Excerpts: Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons: Draconians

[Obryn]

Just strange that all other shock moments, being attacked by undead you previously know, seeing a abbaration, a group member being killed, etc. don't do psychic damage but this one does even when you made the knowledge check and know whats going on.

Too bad that WotC felt it neccessary to add damage where it doesn't make sense just to add a combat effect.

If you really need to, go ahead and say, "It's magic!"

Seeing horrifying things usually doesn't do anything to people in D&D.

-O

 

[Derren]

If you really need to, go ahead and say, "It's magic!"

Seeing horrifying things usually doesn't do anything to people in D&D.

-O

Except when it is a slain Sivak. Thats more horrible than any far realm creature.

 

[Shroomy]

Which is a magical creature...

 

[Obryn]

Except when it is a slain Sivak. Thats more horrible than any far realm creature.

I really, really don't get what you're trying to say here.

Dragons can scare you enough to paralyze you or make you run away. Balors can't. The reason Dragons do is because it's magic.

-O

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Sivak damage dealing on death fits the 4e philosophies perfectly. I think your like or dislike of it depends more on your feelings towards 4e.

 

[Rechan]

I would like to use Draconians, although I don't like the 'corrupted metallic dragon eggs'. For multiple reasons I just don't fancy that.

What one could do is use them instead of the Dragonspawn.

 

[ferratus]

I still don't see why it is so hard to understand that the sivak's death throes is magically inspired horror which causes mental trauma. Death throes were a magical attack imbued in draconians by their creators. They were always displayed as twisted creatures created by foul magic. So what is wrong with doing an attack against the mind any more than doing acid damage?

Like I also said, it has been a long standing problem that sivak draconians didn't do damage upon their deaths like other draconians did, because it made what should have been the second most powerful draconian less threatening than lesser ones. What does attitudes towards 4e have to do with anything?

 

[Rechan]

I still don't see why it is so hard to understand that the sivak's death throes is magically inspired horror which causes mental trauma is controversial.

I don't think the problem is that it's hard to understand.

I think the problem is that it's Derren.

 

[fireinthedust]

just wading in: folks, let's keep this civil before the mods step in.

Derren: Watch the second Planet of the Apes movie. There are mutants with psychic powers. Heck, watch that Star Trek episode where Captain Pike gets zapped by those mind-control aliens. Psychic damage, right?

Now 4e is different in a lot of ways: Tieflings are a true-breeding race (rather than 2e planar mutts). Aasimar are now Deva. We don't have the same number of repetitive metallic dragons. The Abyss is in the Inner Planes (now the Primordial Chaos).

That said, is it too much of a stretch for one type of draconian to give off psychic energy that harms a slayer? Whether it's fear-based or just causes mind-pain of an unspecific sort, it's just a monster ability.

Also: the body's fear response does damage it, if you don't react properly or deal with the stress. If you live in constant fear you skip from your alarm-phase response to a more long-term "resistance" phase stress response: like being on a yellow alert in star trek tng. It's not at its peak, but if it goes on for too long everyone's body will start ot break down in some way (just about everyone has a "weak link" in their system, like a bad back or stomach, or heart disease).
So, quite literally, your fear (or fight-or-flight response from your sympathetic nervous system) can cause damage to you. It's not glowy pink energy like Xmen, but rather your body will kick into overdrive.

Maybe they give off fear-inducing hormones when they die. Or maybe "it's magic!"

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm kind of curious to see if folks will be using draconians in their games or not since they've been tied so closely with Dragonlance. I know people have used them before in other settings, but does their inclusion in Draconomicon 2 make you more likely to use them?

I think that draconians, and also dragonspawn (the humanoid ones) are a bit redundant with dragonborn. Then again, I've always loved Dragonlance's draconians!

If I were running a Dragonlance game, PC draconians would simply be the dragonborn. Maybe with some sort of heritage feet to represent the different types. Perhaps the NPC draconians could represent the "first generation" which were magically created, and dragonborn could represent the race after they started breeding true.

If I wanted to import draconians into a homebrew game, I'd make then simply special builds of NPC dragonborn. I already do that with humanoid dragonspawn.