worlds and monsters is in my hands

[Charwoman Gene]

That is of course a bit overdramatized but it does capture the problem dragons have when they don't have magic. They are unable to do anything big except looking intimidating and terrorizing small villages. For all other things they need minions which provide the dragon with magical and other powers. And that means that in the end the minions are more dangerous than the dragon.

I want dragons that rogues can creep into their lair and take a cup back to the dwarf king.

 

[Kesh]

more info about the PoL setting? Please?

Seconded. Though I love the info we've been getting, I'd like to hear more about their plans for PoL in the core books.

Wish Amazon would hurry up…

 

[FourthBear]

Dragon: "MINIONS! Adventurers have intruded my lair. Now go away and hide while I fight the adventurers alone."
Minions #1: "But dragon, I have arcane might with outmactches everything those adventurers have. You know that because I always have to cast scry spells for you as you are unable to do so. And Minion #2 who places all the wards around your lair so that you are not completely helpless against your enemies is a devout priest of the dark god. Together with our apprentices and Minion #3 who crafted all traps in your lair we could aid you in the combat.

As noted by others, your arguments here indicate that you consider only spellcasters and those with plentiful spellcasting powers worthy mastermind enemies. I am hoping that the 4e rules will work to reduce this, by allowing far more ways for non-spellcasters to deal with magical foes. If magical wards are always needed at a certain level of play "so that you are not completely helpless", I'd call that a pretty poorly balanced rules set. Non-spellcasters are always helpless in your campaigns after a certain level is reached? In that case, they should just give all enemies past a certain level the power to create such wards.

There are a large number of ways to have dragons have cool and memorable lairs, without having to give them sorcerer levels. In fact, thinking about the dragon write-ups in 3e I have seen, I don't think many of them learned sorcerer spells that would allow them to create and manage huge lairs. How many times did an Old Dragon in 3e have in its write-ups the appropriate spells to create magical wards and traps? I think almost never. They were typically assumed to use scrolls or magical items.

If we look at Smaug from the Hobbit, he moved into a lair created another race entirely. In the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, this is quite common, as dragons tend to move into pre-existing ruins and lair. I can't recall many dragons in fiction that are given the magical power to create massive lairs or magically create traps. Minions are indeed normally used for such. As to why those minions don't show up for the climatic encounter, you'll have to ask that of darn near every adventure and campaign in D&D. It isn't specific to dragons. Pretty much every mastermind in D&D, you could always ask why they don't all work to gang up at once on the poor party with all minions in tow.

 

[Derren]

Because you as DM can say 'this is what the dragon's lair looks like and here's how its shaped'?

Is that the answer you give your players when they want to find out more about the layout of the lair, its traps and magical protections? Some people are contend with this explanation but some are not. They want to know how certain creatures affect the world around them as this is also part of a living world. Simply saying "Because I say so" isn't good enough.

Have you seen a dragon writeup? If so, could you point me as to where I might find it, I would be very interested in reading it. Also, If you happen to have access to any info about rituals that the rest of us don't have, please share the wealth, we are all curious.

Based on the info we have access to, there is nothing that says that dragons won't have access to (some) rituals, or to something else, giving it more possibilities than just claw/bite/tail/wing/breath weapon.

However, should it not be the case, I agree with you, that it would give me some issues as to how they would fit in, and survive, in a realistic and logical manner.

Cheers

I haven't seen it but based on WotC track record and 4E design philosophy (monsters = XP containers to kill. Don't care about story of monsters) and the information from W&M it doesn't look like they will have rituals.

So Lord Dargus, Level 19 Fighter and Leader of the Chaos Hoard in my campaign is not a matermind because he can't cast alarm. My mistake, sorry.

Is your Lord Dargus member of a huge, monsterous race which is unable to interact peacefully with other races and lives solitary lives and very remote places and is also unable to craft things because its "hands" are not dexterous enough?

Big Freaking Claws. I thought they did that now. No wonder I hated 3e dragons before MMV Xorvintaal. More hitpointd than the rogue can dish out in a sneak attack.

"Big Freaking Claws" can't craft traps, place alarms or ward against teleportation.
And ever heard of CdG?

D&D is not a world simulator. If you need it to be keep playing 3e. It's TERRIBLE at that job, but makes the pretense of it.

Who says that it isn't? You? There are many people who play D&D not as "hack Simulator" where the world is in stasis unless the PCs interact with it but instead want a living world where nothing happens "Because the DM says so".

As noted by others, your arguments here indicate that you consider only spellcasters and those with plentiful spellcasting powers worthy mastermind enemies. I am hoping that the 4e rules will work to reduce this, by allowing far more ways for non-spellcasters to deal with magical foes. If magical wards are always needed at a certain level of play "so that you are not completely helpless", I'd call that a pretty poorly balanced rules set. Non-spellcasters are always helpless in your campaigns after a certain level is reached? In that case, they should just give all enemies past a certain level the power to create such wards.

Maybe, but I doubt it. WotC was never concerned much with "Out of Combat" abilities and one of the design goals is/was it to remove such non combat abilities to make monsters easier to play.

