Ten Reasons you will love Dragonspawn

[Graf]

Lots of people are kvetching about Tiamat’s spawn. While I admit to not loving them personally I think they’re going to be another-marketing-coup-for-wizards.

So I proudly (?) present 10 reasons you will love Dragonspawn

10. They’re tiered coming in a lot of CRs.
9. Easy to ‘mod’ into other races (tainted lizardmen, ancient monsters from another dimension, etc)
8. They’re humanoids, so its easier for people to anthropomorphize them.
7. They’re featured in an adventure (red hand of doom) that people seem to like.
6. Simple evocative powers and abilities make them manageable for the DM.
5. Simple evocative powers and abilities make them memorable.
4. Variety of powers. Unlike most other theme monsters, which are tied to an element (like cold) or a set of abilities (i.e. evil spellcasters) they have all different kinds of abilities for all different kinds of niches.
3. Common origin. They’re a lot of monsters in one package. Someone was complaining that adding lots of new monsters was irritating but only if they don’t have a common origin. These do… lots of random monsters is irritating but a bunch with a common origin is a plot.
2. You like dragons, but they’re supposed to be rare, you can’t make them the enemies all the time. But Dragonspawn… dozens of them can appear in a single cave!
1. People loved freaking Draconians (weird monsters with little going for them as foes in DnD) it’s the same thing with better art.

 

[Wik]

Bah. And bah again.

actually, when I make my "triumphant return to D&D", I wanted to run a gameworld that was governed by a council of dragons... I suppose dragon foot-troops could be sort of interesting.

Are there Dragonspawn of Bahamut, by any chance?

 

[Turjan]

I'm somehow out of the loop with all this dragon-something. Is this Races of the Dragon, MMIV (I don't have neither), something else? Is there an overview about all this dragon-something stuff anywhere?

 

[Kunimatyu]

In agreement with you on the ones we know about...except the Bluespawn Godslayer. That one I'll kvetch about.

 

[Eytan Bernstein]

Lots of people are kvetching about Tiamat’s spawn. While I admit to not loving them personally I think they’re going to be another-marketing-coup-for-wizards.

So I proudly (?) present 10 reasons you will love Dragonspawn

10. They’re tiered coming in a lot of CRs.
9. Easy to ‘mod’ into other races (tainted lizardmen, ancient monsters from another dimension, etc)
8. They’re humanoids, so its easier for people to anthropomorphize them.
7. They’re featured in an adventure (red hand of doom) that people seem to like.
6. Simple evocative powers and abilities make them manageable for the DM.
5. Simple evocative powers and abilities make them memorable.
4. Variety of powers. Unlike most other theme monsters, which are tied to an element (like cold) or a set of abilities (i.e. evil spellcasters) they have all different kinds of abilities for all different kinds of niches.
3. Common origin. They’re a lot of monsters in one package. Someone was complaining that adding lots of new monsters was irritating but only if they don’t have a common origin. These do… lots of random monsters is irritating but a bunch with a common origin is a plot.
2. You like dragons, but they’re supposed to be rare, you can’t make them the enemies all the time. But Dragonspawn… dozens of them can appear in a single cave!
1. People loved freaking Draconians (weird monsters with little going for them as foes in DnD) it’s the same thing with better art.

They are not all humanoid. As to Wik's question, as far as I'm aware, Spawn are specific to Tiamat and there are no Spawn of Bahamut. Bahamut is a good god, thus he doesn't tend to create weird hybrid creatures for the purpose of war. To answer Turjan's question, they first appear in MMIV, but will also play a role in Dragons of Faerun.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

The equivalent creatures serving Bahamut's aims are the dragonborn of Bahamut from Races of the Dragon, who voluntarily undergo a magical transformation into the dragonborn race. Indeed, somewhere I have a quote concerning the dragonborn and how their big foes would be introduced later in 2006 . . . which we can see are the spawn of Tiamat from The Red Hand of Doom and Monster Manual IV.

 

[satori01]

They just sound so much like Draconians. All of the talk about Spawn of Tiamat has made me want to pick up a copy of the Dragonlance setting....Draconians turing to stone on death, etc was always so cool, seems like reinventing the wheel.

My two cents...and gut reaction.

 

[Graf]

They just sound so much like Draconians. All of the talk about Spawn of Tiamat has made me want to pick up a copy of the Dragonlance setting....Draconians turing to stone on death, etc was always so cool, seems like reinventing the wheel.

My two cents...and gut reaction.

The first time a Draconian turned to stone and captured a weapon was kinda cool.
But… it makes no sense (what did those come from? Bronze dragon eggs) and it’s not even a proper theme. They aren’t stone dragons, they have no other stone powers…
And the other powers… exploding?
Turning into acid?
There are onely five of them and their powers only come into play when they die….

They haven’t got anything to do with the dragons they come from, they’re irritating powers than ruin fun (you killed the monster… but it blew up and you failed your save, so you’re dead too).

I still remember painstakingly marking off which areas of the battle had “acid pools” in them, how long they lasted, etc.

Dragonlance was a great story when it came out and I know a lot of people loved the campaign world but Draconians really needed a re-do.

 

[Hussar]

1. People loved freaking Draconians (weird monsters with little going for them as foes in DnD) it’s the same thing with better art.

I admit. THis made me laugh.

 

[Klaus]

1. People loved freaking Draconians (weird monsters with little going for them as foes in DnD) it’s the same thing with better art.

You really mean that?

Draconians

Dragonspawn