Griffon Lore Games
Publishing Content for 5E and Pathfinder1E
Awesome.
D&D 2E Revised and rebalanced dragons for AD&D 2e
I went over my damage chart again to tighten it up.
Now I attempt to get to decreasing die size and count from bite to claw to aoe faster.
Bite/Claw/Claw is at most 1 per target.
Tail Swipe is the size of the dragon (so on a 40' x 40' dragon, is a 40' by 40' area), and cannot hit who you bit or breathed upon (head and tail are in opposite directions). You can Tail Swipe someone you clawed, however. (This is both vermissiltude, and reduces focus-fire capabilities)
Wing Buffet is all within 10' (so melee range, including reach weapons) of the Dragon.
Dragons with 1x AOE can pick one to use on a round.
---
As a thought, a breath weapon could use both an AOE slot and a Bite slot (and maybe have a recharge mechanic). That gives it more "damage budget", and means that the dragon still has a tactical decision to make between wing buffet and tail smash (on breath weapon turns).
---
Another thought is to have tiers for damage. I mean, tweaking damage dice at each HD is cute, but maybe not needed.
Being off by 5% or 10% at 20 HD doesn't matter.
The pattern I did above was you get +1 static damage every even level. On odd levels I upped damage, added an attack, etc in order to keep it just above 7 damage per HD.
But...
(a) we could just drop 1 HD dragons. Maybe they all start at 3 HD.
Then 3-4, 5-7, 8-12, 13-19, 20+ are all windows where the max level is less than 1.5x the min level.
5', 10', 15', 20', 30' square dragons. Have damage be by dragon size, not by HD.
At 4, 6, 10, 16, grant some bonus (4: claw, 6: aoe, 10: 2nd claw, 16: 2nd aoe). Those are the midpoints of each of those ranges, so can be features that grant +22% damage, where the other +35%ish is from the larger size category.
Would have fewer tables.
Here is another table.
Bite: Bite dice + HD/2 (round down)
Claw: Bite dice + HD/2
Wing: AOE dice (no bonus)
Tail: AOE dice (no bonus)
Before Gargantuon, Bites are 4 dice, claws 2, aoes are 1 of the same die size.
Wing buffet hits everyone within 10' (in melee, including reach weapons). Creatures hit are pushed back (dragon size) distance.
Tail is an area as big as the dragon's space, and cannot include the Bite target. Creatures hit are knocked prone.
At 3 HD the dragon is medium and uses d6 dice
At 4 HD the dragon gets a claw attack.
At 5 HD the dragon becomes large and uses d8 dice
At 6 HD the dragon can do one tail or wing attack.
At 8 HD the dragon becomes huge and uses d10 dice
At 10 HD the dragon can do 2 claw attacks.
At 12 HD the dragon becomes gargantuan and uses d12 dice
At 15 HD the tail/wing does 2 dice of damage.
At 18 HD the claw does 3 dice of damage.
At 20 HD the dragon becomes colossal, bite does 5 dice, and it can wing and tail on the same turn.
At 21 HD the bite does 6 dice and the claw does 4 dice.
Now I attempt to get to decreasing die size and count from bite to claw to aoe faster.
Bite/Claw/Claw is at most 1 per target.
Tail Swipe is the size of the dragon (so on a 40' x 40' dragon, is a 40' by 40' area), and cannot hit who you bit or breathed upon (head and tail are in opposite directions). You can Tail Swipe someone you clawed, however. (This is both vermissiltude, and reduces focus-fire capabilities)
Wing Buffet is all within 10' (so melee range, including reach weapons) of the Dragon.
Dragons with 1x AOE can pick one to use on a round.
---
As a thought, a breath weapon could use both an AOE slot and a Bite slot (and maybe have a recharge mechanic). That gives it more "damage budget", and means that the dragon still has a tactical decision to make between wing buffet and tail smash (on breath weapon turns).
---
Another thought is to have tiers for damage. I mean, tweaking damage dice at each HD is cute, but maybe not needed.
Being off by 5% or 10% at 20 HD doesn't matter.
The pattern I did above was you get +1 static damage every even level. On odd levels I upped damage, added an attack, etc in order to keep it just above 7 damage per HD.
But...
(a) we could just drop 1 HD dragons. Maybe they all start at 3 HD.
Then 3-4, 5-7, 8-12, 13-19, 20+ are all windows where the max level is less than 1.5x the min level.
5', 10', 15', 20', 30' square dragons. Have damage be by dragon size, not by HD.
At 4, 6, 10, 16, grant some bonus (4: claw, 6: aoe, 10: 2nd claw, 16: 2nd aoe). Those are the midpoints of each of those ranges, so can be features that grant +22% damage, where the other +35%ish is from the larger size category.
Would have fewer tables.
Here is another table.
Bite: Bite dice + HD/2 (round down)
Claw: Bite dice + HD/2
Wing: AOE dice (no bonus)
Tail: AOE dice (no bonus)
Before Gargantuon, Bites are 4 dice, claws 2, aoes are 1 of the same die size.
Wing buffet hits everyone within 10' (in melee, including reach weapons). Creatures hit are pushed back (dragon size) distance.
Tail is an area as big as the dragon's space, and cannot include the Bite target. Creatures hit are knocked prone.