Also not every manstermind needs to be a wizard (but it helps). Dragons are "extra handicapped" because they can't interact with most other folk because of their size,body form and reputation, are not member of a society which works together and their claws are not dexterous enough to craft things. What other creatures can achieve through work with their own hands and cooperation the dragon has to achieve through magic.

There are a large number of ways to have dragons have cool and memorable lairs, without having to give them sorcerer levels. In fact, thinking about the dragon write-ups in 3e I have seen, I don't think many of them learned sorcerer spells that would allow them to create and manage huge lairs. How many times did an Old Dragon in 3e have in its write-ups the appropriate spells to create magical wards and traps? I think almost never. They were typically assumed to use scrolls or magical items.

And where do this scrolls and items come from? You can't always use the explanation that a caravan they raided contained exactly those scrolls and items.
That old dragon writeups didn't contain such spells is what I mean with WotC bad track record. Most spell lists for dragons made by WotC were extremly bad. (Only combat application and then most direct damage spells with the same element as the breath weapon. Very easy to defend against). Thats why I don't think that WotC will givedragon rituals.

 

[Steely Dan]

Is that
I haven't seen it but based on WotC track record and 4E design philosophy (monsters = XP containers to kill. Don't care about story of monsters)

Judging from the fire archon article this doesn't appear to be the case.

 

[StarFyre]

actually

Any rpg is somewhat of a world/life simulator.

The difference is, the world/life takes place on a different planet than earth and could be in a different style of setting (fantasy, gothic, sci-fi, etc).

THe thing is, you can do anything. You can go anywhere (as long as the DM is good enough at making up stuff on the fly if needed), do anything (eat, sleep, go to the washroom behind a tree, kill, rape, maim, shop, work, go fishing, climb, hunt, you can break objects and make new things if you have the tools, etc). All of these, whether there are strict rules are not, CAN be done in a pnp rpg. That essentially along with 100s of more stuff, makes it like a life simulator. Technically, many groups even track age very strictly and then characters die due to old age in some cases, if the DM doesn't give them adventures with fountains of youth or wishes that can make you younger (yes, a wish technically can IF the DM allows and it's worded properly).

As for the characters, their personality really, at least for hardcore groups, it goes down to acting.

The players truly act like their characters. I've had my friend's sister start crying cause another player, roleplayed his character so well, (a smart allick rogue), being jack sparrow basically but meaner, she couldn't take it....now she is a much better 'actress' so to speak and she isn't angry. She wasn't ready to enter a campaign that is more 'hardcore' in that respect.

4E though, isn't made for players like that (my group), it's made for the "kick down door, kill monster, get treasure, wash hands, repeat" style of play IMHO. Not that it's bad. Many of it's changes I think are spectacular. THe ones that I am not a fan of or players are not a fan of, I will houserule/re-write.

In another thread, talking of how shadowfell is just negative energy plane + plane of shadow BUT taking away what made those planes so difficult to adventure in; as another board member said some months ago....Hasbro knows some planes were hard to write an adventure for, and make a nice 20x20 dungeon room they could sell tiles for, so they wanted those 'more advanced' settings changed.

When my players went to pandemonium, they did research in sigil first (i do lots of custom work/house rules for cosmology, but most planes i like their uniqueness so i keep them as is...even shadowfell, feywild will find a way into my version of the D&D universe). in some 2e supplements it mentions places where such researchinto plnes could be done..so they spent about 2 hrs roleplaying, finding info on stuff (gametime was a couple days). In the end, they had some info before they went there so they weren't totally ill prepared (but there were surprises still).

But again, this style of play isn't what they are catering for....

Hell, we don't even let people draw maps or takes notes UNLESS they have paper/ink on their character sheet UNLESS they can think of a cool way to take notes on their skin or clothes, etc. The # of times people have got lost in dungeons since they forgot to bring paper/ink, etc is priceless, however, and the reason I only DM hardcore styles like this, watching my friends think of some ingenious method around this gap...makes me smile; and that IMHO, expands their problem solving and thought processes around problems, even in some cases, real world issues (general problem solving, analytical skills, etc). I've seen people who couldn't think their way through more complex problems, manage very difficult riddles, and mathematical/art based puzzles and learn from them over time. They got better and learned. THis is priceless.

WIth regards to Cailte -- templates don't make monsters cookie cutters; they make it easier for you to customize anything to what you need.

Granted, DM's have been doing this already; the issue with the 3.5 method which I think 4E does fix, is that 4E goes back to the 2E design model. Creatures had whatever powers the designers thought they should have. 3.5 gave the impression that the system was balanced at every level (it is preetty good IMHO, but at higher levels it has some issues), but to maintain this, you should change creatures accordingly. If you want to give it some unique power, make it like a feat and advance it 3 HD, then give it the feat, then raise it's saves and increase CR accordingly.

4E, is going with the model of this is a creature as we envision it. We don't think we need the possibility of 1000 types of zombies, so here's 3...just change your description for them.

