There is not much talk about the Draconomicon on this board. I wonder what the reason is?
I can't really say as I don't play 4E, but am just interested in the Fluff and Lore in this book. And for the most part its not as good as the 3E Draconomicon.
The information about the physiology is the same as in the 3E book (except for a "medichlorian syndrome" when they want to explain how frightful presence works hoping to give an explanation why it is an encounter power)
The religion is flat out worse than in 3E with only having two gods which don't recieve much pages for them and some exarchs which are just other 3E dragon gods now demoted (and got their race changed because everything has to be chromatic in this book)
There are twoo good bits in the lore chapter of the book, the discussion about how dragons search lairs and an article about their mindset and how they think differently from humans.
WotC avoids one logical error from the old Draconomicon by increasing the young age of dragons (in 3E dragons reproduced faster then elves and likely dwarves too). but does not fix another problem, that they say that uncared wyrmlings have a low survival rate and I have a hard time to imagine of how a pack of level 3-5 elites can't survive in teh wilderness while normal animals can.
There is a section about treasure generation which looks like the random treasure guidelines in 3E. Generally when you have the 3E Draconomicon you don't need it. The chapter also describes using coins as difficult terrain and other obstacles in battle, but then all sample hoards don't have enough coin to actually make use of that feature...
Then you have lots of monsters and some artifacts and example lairs/mini adventures which I can't comment on as to mee all 4E monsters look the same and I don't like the idea of having an level 6 artifact.
Lastly you have example dragons which are entirely unneeded as in 4E you don't have to build dragons anymore. It also spends a few words on famous dragons of various campaign settings which doesn't tell you more than their race and that they do generic draconic things. Also their fluff is vastly inferior to their 3E fluff. For example Dargototh (Wyrm of the North, freely availiable on the website) went from "Ancient wizard dracolich who wants to sire the perfect dragon race and thus experiments with becoming alive again and mixing different dragons into the perfect mate" into "Dracolich which has minions steal things from Waterdeep".
Finally, as simulationist gamer there are two things in the book which get my hope up that after all the complains WotC might think about throwing the at least a single bone to simulationist play.
First the feary dragon looks like WotC went a little away from their "You don't fight it, you don't need it" principle as I can't imagine that many people will fight generally peaceful feary dragons.
Second, and more importatnly, the book has rituals designed to be used primary by dragons and there is a suggestion in it how to regulate which dragon can use which ritual.
Also, hidden among flavour text, they give dragons away to boost their stats by magical items.
So partially I could understand if there isn't much interest in it. When you have the 3E Draconomicon all you can get are some monster stats and mini adventures which you could also get from Dragon and Dungeon.
Ultimatels I didn't buy the book because even though I am a dragon fan(atic) as I don't play 4E I don't get much use out of the book as so much stuff overlaps with the 3E Draconomicon which I have.
I can't really say as I don't play 4E, but am just interested in the Fluff and Lore in this book. And for the most part its not as good as the 3E Draconomicon.
The information about the physiology is the same as in the 3E book (except for a "medichlorian syndrome" when they want to explain how frightful presence works hoping to give an explanation why it is an encounter power)
The religion is flat out worse than in 3E with only having two gods which don't recieve much pages for them and some exarchs which are just other 3E dragon gods now demoted (and got their race changed because everything has to be chromatic in this book)
There are twoo good bits in the lore chapter of the book, the discussion about how dragons search lairs and an article about their mindset and how they think differently from humans.
WotC avoids one logical error from the old Draconomicon by increasing the young age of dragons (in 3E dragons reproduced faster then elves and likely dwarves too). but does not fix another problem, that they say that uncared wyrmlings have a low survival rate and I have a hard time to imagine of how a pack of level 3-5 elites can't survive in teh wilderness while normal animals can.
There is a section about treasure generation which looks like the random treasure guidelines in 3E. Generally when you have the 3E Draconomicon you don't need it. The chapter also describes using coins as difficult terrain and other obstacles in battle, but then all sample hoards don't have enough coin to actually make use of that feature...
Then you have lots of monsters and some artifacts and example lairs/mini adventures which I can't comment on as to mee all 4E monsters look the same and I don't like the idea of having an level 6 artifact.
Lastly you have example dragons which are entirely unneeded as in 4E you don't have to build dragons anymore. It also spends a few words on famous dragons of various campaign settings which doesn't tell you more than their race and that they do generic draconic things. Also their fluff is vastly inferior to their 3E fluff. For example Dargototh (Wyrm of the North, freely availiable on the website) went from "Ancient wizard dracolich who wants to sire the perfect dragon race and thus experiments with becoming alive again and mixing different dragons into the perfect mate" into "Dracolich which has minions steal things from Waterdeep".
Finally, as simulationist gamer there are two things in the book which get my hope up that after all the complains WotC might think about throwing the at least a single bone to simulationist play.
First the feary dragon looks like WotC went a little away from their "You don't fight it, you don't need it" principle as I can't imagine that many people will fight generally peaceful feary dragons.
Second, and more importatnly, the book has rituals designed to be used primary by dragons and there is a suggestion in it how to regulate which dragon can use which ritual.
Also, hidden among flavour text, they give dragons away to boost their stats by magical items.
So partially I could understand if there isn't much interest in it. When you have the 3E Draconomicon all you can get are some monster stats and mini adventures which you could also get from Dragon and Dungeon.
Ultimatels I didn't buy the book because even though I am a dragon fan(atic) as I don't play 4E I don't get much use out of the book as so much stuff overlaps with the 3E Draconomicon which I have.
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