Dragons in 3e

[pawsplay]

Something I've never quite gotten about dragons in 3e. The developers have stated several times they wanted to make dragons more dragonish and less like very large spellcasters with scales and claws. So why were they built that way in the first place?

In previous editions, many dragons were non-spellcasting. Only golds and reds were nearly always casters. If you throw in a few spell-like abilities, you have all the magic you need. I'm kind of curious why they didn't simply state that gold and red dragons often advanced as spellcasters, particularly sorcerers. If sorcery is so tied to dragon nature, why were only about half the dragons spellcasters in previous editions?

It seems that part of it was a snowballing effect from the decision to suggest that sorcery itself has a draconic origin. But it doesn't follow; even if dragons have sorcery in their blood, they aren't all skilled in spellcasting, and it's hardly a given that sorcery from magical ancestry means your ancestor was specifically a sorcerer. After all, sorcery is hinted as sometimes coming from infernal or celestial ancestry. I don't know if someone was overthinking, or if the spellcasting dragons simply came about because the new sorcerer class made it seem cool.

I'm also curious about SR... I don't remember dragons having antimagic in previous editions. I'm also not sure about DR... for all their toughness, dragon hide is basically natural. In The Hobbit, Bard shoots a chink in the dragon's armor. I'd rather it were simply highly rated. For most characters, it's irrelevant anyway, since by the time you're slaying dragons, you have magic weapons.

They seem like excellent subjects for lots of hit points, impressive saves, and good attack routines, with damage output somewhat high for their CR.

It seems like the designers simply have dragons everything good, rather than assuming people would use appropriate CR dragons in their games. The result is an interesting blend of unnecessary complexity and polymathy with a general mediocrity.

 

[hong]

2E dragons were way more powerful than 1E dragons. 3E dragons just continued that trend. For some reason, a significant chunk of the D&D market likes munchkin dragons.

 

[Whimsical]

Dragons are supposed to be magical creatures. But from a game point of view, Dragons casting magic spells provides a "wildcard" effect. Your players and their characters can know everything there is to defeat a red dragon. But it will have a unique array of spells to keep things a little unpredictable.

Things like SR, DR, and the frightening presence is all about the "you must be this tall to ride this ride" effect. In other words, it makes the dragon immune to 10,000 humans shooting it with arrows, or 1000 elven wizards shooting it to death with magic missiles, while remaining susceptible to high level opponents.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Dragons as spell casters happened at least partly by accident, I think.

The starting point is that having Dragons as powerful and magical creatures is a desirable trope to accommodate. They are ancient, and wise. Throwing in a few spell like abilities is a good start, but in D&D, if you want to emphasize something as being magical, it tends to end up casting spells.

In and of its self, no big deal. But while the intent may have been to give Dragons access to things like Dispel Magic and Scrying, it opens the door to having every other spell of a similar level added to the arsenal. Ancient Black Dragon with Dispel magic is just awesome. Ancient Black Dragon casting Fireball when the chosen iconic power is breathing Acid? Not so much.

The biggest flaw in this that I have noticed is that you tend to end up with dragons being given Armour and Shield spells and kicking the AC up by 8 points. If your always going to do that, than why not just kick up the AC a couple of points? Or that you end up with dragons for whom the optimal actions end up having nothing to do with them being massive creatures with sharp claws and pointy teeth that breath fire.

I like what I have heard of the 4th edition approach to Dragons. Rather than giving them a spell selection, they are given powers that they can use in place of a Breath Weapon attack. This keeps the abilities of a given dragon thematically appropriate.

As for why Dragons get more powerful? It is just power creep written large. A Dragon is meant to be a powerful and bad ass creature. For a game as dependent on fantasy combat as D&D, it hardly makes sense that the creature whose name is part of the game would be a push over.

Whimsical is essentially spot on regarding the SR and DR though. It is a way to make the creature more durable in a general sense without giving it so many HP that it takes 36 man hours of rolling dice to kill it.

END COMMUNICATION