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

[billd91]

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?

Only the designers can answer that question, but my theory is they did it because they wanted to define all dragons as inflicting some kind of "energy" damage and poison wasn't defined as an energy. The closest to chlorine gas would have been acid.
3e design was driven by systems and structures for everything - hence "system mastery". Making all dragons do energy damage, having energy resistance, having their damaging breath weapons countered by resist energy - all systematic. A DM/Player knowing how one worked, generally knew them all.

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

Counterparts to their evil, chromatic cousins. Plus, not every monster in the manual is there for heroes to fight, trick, or evade.

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

I had fun with them. I used them in a 1e game I ran. BTW, it was orange, purple, and yellow.

What is your biggest concern about Dragons?

They may have been made too simple for a flagship monster. I'd like some more resistances and interesting powers like the 3e/PF ones.

 

[Minigiant]

Dragon change at my table


Dragons have the resistances of their scale color and breathe of their eye color
Colors and damage makes more sense (to us)

• acid- Bronze (Metallic Yellow-green)
• bludgeoning (water)- Blue
• cold- White
• fire- Red
• force- Silver
• lightning- Copper
• necrotic- Black
• piercing (wind)- Iron (Darkish Metallic Gray)
• poison- Green
• psychic - Gem
• radiant- Gold
• slashing (sand)- Brown
• thunder- Brass (Metallic Brownish Yellow)

 

[Jer]

What is your biggest concern about Dragons?

How can there be so many types and ages of Dragons without them taking over the world?

How many dragons can a single campaign world reasonably support?

What do the dragons get out of a world with all of these bipeds walking around thinking they control the place?

 

[Stalker0]

I think my biggest issue with dragons is that stat wise they are too similar. A lot of dragons are really just number changes. I think some 3pp monster books do a better job of differentiating the various dragon types.

 

[Cadence]

Counterparts to their evil, chromatic cousins. Plus, not every monster in the manual is there for heroes to fight, trick, or evade.

Is there anything about the myths with Bahamut (with one head) that makes there need to be a correspondence though? Symmetry is nice... but here it just feels lazy to me I guess.

I had fun with them. I used them in a 1e game I ran. BTW, it was orange, purple, and yellow.

Yellow was what I was thinking, but I wasn't sure. I wonder if the Orange, Purple, and Yellow ones wonder why the three famous ones are from the additive light rules, but they're a mixture of paint and light (or are Orange and Purple just glad they aren't Cyan and Magenta?).

Do you remember the breath weapons?

 

[Cadence]

Dragon change at my table


Dragons have the resistances of their scale color and breathe of their eye color
Colors and damage makes more sense (to us)

• acid- Bronze (Metallic Yellow-green)
• bludgeoning (water)- Blue
• cold- White
• fire- Red
• force- Silver
• lightning- Copper
• necrotic- Black
• piercing (wind)- Iron (Darkish Metallic Gray)
• poison- Green
• psychic - Gem
• radiant- Gold
• slashing (sand)- Brown
• thunder- Brass (Metallic Brownish Yellow)

What are the eye colors? Or do they have all the scale/eye combinations out there somewhere?

 

[Cadence]

What do the dragons get out of a world with all of these bipeds walking around thinking they control the place?

It's like a world full of food trucks... but you don't need to peel open the truck to get the tastiness.

 

[Jer]

Is there anything about the myths with Bahamut (with one head) that makes there need to be a correspondence though? Symmetry is nice... but here it just feels lazy to me I guess.

Bahamut isn't a dragon outside of D&D. Bahamut was probably the Biblical Behemoth reimagined into Arabic and then passed into lore that way. In the Arabic IIRC Bahamut is a giant sea monster of some sort. I honestly have no idea how Gygax (or whoever) linked Tiamat and Bahamut together - Tiamat's opponent would more naturally be Marduk if you're going by myths (who also wasn't a dragon).

But of course it needed to be symmetric - it was 1e AD&D - almost everything had some kind of opposite.

 

[Minigiant]

What are the eye colors? Or do they have all the scale/eye combinations out there somewhere?

Back in 4e, we did our grids with Magic cards and fake printed Magic cards

Since many of our table's NPCs were meme characters from books, shows, and movies.... The DM had Seto Kaiba showed up with freaking Blue Eyes White Dragons. Blue Eyes for lightning breath White Scales for cold immunity.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

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?

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm fine with the Green Dragon having poisonous gas as their breath weapon.

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

Whatever you make them I suppose. For me, Metallic Dragons are more divine in nature while Chromatic are more arcane in nature (and/or more devilish in nature in regards to my homebrew world).

Is the Quasar Dragon still greatest of them all?

Astral, Force, and Prismatic dragons are the greatest of them all!

How about the new (old) ones in Fizban?

I am glad they introduced the Gem Dragons for 5e and I like some of the other inclusions like Moonstone Dragons.

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

I thought they were really cool. Though I'm also the one with 12 different types of Chromatic, Metallic, and Gem Dragons, 10 different types of Catastrophic Dragons, as well as Linnorm and other draconic creatures.

What is your biggest concern about Dragons?

I don't have concerns per say, but I wish that dragons were a bit more complex and unique mechanically like in earlier editions. Though I have no problem homebrewing dragons for my games.