Loss of Innate Spellcasting (or 'How Dragons Build Lairs')

[Derren]

The amount of cohesion that you seem to require would need a very complete write-up, more time that I can give (still I will see what I can put together over the next few days), but is easily done. Although enough examples have been given in both threads that a little imagination could flesh out the rest.
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There are actually only some key issues which are important to me.

- Efficient communication
Having a large spy network requires a good communication and without magic this is not possible as it would be very slow and unreliable. Especially when you consider how fast adventurers can move or other nobles can communicate with their agents through magic having to rely on mundane communication is a big disadvantage.

- Defense
Dragons are always a prime target for adventurers which nearly always employ magic. Without having magic yourself it is very hard or even impossible to defend yourself against them. That doesn't mean the actual combat (the dragon is still quite good at that) but how to prevent the adventurers from intruding your lair.
Another thing is how to keep adventurers or rivaling organizations/nobles from disrupting your spy network or other organization. Disrupting mundane communication is easy and as the dragon can't visit his agents personally it would cripple the entire network.

- Secrecy
Without magic there is no defense against diviniations (even with magic that is quite hard) as soon as the influence of the dragon gets too big some people, maybe rivaling nobles will start to gather informations about the agents of the dragon (or whoever the dragon uses to exert his influence) and from there it is easy to follow the trail (especially when you use mundane communication) back to the dragon.

- Contacts
Face it, most humans will not trust a dragon. Some might do it on a personal level, but on a political scale no one will follow a dragon unless they must do it (at least on large scale politics).
So teh dragon needs minions to represent him. But where does he get this minions? They have to be loyal and must be able to walk freely among humans (or whatever race you want to infiltrate). And as soon as his connection to the dragon gets found out he is useless.

 

[Lackhand]

Why do we care how fast adventurers can cope with dragons? If adventurers are a dime a dozen, then there should be sufficient villain NPCs that some can be perverted to the dragon's ends, thus countering the OMG BROKEN player wizards. If not a dime-a-dozen, then they're rare enough that the dragon takes a few obvious precautions and call it quits; that the players can find and challenge the dragon is fine, as it allows the drake to enter the campaign.

The magic dragons have is wholly unsuitable for defending themselves from players' spells; if they must prevent the specific scry/buff/teleport trifecta (which, I remind you, most other NPCs do not), surely it's better to just grant the entire race immunity to scrying?

Disrupting mundane communication is not as easy as you seem to think that it is. Or rather, it's exactly as easy as Dragons are disempowered by replacing their spellcasting abilities with more thematic, specific powers.

Secrecy: Live in a volcano. Seriously. Or in an area of natural mineral charged from the bowels of the earth, or in a cloud fortress made of storms, or at the spine of the world. These things block scrying. Or just make the damn race immune to scrying since, again, none of their spells really help with this.

Contacts: Aaaah, double standard. Let's just say that people disagree with your assertion that the universal result of human/dragon contact is pitchforks and torches. The whole point of a _mastermind_ is that they manipulate people on whatever scale they like to get the end result: as soon as the dragon has followers on the personal scale, it can spin them into followers on the political scale.

"puppet ruler".

As soon as the connection is found out, depending on context, the agent turns around and says "No, it is not so! It is you who are the slave to the dragon, and nobody trusts you anyway, in-league-with-devils wizard. Yeah, that's right, I went there. You think nobody noticed you opening gates to hell, trading with the dark infernals for powers beyond our ken? Burn the witch, she got into congress with the help of the devil!"

See, even with proof or magical divination, a plausible bluff check or large swell of public sympathy can do a hell of a lot.

I think that's about all I can say usefully on this subject. Good gaming!

There are actually only some key issues which are important to me.

- Efficient communication

- Defense

- Secrecy

- Contacts

 

[WayneLigon]

Having a large spy network requires a good communication and without magic this is not possible as it would be very slow and unreliable.

Spy networks existed in our non-magic world long before fast, efficient communications was invented. It's slow, but that's not a bad thing because everyone else is just as slow as you are. Reliability, in any network, depends on the people you choose. What distinquishes a great spymaster from a wannabe is his ability to choose loyal underlings, people who will either die for him personally or for the cause they espouse.

Without magic there is no defense against diviniations (even with magic that is quite hard)

With magic, it's quite easy to proof oneself against any sort of scrying. Even mundane people get a chance to notice the scrying 'object'. Divinations are chancy at best since they are always couched in obscure language and it's never more than 90% accurate; usually less so. You never get 'Baron DeMoney is plotting treason against the King'. You get 'The King should fear green (DeMoney, as well as three or four other nobles, favors wearing green)'.

