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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6293931" data-attributes="member: 2067">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* 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. 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?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. 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." It is, since they didn't do any mechanical dragon design outside of combat, and clearly that ain't enough for me.</blockquote>

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