D&D 5E Making Dragons cool again: New Dragon Traits

[Stalker0]

So in "honor" of the recent dnd movie, I wanted to take a look at dragons. Dragons despite being the boilerplate monster, have long had issues being the pinnacle of combat encoutners. No matter how scary they look on paper, they often just don't bring the challenge and epic fight that player's expect.

Having worked on dragons with others like @dave2008, who has done a lot of work making dragons a lot tougher. However, for this purpose, the goal is:

• To increase the dragon's challenge.
• To make a dragon fight "distinctive". We don't just want the players to fight a bigger challenge, we want a unique challenge
• A simple list of traits that can be added on to existing dragons, rather than recreating them wholesale.

And so I present a list of dragon traits that you can add to an existing challenge to do just that.

Note: I will use the term "bloodied" for this. This is an old 4e term means the target is at half hp or lower.

Draconic Armor: Unless an attack is made with advantage, it automatically misses the dragon.
Draconic Resistance (replaces legendary resistance): When a dragon fails a saving throw, they may take 1 exhaustion instead of suffering the normal effect.
Draconic Stamina: A dragon that uses their breath weapon recovers 1 exhaustion.
Draconic Arrogance: Bloodied opponents have advantage on attack rolls against a dragon, and the dragon has disadvantage on saves against them. This trait is lost if the dragon is bloodied.
Dispelling Breath: The dragon's breath weapon removes all magic effects of X level or lower in the area (similar to dispel magic).


Commentary:

• Draconic armor makes the dragon noticeably tougher, but in a unique and interesting way. Instead of players just go "man I can't hit this thing", its now "ok how do I get advantage". Whether its help actions or stunts like jumping on the dragons back, the players will immediate begin getting creative about how to approach a dragon, because its the only real way to win. This immediately makes a dragon fight much more interesting. This also reflects the old LOTR lore of dragons having nigh impenetrable armor, and you needing to target very specific weak spots to hit them.
• Draconic Resistance: The problem with legendary resistance is:
  • Its extremely boring. It failed its save.....I mean no it didn't you do absolutely nothing!
  • It scales weirdly with the number of casters. If you have 3 casters in your party, legendary resistance is more of a speedbump. If you have 1, it basically means that caster isn't contributing in any legendary fight.
  • This version of draconic resistance ensures that each failed save contributes to the fight, rather than the dragon just completely shrugging it off. However, you can in theory get a lot more uses of it than legendary resistance. This simulates slowly wearing out the dragon, rather than just beating them up and then ending it with one key failed save.
• Draconic Stamina: Ensures the exhaustion from draconic resistance doesn't get toooo high, and gives a dragon more incentive to use their breath weapon even at moments they might not.
• Draconic Arrogance: This provides some mechanics to the flavor of dragons being so arrogant and haughty. Liking to play with their food at bit, it also gives players an interesting choice, stay low health and gain benefits (though risking a big hit by the dragon that takes you out), or heal up and lose the bonus.
• Dispelling Breath: This one provides the dragon a general means of dealing with player shenanigans. No longer is a dragon ensnared by a wall of force, or beaten by a caster with the one right spell. Dragons are the ultimate engine of destruction, and the inferior magic of mortals is no threat to them! This trait ensures that no matter how well a party prepares their spells and buffs, a dragon will still starting burning through them.

 

[pukunui]

Those are some neat ideas.

Other ways to make dragons unique is to give them feats and class features.

For instance, all dragons in my games have the Alert feat.

 

[dave2008]

I always appreciate another look at dragons! I will give individual thoughts below, but personally I am not a fan of most of these. Mechanically they do some interesting things, but I don't like the narrative implications.

Draconic Armor: Unless an attack is made with advantage, it automatically misses the dragon.

This just feels wrong and makes it really difficult to impossible to even hit dragons in some situations and worse, IMO, it primarily punishes martial characters. Personally, I want my heroic dragon slaying story to involve a fighter duking out in melee with the dragon.

Draconic Resistance (replaces legendary resistance): When a dragon fails a saving throw, they may take 1 exhaustion instead of suffering the normal effect.

