance.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    I don't particularly like the D&D approach to dragons, so I don't use them - and while there are a number of things I dislike there the color coding is pretty high on the list. Shortly after it is the generic spellcaster with generic spell list problem; were I to not just go for the big dangerous animal approach (which I favor) I'd at least want to do something with magic that isn't just the same spells everyone gets. Granted, that might be more a function of disliking the D&D approach to magic than anything.

    I also don't tend to actually use them, or for that matter monsters much at all. The overwhelming majority of active opposition in basically any of my campaigns is other humans, regardless of genre. There's probably something else in most genres (even a historical game might have you see an angry horse or rampaging elephant), but outside of automated drones in certain futuristic settings they're making a pretty minimal appearance.
    Ooh, yeah, dragons in my games cast completely differently than most PCs, but that requires custom rules that a friend built that I since have been expanding on.
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    I quite like how dragon spellcasting is handled in Mother of Learning, where human magic has quite a few similarities to D&D (particularly names of spells, although it's a mana-based, non-Vancian system). https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21...er-of-learning

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    Dragons seem to have lots of power, but not all that much finesse. They've primarily been shown to play the role of magical artillery, although we've only seen a very few dragons and nothing from their perspective, so the full range of their abilities may not have been shown.

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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    There seem to be two actual discussions going on here.

    The first is covering dragons as defined by abilities and alignment— that is, how do dragons behave, and what can they do, and how are they defined by the rules.

    The second is whether dragon, as a thematic story element, is viable and entertaining.

    Both impact each other, but in a way they’re also separate.

    For the first, I think that the classic D&D system for dragons is just fine. There is no reason that the BtB dragons can’t be solid adversaries (or allies) for PCs, whether in a one-shot adventure or a full campaign. The key isn’t making changes to the dragons, or doing the “Surprise! It’s a black dragon dunked in gold paint” approach. Rather, the DM should be considering the abilities and character of the dragon and making smart tactical and strategic choices based upon these. Dragons are intelligent— they shouldn’t simply be sitting in a room, waiting to be whacked by whatever barbarian bursts through the door. And even then, the encounter maybe shouldn’t even be a necessarily hostile one, much less result in combat. Dragons are crafty, too, and might be willing to negotiate a deal. “What kind of a deal?” “A deal deal!”
    That doesn’t mean that the whole concept of dragons can’t be changed in a DM’s world. It’s just that I don’t think the classic dragons are broken, even with experienced players, provided that role-playing conventions are followed. (If you’ve got jaded, meta-gaming munchkins, then nothing you throw at them is going to be any good. If they’re hung up on counting XP values and CR numbers in everything they face, they’ll never actually participate in creating a decent story.) But with decent players, give ‘em a good story, and the fact that they know what a red dragon can do really won’t matter all that much.

    That doesn’t mean you can’t “up” the dragon’s game a bit. Dragon #50 first introduced this approach by noting that two claws and a toothy mouth weren’t the only viable combat options for dragons, introducing things like attacks with the rear claws, wing buffets, tail thrashings, and the like. This classic article also let different tail “types” behave like different weapons— for example, a spike tail would behave like a morning star, a “spade” tail like a sword, and so on. These are very logical adjustments to make to the creatures, and just goes to increase the flavor of any combat.

    Personally, I’m actually not a fan of spell-casting dragons. I do like the possibility of a dragon having an innate ability to persuade or deceive its opponents, even perhaps mystically altering their perceptions. Think Smaug with Bilbo (who eventually makes his save), or Ancalagon the Black with Turin in The Silmarillion— the latter is pretty much driven nuts by the dragon’s crafty lies! (This all, of course, goes back to the classic Serpent in the Garden theme...).

    So there are lots of ways you can use a dragon and have it be challenging and fun.

    Which brings us to the second discussion, which is whether a dragon is a viable thematic element in a story, whether it be a novel, a movie, or a game. To me the answer is obvious: Yes, of course it is. It’s not the dragon that is passé— it’s the way its used. “Ninety percent of everything is crud.”— Sturgeon’s Law.
    The meaning being, that if you want to find garbage, you will find it. But, rather obviously, just because there are bad books doesn’t mean that all books are bad. And just because there are bad dragon adventures doesn’t mean that all dragon adventures are bad. Yes, dragons have been poorly used, even in published adventures (and yes, in a LOT of them). But so have goblins, orcs, Minotaurs, liches, werewolves, vampires, wraiths, zombies, and any and every monster, villain or object you can name. The fault doesn’t rest in the creature, but in the poor work put into the adventure.

