Design & Dev: Monsters (DRAGONS!)

[Baron Opal]

However, one suggestion I've seen is that the iterative attacks slow the game down. Cutting down the fighter to a single attack is going to cripple them if you don't somehow increase the damage they can do with that attack.

In SWSE the Rapid Strike feat lets you take -5 to attack to do an extra die of damage. There may be something similar here.

 

[Yair]

Quite a bit about character abilities there.

The dragon seems a little complex to run. Hope it isn't in reality.

Yeah, me too.

I agree that if anything should be complicated it should be dragons. Still, it seems like an awfully complicated creature to run. Both in terms of his numerous special abilities and in terms of remembering things over several rounds/turns (clinging breath or so on).

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I was actually hoping HP would not be in 4e, but I knew it was a fool's hope
AC 49 now... I wonder how PCs would reach such stratospheric heights. Hopefully without magic items, that are apparently "not required to be effective" now...

 

[FireLance]

Were dragons really that weak? I don't think my PCs survived a fight against one in 3E. They only encountered one or two, but they were sent packing.

And the pertinent question here (as well as for all solo dragon-hunters) is: how tough were the dragons relative to the PC(s)? Even in 3e, a party of four should have the resources to defeat a dragon of CR equal to the party's level (a solo PC should be able to defeat a dragon of CR four less than his level). A dragon of party level +2 (character level -2 for a solo PC) would be a toughter, but still beatable encounter.

 

[Victim]

Were dragons really that weak? I don't think my PCs survived a fight against one in 3E. They only encountered one or two, but they were sent packing.

And now they're going to be tougher? I thought the 3E dragons seemed to be the best of the 3 editions.

Banshee

We don't see any spellcasting from the dragon though. Given some of the stuff in the MM V, we might see dragons without lots of formal spellcasting. So the extra combat and breath weapon tricks would be needed to preserve their dangerousness.

 

[frankthedm]

Let me assure everyone that, if the fighter in the example actually did do 500 hit points of damage in one attack, development will ambush him on his way out of design and soundly beat his damage back to a real D&D level.

Sounds like Smite, Power attack, touch attacks, mounted combat and / or spirited charge see some changes then...

 

[jasin]

I'm not nearly as impressed as I expected to be when I saw the thread title. :\

The things I liked are pretty standard: dragons are awesome, they have high AC, heaps o' hit points, and a single one has enough mojo to handle a party, unlike many other monsters.

The things I didn't like:

"It’s the fighter’s turn. He charges the dragon and manages to land a solid blow, dropping the dragon down below half its hit points. Oh—that gives the dragon the opportunity use its breath weapon as an immediate action."

OK, neat, but why is this?

I like intricate mechanics, so I'm not against the concept of conditional actions as such. But I don't like when the world seems like it functions according to the game mechanics, rather than the game mechanics modelling the world. What's the reason that getting hit lets the dragon use the breath weapon, other than the fact that he has "use breath weapon when hit" ability?

For example, the other immediate ability mentioned makes much more sense:

"Now the rogue moves around to flank with the fighter. Ordinarily, that would let the dragon use its tail slap again as an immediate action, but the dragon has used its immediate action already."

Attacks of opportunity gone, replaced by specific abilities that let you take out of turn actions against people who, let us say, provoke you? In any case, unlike the breath weapon thing, it's intuitively clear why circling a giant lizard would let him tail slap "for free".

He blasts the dragon with a ray of freezing cold, but this isn’t 3rd Edition.

Meh. I liked the dragon vulnerabilities. To some extent, it made them more vulnerable to metagaming, but really, would it be unreasonable for the character to assume that a white, ice-dwelling, cold-breathing creature was vulnerable to fire, even if he knew nothing about white dragons? What's the point of different energy types if they all work the same? Different visuals for the computer screen?

The cleric's heal-on-hit ability sounds like one of the Devoted Spirit effects from Bo9S. It's cool, but again, I'd prefer it if it were described in terms of in-game effect, rather than pure mechanics. "The wizard gets a second wind as he sees his ally defy the dragon." or something.

 

[Glyfair]

What's the reason that getting hit lets the dragon use the breath weapon, other than the fact that he has "use breath weapon when hit" ability?

Actually, I suspect it's an "use breath weapon when reduced below half hit points" ability.

 

[jasin]

AC 49 now... I wonder how PCs would reach such stratospheric heights. Hopefully without magic items, that are apparently "not required to be effective" now...

This is not much more than 3E dragons have (and 3E PCs can hit). Considerning the characters in the article might be up to 30th level, I don't think 49 is an outlandish number.

 

[fuindordm]

Sounds good to me.

Another possibility is that the fighter has a high-level maneuver that drops the opponent by a certain percentage of their HP on a critical hit. That would be pretty cool.

The cleric's attack triggering healing sounds a bit hokey. I understand that you don't want them to spend a battle healing, though. As other posters have said, it's all in the flavor text and presentation. The example given makes it seem as if the cleric has to hit the dragon to heal his ally, which sounds like nasty necromancy to me. If the cleric is just using one of their normal healing abilites as a move action, however, then it's OK.

Dragons as spellcasters: I would like them to have knowledge of arcane magic. They obviously don't need it to fight with, unlike humanoid wizards, so it's kind of pointless to say "they cast as an X level sorcerer." It would be appropriate to give them access to the Vancian spells without the per-encounter or per-round spells--this lets dragons teach humanoids ancient lore without over-complicating them in combat.

I like the idea of AoOs replaced by immediate actions. Clearly getting past a creature's reach is still an issue, and I hope the same goes for spear fighters!

Ben

 

[wedgeski]

While the first encounter in RttToEE was a notorious player killer, I don't remember too many TPKs reported. Lots of deaths, but most eventually overcame it (in my game 2 PCs were down, but none died).

The dragon took down 2 of our party... and the rest were finished off by the doppleganger assassin the DM had insinuated into the group six sessions previously. Git.

There's a lot of interesting stuff in there.

- AoO's look like they're gone in favour of an Immediate Action that you can elect to use under specific circumstances.
- I'm thinking the 'drop below half hit points bonus action' is some kind of 'enrage' bonus attack.
- Clerics can now heal by virtue of doing damage! Awesome. That's going to rejuvenate my favourite class to no end. Hopefully it won't just be on criticals.
- Push back from the tail slap. That should make life interesting for melee characters with short reach.
- What's with the Free Action breath weapon and tail slaps?