Derren said:
First people complain that Devils have too many SLAs and then they propose that dragon spellcasting is replaced by dozends of SLAs (Which are needed to give dragons the same amount of utility it has with spellcasting)...
Do you have to stat out a demon every time you use one? No.
Demons come 'pre-built' with billions of SLA's. Dragons, OTOH, have to be specially statted by the DM, which includes giving feats, skills, AND pick spells for. Dragons are already a workload to deal with and one easy way to work this out is, instead of having the DM go through lists of spells and pick them for the dragon, just give it access to a list of abilities that it can use 1/day, 3/day, and at will.
A dragon that can scry at will, greater dispel 3/day and, say, mordenkainen's disjunction 1/day (or something else appropriately high level) has enough tricks up its sleeve that can help counteract or at least, curb the abilities of players. Besides, SLA's, IMO, speak more to the magic in the blood of dragons than sorcery levels.
Also, since a DM could pick from a list, it allows dragons to have different effects that keep the players on their toes (a la spellcasting). I've statted up enough dragons for 3.x that I've just officially gotten sick of picking spells for them.
YMMV of course, but I don't buy that spellcasting is the only thing that makes dragons a threat.
Perhaps.
Dragons without spellcasting are unable to defend themselves against many things adventurers can do. Without spellcasting dragons can't seal their lair against scrying and teleportation, can't prepare their defenses to counteract the PCs plan, can't scry on the party or otherwise detect where they are (alarm spells). They also can't shape their lair into a defensible fortress but have to rely on natural caves instead and are unable to do any form of intrigue because without illusions, polymorph or messaging spells they can't intaract with other creatures without revealing their identity.
And when the adventurers prepared themselves, for example with the appropriate energy protection dragons are hosed as they can neither dispel them or use a different energy to attack them. And when they are loosing they can't flee their lair because they lack teleportation spells so they are trapped.
As you see without spellcasting dragons are much weaker than in 3.X unless you simply say they can do all the above mentioned out of combat things without explanation which is in my opinion extremely lame.
All good points, but, see above.
People always say they want more options but removing spellcasting from dragons takes away a large amount of options and no number of SLAs can fix that.
Players usually want more options, DM's have billions (exaggeration) available to them.
