worlds and monsters is in my hands

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Dragon: "MINIONS! Adventurers have intruded my lair. Now go away and hide while I fight the adventurers alone."

If you want a Dragon to have Minions helping him, use a Dragon with a level that makes it possible to add Minions to the encounter. (By finding a level of the Dragon where his XP will still allow to add Minions). The "Boss" designation means that a monster is capable of dealing with multiple foes of the appropriate level, but not that it always has to be used that way.

Dragons are quite capable of dealing with normal people. They just don't do it like normal people.
You can bet if a Dragon flies over a village, lands in the market place and asks for some experts to help him build his lair, few will object. And if he promises them some gold, they will be even happy to do so!

A Dragon sleeping in his lair doesn't need spells to keep him alive, he just needs a sleep light enough, or a craftsmen that build some cunning and deadly alarm traps for him.

 

[Dausuul]

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).

And that is exactly what I don't like.

I would much rather WotC build dragons that can stand on their own without spells. Then, if I want a particular dragon to have spells, I can always give it spellcasting, but if I want a dragon that's a combat brute, I can have that too. I don't have to worry that stripping out the dragon's casting is going to result in a cakewalk for the PCs.

 

[Lackhand]

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).

I saw that too, but then I realized from a strict usability standpoint, that I don't want "Craft Fiery Trap" to occur in the middle of the combat statistics in the Monster Manual. And so on down the line; if it can't be used in combat, I don't want it in the same statblock as the attack bonus, armor class, and number of hit points.
I'm disappointed that I've heard nothing about a parallel stat block, containing the things I would like to see, though.

But, still -- while designing your first dragon encounter, figure out which bits of dungeon are due to the dragon. Give those as abilities to that, and every other, dragon.
Done.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Imo this is not the case. Dragons have some melee attacks and a elemental attack which can be defended aginst rather easily by magic in 3E at least.

Also please answer me how dragons will be able to shape their lairs and place treps (alarm spells) without magic? How to they ward it against extraplanar intrusion? How do they keep an eye on adventurers and other important people in the area? How do they communicate with allies and spies? How do dragons without magic infiltrate human societies?

I have the feeling that WotC will give dragons only combat abilities and will completely ignore every non combat application spells gave them which reduces dragons to pure combat beasts. And this means that dragons can't perform many of the roles they performed in 3E (masterminds) unless you rule 0 that they simply have everything they need without explanation (unlogical) or rely heavily on minions (making the minions the real encounter, not the dragon).

Uh . . . they shape their lairs the same way lair creatures do in the real world, or they do what dragons in fantasy do, take it from someone else. Note also that typical dragons NEVER had the level of magic needed to magically shape a wonderous fantasy lair the way modules and DMs had them doing. Dragons usually took the lair from someone else, they had minions build it or they made it themselves with their own brute strength and intelligence.

As for traps, first of all, real world creatures set traps without any magic at all (spiders being classic). You don't need opposable thumbs to do it. Second of all, nothing says the dragon can't cow kobolds or something near its lair to do it for it. The fact that the dragon isn't listed as a mastermind by default doesn't mean that no dragon is ever a mastermind.

Tzarevitch

 

[Derren]

As for traps, first of all, real world creatures set traps without any magic at all (spiders being classic). You don't need opposable thumbs to do it.

And do you think the trap made b a spider is enough to stop an adventurer? It might be good enough to trap insects,but adventurers with access to magic? I think not.

 

[Steely Dan]

And do you think the trap made b a spider is enough to stop an adventurer?

…Depends on the spider (size, type, size, possible supernatural qualities etc – this is D&D after all).

 

[Dausuul]

And do you think the trap made b a spider is enough to stop an adventurer? It might be good enough to trap insects,but adventurers with access to magic? I think not.

Insects are a spider's natural prey, so it makes a trap that can catch them.
Adventurers are a dragon's natural prey, so it makes traps that can catch them.

Anyway, it seems like you're still locked into the 3E mindset of "casters can do anything." I very much doubt this will be the case in 4E. As long as the dragon has a way to defend itself from a coup de grace while it's sleeping, it really doesn't need much else. Sure, you can teleport into its lair. What was it you were planning on doing next?

 

[ferratus]

Dragons building their own lair is the exception, not the rule, anyway. They generally take over salt mines, natural caves, or dwarven strongholds, if Shimmergloom and Smaug are any indication.

There was that white dragon in Dungeon Magazine who had a lair shaped out of a glacier... but he also had a sorcerer minion to help him with that, along with various monstrous humanoids and half-dragon spawn.

On the other subject of dragons both the non-aligned and new metallic dragons do indeed put them out of step with traditional Dragonlance (plus the FR Wyms of the North article). The drift in alignment could be explained by the death of Takhisis and the "undiefication" of Paladine if a DM was so inclined, but I don't think I'd make it an official part of the setting. (Though it would be the first interesting storyline to come out of that waste). Tiamat in general makes less sense, given that the evil dragons are no longer strictly evil... why not have 10 heads instead of 5?

For the new dragons, put me down as displeased about the adamantine dragon, and do agree lead or mercury would be a better fit. Lead more than mercury, because mercury's personality traits seem to have been taken by Copper in 3e. Lead does its job well as a comparison to "base metal" in medieval alchemy (contrasted to the highest metal gold), and would be good to depict a good dragon that is slow, sluggish and stupid, a good counterpart to the white dragons.

Iron is a fitting substitute for bronze, and can adopt all of the bronze's personality traits. They wouldn't really make sense as sea dragons anymore, but gold dragons live underwater anyway. The good dragons need a good mountain dragon to compete with the reds.

 

[Tzarevitch]

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).

And that is exactly what I don't like.

Which low-level spells are we talking about that can realistically be used to create a serious trap for a creature that would threaten a dragon? Before you seriously suggest Unseen Servant or Mage Hand I suggest you read the spell descriptions carefully.

Tzarevitch

 

[Tzarevitch]

Insects are a spider's natural prey, so it makes a trap that can catch them.
Adventurers are a dragon's natural prey, so it makes traps that can catch them.

Anyway, it seems like you're still locked into the 3E mindset of "casters can do anything." I very much doubt this will be the case in 4E. As long as the dragon has a way to defend itself from a coup de grace while it's sleeping, it really doesn't need much else. Sure, you can teleport into its lair. What was it you were planning on doing next?

Actually a spider's natural prey is anything it can catch and kill. They eat mice, birds, snakes etc. too. Sometimes ones larger than they are.

Tzarevitch