Obryn
Hero
First off, I like the lair mechanics and flavor - those are pretty great. However.
I think it's kind of silly that a "Legendary" creature needs ***MAGIC!*** to break the action economy and be a telling threat to an entire party. I think this sort of thing is unnecessary; some monsters can be scary and dangerous just because they are ... scary and dangerous.
My next problem is that the dragon, at the end of the day, is still just a big bag of hit points that can deal damage and breathe acid. Ho-hum.
Now, the "fate points" I think can drive an encounter in an interesting direction, where a party needs to throw its small stuff at the dragon before trying to hit it with a big whammy. (Like ... attacking as 5 robot lions for a while before forming Voltron.) That's a pretty good narrative arc, as long as the party isn't packing two or more spellcasters. (I really don't like that they're Daily though. That makes no sense to me, game-wise.) With all that said, it's kind of a band aid on what I think are the two bigger issues... (1) that a party would have enough save-or-suck stuff that a dragon needs to outright ignore all of it, and (2) that saving throws are seriously jacked up because of bounded accuracy.
However, it's nonetheless still a more convincing-looking and interesting solo threat than most anything in 1e, 2e, 3e, or early (MM 1&2) 4e.
-O
I think it's kind of silly that a "Legendary" creature needs ***MAGIC!*** to break the action economy and be a telling threat to an entire party. I think this sort of thing is unnecessary; some monsters can be scary and dangerous just because they are ... scary and dangerous.
My next problem is that the dragon, at the end of the day, is still just a big bag of hit points that can deal damage and breathe acid. Ho-hum.
Now, the "fate points" I think can drive an encounter in an interesting direction, where a party needs to throw its small stuff at the dragon before trying to hit it with a big whammy. (Like ... attacking as 5 robot lions for a while before forming Voltron.) That's a pretty good narrative arc, as long as the party isn't packing two or more spellcasters. (I really don't like that they're Daily though. That makes no sense to me, game-wise.) With all that said, it's kind of a band aid on what I think are the two bigger issues... (1) that a party would have enough save-or-suck stuff that a dragon needs to outright ignore all of it, and (2) that saving throws are seriously jacked up because of bounded accuracy.
However, it's nonetheless still a more convincing-looking and interesting solo threat than most anything in 1e, 2e, 3e, or early (MM 1&2) 4e.
-O