D&D 5E How Should Dragons Be Handled In 5e

[Tovec]

Come to think of it, Jormungandr, the world serpent in Norse myth, *is* one of the ultimate evils of the universe. Thor dies of its venom in the battle of Ragnarok. Serpents and dragons, wyrms, are the same thing in Norse mythology.

Yeah, that's why I had to edit it and put that part in there

Also thought of..
Ouroboros - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But my point was just that the european tales mostly take into account only the "wyvern/drake" types (in DnD) of dragon. Not the big long ones and I would LOVE to see dragons opened up this way a bit more.

 

[TheFindus]

Dragons in 7E should be handled with the appropriate care and utmost respect....


....or they will get very angry and try to eat you.

 

[Endur]

Smaug.

Seriously.

I got into D&D because the box set had a cover showing Smaug (a reddish dragon) with a ton of gold facing an armored archer and a wizard.

Dragons should be big, have tough scales, huge fangs, exhale fire and smoke, and have the ability to fly around.

And if they aren't missing one of their scales, they should be nearly impossible to defeat.

Flying, Breathes Fire, high DR and AC and SR.

And the ability to be very persuasive (cast suggestion) should also be there. I'm not sure that the Dragon needs to be a level 20 sorceror. Maybe have 20 ranks in diplomacy to cover what Smaug was doing.

 

[Endur]

But flying, is never emphasized enough. It might be that the flying rules are a pain, or perhaps the metagame keeps monsters at swords length. But whatever the reason is, when a dragon isn't flying, the encounter isn't as good as it could have been.

flying rules (and mounted rules) are a pain.

Flying should be awesome, but the rules don't really make it awesome.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Flight rules are at their best when they are cinematic and theater-of-the-mind style. They don't combine with minis grids and turn radii that well, but they DO combine with "I run to the top of the nearest watchtower and, the next time the dragon strafes low, I hurl myself off at it, sword first" really well.

 

[Derren]

Flight rules are at their best when they are cinematic and theater-of-the-mind style. They don't combine with minis grids and turn radii that well, but they DO combine with "I run to the top of the nearest watchtower and, the next time the dragon strafes low, I hurl myself off at it, sword first" really well.

The "problem" with flight is that it makes melee characters useless unless they also have flight, negating the whole advantage of it, or have a ranged backup weapon. The is fine in "Combat as war" games but in "Combat as sport" games players will complain when their character can't do anything with their class powers, especially when they are so focused like in 4E and likely won't accept that they have to be less effective or prepare the battlefield in some way as that was not "advertised".

But "flight only in cutscenes" is equally bad when you play with a Caw group because its just silly that a dragon will not fly and instead let himself get whacked by melee weapons.

 

[Minigiant]

Out of Combat: The dragon is a big scaly minor spellcaster. They uses their might to bully weaker monsters and scare civilized mortals. A dragon has spells but only for their own comfort. Thier magic is 80% spell to gain more wealth, update their lairs, indulge in pleasures, and provide amusement.

In Combat: Dragons are scaly flying tanks. Spellcasting is rare as they are too selfish to waste too much magic of others. Each dragon has a combat strategy based on color.

Flight: Hopefullly dragons breath weapons are once or twice an encounter to remove the fly and blast. The can soar around and bathe the hero with fire once, then they land to claw them. Only cowardly dragons go back to flight.

Spells: Dragons shouldn't carry a lot of combat spells and should be 1/2 used up by the time the heroes show up. Polymorphing into humans, self buffs, placing alarms, and scrying for MOAR GOLD! every morning is draining.

 

[Buugipopuu]

flying rules (and mounted rules) are a pain.

Flying should be awesome, but the rules don't really make it awesome.

My general philosophy is this: The rules should provide explicit restrictions on what a specific ability (such as flight) can do, even if most people ignore the specifics most of the time because the rules are unwieldy. DMs should run dragon flight on common sense (dragons can't reasonably take flight unless there's lots of room, they can't hover, etc), and be vaguely aware of the full rules by default, until you come up with a corner case where you need a ruling (because a player has asked to do something odd that you're not sure should be possible, or a player suddenly changes the engagement in a way that you didn't expect). That way combat stays quick, but you don't have the big problem of cinematic rules-light combat: Your character's effectiveness in combat is tied to your ability to convince the DM to let you get away with whatever crazy stunts you're doing, while other, less verbally adept players have more plausible feats denied because they didn't word them properly.

 

[Jack99]

Out of Combat: The dragon is a big scaly minor spellcaster. They uses their might to bully weaker monsters and scare civilized mortals. A dragon has spells but only for their own comfort. Thier magic is 80% spell to gain more wealth, update their lairs, indulge in pleasures, and provide amusement.

In Combat: Dragons are scaly flying tanks. Spellcasting is rare as they are too selfish to waste too much magic of others. Each dragon has a combat strategy based on color.

Flight: Hopefullly dragons breath weapons are once or twice an encounter to remove the fly and blast. The can soar around and bathe the hero with fire once, then they land to claw them. Only cowardly dragons go back to flight.

Spells: Dragons shouldn't carry a lot of combat spells and should be 1/2 used up by the time the heroes show up. Polymorphing into humans, self buffs, placing alarms, and scrying for MOAR GOLD! every morning is draining.

I completely agree with this. I don't want my dragons to be full spellcasters, tossing lightning bolts, death spells and similar spells around constantly.

 

[Derren]

Flight: Hopefullly dragons breath weapons are once or twice an encounter to remove the fly and blast. The can soar around and bathe the hero with fire once, then they land to claw them. Only cowardly dragons go back to flight.

Personally I don't like to run "James Bond Villain" monsters, especially when they are supposed to be super smart.