D&D 5E Where are the Real Dragons?

[KarinsDad]

Spellcasting dragons bore me. I like dragons being fierce and strong, but I don't like them being less-diverse spellcasting fiends.

If you tick off Smaug he's not going to cast a spell to find you, teleport into your bedroom and eat you. No, he's going to burn your town down. If you tick off a fiend, he will probably corrupt all your family and friends, destroy your reputation and sanity and then torture your soul for eternity.

This doesn't mean individual dragons can't be spellcasters, of course, if that's part of a specific dragon's personality or a specific type of dragon's powers. Does a red dragon really need to be able to cast Lightning Bolts or Mage Armor or Heal? She's already a huge engine of destruction with six attacks per round, incredibly hard scales and the ability to destroy armies just by breathing hard.

Smaug is cool, but Smaug is not a D&D Dragon.

D&D Dragons are awesome (at least in many of the novels and in some of the campaigns that I have been in) because they often are behind the scenes manipulating stuff.

When they do come out or when adventurers come knocking, not only are they engines of destruction, but PCs have this annoying habit of killing everything. So as reoccurring villains, non-spell casting Dragons tend to bite the dust.

Spell casting Dragons, on the other hand, scry, and magically protect their lairs, and when they are losing a battle, they Dimension Door out of immediate melee and fly away. As the range attackers try to bring them down while escaping, a Shield spell comes up and protects them from a lot of that.

They are not just engines of destruction, they are reoccurring villain engines of destruction. Even when the PCs start out leveling them, they are still there and can still kick butt in a fight.


One of my most memorable games had two dragons attacking the PCs at the same time in 4E about 5 years ago. Normally, this would have been an average encounter because the dragons were not that high level. Instead, one dragon had a cleric template and could do all kinds of buffs and heals. Most of the time in 4E, long fights were grindy. This one was not. The players were pulling out all of the stops (every Daily power, every item power), trying to figure out ways to end it. After about maybe 12 or 15 rounds, the dragons flew away, bloodied but not killed.

To this day, when I talk to some of those players (who live 2000 miles away and we don't game together anymore), they once in a blue moon bring up that dragon fight. In fact, I showed the first post in this thread to my daughter as I was writing it and she said "Yeah. Remember those two dragons...".


Spell casting dragons, IME, tend to be more memorable and exciting than something with natural weapons and a breath weapon. One is versatile, the other is just another tough monster. IMO.


I often come back to the concept of, this is Dungeons and Dragons. I want there to be a lot of cool dungeons and I want there to be a lot of cool dragons.

I'm hoping Tyranny of Dragons will fall right into that wheelhouse. Dungeons, and Dragons.

 

[Evenglare]

You can actually just give them spells if you want to, little known secret is that the DM can do anything they want to. Rules are merely suggestions. happy gaming!

 

[Derren]

You can actually just give them spells if you want to, little known secret is that the DM can do anything they want to. Rules are merely suggestions. happy gaming!

Which is very unfair to the players as now if they want to exploit the limitations dragons have it is not their planning and ingenuity that matters but just the goodwill of the DM who makes up what the dragon can or can't do on a case by case basis.

 

[Evenglare]

Which is very unfair to the players as now if they want to exploit the limitations dragons have it is not their planning and ingenuity that matters but just the goodwill of the DM who makes up what the dragon can or can't do on a case by case basis.

Solution is to make the dragons like you want and not change it. It's the very same as if you were given rules. Unless the players are going and looking the dragons up and metagaming, and if you allow that then let the players into your design process. otherwise I don't see the problem if all red dragons are the same casting the same spells. Either you are given rules or make them up and keep with a consistent ruling nothing should matter! Happy gaming!

 

[KarinsDad]

You can actually just give them spells if you want to, little known secret is that the DM can do anything they want to. Rules are merely suggestions. happy gaming!

If I only had a dollar for every time somebody wrote down this particular piece of non-helpful advice.


And actually, I am not the DM this time around, so I can only make suggestions.

 

[Evenglare]

If I only had a dollar for every time somebody wrote down this particular piece of non-helpful advice.


And actually, I am not the DM this time around, so I can only make suggestions.

I don't quite know the advice you were expecting then.... you obviously know that none of us havethe DMG, you know whats been released in the MM, and you know what is in the PHB. So you ask this question knowing what the answer would be, basically make it up yourself or wait. What's the point of the topic please enlighten me! Thanks!

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

According to Morrus in this thread, innate spellcasting for dragons is presented as an option in the MM if you don't want to use the monsters-with-class-levels rules.

 

[Iosue]

One thing I'm thinking of doing is importing B/X's rules on spellcasting dragons. Each kind of dragon has a percentage for being able to talk, and any dragons that can talk can also cast spells. It goes:

White - 10%
Black - 20%
Green - 30%
Blue - 40%
Red - 50%
Gold - 100%

Which leaves the perfect space for the rest of the metallic dragons:

Brass - 60%
Copper - 70%
Bronze - 80%
Silver - 90%

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't quite know the advice you were expecting then.... you obviously know that none of us havethe DMG, you know whats been released in the MM, and you know what is in the PHB. So you ask this question knowing what the answer would be, basically make it up yourself or wait. What's the point of the topic please enlighten me! Thanks!

I wasn't expecting any advice at all. I was hoping for something like John Q. Mayhem wrote where he gave me some actual information.

I have the PHB, but I do not have the MM and I have not read every single detail written about it. As for the DMG, sure, most of the people here do not have it. But, a few lucky closed playtest people or friends of friends do know some stuff and there are probably little minor pieces of information that can be talked about. Not trying to get anyone to break their NDA, but some non-detailed things are probably fair game.


As for your comment, I even wrote in my first post "I can add it myself, but it's better if WotC gives me an easy tool to use (taking into account XP, CR, etc.)." just to avoid the plethora of "You are the DM, you can change anything" posts that for some bizarre reason, people think are worth posting.

There are probably 10,000 or more "You are the DM, you can change anything" posts on various rpg message boards over the last decade and the 10,000th one is just as trite and meaningless as the first one was.

So, thanks for your original insight, but, not real helpful. Game on!

 

[The Grand User]

I'm fine with dragons being this simple (with the option to add spellcasting as stated), makes 'em easier to strip down in a PC race