 

[Snowy]

I'm recognising that there seems to be a disconnect between perceptions in this thread. On this basis I'd suggest we start thinking about our assumptions for the opponents of the dragon.

Things that make it a problem.

Access to the dragons lair: Flight, teleport.

Fixes: can't fly for more than 10 minutes, manouverability clumsy.
Teleport: Takes ages, arrive unconcious, sounds like a jet plane, etc etc

Divinations: etc etc

The issue I see is assuming adventurers will still be flying, tac-nukes, with omnipotent power, I'm assuming that there will be other changes.

etc drat will try and continue when not so busy at work.

 

[Steely Dan]

I can't decide if this thread is like the Terminator or the Energiser Bunny…

 

[green slime]

I'm recognising that there seems to be a disconnect between perceptions in this thread. On this basis I'd suggest we start thinking about our assumptions for the opponents of the dragon.

Things that make it a problem.

Access to the dragons lair: Flight, teleport.

Fixes: can't fly for more than 10 minutes, manouverability clumsy.
Teleport: Takes ages, arrive unconcious, sounds like a jet plane, etc etc

Divinations: etc etc

The issue I see is assuming adventurers will still be flying, tac-nukes, with omnipotent power, I'm assuming that there will be other changes.

etc drat will try and continue when not so busy at work.

I agree, and I still can't see the big problem. Somehow, Derren assumes PC's have access to all sorts of magical goodies, that were found strewn by the wayside, waiting for them to be plucked by the near-impervious adventurer-heroes, while the dragon which has lived for more than a millenia, has not managed to gain a single item of any use whatsoever. Not a crystal ball (sold by the heroes IMC), ioun stone, or anything, with which to bribe, beg, or recruit aide. There is nothing, nothing preventing the spies of the dragon having access to near-immediate communication devices of various sources. From the humble message spell, through to bracelet of friends

Imagine the wealth I could accumulate if I could play the stock market for 1000 years.... Towards the end, I'd probably be the stock market....

 

[shilsen]

I guess there are a lot of "wannabe" BBEG where those flaws actually manifested. Not all Dragons become master minds behind a city or kingdom. Some just die an ugly death when some wandering adventurers stumble upon one of their weaknesses.

At 5th level, the heroes stop a Dragon that is working together with a kobold tribe to gain power in a region.
At 10th level, the heroes stop a Dragon that is trying to get a few noble houses working for him.
At 15th level, the heroes find out that a Dragon has manipulating them to kill the first two Dragons so his secret rulership of the region remains unchallenged.
At 20th level, the heroes find a cabal of Dragons for which the previous Dragon was a member, who together manipulated a majority of the continent to fill their hoards.
Eventually, the heroes might have to stop one of the cabals founding members from achieving godhood...

Dude - you've got to stop posting things I agree with so much!

More seriously, that's a very nice way of considering it, and also tying things together in the game.

 

[Derren]

Spy networks existed in our non-magic world long before fast, efficient communications was invented. It's slow, but that's not a bad thing because everyone else is just as slow as you are.

And thats how it is not in D&D. While the dragon still has his runners who have to dodge all the wilderness monsters the other organizations send their important message magically to its destination or at least teleport the messenger (or let him fly).

 

[FourthBear]

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but if dragons need all this magic to be effective mastermind villain, than all mastermind villains need this magic. In which case we should assemble the list of necessary spells for all mastermind villains and create a template to give to all of them.

It has been claimed that villains need to have their non-combat abilities spelled out explicitly for world-building issues. Since Derren has presumably been running mastermind villains before and since all mastermind villains must have these spells (for dragons, sorcerer spells in 3e), he should have an example list of spells that will be necessary. Otherwise, he could never have been running mastermind villains. We could then collate them and create the mastermind template for DMs who think it needed. Or present it to the 4e team to suggest to them what will be needed for all such villains in their monster and NPC design.

 

[CleverNickName]

Awesome. I think this is the best development regarding dragons that I have heard about so far. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely a place in the game for spellcasting dragons...but they should be the exception, not the rule.

It was a nightmare in 3.x, playing a dragon. Until the Draconomicon came along, putting a dragon in an adventure required more paperwork than filing my income taxes...and then to have to assign spells on top of that? No thanks.

Your stock is rising, 4E.