D&D 5E Making Dragons cool again: New Dragon Traits

[Maxperson]

So in "honor" of the recent dnd movie, I wanted to take a look at dragons. Dragons despite being the boilerplate monster, have long had issues being the pinnacle of combat encoutners. No matter how scary they look on paper, they often just don't bring the challenge and epic fight that player's expect.

Having worked on dragons with others like @dave2008, who has done a lot of work making dragons a lot tougher. However, for this purpose, the goal is:

• To increase the dragon's challenge.
• To make a dragon fight "distinctive". We don't just want the players to fight a bigger challenge, we want a unique challenge
• A simple list of traits that can be added on to existing dragons, rather than recreating them wholesale.

And so I present a list of dragon traits that you can add to an existing challenge to do just that.

Note: I will use the term "bloodied" for this. This is an old 4e term means the target is at half hp or lower.

Draconic Armor: Unless an attack is made with advantage, it automatically misses the dragon.
Draconic Resistance (replaces legendary resistance): When a dragon fails a saving throw, they may take 1 exhaustion instead of suffering the normal effect.
Draconic Stamina: A dragon that uses their breath weapon recovers 1 exhaustion.
Draconic Arrogance: Bloodied opponents have advantage on attack rolls against a dragon, and the dragon has disadvantage on saves against them. This trait is lost if the dragon is bloodied.
Dispelling Breath: The dragon's breath weapon removes all magic effects of X level or lower in the area (similar to dispel magic).


Commentary:

• Draconic armor makes the dragon noticeably tougher, but in a unique and interesting way. Instead of players just go "man I can't hit this thing", its now "ok how do I get advantage". Whether its help actions or stunts like jumping on the dragons back, the players will immediate begin getting creative about how to approach a dragon, because its the only real way to win. This immediately makes a dragon fight much more interesting. This also reflects the old LOTR lore of dragons having nigh impenetrable armor, and you needing to target very specific weak spots to hit them.
• Draconic Resistance: The problem with legendary resistance is:
  • Its extremely boring. It failed its save.....I mean no it didn't you do absolutely nothing!
  • It scales weirdly with the number of casters. If you have 3 casters in your party, legendary resistance is more of a speedbump. If you have 1, it basically means that caster isn't contributing in any legendary fight.
  • This version of draconic resistance ensures that each failed save contributes to the fight, rather than the dragon just completely shrugging it off. However, you can in theory get a lot more uses of it than legendary resistance. This simulates slowly wearing out the dragon, rather than just beating them up and then ending it with one key failed save.
• Draconic Stamina: Ensures the exhaustion from draconic resistance doesn't get toooo high, and gives a dragon more incentive to use their breath weapon even at moments they might not.
• Draconic Arrogance: This provides some mechanics to the flavor of dragons being so arrogant and haughty. Liking to play with their food at bit, it also gives players an interesting choice, stay low health and gain benefits (though risking a big hit by the dragon that takes you out), or heal up and lose the bonus.
• Dispelling Breath: This one provides the dragon a general means of dealing with player shenanigans. No longer is a dragon ensnared by a wall of force, or beaten by a caster with the one right spell. Dragons are the ultimate engine of destruction, and the inferior magic of mortals is no threat to them! This trait ensures that no matter how well a party prepares their spells and buffs, a dragon will still starting burning through them.

"So in "honor" of the recent dnd movie..."

I don't see pudgy on that list!

"We don't just want the players to fight a bigger challenge..."

Oh. Never mind.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

One thing missing from most dragons is a ''Swallow'' attack following a bite. Getting chomped in one bite by a huge flying lizard is an adventurer's staple!

 

[Stalker0]

I guess my thought would if you want it to be difficult to hit / damage - up its armor class. Then maybe give it a vulnerability that can be exploited (a weak spot if you will). So maybe you increase the AC by 5 and then give it a weak spot that is vulnerable to all damage (except psychic) and maybe lower AC but needs to be discovered to be targeted? Then how you find / exploit the weakness could be the puzzle/challenge of the dragon

So a version of this:

Draconic Armor: +10 to AC (included in stats). On initiative 5, the party makes a group perception check (DC X). On a success, the dragon's AC is lowered by 5. The party can succeed up to twice in an encounter.

 

[cbwjm]

I do like adding traits to dragons (and others). I think something like the following could make a good change:

Aura. When the dragon uses its breath weapon, until the start of its next turn, it has an aura that deals X damage when a creature starts its turn, or comes within 10 feet of it.

