How many dragons?

[DND_Reborn]

There's a huge gap between "once or twice per campaign" and "every few game sessions". I'll have a dragon* show up every now and then - maybe not every few sessions but way more often than once or twice per campaign (or I bloody hope so anyway, seeing as I tend to run 10+ year campaigns).

* - including the occasional decent one that isn't out to kill the PCs on sight and might even be talked into helping them out....

Yeah, I felt I couldn't even vote because honestly it is more than once or twice per campaign (which spans months to years of actual game play) to every few sessions. You really needed a category in between IMO since that is where my vote would have gone. Too bad really.

I would have to say maybe once or twice per tier of play is where our group lands.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I voted "literally none" because they are very rare. I think there might have been 1 but I think it used to be in the playtest....

 

[Blue]

My last 3 campaigns ran 5 years, 7 years, and 4.5 years. I *really* need an option between "1-2 a campaign" and "every few sessions".

I'd say once every few months. So about once per 8-12 sessions. Not always as combat encounters. And sometimes there's a rash of them for a particularly dragon-full plot.

 

[Shiroiken]

I think the big issue is how long most campaigns go. Given that most campaigns end around level 10, and most young dragons are TPKs in waiting before level 5 or so, this doesn't give a long time period to use many dragons. I generally try to use a few dragons per campaign, not only because they're iconic but also memorable encounters.

 

[Immortal Sun]

My next campaign I want to do this, now: "All of my PCs are dragons and so are most of the NPCs."

As an interesting note, it's not really that hard and I ran mine straight from the book. Since the "power level" of the game basically starts at 11 and goes up from there it's very self-balancing. Significantly more powerful players encounter significantly more powerful monsters on a significantly more regular basis. Sure I had to custom-design some of the "top tier" dragons, but that's half the fun.

Some other notes: I experimented with the concept in 3.5 with just using the "stats" of the race, but replacing racial HD with class HD (so, a lot less). Dealing with the higher-powered stats isn't a problem in that edition and the lower HD made the characters substantially more manageable.

 

[Maxperson]

I picked once or twice a campaign, but it's more like zero to once a campaign.

 

[Voadam]

Every couple of campaigns for me.

I'm running a 5e conversion of the Carrion Crown Gothic Horror/Lovecraftian Adventure Path and don't expect any real dragons until they potentially hit a linnorm and then a ravener/dracolich in the last one.

My last two Yawning Portal White Plume Mountain games did not include any dragons but my homebrew one before that centered on hunting down one.

I can remember in running Pathfinder previously there was a Tatzylwyrm and a White Dragon in Reign of Winter and a behir which is sort of dragonish in a one shot I ran. None were in my Freeport campaign which was pirate/city/Mythos themed.

 

[Brashnir2]

My current campaign was originally intended to be light on dragons. My original vision had more to do with demons/devils and the lower planes as the ultimate high-level destination. But then we got a Paladin of Bahamut in the party, and then some other real bad stuff happened - so now for the back half of the campaign, there is going to be all of the dragons.

 

[Reynard]

I like using dragons as Big Bads in campaigns, so while there are only one or two encounters with them in a given campaign, they are "present" throughout in the sense that the dragon is a major force in how the world works.

Unfortunately, I am not very good at the tactical use of dragons versus the party so it is pretty common for the Final Battle to be pretty anticlimactic when the mid to high level party wipes the floor with the supposed most powerful monster in the world.

 

[Scott Graves]

Since we are playing Tyranny of Dragons they show up a lot. I even tossed in a spare one for them to fight to bump most of them to 6th level. We are playing Adventure League so I tend to run between 4 and 10 players, most of the time 7. So the experience gets spread a tad thin. I needed to give them an extra dragon between the castle in the swamp and the hunting lodge so they have a chance of succeeding the last bit.