I hadn't planned on doing a deep dive. But sure.
Description
The most cunning and treacherous of true dragons, green dragons use misdirection and trickery to get the upper hand against their enemies. A green dragon is recognized by the crest that begins near its eyes and continues down its spine, reaching full height just behind the skull.
The forest-loving green dragons sometimes compete for territory with black dragons in marshy woods and with white dragons in subarctic taiga. However, a forest controlled by a green dragon is easy to spot. A perpetual fog hangs in the air in a legendary green dragon’s wood, carrying an acrid whiff of the creature’s poison breath. The moss-covered trees grow close together except where winding pathways trace their way like a maze into the heart of the forest. The light that reaches the forest floor carries an emerald green cast, and every sound seems muffled.
At the center of its forest, a green dragon chooses a cave in a sheer cliff or hillside for its lair, preferring an entrance hidden from prying eyes. Some seek out cave mouths concealed behind waterfalls, or partly submerged caverns that can be accessed through lakes or streams. Others conceal the entrances to their lairs with vegetation.
All relevant information. As I said, very useful to know what clues to give your players, what the dragon looks like, the type of places it lives. I'm happy they include this information, but this has no effect on combat.
Regional Effects
The region containing a legendary green dragon’s lair is warped by the dragon’s magic, which creates one or more of the following effects:
- Thickets form labyrinthine passages within 1 mile of the dragon’s lair. The thickets act as 10-foot-high, 10-foot-thick walls that block line of sight. Creatures can move through the thickets, with every 1 foot a creature moves costing it 4 feet of movement. A creature in the thickets must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw once each round it’s in contact with the thickets or take 3 (1d6) piercing damage from thorns.
Each 10-foot-cube of thickets has AC 5, 30 hit points, resistance to bludgeoning and piercing damage, vulnerability to fire damage, and immunity to psychic and thunder damage.
- Within 1 mile of its lair, the dragon leaves no physical evidence of its passage unless it wishes to. Tracking it there is impossible except by magical means. In addition, it ignores movement impediments and damage from plants in this area that are neither magical nor creatures, including the thickets described above. The plants remove themselves from the dragon’s path.
- Rodents and birds within 1 mile of the dragon’s lair serve as the dragon’s eyes and ears. Deer and other large game are strangely absent, hinting at the presence of an unnaturally hungry predator.
Once again, great stuff. I love the regional effects. They're great to inspire skill challenges, clues and the environment the players must traverse to get to the dragon. But these don't make my encounter more interesting. I guess I could sprinkle some thicket from the first effect around my encounter area? That could have an effect and maybe force some tactical decisions. So very flavorful, but has no effect on the whole
bag of HP thing.
If the dragon dies, the rodents and birds lose their supernatural link to it. The thickets remain, but within 1d10 days, they become mundane plants and normal difficult terrain, losing their thorns.
The most cunning and treacherous of true dragons, green dragons use misdirection and trickery to get the upper hand against their enemies. Nasty tempered and thoroughly evil, they take special pleasure in subverting and corrupting the good-hearted. In the ancient forests they roam, green dragons demonstrate an aggression that is often less about territory than it is about gaining power and wealth with as little effort as possible.
A green dragon is recognized by its curved jawline and the crest that begins near its eyes and continues down its spine, reaching full height just behind the skull. A green dragon has no external ears, but bears leathery spiked plates that run down the sides of its neck.
A wyrmling green dragon’s thin scales are a shade of green so dark as to appear nearly black. As a green dragon ages, its scales grow larger and lighter, turning shades of forest, emerald, and olive green to help it blend in with its wooded surroundings. Its wings have a dappled pattern, darker near the leading edges and lighter toward the trailing edges.
A green dragon’s legs are longer in relation to its body than with any other dragon, enabling it to easily pass over underbrush and forest debris when it walks. With its equally long neck, an older green dragon can peer over the tops of trees without rearing up.
Capricious Hunters. A green dragon hunts by patrolling its forest territory from the air and the ground. It eats any creature it can see, and will consume shrubs and small trees when hungry enough, but its favorite prey is elves.
Green dragons are consummate liars and masters of double talk. They favor intimidation of lesser creatures, but employ more subtle manipulations when dealing with other dragons. A green dragon attacks animals and monsters with no provocation, especially when dealing with potential threats to its territory. When dealing with sentient creatures, a green dragon demonstrates a lust for power that rivals its draconic desire for treasure, and it is always on the lookout for creatures that can help it further its ambitions.
A green dragon stalks its victims as it plans its assault, sometimes shadowing creatures for days. If a target is weak, the dragon enjoys the terror its appearance evokes before it attacks. It never slays all its foes, preferring to use intimidation to establish control over survivors. It then learns what it can about other creatures’ activities near its territory, and about any treasure to be found nearby. Green dragons occasionally release prisoners if they can be ransomed. Otherwise, a creature must prove its value to the dragon daily or die.
Manipulative Schemers. A wily and subtle creature, a green dragon bends other creatures to its will by assessing and playing off their deepest desires. Any creature foolish enough to attempt to subdue a green dragon eventually realizes that the creature is only pretending to serve while it assesses its would-be master.
When manipulating other creatures, green dragons are honey-tongued, smooth, and sophisticated. Among their own kind, they are loud, crass, and rude, especially when dealing with dragons of the same age and status.
