Draco Historial - Dragons in D&D!

[Li Shenron]

However, the part I DON'T want, is spells like shield, and mage armor, and bull strength, and all those stat boosting spells where you have to recalc half their stats, both before the combat, and during the combat, should some PC cast dispel magic or some such negation spell.

I think a lot of people feel the same, but fortunately we already know that 5e is designed with that in mind, many buffs don't exist anymore and concentration rules try to steer towards one buff at a time.

Those are spells that for most monsters aren't very likely. For example, why design a monster that can cast Mage Armor or Bull's Strength, why not just giving it a higher natural armor or strength score?

Eventually this problem exists for NPC spellcasters and for a few monsters that act like spellcasters (dragons, illithids...) but we've seen it's already improved in 5e, between concentration rules and reduced number of spells per level.

 

[Klaus]

I never understood the need for an equal section of good dragons. Do people actually use them in their games? I have to admit, outside of a couple of very minor examples, I've never used, nor have I seen used by any DM I've played with, good dragons.

Dropping good dragons pissed a lot of people off, but, for the life of me, I don't know why.

They are a big part of several settings, either as allies during combat (Dragonlance, where a player could theoretically control a bronze dragon-riding PC) or as adversaries (Eberron's Argonessen dragons may be of any alignment).

 

[Nikosandros]

I never understood the need for an equal section of good dragons. Do people actually use them in their games? I have to admit, outside of a couple of very minor examples, I've never used, nor have I seen used by any DM I've played with, good dragons.

Dropping good dragons pissed a lot of people off, but, for the life of me, I don't know why.

Well, I can naturally only speak for myself, but I have made extensive use of good dragons in my games. For example, in my longest running campaign, several of the PCs worshiped Bahamut and good dragons played a very relevant role in the campaign.

 

[Elf Witch]

Well, I can naturally only speak for myself, but I have made extensive use of good dragons in my games. For example, in my longest running campaign, several of the PCs worshiped Bahamut and good dragons played a very relevant role in the campaign.

My last campaign was all about a war between Bahmut and Tiamat and involved dragons of all alignments. I also played in an evil campaign and we were going around slaughtering good dragons. So I don't think you speak just for yourself.

 

[I'm A Banana]

1) Dragons in 2e and 3e (the latter much moreso) were less "dragons" and more "Huge sorcerers with breath weapons". Specially in 3e, they didn't really *play* as dragons, because doing anything other than cast stuff like stoneskin, cat's grace, mage armor, cone of cold, etc, was akin to wasting a round.

Well, some concepts of dragons are huge sorcerers with breath weapons. I'm less into that, though -- like I said, spell lists and complex buffs aren't something I especially want to make a return (with possible unique exceptions).

2) 3e was the edition that first did away with that problem, by introducing the Xorvintaal dragon template (MM 5), which traded spellcasting for draconic abilities. 4e carried those over as the core dragons (much like 3e first had dragonborn, and the 4e made them core).

Again, ditching the spell list is a good thing. I don't want to track spells/day and rounds of buffs on most monsters, dragons included.

3) Many those non-combat abilities were available in the 4e Draconomicon, in exchange for some of the core ones (blue dragons could get Mirage, for instance).

You say "non-combat," but the distinction isn't as clear for me. When the blue dragon finally confronts the party (if it gets its way), it should be after the party has been lost, starving, and hallucinating with dehydration in the beating desert sun for days. It's abilities make the party arrive at combat already weakened and suffering. In 4e terms, maybe it would make sense to say that there's a whole skill challenge before the fight even begins capable of weakening and draining surges and reducing HP maximums that is vital to the dragon's identity for me -- as important as its lightning breath. 4e's design mentality didn't consider that a key part of the creature's identity. Which is fair enough, but I do, so 4e dragons failed to meet my needs in that regard.

The illusions and water-destroying and trickery of the blue dragon (just to pick one) are key to HOW it fights the party in the first place to me.

