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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2009171" data-attributes="member: 172">The Slayer's Guide to DragonsThe Slayer's Guide series of books by Mongoose Publishing provides additional physiological, cultural, and game information of a variety of creatures common to d20 system fantasy games. To date most such books have focused on humanoid creatures such as hobgoblins and gnolls. This makes the Slayer's Guide to Dragons the most ambitious such book to date, as it not only tackles a totally different sort of creature, it tackles a very powerful creature with various subspecies.Such an ambitious project needs a capable author. For this purpose, Mongoose has attracted none other than Gary Gygax, one of the authors of the RPG phenomenon. Though Gygax is an experienced designer and assisted with the playtesting of the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition game, he admits that he does not currently use the system for his own designs, and has mentioned that he uses a co-author to do some of the d20 system work. In the case of this volume, Jon Creffileld is named as a co-author.A First LookSitting on the game rack at your friendly local game store, the Slayer's Guide to Dragons may appear to a similar format to previous Slayers Guides, with a gray celtic-style border framing a picture of the book's subject. However, upon lifting the book up, you would immediately notice the difference in heft. The book is published in the economical 128 page, $19.95 format similar to Mongoose's Seas of Blood and Collector Series books.The interior typesetting and format is typical for a Mongoose book: type is of about average size, with single spaces between the paragraphs and some large header fonts.The cover picture, by Chris Quilliams, is a fairly good image of a red dragon perched on a stony precipice, with a castle and a flight of dragons in the background.The interior art varies in quality from mediocre to excellent. The standout talents include cover artist Chris Quilliams (who does anatomy artwork inside the front cover as well as a two page spread depicting a flock of dragons descending upon some hapless kingdom), Danilo Moretti, Marcio Fiorito, Brent Chumley, and Renato Guedes.A Deeper LookThe book begins with some retrospective musings by Gygax about the origins of the D&D brand of dragon. Many d20 system fantasy gamers today complain about the predictability of D&D "color coded" dragons. However, perhaps many people would be surprised to know that the D&D dragons were originally conceived precisely because the dragon in the game in those fledling stages was too predictable: players could expect that all dragons breathe fire. The new types of dragons had other modes of attack, which at the time was a boon to the variety of dragons.As with all slayers guide, a substantial portion of the text is devoted to the psychology, physiology, and society of the subject creature. The Slayer's Guide to the dragon has several excerpts from mythology as well as fiction to help establish several points and build up a mood. Rules material is embedded in some places in the text to help apply it to the game. For example, DCs are provided for knowledge checks to establish certain things about an observed dragon.The book adds a new age category of dragon, Dracos Invictus (age 13). Dracos Invictus has all the abilities commensurate with the increased age category and hit dice. As if that weren't enough, these terrifying creatures can summon an area effect storm of wrath, command lesser dragons of their species, and swallow opponents whole. Worse still, dragons of this advanced age category undergo some hazardous death throes when slain. Personally, I don't see the need to create a new age category of dragons. Even so, the stats for these creatures could be used for some special paragons of each species.Several new draconic species are introduced, including:- Abyssal Serpents - These loathsome creatures are native to the abyss, and are often used as steeds of powerful demons. They have a breath weapon that putrefies flesh, a gaze attacks, and magical power befitting their unholy nature.- Dragonkin - This is a template that can be applied to a dragon. The result a more humanoid crossbreed that lacks wings, walks upright, and has a weaker breath weapon. These creatures can use weapons in combat.- Hell Worm - As the abyssal dragons are spawn of the abyss, hell worms are creatures born of the plane of hell. These creatures bear some relation to the paragon evil dragon Tiama'at. As they grow, they gain heads of various chromatic dragons, with commensurate breath weapons.- Mirth Drake - This small rainbow-hued dragon does not have age categories. These chaotic creatures have a breathweapon that causes a feeblemind-like effect, and a sting that inflicts random magical effects on the victim.- Rock Dragon - This dangerous earthy dragon, which can be good, neutral, or evil, has a stony breath weapon and a petrifying gaze.- Sea Dragon - This territorial aquatic dragon has a pair of dangerous water-related breath weapons.