D&D General Tell Me About Your Favorite Use of a Dragon In D&D

[MarkB]

Seems like a cool, memorable result to me.

Memorable, certainly - as a terrible end to a campaign, it sticks in my mind indelibly. But cool? They were basically confronted with their previous failures in the form of a seriously one-sided fight that they couldn't even retreat from, because the only way out was a narrow mountain trail in totally open terrain that would hinder them while bothering the dragons not at all.

 

[Reynard]

Memorable, certainly - as a terrible end to a campaign, it sticks in my mind indelibly. But cool? They were basically confronted with their previous failures in the form of a seriously one-sided fight that they couldn't even retreat from, because the only way out was a narrow mountain trail in totally open terrain that would hinder them while bothering the dragons not at all.

See, I like that. Your previous efforts have consequences. And it's a game. If there's no possibility of failure, what's the point?

 

[lolsworth]

I enjoyed using a young green dragon against a level 5 party. With some illusory nonsense and a trap to boot. When the party dealt with the trap the dragon fled to its lair, and the party had the chance to track it down and loot its lair (which they did successfully). Dragon lairs are good places for macguffins to turn up

Another good example I've run was the general of a holy king's army was a gold dragon in disguise. The assassination attempt did not go as planned.

And the chardalyn dragon in Rime of the Frostmaiden was a good one. Needed some readjusting on the timings though. The core premise was solid though

My players always seem to enjoy dragon encounters. I don't think I've had a PC death result from a dragon encounter surprisingly

 

[uzirath]

I've used dragons sparingly over the years, usually playing up their intelligence and ability to survive. One of my favorites involved the PCs exploring a ruined underground temple complex that they thought had a secret entrance into a dragon's lair. What they didn't know, was that the dragon knew about the entrance and had, in fact, planted the rumors about it. It (and some allies) set up a variety of obstacles and traps to act as alarms and to wear the party down. The PCs just thought these were part of the ruined dungeon (though there were clues to the contrary) and proceeded.

The final trick was that the dragon cast an illusion over the "secret" entrance to its massive cavern, making it look like the dungeon passage continued. So the party, knowing they were close, were creeping down this illusionary passage, while the dragon basically loomed above them. There was a moment when one of the wizards became suspicious (I think she noticed that the sounds of their footsteps were echoing oddly) and everyone looked had an "oh no!" moment just before the dragon unleashed its breath weapon on them at point blank range.

Multiple characters were taken out in that strike and the rest fought for a bit and realized that they were outmatched. The challenge became figuring out how to escape. Through luck and wits, most of the rest of them managed to get away, and they became utterly fixated upon revenge. They were eventually successful, but it made the dragon into a delicious (and very personal) enemy for the group.

Note that this was part of my old 2e Greyhawk campaign in the '90s, but it's possible that we had switched to GURPS rules at this point. (We made the switch at about this time.)

 

[CleverNickName]

I've never been good as a GM with dragons. My players have always made easy work of them.

I have the same problem...dragons will either board-wipe the party on Round 2, or they are going to fold like a lawn chair. They just aren't durable enough to effectively challenge the party when they're outnumbered 4-to-1, even with lair actions and legendary actions, but if I try to make any kind of adjustment they overwhelm the party.

The answer for my table: adjust the number appearing. Outdoors, on open ground, a single dragon is a formidable foe. But inside dungeons, not so much. l find that dragon lairs work better when they're inhabited by a mated pair of dragons--say, two CR 12 dragons instead of one CR 17.

 

[Reynard]

In lairs, dragons should have minions and traps and other tricks. That isn't cheating, it is just playing smart. But also, dragons should maximize the utility of their movement. No self respecting dragon is going to fight in its lair for long. At worst, they will do loops until their breath recharges so they can hit the party hard.

I get the feeling some folks feel "bad" if dragons play smart. Don't. That's what they are there for. You don't live centuries or millenia without being smart.

PCs should either plan, or run. Do not give them an easy out. Dragons are the pinnacle of BBEG play. Make the PCs work for it, and kill some of them.

 

[lolsworth]

In lairs, dragons should have minions and traps and other tricks. That isn't cheating, it is just playing smart. But also, dragons should maximize the utility of their movement. No self respecting dragon is going to fight in its lair for long. At worst, they will do loops until their breath recharges so they can hit the party hard.

I get the feeling some folks feel "bad" if dragons play smart. Don't. That's what they are there for. You don't live centuries or millenia without being smart.

PCs should either plan, or run. Do not give them an easy out. Dragons are the pinnacle of BBEG play. Make the PCs work for it, and kill some of them.

I think the opposite is true, depending on the personality or type of dragon - that they would fight to the death to defend their lair. Or they're so over confident/arrogant they can't imagine being defeated, so they never consider fleeing from their own lair

 

[cbwjm]

Some of the smart things you can have dragons do, is prepare spells that take into account typical defences those assaulting their lair might have. At the most basic, a red dragon might have cone of cold prepared which ignores the fire defences that adventurers prepared for. Of course that's not going to be as powerful as their breath weapon, so a dispel magic to strip their defences might be better.

I think if found in the lair, having them defend it tooth and nail to the bitter end can be great because you might end up with a situation that might make the players reconsider their actions. Why didn't the dragon flee? It had some eggs or perhaps newborn whelps that it had to defend. More mercenary players will of course just sell them for a boatload of gold, but others might feel bad about killing the parent.

 

[pemerton]

In actual play? Way too swingy. Give them open terrain and some common sense and they can do a serious number on a party, using grapple-and-drop tactics on the squishies and keeping the party separated, then retreating to rest and heal the moment they feel the least bit threatened. Enclose them in tight quarters where they can't get out of anyone's range, on the other hand, and they'll tend to go down like chumps.

An interesting observation. (Backed up by your actual play.)

Thanks for these posts.

 

[Richards]

In my current 3.5 campaign, all dragons have the ability to assume a humanoid form - one specific form that they choose when they come of age, and then are "locked into" that particular form when they change shape. Also in that campaign, gnomes are very scarce, but that's because there aren't really any surface gnomes left - they were all wiped out by a plague centuries ago. Of course, this isn't common knowledge in the game world, so my players had several encounters with dragons before they knew they were doing so.

So, the PCs, when they learned about this plague that had wiped out all surface gnomes, were wondering about the handful of gnomes they'd encountered thus far - a lone gnome here and there, but mostly the Gnomish Consortium, a group of ten gnomes who run an extradimensional Hidden Market where they can match you up with pretty much whatever magic item you're looking for - if the price is right. When the PCs learned all ten members of the Gnomish Consortium were really dragons, everything started to make sense: they were "fetching" the items from allied dragon hoards, as the dragons would much rather bask in more coins and gems than with oddball magic items in their hoards. It also explained why they were willing to find items of a specific type but wouldn't upgrade existing items; theirs was a strict "barter what already exists" situation.

The Gnomish Consortium consists of one dragon of each of the five metallic and five chromatic dragons, and each uses a typically outlandish gnomish name for their alter egos; it's their way of honoring the race to whom they originally taught magic (and who in turn taught the other races). The PCs' main point of contact for the Gnomish Consortium goes by the name "Wangle Turdblossom" when in gnome form.

Johnathan