Dragons - how often do you use them?

[Mycanid]

Well lessee ... in general I like to regard dragons as major, super powered creatures that really have little to do with the affairs of mortals.

As allies they are rarer than hen's teeth and as foes, although "iconic" I just don't throw pc's at them. (Pseudo dragons and faerie dragons as familiars are another story, of course.)

In my current campaign though, a rather large bronze dragon does "pop up", as does a youngish silver dragon that is the mount of a high powered npc (27th level) that the characters interact with briefly. And yes, the bronze dragon and the npc are allies. But in practice they are present as a means to further flesh out the rich local history of past and present. Long story I guess, but for me this kind of a thing is a standard presentation.

 

[Jdvn1]

Less is more.

 

[Baroness]

The only game I ever ran was all about hunting dragons. I think dragons make great enemies because of the many abilities they have and because it is possible for the PCs to prepare and plan against them, and dragons usually a lair, which allows to PC to scout the battlefield a bit before a battle. Plus, they're smart which means combat usually doesn't end up with them acting like barbarians.

My players managed to kill a total of 9 dragons ranging from Young adult to Mature adult. The whole party died when one player guessed that blue dragons were vulnerable to acid just like red dragons were vulnerable to cold. They should have known better, they've played for so long.

 

[dnabre]

The game's called Dungeons and Dragons, so most of games tend to feature a lot of both. If I'm planning for a campaign to run 1-20, I try to fix in each color and age category at least once (not necessarily every combination).

Last campaign, 1-4/5 (ending was unplanned), the party encountered:

Black wyrmling/very young (fought at first level)
Red, Mature adult (spotted from afar, and they found a map to his lair)
Green, young adult (diseased, used poor tactics, attack at night)
Gold, Great wyrm (NPC/talk encounter, most players didn't even pick up he was a polymorphed dragon)

 

[Psion]

Here's a campaign with some... heavy use of dragons...

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=219100

 

[3d6]

I voted rarely--I've only used one. It was an adult white dragon that was guarding a succubus. I'm more of a demons and devils DM when it comes to high-CR beasties.

 

[Caliban]

Depending on the flavor of the campaign, I tend to use them frequently. Last campaign I ran, the party fought a pack of black dragon wyrmlings at lvl 2-3 (momma dragon was killed by adventurer's, wyrmlings were forced out of the swamp by more powerful creatures and started preying of the animals and children of a small town), encountered a juvenile blue dragon while trecking through the desert, and around 10th level had to subdue a diseased/enraged young adult blue dragon or it's Old blue dragon father would take it out on them (it had a dragon specific disease that sent it out of control, and the older dragon didn't want to risk catching it, so he threatened the party into doing it for him).

My current campaign has a heavy undead/far realms focus, so they have only encountered a few half-dragons.

 

[Warbringer]

Just about every campaign... plus there is always a dungeon in there somewhere as well...because, well you have to, don't ya.

 

[shilsen]

Currently running two Eberron games with 60 sessions between the two of them and only one dragon has shown up in one and none in the other. That's partly due to the nature of Eberron, but I generally don't use dragons that much anyway.

Come to think of it, I don't use dungeons much either.

 

[Glyfair]

In practice, reasonably rarely (although my campaigns since 3E have yet to break 6th level), at least as far as the PCs know. As villians, only a handful of times, and usually because I'm running a module that includes one (the Sunless Citadel comes to mind).

In my current game the PCs may have encountered a shapechanged dragon (it was an option in the module and I'm leaning that way, but haven't had to committ yet).

In my homebrew campaign the PCs have encountered two major NPCs that are actually a shapechanged dragon (in fact, the same shapechanged dragon).