Are demons/devils/dragons too complex?

[Derren]

When I read about all the defenses that you are talking about Derren, all I can think about is, "Gee, when did I sign on to fight a lich?" Uber powerful wizard is the lich, not the dragon. I want the dragon to stand on his own, not simply be a really big lich.

Nothing what I wrote above has any combat application (except maybe using magic for escape). And unless the dragon is very old (wyrm or older) the caster level of the dragon is not near the one of the PCs. When dragons still use magic as main attack form then it is because magic is too powerful in 3Ed (which by now is generally accepted as fact). I never proposed that dragons should fight like wizards. I just said that without magic dragons would be reduced to thugs because they would be unable to do many things they can do now (and are expected from them by a lot of players)

Mind Flayers start with a base 17 Cha. That's for the weakest mind flayer out there. Bumping that through the roof wouldn't be all that difficult. Now, it's not that hard to think of a mind flayer empire.

A +3 certainly is certainly not enough to build an empire with "charmed friends". Also you can't turn Charm into Domination with a high charisma (see text you quoted). The words "Hold still so that I can implant a tadpole into your head which eats your brain" aren't very well recieved even when looked at in the most favorable way.

 

[Klaus]

Traps: Use natural ones. Dragons choose extreme environments to live in for a reason. Add in the fact that they can fly/swim/burrow and you can get a very-difficult-to-storm area.

Minions: Puny minions? The dragon can take the PCs on its own. If you want weaker monsters, you can have wyrmlings or mates, and maybe even humanoids who worship the creature (and the dragon lets them stay precisely to become PC fodder).

No charm spells? Intimidate works wonders when you're the size of a small castle and your target is not. The nearby village sends PCs to their doom with false information because, if they help, the dragon will know and will burn them to the ground.

And Derren: Dragons are not feat inspiring? They have an actual Fear Aura!

Dragons can't Hide/Move Silently? They drop from 200ft. in the air with fiery conflagration if you stand up against them! Even if you use the 3.5 distance rules, that's a -20 to Spot/Listen checks!

 

[Derren]

Traps: Use natural ones. Dragons choose extreme environments to live in for a reason. Add in the fact that they can fly/swim/burrow and you can get a very-difficult-to-storm area.

Natural traps don't exist. You will hardly find any natural caverns which just happen to have a small walkway over lava which crumbles under a certain weight. And once sprung this "trap" is gone forever.
And this will not stop the flying, invisible rogue with energy protection from CdGing the dragon in its sleep. If the dragon just could have casted alarm....
And lets not talk about teleporting adventurers.

So except form some natural hazards (and imo its hard to find electricity and acid based natural hazards the dragon can't protect its lair at all.

Minions: Puny minions? The dragon can take the PCs on its own. If you want weaker monsters, you can have wyrmlings or mates, and maybe even humanoids who worship the creature (and the dragon lets them stay precisely to become PC fodder).

Which doesn't addresses the problem that dragons can't do much without spellcasting. But I think you haven't really understood what my concern is.

No charm spells? Intimidate works wonders when you're the size of a small castle and your target is not. The nearby village sends PCs to their doom with false information because, if they help, the dragon will know and will burn them to the ground.

Of course the dragon will have no clue that some adventurers approach as it has neither the ability the scry on the village nor contact them otherwise except coming there personally which means flying right into the arms of the adventurers.
And heaven (Abyss) forbid that the dragon wants to meddle with the local kingdoms policy. Without agents that is not possible and do you really think that those agents would be effective when they have to travel to the dragons lair each week?

And Derren: Dragons are not feat inspiring? They have an actual Fear Aura!

I never said that. You should really reread what I posted

Dragons can't Hide/Move Silently? They drop from 200ft. in the air with fiery conflagration if you stand up against them! Even if you use the 3.5 distance rules, that's a -20 to Spot/Listen checks!

Which doesn't really help the dragon with getting a specific magic item or travel through the land undetected. No dragon starts as great wyrm who can roam the country at will. Most dragons have to use deception to get anywhere near bigger population centers.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

And the classical D&D dragons are intelligent and spellcasting. They always were (some more and some less) but they were never simply dumb brutes sitting in a natural cave doing nothing.

"Never" is far too strong a word here. Sometimes they were dumb brutes. Often they were not. A dragon played straight from the 1e Monster Manual could go either way.

You have a strong vision of an Iconic D&D Dragon that scales up as a BBEG to Epic levels.

There is nothing really wrong with that, but it is not everyone's vision of a dragon.

 

[Aholibamah]

Did anyone here play or run Red Hand of Doom?