Inferno Breath. When the dragon uses its breath weapon, resistance to the damage type is stripped away until the target completes a long rest. - pretty sure this was a 4e feature, Matt Colville brings it up in his video about 4e.

Something I like to do with enemy monsters is use a bloodied trigger. In the dragons case, straight from 4e, it recharges and immediately uses its breath weapon.

Maybe give the dragon some spells that complement it. A red dragon might have cone of cold, or even a spell that is cast as a bonus action which changes its breath weapon to cold damage. The party's fire resistance magic won't do much against these cold spells.

I have templates, based on 4e that I sometimes apply like Brute which deals additional damage with melee attacks, deals extra damage dice on a critical hit, is easier to hit, but has more hit points. Or elite which grants advantage to saves for effects that slow, stun, or otherwise hinder them (and something else that has slipped my mind, I often combine elite with my other templates).

 

[dave2008]

This is actually the narrative that I am trying to most actively avoid, because that's what happens right now.....just like every other fight. Melee fighters get in melee, casters start casting, pound down the monster.

I get the idea of making people do something different. But ideally, IMO, I would want them leaning into their roles more. But I just don't like the narrative/mechanic coordination here.

The goal is to force something other than that. Now ultimately I don't see how this effects martial fighters any more than casters (afterall casters can't really get off their big spell effects either), the goal is to find ways to generate advantage.

Casters don't attack, they force saves.

Maybe the fighter will literally wrestle the dragon prone and then attack it, or jumps on its back, or the rogue does stealth to get in a hit, the cleric uses the help action to give the paladin an advantage it can use their smite through, etc etc.

You can achieve most of those things with a higher AC. I don't I guess it just feels to meta to me. I will think about it.

 

[dave2008]

So a version of this:

Draconic Armor: +10 to AC (included in stats). On initiative 5, the party makes a group perception check (DC X). On a success, the dragon's AC is lowered by 5. The party can succeed up to twice in an encounter.

That is a simple approach. Ideally it would be more individualized, but that is the idea. Though to be honest, I like the idea of exploiting the weakness causing more damage. Not sure of the best way to make that work.

 

[Stalker0]

That is a simple approach. Ideally it would be more individualized, but that is the idea. Though to be honest, I like the idea of exploiting the weakness causing more damage. Not sure of the best way to make that work.

The problem with individualized is:

• Theme: The fighter figured out the super secret spot that can hurt the dragon, but can't tell his buddy the rogue?
• Group fun: Having one player who made the lucky roll and now gets to hit the dragon, while everyone is on the sidelines, isn't very fun. With a group check, we are all working together, and all reap the rewards together.

And I can respect the idea of going with more damage, but part of my desire with these is simplicity (for example many of your redesigns for dragons are already great if you want a more complex dragon, but for this I was looking for a thing that was easy and quick to run).

 

[Krachek]

Some fun ideas, but almost all of those change or at least seriously affect the dragons CR. @Stalker0 is, I think, trying to make a balanced suite of traits that make the dragon more interesting without completely throwing out the CR. Of course I could be wrong.

I have other issues with some of these too.

It all depends on how long last fight against dragon in your game.
Dragon breathing on round 1,3,5 make look an increase to CR but it require that the dragon survive till round 3!

 

[dave2008]

Inferno Breath. When the dragon uses its breath weapon, resistance to the damage type is stripped away until the target completes a long rest. - pretty sure this was a 4e feature, Matt Colville brings it up in his video about 4e.

In the 4e MM only the White and Red dragons had this feature. And then only the ancient dragons. When dragons where updated to MM3 rules in the Monster Vault they stopped at Elder dragons and this trait was not included.

 

[dave2008]

The problem with individualized is:

• Theme: The fighter figured out the super secret spot that can hurt the dragon, but can't tell his buddy the rogue?
• Group fun: Having one player who made the lucky roll and now gets to hit the dragon, while everyone is on the sidelines, isn't very fun. With a group check, we are all working together, and all reap the rewards together.

And I can respect the idea of going with more damage, but part of my desire with these is simplicity (for example many of your redesigns for dragons are already great if you want a more complex dragon, but for this I was looking for a thing that was easy and quick to run).

I think we have a misunderstanding. I was talking about each individual dragon having a unique way to solve their weakness. Not individual to the PCs.