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My guess for the other D&D book this year... Draconomicon!
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<blockquote data-quote="TheAlkaizer" data-source="post: 8304325" data-attributes="member: 7024893"><p>I hadn't planned on doing a deep dive. But sure.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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 <em>bag of HP</em> thing.</p><p></p><p></p><p>For the third time, I love all of this. I can think of a great social encounter before a <em>potential</em> fight. It gives you ideas for the personality of the dragon. Or maybe my players can try and <em>reason</em> 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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In my opinion, they're not that interesting.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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 <em>young</em> and <em>adult</em> 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.</li> </ul><p></p><p>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:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It can bite.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It can claw.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It can hit with its tail.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It has poison breath.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It can frighten everyone around him. If the player succeeds at his DC, he becomes immune to this ability.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>Legendary</em>: It can make a perception check.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>Legendary:</em> It can make a sudden tail attack.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>Legendary:</em> It makes a wing attack that damages everyone around him and possibly knock them prone.</li> </ul><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TheAlkaizer, post: 8304325, member: 7024893"] I hadn't planned on doing a deep dive. But sure. 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. 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 [I]bag of HP[/I] thing. For the third time, I love all of this. I can think of a great social encounter before a [I]potential[/I] fight. It gives you ideas for the personality of the dragon. Or maybe my players can try and [I]reason[/I] 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. 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: [LIST] [*]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. [LIST] [*]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. [/LIST] [*]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 [I]young[/I] and [I]adult[/I] 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. [/LIST] 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: [LIST] [*]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. [*][I]Legendary[/I]: It can make a perception check. [*][I]Legendary:[/I] It can make a sudden tail attack. [*][I]Legendary:[/I] It makes a wing attack that damages everyone around him and possibly knock them prone. [/LIST] 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. [/QUOTE]
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My guess for the other D&D book this year... Draconomicon!
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