Conflict and Corruption. Green dragons sometimes clash with other dragons over territory where forest crosses over into other terrain. A green dragon typically pretends to back down, only to wait and watch — sometimes for decades — for the chance to slay the other dragon, then claim its lair and hoard.
Green dragons accept the servitude of sentient creatures such as goblinoids, ettercaps, ettins, kobolds, orcs, and yuan-ti. They also delight in corrupting and bending elves to their will. A green dragon sometimes wracks its minions’ minds with fear to the point of insanity, with the fog that spreads throughout its forest reflecting those minions’ tortured dreams.
Living Treasures. A green dragon’s favored treasures are the sentient creatures it bends to its will, including significant figures such as popular heroes, well-known sages, and renowned bards. Among material treasures, a green dragon favors emeralds, wood carvings, musical instruments, and sculptures of humanoid subjects
For the third time, I love all of this. I can think of a great social encounter before a
potential fight. It gives you ideas for the personality of the dragon. Or maybe my players can try and
reason with the dragon during the encounter to stop the fight. But overall, as you said it yourself, it's flavor. It has very little effect on the actual combat encounter.
Lair Actions
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the dragon takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the dragon can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:
- Grasping roots and vines erupt in a 20-foot radius centered on a point on the ground that the dragon can see within 120 feet of it. That area becomes difficult terrain, and each creature there must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be restrained by the roots and vines. A creature can be freed if it or another creature takes an action to make a DC 15 Strength check and succeeds. The roots and vines wilt away when the dragon uses this lair action again or when the dragon dies.
- A wall of tangled brush bristling with thorns springs into existence on a solid surface within 120 feet of the dragon. The wall is up to 60 feet long, 10 feet high, and 5 feet thick, and it blocks line of sight. When the wall appears, each creature in its area must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw. A creature that fails the save takes 18 (4d8) piercing damage and is pushed 5 feet out of the wall’s space, appearing on whichever side of the wall it wants. A creature can move through the wall, albeit slowly and painfully. For every 1 foot a creature travels through the wall, it must spend 4 feet of movement. Furthermore, a creature in the wall’s space must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw once each round it’s in contact with the wall, taking 18 (4d8) piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. Each 10-foot section of wall has AC 5, 15 hit points, vulnerability to fire damage, resistance to bludgeoning and piercing damage, and immunity to psychic damage. The wall sinks back into the ground when the dragon uses this lair action again or when the dragon dies.
- Magical fog billows around one creature the dragon can see within 120 feet of it. The creature must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by the dragon until initiative count 20 on the next round.
The lair actions are the only part that's actually actionable content that's ready to use. They're kinda cool. However, I have a few issues with it:
- They're lair actions. These are actions a dragon has access to while in its lair. I could ignore that, and have him sprout roots out of the ground in the village he's attacking, but they're still separated from the stat block and presented as effects available because the dragon is in its lair.
- In my opinion, they're not that interesting.
- The first one creates difficult terrain and forces people to make strength throws or be restrained. It also breaks then the dragon uses another lair action, which it has too, because it cannot use the same one twice in a row.
- It creates a wall that hurts and slows creatures trying to go through it. Same problem, when the dragon uses it, he either keeps it and does not uses the other abilities or the walls disappear.
- There's no much to say. I love charm effects. It's a pretty simple ability that could have easily been in the stat block.
- Finally, these lair actions are independent of the stat blocks. I've never, in any of my years of D&D, fought an ancient dragon. I don't know anyone that did either. The young and adult versions are most likely what the players will deal with. But the DCs, damage dices, hit points and all that jazzed are fixed. I'm not sure how well they scale with different level of players.
Now, all that is on top of what your green dragon can do (the state block). So let's take a look at... let's say an adult one. It has:
- It can bite.
- It can claw.
- It can hit with its tail.
- It has poison breath.
- It can frighten everyone around him. If the player succeeds at his DC, he becomes immune to this ability.
- Legendary: It can make a perception check.
- Legendary: It can make a sudden tail attack.
- Legendary: It makes a wing attack that damages everyone around him and possibly knock them prone.
I won't comment too much on the legendary actions, because I like their concept and what they do. Two of them seems really boring, but they're not meant to be the dragon main actions, but something he does on top of his regular actions.
But out of the actions it can do are three pretty boring melee attacks with slightly different parameters (bite does more damage, claw is a worse bite, and tail has more range). But the only interesting things to me are its poison breath which every dragon has, but with a different damage type, and a different condition. The frighten ability your dragon will most likely use once. And then one legendary ability that's actually interesting. You can certainly build a decent encounter with that.
Now, if you move to a young green dragon, which you're most likely to encounter in a campaign of D&D, you lose the legendary actions and the frighten. It doesn't have a tail attack. So you're left with bite, claw and a poison breath every 3 turns on average. Considering the average duration of a D&D encounter, that's not going to be a very exciting encounter.
So, I don't think dragons make terrible encounters. Not worse than other type of monsters. But I'm always more excited to use them as social encounters, or more excited by the anticipation of fighting one, of moving through the landscape surrounding its lair, dropping clues. And then you have the encounter, and it kind of fizzles out.
And if you go look at a blue dragon of the same age (young, or adult), they literally have the same abilities, except their breath has a different damage type. All the flavor is kind of cool and makes the different dragons pretty distinct. But once I get to the encounter, I could swap a blue dragon for a green dragon mid fight and it probably wouldn't make a different in how the encounter goes.
www.enworld.org