Fine with the proposed 1D&D exhaustion, to severe with the O5e exhaustion. I personally think the elite recovery mechanic from A5e works well, but I understand the desire to give dragons something unique. Also, what does "suffer the normal effect" mean. Do mean simply the succeed on the save (if so why not say that) or there is no effect at all (i.e. 0 damage not half damage).

Not sure what I would replace it with, but I will think about it.

Draconic Stamina: A dragon that uses their breath weapon recovers 1 exhaustion.

I don't like the narrative on this one. It seems like the only purpose is to counter draconic resistance.

Draconic Arrogance: Bloodied opponents have advantage on attack rolls against a dragon, and the dragon has disadvantage on saves against them. This trait is lost if the dragon is bloodied.

OK, I see how this works with Draconic Armor. However, I don't like it. Again it seems like it exist to fix a problem created by Draconic Armor. I am also not a fan of the dragon being more difficult to hit/damage when it is bloodied. I prefer the opposite, more vulnerable but also more dangerous/deadly.

Dispelling Breath: The dragon's breath weapon removes all magic effects of X level or lower in the area (similar to dispel magic).

I basically fine with this one.

 

[Krachek]

Long neck. Breath weapon is either a cone, a line or a burst around the dragon at dragon choice.

Inner furnace. breath weapon is usable every two rounds.

Infamous Frightful presence is always active.

Cruel First breath weapon of a fight is done using a bonus action

Long tail Multiattack include a tail attack

Vengeful Taking damage automatically recharge breath weapon.

 

[dave2008]

Long neck. Breath weapon is either a cone, a line or a burst around the dragon at dragon choice.

Inner furnace. breath weapon is usable every two rounds.

Infamous Frightful presence is always active.

Cruel First breath weapon of a fight is done using a bonus action

Long tail Multiattack include a tail attack

Vengeful Taking damage automatically recharge breath weapon.

Some fun ideas, but almost all of those change or at least seriously affect the dragons CR. @Stalker0 is, I think, trying to make a balanced suite of traits that make the dragon more interesting without completely throwing out the CR. Of course I could be wrong.

I have other issues with some of these too.

 

[Quickleaf]

Draconic Armor: Unless an attack is made with advantage, it automatically misses the dragon.

What if there was a Damage Threshold incorporated into this too?

Instead of the only way to harm a dragon with Draconic Armor using a sword being hidden, or Helping/flanking, or using a spell/power to gain advantage... what if attacks dealing damage exceeding the dragon's number of Hit Dice also bypass its Draconic Armor?

For example, a young green dragon with 16d10+48 Hit Dice that has Draconic Armor might have a damage threshold of 16.

This lets critical hits and big damage boosts still be useful against a dragon with Draconic Armor, which feels right.

 

[dave2008]

For example, a young green dragon with 16d10+48 Hit Dice that has Draconic Armor might have a damage threshold of 16.

That really punishes martials doesn't? Though that is one of my complaints with trait in general. Personally I don't like the original or your fix.

I guess my thought would if you want it to be difficult to hit / damage - up its armor class. Then maybe give it a vulnerability that can be exploited (a weak spot if you will). So maybe you increase the AC by 5 and then give it a weak spot that is vulnerable to all damage (except psychic) and maybe lower AC but needs to be discovered to be targeted? Then how you find / exploit the weakness could be the puzzle/challenge of the dragon

 

[Quickleaf]

That really punishes martials doesn't? Though that is one of my complaints with trait in general. Personally I don't like the original or your fix.

I guess my thought would if you want it to be difficult to hit / damage - up its armor class. Then maybe give it a vulnerability that can be exploited (a weak spot if you will). So maybe you increase the AC by 5 and then give it a weak spot that is vulnerable to all damage (except psychic) and maybe lower AC but needs to be discovered to be targeted? Then how you find / exploit the weakness could be the puzzle/challenge of the dragon

Yes, personally I agree.

However, I was trying to keep my personal views aside and provide some feedback that accepted the premises @Stalker0 is working with, and trying to advance their design forward on its own merits.

 

[Shiroiken]

To make fighting a dragon unique, you really need to use the rules for climbing onto a bigger creature from the DMG. A real dragon is going to stay in the air, breathing down on the party and occasionally grabbing a PC to drop from a height. Allowing melee PCs to try and climb on top of the dragon, so that it can't simply fly away, allows for some pretty epic fights (especially with the chance the dragon shakes you off, plummeting to the ground).