Other dragons aren't very different. A white dragon's ability to call up blizzards and gales, for instance, helps it fight the party by providing concealment and disabling ranged attacks and causing the party to be numb and half-dead from hypothermia, always precariously balanced on the edge of the glacier, before the dragon even makes an appearance.

These are elements I'd be delighted to have 5e bring to the fore -- dragons as holistic challenges. 4e's efforts, like the combat illusion "Mirage" or the combat move "Glacial Armor" do not do that idea justice.

4) It was a simple matter to add a class template (DMG) to any monster, to give them more spellcasting or spell-like abilities. Slap a Wizard template and pick one at-will, two encounter and one daily power and you're done.

Still narrowly focused on the fight, and not really addressing the issue of their thematic abilities.

5) I agree that some of those noncombat abilities could be mentioned easily enough, saving the DM the trouble of making them up (and letting new DMs know of these traditional abilities): "Adult blue dragons innately know a ritual that allows them to foul all sources of water within 1 mile of their location. This ritual has no gp cost and can be used one per week".

Rituals used by monsters in 4e always seemed to be square pegs in round holes -- if you're going to use different rules for characters and monsters anyway, why do they need rituals? Why can't they just do it?

But more importantly, what happens when they do it? The 2e/3e magical abilities were flavorful, but they weren't always the most straightforward bunch of abilities. In 4e, it might be treated as a whole Skill Challenge or two to get through these magical hazards and to the dragon itself. In 5e, it's possible that the lair has something to do with this...

For instance, because it's my poster boy, here's kind of what I'd like to see with the Blue Dragon (or at least a sufficiently "legendary" one)

• The ability to create or destroy water used to control a party's movement and rations in the desert. A party going to slay a blue dragon should risk death by dehydration -- bringing along water will not be enough. If the party finds water, and is dragon-savvy, they should know that they drink only because the dragon allows them to (ie, it's probably a trap). If they're not dragon-savvy, they get trapped.
• The ability to mislead enemies with illusions used to gain surprise and keep a party disoriented. A party going to slay a blue dragon should be at risk of getting lost in the desert forever -- a map will not be enough. The party should not trust what they see and hear because the terrain may be a mirage, and the wild animal sounds they hear might be the dragon just out of sight.
• The ability to obscure the area with dust, sand, and grit from powerful winds. A party going to slay a blue dragon should be at risk of dying in a sandstorm, their lungs filled with the desert. Even if they survive, they should expect to be blinded by lashing sand and dust even when they fight the thing.
• The ability to breathe lightning in a line in a fight.

3e blue dragons support this (Air domain, illusion special abilities). 2e blue dragons support this (special abilities including create/destroy water, sound imitation/ventriloquism/hallucinatory terrain, and dust devil/control winds). Can't say that 4e blue dragons support this (I could make it work, but it's above and beyond what the books imply I should be doing with a blue dragon).

Will I be able to say that 5e blue dragons support this? I sure hope so.

 

[Klaus]

You say "non-combat," but the distinction isn't as clear for me. When the blue dragon finally confronts the party (if it gets its way), it should be after the party has been lost, starving, and hallucinating with dehydration in the beating desert sun for days. It's abilities make the party arrive at combat already weakened and suffering. In 4e terms, maybe it would make sense to say that there's a whole skill challenge before the fight even begins capable of weakening and draining surges and reducing HP maximums that is vital to the dragon's identity for me -- as important as its lightning breath. 4e's design mentality didn't consider that a key part of the creature's identity. Which is fair enough, but I do, so 4e dragons failed to meet my needs in that regard.

Yeah, those abilities would probably fall under the purview of a dragon-specific skill challenge.

Rituals used by monsters in 4e always seemed to be square pegs in round holes -- if you're going to use different rules for characters and monsters anyway, why do they need rituals? Why can't they just do it?

They can! That's what great about the 4e monster design: since you don't have to "show your math", as it were, you can just give a monster/NPC whatever ability you think is needed, without justifying it through feats/spell slots/caster level. That'd be where the "ritual" terminology would come in, as rituals sit outside the class/level-based power structure.

Will I be able to say that 5e blue dragons support this? I sure hope so.

