Why did Dragons shrink?

[thundershot]

Compare the sizes of the dragons in the 3E monster manual to those in the 2E. They really shrunk... I had a catacalysmatic even change my campaign world to conform to 3E, so the characters were still there, yet converted, but one major thing I noticed was how small dragons are compared to what they used to be. A Young Black Dragon is MEDIUM-sized? The same size as a human? I'm not complaining, mind you, just pointing something major out that changed between editions.


Thanks!
Chris

 

[alsih2o]

1. they were washed in hot water

2. only so much basedragon material to go around

3. tired of being disincluded from parties in small places

4. more believable to find one IN a dungeon

5. they were wet, and it was cold. (women know about this, right?)

6. they didn't shrink, everything else got bigger

7. someone at wotc realized dragon scale armor was singular for a reason, felt silly about it

8. 3e authors didn't want to be seen as compensating

9. playtesters wanted to know how they were supposed to kill these things when the couldn't reach past their ankles

10. to make the big ol' monsters in the mm2 seem bigger

 

[bwgwl]

maybe the younger dragons shrunk, but remember the picture of the Colossal great wyrm red dragon in the 3e PHB? that thing is BIG.

 

[Umbran]

To give a slightly less flippant answer...

The change is probably to make the beastie a little more plausible given their "dragon for all levels" philosophy. A young black dragon, for example, is supposed to be CR 4. Imagine if they kept the old sizing - you'd have a creature whose total length is 27 to 43 feet beaten reasonably easily by four relatively low-level characters. That doesn't sound very plausible.

And let's remember that "Medium" doesn't really mean "man-sized". Unless you think that a 500 lb hog is also "man sized", that is.

 

[thundershot]

Well, let's take a Red Wyrm (not Great Wyrm because Colossal can be whatever size...). It's size is Gargantuan. The 3E MM says 32 to 64 feet from nose to base of tail. In the 2E MM, a Wyrm (age cat 11) is 165 to 174 from nose to base of tail. The tail's another 150+ feet!

Someone hasn't been eating their Wheaties...



Chris

 

[Vaxalon]

It has to do with unified size rules.

Something that big simply HAS to be very, very tough.

The size now correlates roughly with danger.

 

[alsih2o]

to be les "flippant" (hi umbran) maybe for a touch of "realism"(i hate that word as it relates to gaming, but) i mean something as big as the old dragons wouldn't even have its skin pentrated by the biggest sword around!

pachyderms and some reptiles both tend to have thick skin, in some instance up to 4-5 inches thick in non-exceptional examples. imagine the thickness of just the scales of a critter that big. it is mind numbing.

i, personally, prefer the creatures at this size. it gives them an awesome but realistic scale.

 

[diaglo]

how about to return dragons to the size they were in 1ed days?

 

[Henry]

Mainly it's because even though this is a fantasy game, most people simply balk at a creature that's larger than the largest animal that ever lived on planet Earth. Even the most gargantuan prehistoric beastie didn't reach the size of the 2E dragons. I seem to recall the largest red dragons in 2E were something like 400 feet long from nose to tail? That's longer than a football field - heck, it's almost as long as the Football stadium!!!

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Perhaps someone at WOTC was promoting the rumor that size doesn't matter?