Loss of Innate Spellcasting (or 'How Dragons Build Lairs')

[infax]

Dragons using wizard spells is such a D&D'ism, and goes back to 1E where that particular ability was added to make them better combat monsters. They were horribly weak for such an iconic monster, not coming close to stacking up against demons and devils. The fact that there were one or two spells they could take that explained away the "how do they do that without hands" issues was completely incidental. I for one am glad they're making them more like their counterparts in myth and fiction, and not a big wizard-in-a-lizard.

<snip>

Ok, that just got my hackles up.

I am very sorry you think that, but dragons as wizards is not a D&Dism. You have Earthdawn, Palladium FRP, Rolemaster and Shadowrun are all rpgs that represent dragons as wielders of great magical might and not only in the form of primal magic (allowing them to breath fire and fly) but also as knowledgeable of structured arcane magic as that used by humans and other intelligent creatures.

In literature, also, there is no lacking of dragons depicted as old and wise, versed in all forms of magic.

I can see that in old myth they were often depicted as brutes and when possessing magical power it was rarely structured, but then, the magic of old wizards of myth was rarely structured as well.

 

[infax]

"Add in a few levels of wizard"

While I don't need my dragons to be spellcasters out-of-the-box, I wonder at the number of people defending it will be simple to give them levels of wizard.

Of the few things that have been said about monsters is that they will follow completely different rules than those of PCs. I can see how that can be useful for development (3E interlocking rules were a mess to deal with when creating or modifying creatures). I can also see how this will greatly help WotC sell more books (which isn't a bad thing). However, I can imagine how hard this may be to change monsters in any way that will leave you vaguely aware of what are the implications.

I'm sure some people remember how 2E was and adding levels of Magic User to a Minotaur was no easy task. Of course you could wave it and simply have your wise, elderly minotaur shaman casting a couple of spells in a scene or a wild orc shaman calling upon some nasty disruptive or damaging magic in the middle of a combat without bothering to know too much about any of their stats (and I did! I also did it in 3E, by the way).

"Giving it some levels of wizard" however, isn't, necessarily, something easy to do. Or even feasable at all. We got used to being able to add any kind of class to mostly any kind of creature in 3e and that is a characteristic that has most definetely not been assured to appear in 4e.


As an appart: it seems that adding levels of skirmisher, brute or artillery will be easy enough in 4e (or, at least, that has been the stated intention).

 

[FourthBear]

"Giving it some levels of wizard" however, isn't, necessarily, something easy to do. Or even feasable at all. We got used to being able to add any kind of class to mostly any kind of creature in 3e and that is a characteristic that has most definetely not been assured to appear in 4e.

As I noted before I'm not worried about this aspect of monster customization at all. Just give them the powers you think appropriate. They've noted that monsters will have levels and ability scores, so you should be able to calculate any level and score dependent functions in the spells. So just give them what spells you think appropriate and go. If you really had to, I suppose you could pick a level of the wizard class and give the dragon the appropriate number of class related abilities for that level, if you want to. I'm hard pressed to figure out how 4e *could* make it difficult to add magely powers to a dragon. Are they going to base all spells in the PH on some number that only PC races will have?

 

[Stoat]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't somebody from WotC said that adding class levels to a monster is still supposed to be a viable way of advancing them?

 

[M.L. Martin]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't somebody from WotC said that adding class levels to a monster is still supposed to be a viable way of advancing them?

Yes, Mearls said it on the WotC boards.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Ok, that just got my hackles up.

Well, I thought your hackles looked like they were a little down...

I am very sorry you think that, but dragons as wizards is not a D&Dism. You have Earthdawn, Palladium FRP, Rolemaster and Shadowrun are all rpgs that represent dragons as wielders of great magical might and not only in the form of primal magic (allowing them to breath fire and fly) but also as knowledgeable of structured arcane magic as that used by humans and other intelligent creatures.

Since all of these RPGs are post D&D 1E, one could argue that they all took their queue from the way dragons were depicted in the game that created the hobby.

In literature, also, there is no lacking of dragons depicted as old and wise, versed in all forms of magic.

I can see that in old myth they were often depicted as brutes and when possessing magical power it was rarely structured, but then, the magic of old wizards of myth was rarely structured as well.

Well, you might be able to might come up with a few examples, and dragons as keepers of "ancient knowledge" is certainly a common trope, but dragons that actually cast magic spells? Not so much. Most magical abilities given to dragons in fantasy stories are more like the innate special abilities of other monsters we see in D&D, not book learin'. It sounds like, from the W&M preview info, that dragons will still have magical abilities, but won't be magic users.

And again, examples of "wizardly" dragons after the introduction of D&D might also be influenced by the presentation of them in the game.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

I hadn't thought of the class-training feats, and that's an even better idea.

I'm not sure it'll work. I remember one of the WotC guys remarking about how weird it was to move back to working on 3.5 material after doing so much 4E development, and one of the things he mentioned remarking was "Wait a minute, why do these monsters have feats?"

 

[TwinBahamut]

Ok, that just got my hackles up.

I am very sorry you think that, but dragons as wizards is not a D&Dism. You have Earthdawn, Palladium FRP, Rolemaster and Shadowrun are all rpgs that represent dragons as wielders of great magical might and not only in the form of primal magic (allowing them to breath fire and fly) but also as knowledgeable of structured arcane magic as that used by humans and other intelligent creatures.

In literature, also, there is no lacking of dragons depicted as old and wise, versed in all forms of magic.

I can see that in old myth they were often depicted as brutes and when possessing magical power it was rarely structured, but then, the magic of old wizards of myth was rarely structured as well.

I don't really accept this argument... Certainly, you are probably right that it is common among tabletop RPGs for dragons to have magical powers, outside of D&D it is very rare.

I never once saw wizardly dragons in any kind of literature. Unless you list a few real names, I don't really have a reason to believe you or agree with you. On the other hand, I have seen many classic fire-breathers with no distinct magic in all kinds of places. Most of the time, dragons are seen as either brutes with bestial intelligence who fight with breath weapons and brute power, or wise and intelligent sages who fight with breath weapons and brute power.

I am fine with dragons having the occasional special magical ability, or the rare dragon having wizardly powers, but, when it comes down to it, spellcasting is outside of the dragon's classic abilities. Dragons are the winged lizards who breathe fire. That is the single distinct and memorable niche dragons have ever occupied in myth and pop culture. Diluting that, rather than emphasizing it, would be a mistake.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I'm not sure it'll work. I remember one of the WotC guys remarking about how weird it was to move back to working on 3.5 material after doing so much 4E development, and one of the things he mentioned remarking was "Wait a minute, why do these monsters have feats?"

OTOH, the Mearls post I linked to above says that feats are one of the things you can add to monsters if you want to customize them. I expect that it's going to be that if a given feat or feats suit a monster, it'll have them, instead of "all monsters must have at least 1 feat per 3 levels/Hit Dice, and any above and beyond this must be called out as bonus feats."

 

[Wolfspider]

I don't really accept this argument... Certainly, you are probably right that it is common among tabletop RPGs for dragons to have magical powers, outside of D&D it is very rare.

I never once saw wizardly dragons in any kind of literature. Unless you list a few real names, I don't really have a reason to believe you or agree with you.

Please define what you mean by "wizardly" dragons.