The black dragon preview from a few months back seemed promising. But here's where I'm forced to bow out of the conversation (NDAs and stuff).

 

[pemerton]

Except that they were not to be found outside of the stat blocks either and thus got removed.

4e's approach failed on two basic metrics for me with regards to the dragons.

First, it ditched the identity of the dragons as conveyed by their magical abilities in 2e/3e. As an example, blue dragons in 4e were dire pikachus -- great with a bolt of lightning in a fight. They weren't the clever illusionists who got their victims lost in the desert while obliterating water supplies that the 2e abilities helped them be for me. The latter is much more interesting to me than the former.

Second, it narrowed their focus to the fight. Since combat is only one part of D&D for me, and I still need rules support for the rest of the game, this made them boring and uninteresting to me. I can imagine using a blue dragon that uses mirages and destroys water in play. A blue dragon that just crackles with lightning doesn't inspire me to do anything with it, really. Got no reason to fight it.

4e had very robust mechanics for resolving an attempt by a blue dragon to use illusions to destroy its victims in a desert: namely, the skill challenge. It also has other mechanical systems too, like its trap/hazard mechanics, its terrain mechanics and its p 42 improvisation mechanics.

I don't really understand why these mechanics are unsatisfactory, just because they don't appear in the Monster Manual under the "dragon" heading. Is it an issue of indexing? Or of not realising the scope of these mechanical systems? KM's post here suggests that, for him at least, the answer to the second question is "no":

When the blue dragon finally confronts the party (if it gets its way), it should be after the party has been lost, starving, and hallucinating with dehydration in the beating desert sun for days. It's abilities make the party arrive at combat already weakened and suffering. In 4e terms, maybe it would make sense to say that there's a whole skill challenge before the fight even begins capable of weakening and draining surges and reducing HP maximums that is vital to the dragon's identity for me -- as important as its lightning breath. 4e's design mentality didn't consider that a key part of the creature's identity.

<snip>

A white dragon's ability to call up blizzards and gales, for instance, helps it fight the party by providing concealment and disabling ranged attacks and causing the party to be numb and half-dead from hypothermia, always precariously balanced on the edge of the glacier, before the dragon even makes an appearance.

I don't understand "a key part of the creature's identity". If you know what you want from a blue dragon, and your books have the rules for it (in this case, skill challenges), what more do the designers need to do?

This is especially weird coming from the key who is forever banging on about all design being local. Now you're complaining that the default didn't expressly mention something that you expressly knew how to achieve with the tools they gave you?

If the issue is that you don't like the tools, that's a different thing, but it's not an issue about dragon design.

 

[Derren]

4e had very robust mechanics for resolving an attempt by a blue dragon to use illusions to destroy its victims in a desert: namely, the skill challenge. It also has other mechanical systems too, like its trap/hazard mechanics, its terrain mechanics and its p 42 improvisation mechanics.

I don't really understand why these mechanics are unsatisfactory, just because they don't appear in the Monster Manual under the "dragon" heading. Is it an issue of indexing? Or of not realising the scope of these mechanical systems? KM's post here suggests that, for him at least, the answer to the second question is "no":

Calling skill challenges robust always makes me chuckle considering it did take several years and the removal of most of their mechanic to get them to work at all and they are still worse than a sequence of normal skill checks in combination with common sense.

And page 42 is equally bad as in the end it just tells the DM to use Deus Ex Machina and decide arbitrarily what happens without any regard to balance, flavor and fairness.

 

[I'm A Banana]

4e had very robust mechanics for resolving an attempt by a blue dragon to use illusions to destroy its victims in a desert: namely, the skill challenge.

Setting aside the broader issues with skill challenges for the moment, the central issue here is one of support.

4e supported using the blue dragon in "fight with dire pikachu" mode. It provided stats that you could use to fight the blue dragon like that. Drop it in and let 'er rip.

