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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Derren" data-source="post: 3940557" data-attributes="member: 2518">Quite a lot as I normally don't do direct combat till death but hit and run tactics with healing in between, waiting till the buffs of the party run out, ambushes etc.That is not a lot. Natural attacks, even many of them, is nothing special. A breath Weapon is powerful but every adventure group will protect themselves against it anyway (and knowing WotC any combat SLA will use the same energy so they will also be useless) and the effect of Frightful Presence is too small (just a -2).A high level wizard can kill a dragon, especially one with an elemental vulnerability, which doesn't use magic quite fast. Alternatively the wizard simply uses battlefield control spells to prevent the dragon from doing anything (very easy when there is no counter spellcaster). Also a dragon without spellcasting has a big problem with attrition as  it can't heal itself.So you have the pre combat buffs, you have the combat spells (Dispell Magic, many things from teh Draconomicon like the spell that changes the breath weapon), you have the past combat spells like healing and you have the misc spells which make up the biggest group of spells like scrying, sending, alarm, mage hand, teleport, etc.30 Minutes for a monster which will keep the players occupied for a whole session. Thats not really a bad tradeof.But I simply can't understand this argument. For me D&D isn't all that complex once you understood the rules and statting a dragon or other NPC doesn't take that long. The most time consuming thing is looking through all splatbooks to find things for your NPC/Monster and the easy solution to that is to reduce the number of splatbooks you use.That or catching the dragon with wall spells/forcecage, using archers and greater invisibility (just stay farer than 60 ft away) etc. Without the monsters having magic it is very easy to kill it at higher level without much problem.Look at the Tarrasque. It is a joke because of its limitations even with its awesome defenses. When dragons loose spellcasting they become like the Tarrasque with a few less limitations but also with a lot less potent defenses.Then don't give your dragons direct attack spells.Can you imagine a dragon leading a thief guild? Not without any alter form ability.Humans and PHB races have the advantage that they live in a society where they can move freely. Dragons and many other monsters are solitary and attract too much attention. They can't simply walk through the streets at day. To interact with other races in any other way than combat they need magic to hide their true identity.Except that non of their skills really matter because without shapechanging/illusions they can't use those skills on normal humans as they won't listen. The humans either run or attack. So there is no real way that those devils/demons can interact with most other races in any other way than combat.Your players maybe, there are more players than just your group. And many players also DM or have DMed in the past so they have a reason to look into the books.But without the ability to do much things. This guard dog relies on its minions to affect the otside world except with combat and intimidation.Lair defense -> MinionScrying -> minionBuffing -> MinionHealing -> MinionDiplomacy -> Minionand so on.Some mechanical traps and a few kobolds are no serious lair defense against higer level parties. Scry, wait till the dragon sleeps, teleport, CdG. Without magical counters this tactic is unstoppable.So the solution is to give the monster everything with the explanation that it is "intelligent enough to think of a way to get it". Thats exactly what I don't want. I don't want to have to give monsters arbitrary things just to make them useable except as combat brutes. I want defined abilities what a monster can do in and out of the combat. I can still houerule if I really want Monster x to have thing Y. But when I DM I try to make my adventures within the rules of the game and this doesn't include throwing arbitrary abilities around.So either a lot of wizards are now really wealthy or powerful or they know by now not to trust dragons.And how would the dragon make this offer to the wizard? Fly to his tower and knock on his door?</blockquote>

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