D&D General Dragons and Dragon Breath (Chlorine Breath and Freakin Lasers!)

[Cadence]

Why did Green Dragons change to acid in 3e and then back to poison gas in 4e without the chlorine? Would the universe have exploded if 4e went sonic?

What's the point of metallic dragons? Why aren't silver ones giant mirrors that shoot lasers (as per @Vaalingrade 's brilliant suggestion)?

Is the Quasar Dragon still greatest of them all?

How about the new (old) ones in Fizban?

Were the orange, purple, and !?!? dragons ever worth looking at back in Dragon Magazine (iirc?)?

What is your biggest concern about Dragons?

 

[MarkB]

What is your biggest concern about Dragons?

Too monochrome. I want dragons with elaborate snakeskin-like scale patterns, or magnificent plumage, or squid-like shifting Rorschach patterns. Ditch the Pantone Colour Wheel and shiny wrappers entirely.

 

[J.Quondam]

All metallic dragons should have an option to shoot a cone of glitter.

 

[Cadence]

All metallic dragons should have an option to shoot a cone of glitter.

And have cutie marks?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Wait, what? 3e green dragons had acid breath? How did I never notice this? What did black dragons have then?

As for for chlorine, it is poisonous gas. But I don't feel there is need to specify exactly what sort of chemical the poison is made of, that's not usually done with other poisons either, and 'chlorine' sounds pretty modern and sciencey for a fantasy game. (I know that alchemists used to produce certain types of chlorine in the middle ages, but did they really call it 'chlorine' back then?)

 

[see]

Okay, edited repost from the kobold thread:

The explicit word "chlorine" was dropped in 3rd edition, but arguably, they never stopped having a chlorine gas breath weapon. After all, 3rd edition didn't include "poison" as a damage type, so, of the 3e damage types, what would you label corrosive chlorine gas other than acid?

The unambiguous breath weapon type changes in D&D for the Original Six (the Black, Blue, Golden, Green, Red, and White were the six dragon types in the original booklets) have been confined to the Gold(en) losing its chlorine gas breath weapon in favor of a weakening gas with 3rd edition. For the Next Four (the Brass, Bronze, Copper, and Silver appeared in Supplement I: Greyhawk), the big changes were the Brass switching from a fear cloud to a heat cloud in 2nd edition, and then from a heat cloud to a line of fire in 3rd.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Too monochrome. I want dragons with elaborate snakeskin-like scale patterns, or magnificent plumage, or squid-like shifting Rorschach patterns. Ditch the Pantone Colour Wheel and shiny wrappers entirely.

Have you checked out Strixhaven's Dragons yet? They're fairly recognizable as Dragons, but look very unique compared to D&D's main Dragons.

My favorite is probably Tanazir Quandrix. I love the fractal-style of her wings:

 

[cbwjm]

Chlorine is corrosive though isn't it?

Honestly, I don't think I ever realised the changes despite reading about the various dragons in all of the different editions from the BECMI Rules Cyclopedia and 2e onwards.

 

[Cadence]

Wait, what? 3E green dragons had acid breath? How did I never notice this? What did black dragons have then?

As for for chlorine, it is poisonous gas. But I don't feel there is need to specify exactly what sort of chemical the poison is made of, that's not usually done with other poisons either, and 'chlorine' sounds pretty modern and sciencey for a fantasy game. (I know that alchemists used to produce certain types of chlorine in the middle ages, but did they really call it 'chlorine' back then?)

Chlorine is corrosive though isn't it?

Honestly, I don't think I ever realised the changes despite reading about the various dragons in all of the different editions from the BECMI Rules Cyclopedia and 2e onwards.

Black dragons have a line of acid, green a cone in 3.5 anyway.

I taught my son the original breath weapons, and then he grabbed my PF Bestiary and the Green one was different :-(

 

[Cruentus]

Why did Green Dragons change to acid in 3e and then back to poison gas in 4e without the chlorine? Would the universe have exploded if 4e went sonic?

What's the point of metallic dragons? Why aren't silver ones giant mirrors that shoot lasers (as per @Vaalingrade 's brilliant suggestion)?

Is the Quasar Dragon still greatest of them all?

How about the new (old) ones in Fizban?

Were the orange, purple, and !?!? dragons ever worth looking at back in Dragon Magazine (iirc?)?

What is your biggest concern about Dragons?

My biggest concern is that they have a set taxonomy based on color. Only Red ones do this, only Silver ones do that. For my next game (granted this is 2e Ad&d), I'm making those color based abilities "tales your grandpa told you." You can believe them if you want, but IF you ever meet a dragon out in the wild, good luck if you bet on that Blue one spitting lightning...

The other concern is that most dragons seem too "common". I've seen some 5e write ups of "epic" dragons, mostly named, and find them to be much more my style of dragon. An actual force of nature that wouldn't be easy for anyone to deal with...