Code:
HD Size Attacks Bite Claw AOE Flat DPR DPR/HD
3 M B 4d6 - - 1 15 5
4 M B+C 4d6 2d6 - 4 25 6.3
5 L B+C 4d8 2d8 - 4 31 6.2
6 L B+C+A 4d8 2d8 1d8 6 42 7
7 L B+C+A 4d8 2d8 1d8 6 42 6
8 H B+C+A 4d10 2d10 1d10 8 52 6.5
9 H B+C+A 4d10 2d10 1d10 8 52 5.8
10 H B+2C+A 4d10 2d10 1d10 15 66 6.6
11 H B+2C+A 4d10 2d10 1d10 15 66 6.0
12 G B+2C+A 4d12 2d12 1d12 18 92 7.7
13 G B+2C+A 4d12 2d12 1d12 18 92 7.1
14 G B+2C+A 4d12 2d12 1d12 21 95 6.8
15 G B+2C+A 4d12 2d12 2d12 21 108 7.2
16 G B+2C+A 4d12 2d12 2d12 24 111 6.9
17 G B+2C+A 4d12 2d12 2d12 24 111 6.5
18 G B+2C+A 4d12 3d12 2d12 27 127 7.1
19 G B+2C+A 4d12 3d12 2d12 27 127 6.7
20 C B+2C+2A 5d12 3d12 2d12 30 154 7.7
21 C B+2C+2A 6d12 4d12 2d12 30 173 8.2At 3 HD the dragon is medium and uses d6 dice
At 4 HD the dragon gets a claw attack.
At 5 HD the dragon becomes large and uses d8 dice
At 6 HD the dragon can do one tail or wing attack.
At 8 HD the dragon becomes huge and uses d10 dice
At 10 HD the dragon can do 2 claw attacks.
At 12 HD the dragon becomes gargantuan and uses d12 dice
At 15 HD the tail/wing does 2 dice of damage.
At 18 HD the claw does 3 dice of damage.
At 20 HD the dragon becomes colossal, bite does 5 dice, and it can wing and tail on the same turn.
At 21 HD the bite does 6 dice and the claw does 4 dice.
Last edited:
Just Passing Through
Explorer
Wow! I am really liking what you are doing with this! A few questions though.
1) The dragons tail slap and wing buffet are attacks that target AC rather than forcing saving throws, correct?
2) Have you considered changing the AOE of the wing buffet so that it gradually increases with the dragon's size? a 10 foot AOE is fine for smaller dragons, but a colossal dragon having the same AOE as a large dragon feels a bit off. Maybe something like 5 feet for large dragons, 10 for huge, 15 for gargantuan, and 20 for colossal?
3) have you figured out what you are going to do with the breath weapon yet?
Overall I really like what you are doing here, it takes up much less space than my system and might be easier to run as well.
1) The dragons tail slap and wing buffet are attacks that target AC rather than forcing saving throws, correct?
2) Have you considered changing the AOE of the wing buffet so that it gradually increases with the dragon's size? a 10 foot AOE is fine for smaller dragons, but a colossal dragon having the same AOE as a large dragon feels a bit off. Maybe something like 5 feet for large dragons, 10 for huge, 15 for gargantuan, and 20 for colossal?
3) have you figured out what you are going to do with the breath weapon yet?
Overall I really like what you are doing here, it takes up much less space than my system and might be easier to run as well.
I don't know what the tail/wing should target. And scaling makes lots of sense. It is supposed to be more restricted than the tail slap, and at 10' it is strictly better until the dragon gets larger. Make it 5' when the dragon is 10', and ensure it stays significantly smaller than the tail?
I really like the feel of "tail sweeps an area the size of the dragon". It gets the idea that the dragon's size is its body, and its tail is equally large.
I would have to refresh myself on AD&D 2e saving throws; scaling the damage on AOEs might make sense depending on how they work. AC gets easier to hit at higher levels in AD&D 2e, while saving throws are harder to land... So if we move it to saves, maybe it needs to scale faster?
The breath "budget" can come from bite and an AOE to start. Recharge 5-6 at the start of turn?
Should it have a frightful presence? That is a classic dragon thing.
I really like the feel of "tail sweeps an area the size of the dragon". It gets the idea that the dragon's size is its body, and its tail is equally large.
I would have to refresh myself on AD&D 2e saving throws; scaling the damage on AOEs might make sense depending on how they work. AC gets easier to hit at higher levels in AD&D 2e, while saving throws are harder to land... So if we move it to saves, maybe it needs to scale faster?
The breath "budget" can come from bite and an AOE to start. Recharge 5-6 at the start of turn?
Should it have a frightful presence? That is a classic dragon thing.
Just Passing Through
Explorer
On reflection, I think that having the tail/wing target armor class is fine, as it allows the current damage scaling to be kept.
I also like the idea of the tail sweep covering a dragon-sized area, while making wing buffet a smaller AOE.
Breath coming from bite and an AOE would work, however that would also mean that dragons do not get the ability to breathe until 6 hit dice.
Having a 4e style recharge mechanic for the breath might work. It would certainly make its usage less predictable, thus increasing the tension of the encounter.
Frightful presence could also be good.
I also like the idea of the tail sweep covering a dragon-sized area, while making wing buffet a smaller AOE.
Breath coming from bite and an AOE would work, however that would also mean that dragons do not get the ability to breathe until 6 hit dice.
Having a 4e style recharge mechanic for the breath might work. It would certainly make its usage less predictable, thus increasing the tension of the encounter.
Frightful presence could also be good.
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