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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5360404" data-attributes="member: 82106">I wouldn't recommend a Frightful Presence that reduced the PCs chances to hit. Talk about adding grind to an encounter! I mean Stun is one thing, you lose a turn or two, but having a to-hit penalty for the whole encounter is WORSE. It is pretty much like just adding to the monster's defenses. Having a -5 that ends when the character hits? How is he going to hit? With -5 there isn't going to be much hitting going on! A -2 MIGHT work, but remember that debuffs like that tend to be steeper than they seem because the leader's buff/debuff effects usually need to hit as well, so that magnifies the actual disadvantage. It may not be a big deal if you were hitting on a 10 and now it is a 12, but often with Solos like this the party is already needing a 13 or 14 to hit. Really, Stun is OK if it isn't (save ends) and is attached to an encounter power that is going to get used once or maybe twice at most. It really needs to be a pretty limited area or single target as well.Personally I find that a minor action recharge on bloodied single target Stun until the end of your next turn power works fine. It doesn't get in the way of the monster doing other things, has a reasonably small effect on the battle and doesn't take the player out for too long. Yet it is still a fairly impressive effect and if the DM uses it cleverly it can be interesting. That doesn't map too well to the concept of a fear aura, but it is certainly possible to make a cool power like that.[MENTION=23464]ranger[/MENTION]WicketDraconomicon (both volumes) have quite a lot of material on alternate dragon powers, lair design, horde contents, etc. So 4e actually has exactly what you want, you just have to delve into the more in-depth book on that subject. I really recommend Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons. While the monsters are designed with MM1 numbers a lot of them are quite well designed and there is a bunch of fun subsidiary material like Draconic Ritual Magic, etc. If you want to design some in-depth serious bad guy evil dragons it is a very nice book to pick up. The Metallic one is pretty interesting too, though it focuses more on RP aspects of these types of dragons since they're more likely to be associates of the PCs. I think the Chromatic book is overall the better one if you don't have both.I think this new Red Dragon is good. Overall I didn't think the OLD one was bad though. Outside of the pumped stun-lock orbizard builds it could easily hold its own and dish out the damage. With MM3 numbers attached it is actually perfectly respectable if a little bit 'stock'.Really though, a big dragon is a mega-badguy. I really don't see EVER using a 'book' dragon regardless of how it is designed without making some fairly heavy customizations. The new versions are a bit better chasis, but you're definitely always going to want to add your own custom leather seats.</blockquote>

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