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<blockquote data-quote="IceFractal" data-source="post: 4377309" data-attributes="member: 27704">If the design intent was that dragons would use the hovering tactic whenever a battle got serious, then that's fine - just makes dragons more challenging, which should hopefully be accounted for in their XP rating.&nbsp; However, if the intent was that they have the ability but for some reason don't use it - that's bad design (especially in the 4E paradigm).To take it to a logical extreme, imagine if a monster had the following ability:Dark Soul Blast (At-Will, Minor): Enemies within 20 squares take 10d6 damage and are stunned for 3 rounds.But it supposedly didn't use it, because it was vain and didn't think it would be necessary to do so.&nbsp; That might work ... to a point.&nbsp; But then comes the time when the fight is clearly going against the monster, and it'll be dead in 3-4 rounds - is it really vain enough to die rather than use effective tactics?&nbsp; Unless we're talking some kind of vanity demon - no, it isn't.&nbsp; And so either the PCs are going to get stomped, or the monster is run so insanely as to be a Deus ex Machina rescue.An extreme example, but the basic point holds with dragons.&nbsp; With a dragon's high HP total, it may well be obvious that things are going badly for it quite a few rounds before it actually drops, and then it gets rather ridiculous trying to explain away the lack of hover-fighting.&nbsp; And really, why do dragons need Hover anyway?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="IceFractal, post: 4377309, member: 27704"] If the design intent was that dragons would use the hovering tactic whenever a battle got serious, then that's fine - just makes dragons more challenging, which should hopefully be accounted for in their XP rating. However, if the intent was that they have the ability but for some reason don't use it - that's bad design (especially in the 4E paradigm). To take it to a logical extreme, imagine if a monster had the following ability: Dark Soul Blast (At-Will, Minor): Enemies within 20 squares take 10d6 damage and are stunned for 3 rounds. But it supposedly didn't use it, because it was vain and didn't think it would be necessary to do so. That might work ... to a point. But then comes the time when the fight is clearly going against the monster, and it'll be dead in 3-4 rounds - is it really vain enough to die rather than use effective tactics? Unless we're talking some kind of vanity demon - no, it isn't. And so either the PCs are going to get stomped, or the monster is run so insanely as to be a Deus ex Machina rescue. An extreme example, but the basic point holds with dragons. With a dragon's high HP total, it may well be obvious that things are going badly for it quite a few rounds before it actually drops, and then it gets rather ridiculous trying to explain away the lack of hover-fighting. And really, why do dragons need Hover anyway? [/QUOTE]

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