Draconic Armor: Unless an attack is made with advantage, it automatically misses the dragon.

• Draconic armor makes the dragon noticeably tougher, but in a unique and interesting way. Instead of players just go "man I can't hit this thing", its now "ok how do I get advantage". Whether its help actions or stunts like jumping on the dragons back, the players will immediate begin getting creative about how to approach a dragon, because its the only real way to win. This immediately makes a dragon fight much more interesting. This also reflects the old LOTR lore of dragons having nigh impenetrable armor, and you needing to target very specific weak spots to hit them.

Hell no. This just means the dragon really won't ever be hit, leaving everything to saving throws (i.e. spellcasters). Most DMs don't give out advantage readily to begin with, and this basically tells the DM not to.

Draconic Resistance (replaces legendary resistance): When a dragon fails a saving throw, they may take 1 exhaustion instead of suffering the normal effect.

• Draconic Resistance: The problem with legendary resistance is:
  • Its extremely boring. It failed its save.....I mean no it didn't you do absolutely nothing!
  • It scales weirdly with the number of casters. If you have 3 casters in your party, legendary resistance is more of a speedbump. If you have 1, it basically means that caster isn't contributing in any legendary fight.
  • This version of draconic resistance ensures that each failed save contributes to the fight, rather than the dragon just completely shrugging it off. However, you can in theory get a lot more uses of it than legendary resistance. This simulates slowly wearing out the dragon, rather than just beating them up and then ending it with one key failed save.

This isn't an issue with dragons, this is your issue with Legendary Resistance. If you wanted to rework LR in 1D&D to use this, I think it would be fine. With 5E's exhaustion, you've basically removed the ability completely due to its crippling nature.

Draconic Stamina: A dragon that uses their breath weapon recovers 1 exhaustion.

• Draconic Stamina: Ensures the exhaustion from draconic resistance doesn't get toooo high, and gives a dragon more incentive to use their breath weapon even at moments they might not.

When wouldn't a dragon use their best ability?!? Even if it only affects 1 PC, it's still likely better than a full round of multi-attack, especially since they get to do at least half damage.

Draconic Arrogance: Bloodied opponents have advantage on attack rolls against a dragon, and the dragon has disadvantage on saves against them. This trait is lost if the dragon is bloodied.

• Draconic Arrogance: This provides some mechanics to the flavor of dragons being so arrogant and haughty. Liking to play with their food at bit, it also gives players an interesting choice, stay low health and gain benefits (though risking a big hit by the dragon that takes you out), or heal up and lose the bonus.

I kinda get the concept, where the dragon toys with its food, but it really shouldn't be an always on trait. The saves part is particularly odd, since you can't just choose to take disadvantage or voluntarily fail a saving throw.

Dispelling Breath: The dragon's breath weapon removes all magic effects of X level or lower in the area (similar to dispel magic).

• Dispelling Breath: This one provides the dragon a general means of dealing with player shenanigans. No longer is a dragon ensnared by a wall of force, or beaten by a caster with the one right spell. Dragons are the ultimate engine of destruction, and the inferior magic of mortals is no threat to them! This trait ensures that no matter how well a party prepares their spells and buffs, a dragon will still starting burning through them.

I think that some powerful dragons having this ability is actually rather interesting. Personally I prefer spellcasting dragons, but to each their own.

 

[Stalker0]

This just feels wrong and makes it really difficult to impossible to even hit dragons in some situations and worse, IMO, it primarily punishes martial characters. Personally, I want my heroic dragon slaying story to involve a fighter duking out in melee with the dragon.

This is actually the narrative that I am trying to most actively avoid, because that's what happens right now.....just like every other fight. Melee fighters get in melee, casters start casting, pound down the monster.

The goal is to force something other than that. Now ultimately I don't see how this effects martial fighters any more than casters (afterall casters can't really get off their big spell effects either), the goal is to find ways to generate advantage. Maybe the fighter will literally wrestle the dragon prone and then attack it, or jumps on its back, or the rogue does stealth to get in a hit, the cleric uses the help action to give the paladin an advantage it can use their smite through, etc etc.