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I'm just wondering how many dragons of a given type are there in the world at one time?
The Books i've read talk about how old and smart say, an ancient red dragon, would be. How many ancient red dragons actually exist? 1? 5? 100? How about lesser dragons, etc. I have never seen this type of information but it would help put perspective to how important some of these more epic level monsters really are.
as far as the ancient dragons one maybe two of each type. i mean depending on the size of the world you could feasibly on a small world have very few dragons as they would be more inclined to wipe each other over territory, food, wealth ect.
As others have said, it is very DM world dependent. Although dragons in my mind are supposed to have a special importance. If they are rampant in the world it dilutes this part of them making them pretty much the same as your other monster manual options.
I personally like to limit dragons to no more than 2 of each if even that when it comes to the ancient types.
Well of the most powerful dragons probably only a handful of each. Even in Dragonlance where dragons are more common than the other published settings (at least in their novels) there's only a few huge dragons.
DM choice. If your PC's want to be dragon hunters, make it a lot, if they don't really care for that, make it less so it's more special running into one
True dragons? Very few (maybe 5 ancient, 10 elders, 100 adults, 500 young adults 2000 wyrmlings of each species).
But if you want a dragonhunting campaign, just slap the "dragon" keyword to all drakes, behemoths, wyverns, dragonspawn and even dragonborn. And refer to chromatics and metallics as "true dragons" or "great dragons".
True dragons? Very few (maybe 5 ancient, 10 elders, 100 adults, 500 young adults 2000 wyrmlings of each species).
But if you want a dragonhunting campaign, just slap the "dragon" keyword to all drakes, behemoths, wyverns, dragonspawn and even dragonborn. And refer to chromatics and metallics as "true dragons" or "great dragons".
Sounds like a draconic pyramid scheme :P
I think Klaus hit the proportions right tho - younger dragons are most numerous and would be the ones most likely encountered by adventurers.
Older dragons would be more rare due to dragon competition both inside and outside species (ie. chromatic vs. metallic), depredations of other powerful mosters, and adventurer attrition.
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You don't want your 28th level PC's to defeat the only 2 ancient red dragons in the world, do you? I see no reason to put an upper limit on these things. Now, Klaus' numbers are good if you want to get an idea of what a typical wilderness region might hold, but you should always set the PC's against what you feel is right, what plot demands, and not feel constrained by 'reality' or realistic figures.
And, if you do slip up and mention that there are only a couple of Elder dragons and the PC's kill them, remember that magic is on your side. Perhaps some Elemental Fire dragons from the plane of *fire* portal into your world to restore the balance.
The numbers I pulled out of thin air might be for an area as small as, say, Great Britain, or as large as Eurasia, depending on how rare true dragons are.
I've never felt the need to define it. I mean in a campaign world that has seen something like 30 years of adventuring PCs have never explored a fraction of the entire world. Who knows what dragons are out there? Its only really relevant to consider what dragons exist within the area the players normally explore. Within that area there the number of dragons which make sense for there to be based on what adventures are going happen, plot necessities, etc.
If there is for some reason a dearth of dragons then either there are other ones located in more distant locations which can serve the purpose or one or two new ones show up. After all if an area becomes denuded of dragons then surely there are a few elsewhere that might decide to move in.
In general I try not to pin things like this down too much. It usually turns out eventually whatever number you come up with creates some inconvenience. Just as well to leave it an open question in general. In my world the PCs know about certain dragons that are significant powers. Lesser ones? They usually find out about those when they become inconvenient or significant or they happen to be jonesing for a place to pick up some treasure.
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