The fact is some of the dragon encounters in that are very challenging, but I noticed something handy that I liked and now use myself when planning adventures: there is always an entry regarding enemy tactics. I think that especially because dragons are likely to be rather individualistic that this can be a fun part of the game. I understand some of the concerns from those who prefer things to be easily taken from the books but dragons should not (in my humble opinion) be used that way, nor should demons.

A demon or dragon encounter should be something extraordinary. The pcs should feel like heroes if they win, like they've encountered their worse nightmare if they fail. So I think that it makes it all the better if you plan ahead, consider what would be challenging and exciting about it.

 

[DeadDM]

Wow, lots of debating on dragons. I think dragons are time consuming to create, but, only about 1/2 an hour to an hour. Currently having a wide range of options for dragons is good, though time consuming. At least I can challenge my players with a BBEG dragon. Yes, combat can be quite slow with all the spellcasting and such (4 hours for 6 rounds). But, the players get challenged.

Concerning demons/devils and the original poster:::

I actually like them. I may be in the minority for this. With 4E coming up in every topic, I hope demons don't lose too much ground to the notion that you'll need 4 different "kinds" of vrock to form a challenge. I'd rather the base example of a vrock work for all purposes.

To a lesser degree, I think dragons are very versatile.

Yes, I love the demons/devils of 3.5. They work well as is. However, players learn how to combat them fairly easy, so there is no room to change them up unless you spend time revamping them.

Overall, I like the way 3.5 allows DMs to overhaul the monsters, even if it takes time. If 4e gives us already overhauled monsters, it may be good, but, will DMs still be able to customize monsters? I like customizing. The players never knew what hit them until the fat lady sang. And even then, she sat on them all the same and pushed their innards outward.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Yes they are. All of those monsters are incapable to do anything else than pure melee. A Balor simply can't do much intrigue (although his teleportation helps) or build a defensive lair etc. He can only appear and attack. Thats all.

Even the Mind Flayers are dumb brutes by the rules because they lack any ability to actually enslave creatures so all this lore about Mind Flayers empires etc. is nice fiction but not possible by the rules. They can only levitate, stun people and eat their brains. And they are a viable encounter on the Astral Plane. But building an empire founded on dominated slaves? No.

Really? The ones in my 3.5 Monster Manual have charm monster at will.

I think that says everything we need to know about the rest of the argument.

 

[Klaus]

Natural traps don't exist. You will hardly find any natural caverns which just happen to have a small walkway over lava which crumbles under a certain weight. And once sprung this "trap" is gone forever.

You will hardly find giant fire-breathing lizards, but we're still discussing lairs for them anyway.

And this will not stop the flying, invisible rogue with energy protection from CdGing the dragon in its sleep. If the dragon just could have casted alarm....
And lets not talk about teleporting adventurers.

The flying, invisible rogue might have to swim through an underground bed of magma, holding his breath, to reach the entry point of a red dragon's cave. And this is just one example.

So except form some natural hazards (and imo its hard to find electricity and acid based natural hazards the dragon can't protect its lair at all.

A black dragon might breathe everyday into his swamp or lake, slowly turning the water acidic for miles around his lair (acidic enough to deal damage). The centuries he spent doing this could have turned several animals in the region into Acidborn creatures (Dungeonscape), which the dragon shepherds to wear down interlopers.

A green dragon's respiration could accumulate into a green acidic mist that permeates the entire forest, weakening would-be slayers days before they come into contact with the dragon.

A blue dragon could lair in a cave filled with 1-foot of water, turned salty from the accumulated sediments. Salt water conducts electricity. The dragon can breathe into the entire cave at once.

Of course the dragon will have no clue that some adventurers approach as it has neither the ability the scry on the village nor contact them otherwise except coming there personally which means flying right into the arms of the adventurers.

Homing pigeons? The villagers ring the church's bell in a specific manner? A black sheep is "casually" left unattended in a remote pasture?

And heaven (Abyss) forbid that the dragon wants to meddle with the local kingdoms policy. Without agents that is not possible and do you really think that those agents would be effective when they have to travel to the dragons lair each week?

And then, if you want a dragon to do this, you give it Sorcerer levels.

I never said that. You should really reread what I posted

Should I?

Without the correct tools you can have an Int as high as you want, you simply can't do much.
Dragons are especially "worse" in that way. They are not humanoid, fear inspiring, can't hide/sneak and their claws are even unable to hold any tools. Magic is the only way for them to do something productive. Without it they can only sit in a cave and wait for adventurers to come or raid villages. And if they have minions they can only hope that the minions don't realize that they are actually running the show and not the dragon.

Emphasis mine.