4e did not support using the blue dragon in "misleading travelers to waste away in the desert" mode. Nowhere in 4e is this mentioned as a thing blue dragons do, a thing they'd want to do, or a thing that the DM is given rules aid (IE, an explicit skill challenge with DC's and results all ready to go) for having her blue dragons do. It's something that in fact, in the story material, is made irrelevant, given that 4e blue dragons live on the coast and frolick in thunderstorms.

This is at issue because while of course any sufficiently time-rich or skilled DM can ignore story material and take any rules system and make it suit their needs, to meet my own needs, the D&D game needs to explicitly support this use of the blue dragon.

It also has other mechanical systems too, like its trap/hazard mechanics, its terrain mechanics and its p 42 improvisation mechanics.

*It* does not have these mechanics. Much like skill challenges, these are broad, general mechanics. There is no way that the blue dragon explicitly uses them for any purpose.

I don't really understand why these mechanics are unsatisfactory, just because they don't appear in the Monster Manual under the "dragon" heading. Is it an issue of indexing? Or of not realising the scope of these mechanical systems? KM's post here suggests that, for him at least, the answer to the second question is "no":

Think of it this way: if 4e didn't have an MM, just the monster generation rules in the DMG, do you imagine that those general, broad rules would be satisfactory to many D&D players?

If the guy who wants to fight blue dragons gets stats and rules to use it quickly to fight in play, why don't the people who want to have it waste away adventurers in a desert get the same thing?

I don't understand "a key part of the creature's identity". If you know what you want from a blue dragon, and your books have the rules for it (in this case, skill challenges), what more do the designers need to do?

The same thing they did when they gave me 4e blue dragon combat stats: the work.

By "a key part of the creature's identity," I mean that this is the impression that I got from the 2e and 3e presentations of the blue dragon, part of what I took away was exceptional and unique about it.

This is especially weird coming from the key who is forever banging on about all design being local. Now you're complaining that the default didn't expressly mention something that you expressly knew how to achieve with the tools they gave you?

I'm saying that since they didn't do the work, they didn't give me what I need to run the thing to my satisfaction, they didn't give me what I want from a blue dragon (or any dragon), I was not a big fan of their presentation of these dragons.

This doesn't really contradict the principles of local design, since I'm pretty openly acknowledging this was localized to the 2e/3e version of the dragon. I'm saying I liked that version. I want to see that version supported. That is the kind of blue dragon I want from my D&D games. "Dire Pikachu" a la 4e is also a version of the dragon, one even with different flavor and a different story. It's legit to want that one, too. Local design would come in handy here, because you could be explicit that these two kinds of dragons are different takes on the blue dragon, rather than promoting one as The Blue Dragon, and the other as Blue Dragon "Alternate."

If the issue is that you don't like the tools, that's a different thing, but it's not an issue about dragon design.

It is, since they didn't do any mechanical dragon design outside of combat, and clearly that ain't enough for me.

 

[pemerton]

the central issue here is one of support.

4e supported using the blue dragon in "fight with dire pikachu" mode. It provided stats that you could use to fight the blue dragon like that. Drop it in and let 'er rip.

4e did not support using the blue dragon in "misleading travelers to waste away in the desert" mode.

<snip>

*It* does not have these mechanics. Much like skill challenges, these are broad, general mechanics. There is no way that the blue dragon explicitly uses them for any purpose.

<snip>

if 4e didn't have an MM, just the monster generation rules in the DMG, do you imagine that those general, broad rules would be satisfactory to many D&D players?

Combat resolution in 4e has 3 mechanical "layers": the general templates (level-appropriate defences, hit points, damage etc); the monster-specific stat blocks; and the design of a particular encounter.

Skill challenges have only 2 mechanical "layers": the general templats (N-before-3, level-appropriate DCs, etc); and the design of a particular encounter.

You can't just drop a dragon into a combat encounter without doing the work to frame it (at a minimum, drawing up some terrain for it to fight in). The MM doesn't give this; WotC wants to sell you adventures, Draconomicons, etc. Sketching out some ideas for a desert-mirage-water-sucking-blue-dragon-toying-with-the-party is the corresponding work for a skill challenge. The MM doesn't give this either, for similar reasons.