- Baal Shiruat - This unique and immensely powerful dragon, called the chromatic prince, is a creation of Tiama'at.- Web Dragon - These sinuous silver and black dragons can spin webs and have a breath weapon of sticky strands.The habitat section of the book has details on the types of terrain favored by each of the ten standard d20 system dragon types, as well as the new types of dragons presented herein. Further, each section contains a completely detailed dragon lair, complete with statistics of the master of the lair and guardians. Each lair is ready to drop into a game at a moment's notice.The society section provides some insight into the way dragons interact, divided along lines of metallic and chromatic types. As you might suspect, the evil chromatics tend to influence one another through fear and might, and the good metallics are a bit more civilized in their dealings, though the chaotic sorts are rather independent. This section also discusses the mating habits of dragons, as well as the results of the rare congress between different dragon species: crossbreeds. The guidelines for crossbreeds are fairly straightforward, allowing the GM to choose between a variety of options. For the most part, the GM is not expected to rebuild the dragon statistics from the ground up. Rather, you choose one of the other parent breeds for basic statistics, as well as choosing the breath weapons and magic abilities from either parent, both, or even a mixture of the two.The warfare section discusses typical dragon tactics. A large part of this section is devoted to the use of magic by these highly magical creatures. Some of the suggested tactics seem fairly straightforward, though others are rather insightful. For example, most dragons have little use for blast attacks that are overshadowed by their breath weapons. However, spells like the Bigby's hand spells can help tie up powerful fighters while a dragon deals with the rest of the party.Other dragon tactics are discussed as well, such as the fact that dragons will want to be able to fly if at all possible in order to help keep it out of harms way while it's powerful breath attack is recharging.Dragon weaknesses are discussed as well. A prominent weakness that is reintroduced from early editions of D&D is sleep. Gygax suggests that the older and more powerful a dragon is, the shorter the fraction of time the dragon is awake. Some GMs may turn their nose up at the idea of introducing such a telling weakness to dragons. However, I think that long-sleeping ancient dragons would have a feel much like heady fantasy stories like those of Elric of Melniboné, and makes more sense for GMs who concern themselves with questions of how such huge beasts interact with the local ecology.The warfare section provides new feats and spells for the dragon's arsenal. If you thought a character bitten by a dragon was in for a bumpy ride, wait until your heroes encounter a wyrm with the chew feat. The spell air brake allows a dragon a momentary boost in maneuverability, abundant breath allows the dragon use its breath weapon more frequently, and adamantine scales improves the dragon's already impressive AC.Ideas are also provided for the use of weapons, armor, and magic items by dragons.The roleplaying section describes some possible motivations and behaviors of dragons. As with earlier sections, this is split between chromatic and metallic dragons. Dragon weaknesses are discussed, an this is used as the basis for another rule that hearkens back to early days of the game: subdual. Though not quite as generous as earlier rules, the subdual rules provide for the possibility of temporary capture of a dragon.The roleplaying section also provides rules for dragon characters with classes. The rules suggest minimum ages for each dragon type before they are allowed to take character classes. Suggestions are provided for each class regarding the draconic view of the class as well as some suggested modifications. I didn't find this subsection very useful, and most of its points are obvious and/or uninspired.The book wraps up with a selection of adventure material, including some adventure seeds and an adventure for 8th-10th level characters called the Revenge of Ghorkai.ConclusionThe Slayers Guide to Dragons has quite a bit of useful material that most GMs should be able to drop directly into their game. The rules material is very solid overall.Much of the exposition and idea material may seem a little bit like old hat to those who have played the game for some time. Some veterans--and even some new players--may find such retro rules material such as the sleeping rules and subdual of dragons to be interesting additions to the d20 system rules.While I didn't find the expostional material here as fresh as AEG's Dragons, I think that it addresses more basic questions about dragonkind and has much stronger rules material. Overall, this and the more economical format make the Slayer's Guide to Dragons the best book in the Slayer's Guide series.-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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