Which doesn't really help the dragon with getting a specific magic item or travel through the land undetected. No dragon starts as great wyrm who can roam the country at will. Most dragons have to use deception to get anywhere near bigger population centers.

Give the dragon a "necklace of the lesser races" that lets it walk the world in human form. And have him chafe at his necklace constantly, feeling chained by the puny form.

 

[Pants]

Except that to cover all things spellcasting

You don't need to cover all things spellcasting, just a few specific parts.

And inventing SLAs and balancingthe required magical items with the wealth guidlines for the PCs isn't complicated?

I'm advocating giving each dragon a list of possible SLA's that the DM can pick from. Some at will, some once per day. I'm not advocating having the DM riffle through the spells section and pick some willy-nilly.

And you don't stat a dragon that often.

You don't fight pit fiends or balors that often but they can be run as is pretty much right out of the book.

Not everything must be so simple that you can run it out of the book.

Why not?
Lots of people have families, jobs, and other things that don't let them spend all their time fiddling with D&D stuff.

When you don't even want to spend 20 minutes to prepare such an battle then you are better off to play a freeform RPG with no rules at all.

Ouch.

Ohh, how many classical dragons have minions....

How many classical dragons have spellcasting?

None.

Yeah, so I don't why either of us should bring classical dragons into the mix.

And it probably adds a lot of atmosphere when the big dragon has to rely on his minions for everything. You, wizard minion. Scry those adventurers for me. You cleric minion, summon me an elemental...

A wizard minion could easily fill both roles.

That way the minions will be the real encounter, not the dragon.

If I had my way, dragons would be the real encounter. It would be a force of nature, brutally tearing into PC's, not sitting in some alcove, summoning monsters and casting fireball at PC's. That's not very dragon-y.

Yes they are. All of those monsters are incapable to do anything else than pure melee. A Balor simply can't do much intrigue (although his teleportation helps) or build a defensive lair etc. He can only appear and attack. Thats all.

Wow, I can't really say much to the contrary if you think a creature with an Int, Wis, and Cha of 26 is a dumb brute.

Even the Mind Flayers are dumb brutes

Mind Flayers are anything but dumb brutes

by the rules because they lack any ability to actually enslave creatures so all this lore about Mind Flayers empires etc. is nice fiction but not possible by the rules. They can only levitate, stun people and eat their brains. And they are a viable encounter on the Astral Plane. But building an empire founded on dominated slaves? No.

I agree with this. Mind Flayers should have dominate monster, not charm person, but that's besides the point. That still doesn't make them dumb brutes, a term you seem to be using rather broadly.

Dragons can't do this. They live most of the time alone and are unable to handle most traditional tools.

Minions, minions, minions.

Without the correct tools you can have an Int as high as you want, you simply can't do much.

Yes you can... if you're creative.

If you're smart enough to think of something, chances are, an elder dragon has already thought of it

Dragons are especially "worse" in that way. They are not humanoid, fear inspiring,

Actually, they have Frightful Presence, which is a fear effect.

Plus, they're dragons.

Magic is the only way for them to do something productive. Without it they can only sit in a cave and wait for adventurers to come or raid villages. And if they have minions they can only hope that the minions don't realize that they are actually running the show and not the dragon.

You're just not thinking hard enough about it.
Without spellcasting, dragons don't suddenly become sedentary beings waiting for an inevitable coup-de grace

Did anyone here play or run Red Hand of Doom?

The fact is some of the dragon encounters in that are very challenging, but I noticed something handy that I liked and now use myself when planning adventures: there is always an entry regarding enemy tactics. I think that especially because dragons are likely to be rather individualistic that this can be a fun part of the game. I understand some of the concerns from those who prefer things to be easily taken from the books but dragons should not (in my humble opinion) be used that way, nor should demons.

A demon or dragon encounter should be something extraordinary. The pcs should feel like heroes if they win, like they've encountered their worse nightmare if they fail. So I think that it makes it all the better if you plan ahead, consider what would be challenging and exciting about it.

Oh I agree. The difference being that you don't need to stat up a pit fiend beforehand, while you need to do just that with a dragon.

 

[VirgilCaine]

A +3 certainly is certainly not enough to build an empire with "charmed friends". Also you can't turn Charm into Domination with a high charisma (see text you quoted). The words "Hold still so that I can implant a tadpole into your head which eats your brain" aren't very well recieved even when looked at in the most favorable way.

Uh, okay. Mind Flayers can just use their Charmed bodyguards to hold down the slave they want to use to create a new mindflayer. Or they could bring the breeding slave to a private sanctum and have other mind flayers hold the slave down.