Dragons aren't that strong, are they?

[Plane Sailing]

A 15th level wizard is far more experienced than a 75 year old dragon. Sure, a the dragon has "a lifetime of experience" represented by the dragon's skill points, feats, stats, magical ability, BAB (combat experience) etc. but there is no "experience" stat other than level, and no separate system of judging how experience.

I think that is a rather limited and 'rules bound' way of looking at the situation. Do you assume that the dragon spent 1000 years eating and getting bigger without winning any fights? Because the typical dragon doesn't have any class levels, does it? Was it just food + time that allowed it to get bigger, or did it have to survive all manner of other threats on the way (probably draconic threats for starters!)

 

[Plane Sailing]

Dragons should be the foes that PCs groan about. They are the iconic masters of the world. They are the timeless fear in a PCs heart. When you run one, think, "What would a really smart person do," and then do that.

I have to disagree with you here - I think it is important to look at the dragons *actual* int, plus the predilictions of that particular type, and use that for formulating it's strategy and tactics.

e.g a Young White Dragon is Int 6 and "White dragons prefer sudden assaults, swooping down from aloft or bursting from beneath water, snow, or ice. They loose their breath weapon, then try to knock out a single opponent with a follow-up attack."

A great wyrm white dragon is Int 18 on the other hand.

Then contrast that with a Juvenile Red Dragon with Int 14 or a great wyrm red dragon with Int 26 and "Because red dragons are so confident, they seldom pause to appraise an adversary. On spotting a target, they make a snap decision whether to attack, using one of many strategies worked out ahead of time. A red dragon lands to attack small, weak creatures with its claws and bite rather than obliterating them with its breath weapon, so as not to destroy any treasure they might be carrying." - and then think about how an Int 14 juvenile and an Int 26 great wyrm would interpret that same general principle.

I think it works best if genius dragons are run like geniuses, and plain smart dragons are played smart and dumb dragons are played dumb. Appropriate play.


Cheers

 

[lukelightning]

I think that is a rather limited and 'rules bound' way of looking at the situation. Do you assume that the dragon spent 1000 years eating and getting bigger without winning any fights?

Sheesh, I'm not talking about 1000-year-old dragons. I'm talking about young adult type dragons, you know, 50 years old. Yeah, it might be experienced but it is still not smarter than a typical 15th level wizard who may have much more experience in terms of travel and variety of encounters and situations.

And besides, the rules perfectly support a 1000-year-old dragon's experience without having to resort to new mechanics or metagaming. A dragon like that is in the "ancient" category; an ancient green dragon has a BAB of +32, an Int of 20, a Wisdom of 21, casts spells as a 13th level sorcerer.

This dragon also has a gazillion skill points (to complicated for me to figure out quickly because of the way Int increases don't work retroactively), meaning skill such as spot, listen, spellcraft, sense motive, use magic device and a few knowledge skills at high rank (probably arcana, local, geography and religion). It would be incredibly hard to get the drop on this dragon just from the plain spot/listen and sense rules, and the knowledge and spellcraft skills means that this dragon would know what spellcasters are capable of and how to recognize and counter them (not just "counterspell" counter, but knowing that wizards can teleport, clerics can "righteous mightify" themselves, etc.).

Plus between its knowledge skills, UMD skill, and spellcasting abilities, it will have identified and been able to use any magic item in its hoard (a 50-year-old dragon may not have the ability to identify some of the magic items it has aquired...it only has a few spells so may not have chosen "identify"). I believe any dragon which has substantial usable gear should have an increase in its CR to reflect this, much in the same way an NPC with extraordinary gear should have an increase in CR.

Then there are the feats; this dragon has 11 feats, some of which may be epic, and many of which are beyond the capabilities of most PCs (breath weapon feats, monster feats, etc.).

So the rules have shown that just for being 1000 years old a dragon has lots of experience and power. There is absolutely no need to say "well, a 1000 year old dragon is very experienced so I guess I'll assume it knows everything about the PCs and has a +10 to knowledge skills..." Call that "rules bound" but it is at least a solid basis on the dragon's capabilities without screwing up the game by vastly increasing the dragon's capabilities and resources.

To be clear: I'm not saying that you should ignore the dragon's age and capabilities, but that doesn't mean you should go beyond its stats and make some mechanical rule on how it is better just for being older.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Really, i think your problem isn't with Dragons... it's with some abstract concept of difficulty.

in reguards to all your points reguarding dragon AC's. First off, the dragons are allways big critters, so their size reduces their AC a little. Second off, they allways have tons and tons of hit points, which reduces the necessity for a high AC (Barbarian anyone?)

Thirdly, you cite a dragon's low caster level: I would like to point out that dragons have a higer caster level than half the PC classes they will be facing (especially your fighter, and stealth types) not to mention that at higher levels they can pull off some devestating use-per-day abilities (like "suggestion")

Fourth: The dragon's breath, which can be used an unlimited number of times per day, with only a slight delay between shots. can inflict more damage in a single round than the best fighter's basic melee attacks.