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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7486507" data-attributes="member: 4937">To be honest, I've never found the need to include a metallic dragon in my game.&nbsp; As such, I don't care that much what stats metallic dragons have, as I would be surprised if I ever found a use for them.&nbsp; That said, I am striving as much as possible to retain the particular characteristics of 1e AD&amp;D dragons, and that good dragons are slightly more potent than evil ones is one of those characteristics.&nbsp; I'm doing a bit of rewriting and reconciliation here and there, but mostly for reasons of playability.&nbsp; The only real changes per se I'm introducing relate to my feeling that D&amp;D has always written up alignment issues badly and tended to make things overly anthromorphic rather than alien.&nbsp; So there is a bit of departure from the canonical ecology of the dragons owing to my desire to highlight that dragons are evil beyond all but the worst of men, and alien in motivation and behavior.&nbsp; But the stat blocks themselves are derived almost formulaically from the original MM stat blocks.If you don't want metallic to have more HD than chromatics, it is the easiest thing in the world to fix.&nbsp; Simply shift over one column so as to have parity.&nbsp;&nbsp; I will note that with the multi-headed rule and similar variants, the nastiest varieties of chromatics - the multi-headed females - are a good bit worse than the even the most potent metallic.As for the damage from breath weapons, a huge black dragon great wrym does 10d8+10 acid damage (average 55) with its breath weapon every other round.&nbsp; That's plenty for a 10th or 12th level party.&nbsp; Fifty-five is a lot of hit points in 1e AD&amp;D, especially if not everyone is running around with 18 CON.&nbsp; I mean it's not unreasonable to expect a 10th level M-U to only have 25 hit points.&nbsp; Again, if you really need a boss dragon that is scary, you only need to give it multiple heads.&nbsp; The white dragon daughter of Tiamat in the example stat block breathes round one for 50d6+50 damage.&nbsp; Even if you are wearing a 1e ring of warmth and pass every saving throw, you are probably still dying barring some extreme cases like high level bard, high level barbarian, or 18 CON fighter.&nbsp; I do not in fact think I need a bigger upper end of the scale, and even if you are a party of characters where everyone has 18 CON a DM may find a suitable challenge for you amongst these options.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7486507, member: 4937"] To be honest, I've never found the need to include a metallic dragon in my game. As such, I don't care that much what stats metallic dragons have, as I would be surprised if I ever found a use for them. That said, I am striving as much as possible to retain the particular characteristics of 1e AD&D dragons, and that good dragons are slightly more potent than evil ones is one of those characteristics. I'm doing a bit of rewriting and reconciliation here and there, but mostly for reasons of playability. The only real changes per se I'm introducing relate to my feeling that D&D has always written up alignment issues badly and tended to make things overly anthromorphic rather than alien. So there is a bit of departure from the canonical ecology of the dragons owing to my desire to highlight that dragons are evil beyond all but the worst of men, and alien in motivation and behavior. But the stat blocks themselves are derived almost formulaically from the original MM stat blocks. If you don't want metallic to have more HD than chromatics, it is the easiest thing in the world to fix. Simply shift over one column so as to have parity. I will note that with the multi-headed rule and similar variants, the nastiest varieties of chromatics - the multi-headed females - are a good bit worse than the even the most potent metallic. As for the damage from breath weapons, a huge black dragon great wrym does 10d8+10 acid damage (average 55) with its breath weapon every other round. That's plenty for a 10th or 12th level party. Fifty-five is a lot of hit points in 1e AD&D, especially if not everyone is running around with 18 CON. I mean it's not unreasonable to expect a 10th level M-U to only have 25 hit points. Again, if you really need a boss dragon that is scary, you only need to give it multiple heads. The white dragon daughter of Tiamat in the example stat block breathes round one for 50d6+50 damage. Even if you are wearing a 1e ring of warmth and pass every saving throw, you are probably still dying barring some extreme cases like high level bard, high level barbarian, or 18 CON fighter. I do not in fact think I need a bigger upper end of the scale, and even if you are a party of characters where everyone has 18 CON a DM may find a suitable challenge for you amongst these options. [/QUOTE]

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