THis is fine and works perfectly as well except in a few cases that DMs will prob just convert a 3.5 version anyways (ie. zombie dragon comes to mind). The problem is the implied difference. The prior cocnept was that, a zombie made from a different body type WAS different. ie. a gnoll zombie is a bit larger than a human zombie, so some aspect of it is a bit different. (ie. maybe does more damage, stronger, slower, whatever). 4E is saying it's easier to keep them all the sme since the differences aren't big enuff to warrant a totally unique creature. That is fine, but THAT makes them more cookie cutter than having a list of a zombie of almost any creature type yourselves, with differences in each of them.

Which model do I like better? Honestly, after all my ranting above, i like teh 4E model EXCEPT For special cases....ogres, giants, dragons, etc. These 'rarer' type of creatures, should be different. A zombie dragon will be different than some humanoid zombie of course. But that I can house rule and write up myself or convert a 3.5E version.

Anyways...rant off

Sanjay

ps: I am very interested in more info on The Far Realm...do they have new artwork, etc for teh Far Realm in Worlds & Monsters? If so, it may be worth me actually buying it....

 

[Stogoe]

I hated the color-coded spellcaster dragons of previous editions, and had planned to remove them entirely in my first 4e game in favor of a homebrewed 'real' dragon. But I'm intrigued by this new direction. Plus brass and bronze dragons kicked out in favor of iron and adamantine? Nice.

I like the Adamantine dragon in theory. But I hope we get a Mithril dragon, too, at some point.

 

[FourthBear]

<Snip>
And where do this scrolls and items come from? You can't always use the explanation that a caravan they raided contained exactly those scrolls and items.
That old dragon writeups didn't contain such spells is what I mean with WotC bad track record. Most spell lists for dragons made by WotC were extremly bad. (Only combat application and then most direct damage spells with the same element as the breath weapon. Very easy to defend against). Thats why I don't think that WotC will givedragon rituals.

As I can recall, *no* edition of D&D has ever given dragons in their write-ups the magical power to create the lairs and the traps therein. Certainly none of the dragons I recall in 1e or 2e had such powers in their write-ups. And in 3e, their spellcasting power typically wasn't adequate to do so until very high or epic levels (and even then, as noted, they typically did not have use their limited spells in write-ups for such). You seem to be arguing that dragons have never been written well in D&D (the TSR era to the present day) because they've never been given certain magic powers.

If over the past 30-someodd-years, dragon write-ups have managed to get by without giving all dragons "Create Level-Appropriate Trap", "Create Adventurer Proof Wards" and "Shape Walls of Lair", I suspect that they don't really need them now in 4e. Further, in 4e the monster and NPC creation philosophy is based far more around particular monsters being written with the particular powers appropriate for the encounter. If a DM wants a dragon with the power to scry out enemies in a magical pool, there's absolutely no need for him to have to declare that *all* dragons have this power. He either grants that power to that particular dragon, if he deems it level appropriate, or he declares the pool itself magical or any number of other explanations. This helps eliminate the ridiculous stat-block and power creep in 3e. If we need a dragon mastermind with the power to create cavernous lairs and to create wards, just give those power to *that* dragon. There's no need to give those powers to all dragons.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't think there's any need for dragons to be casters. Why does a dragon have to have all these wards and traps? As far as defense goes, all it needs are supernaturally keen senses, so that you can't coup de grace it in its sleep. For the rest, keeping in touch with its minions (if it has any) and the like, I would expect a dragon "overlord" to have a lieutenant who handles the day-to-day operations of its domain.

One thing I wonder about the Far Realm is how it fits in with the Abyss. That's always been my problem with the Far Realm; it's a cool concept, but the Far Realm and the Abyss occupy the same conceptual territory as "plane of mind-warping weirdness, hideous abominations, and horrific evil." I don't feel like we need more than one of those, so I'm curious to see what WotC has in mind to distinguish them beyond mere technical details.

 

[Derren]

As I can recall, *no* edition of D&D has ever given dragons in their write-ups the magical power to create the lairs and the traps therein. Certainly none of the dragons I recall in 1e or 2e had such powers in their write-ups. And in 3e, their spellcasting power typically wasn't adequate to do so until very high or epic levels (and even then, as noted, they typically did not have use their limited spells in write-ups for such). You seem to be arguing that dragons have never been written well in D&D (the TSR era to the present day) because they've never been given certain magic powers.

All previous edition dragon had access to spells sooner or later. And those spells can be used for "world interacting" spells. It doesn't have to be gate, simple spells are very often enough. Mage hand can be very useful for a dragon as can other low level spells.
Dragons did not have an explicit "Create Trap" power, but they had spells which can be used for this.

The only dragons who did lack such spells were those statted by WotC because they pay no heed to how creatures interact with their surroundings and instead stat them as pure combat monsters (and even for this goal the spell lists of statted dragons were bad).

If we need a dragon mastermind with the power to create cavernous lairs and to create wards, just give those power to *that* dragon. There's no need to give those powers to all dragons.

And that is exactly what I don't like.