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Let's Read: Volo's Monsters
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<blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 6987267" data-attributes="member: 32659"><p>The <strong>Guard Drake</strong> was first printed in <em>Hoard of the Dragon Queen</em>, where it turns up as part of the general draconic theme of the adventure. It helps with that goal, since actual dragons would have been pretty tough opponents for the first half of the adventure! The version we get here is the same, but we get some more detail, a new picture, and the sidebar giving colour options. </p><p></p><p><img src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/de/f4/51/def4517577e22177b593b3b3def2ddf3.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The art in Volo’s is quite nice. The beasties clearly are modelled on Komodo Dragons, yet have a lot more expression in their faces than their real-world kin. In addition, some good work has been done on the texture of their scales. I like that they showed such a dramatic difference between the two breeds, and it kind of makes me wish that they’d shown the other three colours. There is a picture of a Blue Guard Drake in <em>Hoard</em>, which is not the same as the one pictured here; judging from Google Images they may have chosen to do a Blue again because it looks cooler than the other colours. </p><p></p><p>These fellows are made through rituals (those things again) and require a willing Dragon to succeed. Basically, this is what happens when humanoids and evil Dragons work together. I think that it is a shame they are explicitly only for Evil dragons; it is fun to imagine some of these as servants of a Silver Dragon or something. Anyway, I think that the main benefit they offer a plot is a way to have ‘dragons’ that the players can fight, without actually having them fight a Dragon, who are a monster that really benefits from being used sparingly. It is helped in this regard by the fact that the Guard Drake looks cool as hell, albeit it is a lot smaller than you’d think at Medium size. They are, basically, animals, but smart enough to do guard duty, so they are perfect as the outer encounters in a Dragon’s lair, used - like in <em>Hoard</em> - to give a draconic flavour. You can also have some fun ideas with these - imagine the players finding a small town in the mountains, ruled over by Kobolds riding Guard Drakes; attacking these invokes the anger of the Dragon who claims the town as part of its territory. </p><p></p><p>One interesting wrinkle is the potential for the Drake to hatch in the presence of players, and decide that one of them is its owner. Players like pets, and a powerful, cool-looking, wingless dragon is the sort of thing that might really entertain your players. It’s definitely worth arranging the option in your campaign, and letting the players get one, if you are willing to put up with the added combat complication. It would be a lot of fun, I think, to have a Guard Drake protecting the party airship or whatever.</p><p></p><p>In combat, the Guard Drake is pretty simple. It attacks twice, it moves, lives and dies about as much as you’d expect for a low level creature, and it doesn’t do much of any excitement. It is pretty emblematic of D&D’s ‘simple monster’ school of thought; there is a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?513889-Low-CRs-and-quot-Boring-quot-Monsters-Ogre" target="_blank">thread on Ogres</a> at the moment which touches upon why some people (dis)like that. I didn’t read the thread much, but you might like to. There is, however, a sidebar that adds a couple minor rules to each colour; it gives each a new movement option (climbing, swimming, burrowing) and resistance to a relevant damage type. This is not going to make them much more complex in play, but it will let them appear authentically as descended from the dragon. It is good that they added this, since it goes a long way to making the Drake seem more draconic - its statblock looks a lot like an upscaled Dog, otherwise.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charles Rampant, post: 6987267, member: 32659"] The [B]Guard Drake[/B] was first printed in [I]Hoard of the Dragon Queen[/I], where it turns up as part of the general draconic theme of the adventure. It helps with that goal, since actual dragons would have been pretty tough opponents for the first half of the adventure! The version we get here is the same, but we get some more detail, a new picture, and the sidebar giving colour options. [IMG]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/de/f4/51/def4517577e22177b593b3b3def2ddf3.jpg[/IMG] The art in Volo’s is quite nice. The beasties clearly are modelled on Komodo Dragons, yet have a lot more expression in their faces than their real-world kin. In addition, some good work has been done on the texture of their scales. I like that they showed such a dramatic difference between the two breeds, and it kind of makes me wish that they’d shown the other three colours. There is a picture of a Blue Guard Drake in [I]Hoard[/I], which is not the same as the one pictured here; judging from Google Images they may have chosen to do a Blue again because it looks cooler than the other colours. These fellows are made through rituals (those things again) and require a willing Dragon to succeed. Basically, this is what happens when humanoids and evil Dragons work together. I think that it is a shame they are explicitly only for Evil dragons; it is fun to imagine some of these as servants of a Silver Dragon or something. Anyway, I think that the main benefit they offer a plot is a way to have ‘dragons’ that the players can fight, without actually having them fight a Dragon, who are a monster that really benefits from being used sparingly. It is helped in this regard by the fact that the Guard Drake looks cool as hell, albeit it is a lot smaller than you’d think at Medium size. They are, basically, animals, but smart enough to do guard duty, so they are perfect as the outer encounters in a Dragon’s lair, used - like in [I]Hoard[/I] - to give a draconic flavour. You can also have some fun ideas with these - imagine the players finding a small town in the mountains, ruled over by Kobolds riding Guard Drakes; attacking these invokes the anger of the Dragon who claims the town as part of its territory. One interesting wrinkle is the potential for the Drake to hatch in the presence of players, and decide that one of them is its owner. Players like pets, and a powerful, cool-looking, wingless dragon is the sort of thing that might really entertain your players. It’s definitely worth arranging the option in your campaign, and letting the players get one, if you are willing to put up with the added combat complication. It would be a lot of fun, I think, to have a Guard Drake protecting the party airship or whatever. In combat, the Guard Drake is pretty simple. It attacks twice, it moves, lives and dies about as much as you’d expect for a low level creature, and it doesn’t do much of any excitement. It is pretty emblematic of D&D’s ‘simple monster’ school of thought; there is a [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?513889-Low-CRs-and-quot-Boring-quot-Monsters-Ogre"]thread on Ogres[/URL] at the moment which touches upon why some people (dis)like that. I didn’t read the thread much, but you might like to. There is, however, a sidebar that adds a couple minor rules to each colour; it gives each a new movement option (climbing, swimming, burrowing) and resistance to a relevant damage type. This is not going to make them much more complex in play, but it will let them appear authentically as descended from the dragon. It is good that they added this, since it goes a long way to making the Drake seem more draconic - its statblock looks a lot like an upscaled Dog, otherwise. [/QUOTE]
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