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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 3986578" data-attributes="member: 704">I think that Derren's primary concern (or at least those he voiced that inspired the creation of this separate thread) seems to be based on one specific problem.  The potential problem is that removing spell casting classes from monsters that are often used as the primary villains in adventures will reduce the durability and usefulness of those monsters in that role.  The secondary concern is "Without general purpose spellcasting, how are 4th edition dragons able to do all of the 'dragon-y' things they normally do outside of combat, such as scry, or trap and create their lairs.For the first aspect of this problem, I am sure that dragons are being combat tested quite thoroughly.  I would not worry much about spells like Protection from Element spells making dragons ineffective.  One of the examples cited in the Monsters and Worlds thread specifically mentioned the more powerful dragons being able to strip away such protections.  On top of that, I suspect that entering melee will be much more viable for these monsters, given the ability to sustain hundreds of points of damage and move PC's about as was demonstrated in the "Party vs Massive Red Dragon" example released a few months ago.In any event, I am sure that the designers are making sure that when a dragon is rated as being a suitable challenge for adventurers of Level X in combat, that the claim can be taken at face value, at least until the game is released and it can be proven wrong in play.  I suspect that the "Scry and Fry" tactics that make high level games difficult for Dm's are being addressed globally, so I do not think that knowing your going up against a Red Dragon is going to be that much easier simply because you know you should have Protection from Fire handy.  I do not think we have been told anything that should have us too worried about the ability of a Dragon to protect its lair / kill intruders.I do think that the question of out of combat capabilities is a reasonable one though, particularly for things like Scrying and Social encounters.  Having some means to track your foes down and seek revenge may not be necessary for Dragons, but it is necessary for Villains.  It would suck if the ability to use a Dragon as a primary villain in an adventure or campaign were removed simply because there was no way to add such capabilities to a monster that was more balanced than slapping PC levels on top of a monster and trying to work out the CR / XP value.  If I want to let my Dragon use some advanced divination, I would like to do so without throwing 13 or so levels of a spell casting class onto it.END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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