    And that poor work can come from both directions. Just as a DM can run a Monty Haul campaign giving out powers and magic and easy encounters like a pusher on the street corner, a player can be the addict grabbing for goodies and XP without ever considering the possibility of role-playing a rich and unique character. Frankly, if players are weighing the XP value of a monster to determine if it’s worth fighting for their characters’ level advancement, then the campaign has lost all sense of story. Of course, even that also falls back on the DM. If that’s the campaign the DM gives the players, then that’s how the players will respond. And yes, it will be boring. Personally, I’d walk away from a game like that. Or maybe offer to take over. But I wouldn’t blame the dragons— they’re not the problem.
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  26. - Top - End - #56
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    Quote Originally Posted by the library dm View Post
    (if you’ve got jaded, meta-gaming munchkins, then nothing you throw at them is going to be any good. If they’re hung up on counting xp values and cr numbers in everything they face, they’ll never actually participate in creating a decent story.)
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    "Dragons" can be just about anything underneath the dragonesque imagery.

    My setting that actually has "dragons"... they're not creatures of plain old flesh and blood, they're elemental entities in physical form, ranging from powerful spirit able to manifest in the physical world, to outright quasigod. "Kill" one, and all you probably get is a rapidly disassociating glomp of whatever the dragon was at heart -- and likely an irked spirit. A fire-breathing dragon can breathe fire because it is, at heart, "fire". You might get a mountain dragon, or a forest dragon, or a rain dragon... or a shadow dragon.

    You don't want to get a shadow dragon.
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  28. - Top - End - #58
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    I just run dragons as The Original MurderhobosTM.

    The Green Dragon is the bard murderhobo. He wants people, and is a source of many a half-dragon. He has gone on many adventures and succeeded many diplomacy checks to get his title.

    The Red Dragon is the wargamer murderhobo. He wants everything, and he will fight it because it's there, sleeping upon his piles of loot from his mountain fortress, with his rigorously regiments of kobolds fighting in formation in stacked terrain. And he is exactly as smart as he thinks he is.

    The White Dragon is the fighter murderhobo. She wants to hunt. A trophy from every creature in the land, from every NPC, and legends of her legendary hunts. Min/max the points into where they matter, and take bits and pieces of everything you can.

    The Blue Dragon is the sorcerer murderhobo. She knows the power of a burrow speed and abuses it to no end, even at a cost of some of her upper level abilities. There will be endless traps and hoarded magical knowledge, and while she's not the obsessive researcher that the lich is, that's because it has all been put into blast spells.

    The Black Dragon is the rogue murderhobo. Its goal is to rob everyone of everything. What does it do with the loot? Who cares, as long as it can steal it and no one else will be able to take it. It has everything, and will give back nothing. You hear me? NOTHING!

    If you fight any of them as humanoids, you're going to know what each of them is about. The sorcerer's been flashy enough that you'll probably have her full spell list. You know to prepare against illusions, charms, and poisons against bards. You know that the black dragon is going to abuse vision and darkness. You prepare. Color coded just simplifies the process of gathering information about them.

    What matters is what the dragons are: a mirror to the players. At the end of the game, with every level gained, item collected, and resources exploited. With every monster slain, with your defenses perfected, and your offense unwithstandable. They are you, unfettered, with everything your particular brand of murderhobo wants. And they are dangerous, unstoppable creatures that only true heroes could possibly stand against. After all, what was Fafnir but a fallen adventurer, as the ur-example of western mythology?

    ...And do you remember what happened the last time someone stole a single piece of gold from your last murderhobo, and lived to tell the tale?

    Metallic dragons are the same, except that I play them as their allegedly-good-aligned-murderhobo counterparts.
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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    I think scrapping the alignment restriction for dragons is all well and fine. I think alignments given in the monster manual are mainly suggestions anyway (yes, even the always trait)

    Any intelligent being should be capable of chosing their own fate, outlook and be able to adapt. I don't think it hurts to keep everything else around the creatures as normal, and I'd still keep Bahamut and Tiamat as their normal alignments, but that is mainly because it is established that those are their chosen alignments. I would also give the metallic dragons more ways of blending into human society, given this change to the alignment structure for dragons.

    Consider if you want to change what type of dragon Tiamat is, if you prefer her normal appearance, you might want to invent a story for why 5 chromatic dragons are her heads, or you can change her type accordingly with Bahamut being a platinum dragon, she could be an obsidian or crimson dragon. Or maybe put some metallic dragons in there. Have fun with things.

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    Default Re: Regarding Dragons

    The real standout among dragons is Ashardalon. He ate a powerful demon, consumed its essence and made it his heart. My dragons do that, too. Except they might take it too far and start eating deities and pantheons until there are no outsiders anymore. Makes it so there is a pressing need to wipe out all dragons as soon as they show up. So your religion is not wiped out. If they can't get your religion, well, there's always your economy.


    But, yeah, base dragons are really lame.
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