Generic Dragon

[SurvivorX]

OK so I'm new here (been lurking for a little while.) I've been a DM for awhile and thinking up stuff for my new campaign.

I've been thinking instead of having ten types of dragons (15 if you count the gem ones in MM2) I want my campaign to have just one type of (I waas thinking brown-and-grey) dragon, with a few less-common sub-varieties. I always felt that most of the dragons in the MM were just garishly-colored filler anyways.

So, how would you guys recommend setting up this dragon's abilities, stats, etc? So far I've just taken the stats of a red dragon and modified them a bit (more DR, no random spell-like abilities, gets Sorceror spells earlier, etc) but I was wondering what you guys would do for a more "generic" dragon?

[hamishspence]

D20 Past's Drake was an interesting way of handling it- a swimmer, more like a flying, fire-breathing sea serpent.

dragons and water can go together for a more Oriental flavor.

[Morty]

D20 Past's Drake was an interesting way of handling it- a swimmer, more like a flying, fire-breathing sea serpent.

dragons and water can go together for a more Oriental flavor.

Wasn't there an aquatic dragon in Mists of Avalon? Though granted, it breathed acid, but it's not that oriental.
I think that modifying a Red Dragon would be in fact sufficient. I don't think removing DR is necessary though- a thick hide is one of dragons' trademarks.

[Knaight]

Adding DR, not removing it. Whats removes is some spell like abilities. That said, you should probably have two kinds of dragons, one spell caster, and one with fire breath and maybe only a few spell like abilities classic to dragons (control monster for instance).

[Solaris]

I did something like this. I went about it pretty much the same way, too, by modifying a red. If there's different varieties, I'd do it intelligent-spellcasting, nonintelligent-nonspellcasting.
I also added acidic spittle, blood that could burn your skin on contact (and mutate you into a horrid slave to its will, but that's beside the point) and lethally-toxic claws, jaws, and stingers. Dragons of Western myth tended to be just lethal killing machines.

[xanaphia]

I'd make it mainly melee, with fire breath, DR, flight, and maybe charm.

You could give it poison and spells if you wanted to.

Some dragons from stories

In the Volsunga Saga, a guy who kills his father to steal his treasure turns into a serpent type thing. His blood is acidic, and lets you understand the languages of birds. His heart gives you great wisdom. He isn't intelligent.

In Harry Potter, dragons are dumb magical animals. They have wings, legs, and breathe fire. There isn't the treasure hoarding aspect.

In The Hobbit, Smaug is intelligent, greedy, and has wings, legs, and breathes fire. He has very tough scales.

In the Darkness series by Harry Turtledove, dragons have wings, legs, and breathe fire. If fed quicksilver, their fire is more potent, which leads to enormous quicksilver mines being tactically essential. They are stupid.

In Chinese dragon stories, dragons had wings and legs, could shapechange for limited periods of time, and were extremely intelligent. Various bits of dragons did different things.

You generic dragon probably wants to be like Smaug.

[Solaris]

You generic dragon probably wants to be like Smaug.
That's what Gygax and Arneson said.

[SurvivorX]

I'm liking the spellcasting/nonspellcasting, intelligent/nonintelligent variety idea. Maybe I'll even do like a combination of all four:
Intelligent/spellcasting: Probably based more on the standard dragon types in the MM. Decent combat power like all dragons have but a focus on spellcasting power.
Intelligent/nonspellcasting: I'd probably make this one the most common, and it'd have all the beastly CQC adaptations you guys mentioned - poison stingers, acid blood, etc...
Nonintelligent/spellcasting: After all, dragons cast as sorcerors which is based on Charisma, not Intelligence. I'm thinking I'd use this with the white dragons.
Nonintelligent/nonspellcasting: These would just be the dumb dragons that go around breaking everything they see - but since that's usually not a good way to get people to NOT hunt you to extinction, I'm thinking there'd not be a lot of them left...it'd be interesting to have a species of dragons that's extinct or something...

Thanks alot for the ideas guys, and keep 'em coming - I love when a bunch of ideas and thoughts sets even more ideas spinning off in my skull! :smallbiggrin:

[Solaris]

Intelligent/spellcasting: Probably based more on the standard dragon types in the MM. Decent combat power like all dragons have but a focus on spellcasting power.
Hm. I can definitely picture these as being the nefarious evil overlords of all they survey. I'd imagine they're pretty antisocial, too.


Intelligent/nonspellcasting: I'd probably make this one the most common, and it'd have all the beastly CQC adaptations you guys mentioned - poison stingers, acid blood, etc...
*Nods* And if you want to one route, it could also be the most human-like variety. Not necessarily ridden, but I can imagine them being fairly sociable, if not with the mortal races (are you keeping metallic/chromatics or ditching those entirely?) then with each other.


Nonintelligent/spellcasting: After all, dragons cast as sorcerors which is based on Charisma, not Intelligence. I'm thinking I'd use this with the white dragons.
I must admit, I'm having trouble seeing this (even with Charisma-based spellcasting). Are we talking about animalistic intelligence or semi-sentience?


Nonintelligent/nonspellcasting: These would just be the dumb dragons that go around breaking everything they see - but since that's usually not a good way to get people to NOT hunt you to extinction, I'm thinking there'd not be a lot of them left...it'd be interesting to have a species of dragons that's extinct or something...
Or very nearly so. I'm thinking... change the Tarrasque's creature type to "Dragon" and you have a decent starting point for what I imagine this behemoth would be. They're lost to time, except a few that slumber in the deepest reaches of the Earth, forgotten... but sometimes they wake.

[Pirate_King]

It's easy enough to modify MM stuff for flavor; in my campaign I just pull out whatever seems to fit the CR, and adjust damage types to whatever I feel appropriate for the campaign, i.e. a young green dragon that breathes fire instead of acid, and doesn't get the swim speed,not that it mattered, the particular adventure was in the mountains. Red would have technically been more appropriate based on the MM entry, but my characters weren't ready for that sort of challenge, so I fixed up a green one to fit the area but not be too tough. I decided that coloring was more of a random thing, and alignment had nothing to do with dragon type. The stuff in the MM could fit generic dragon really easily with some modifications to their guidelines, and you don't have to do as much to the mechanic, making it easy to figure CR