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nonsi
2010-08-01, 02:41 PM
.
I was thinking of making some radical concept changes regarding dragons, but first I wanted to specify the motivations and see how people react to them.

I don’t know if the subject ever came up (I know I’ve never seen it) but I believe it should’ve.


Okay, What do we know about dragons ?
- They’re physically powerful
- They’re mentally superior
- They have crapload of spell power - features, spells & treasure
- They have crapload of skills
- They are a valued prize among high-level adventurers
- They breed slowly
- They have a very long life span (thousands of years)

The above lead to several compelling conclusions regarding encounters:
- A dragon with Int 18 or more should never ever ever be encountered by chance. Decades of survival have thought them to avoid unnecessary conflicts.
- A dragon with Int 16 or more never ever ever underestimate an intelligent opponent.
- An encounter with a dragon should almost always start with optimum settings for the dragon (deadly traps, dispels/A-M, self-empowerment via spells ahead of time, followers/slaves – all after the characters have been significantly beaten down and warn out... and when all the above fail – contingency means to revitalize and quick escape routes... and if you happened to have taken one down, getting to its real treasure should be as easy as pin-pointing a specific snowflake in a blizzard).

This goes even farther on a game-settings scale.
Given that:
1. Dragons were around at the dawn of mankind and the other humanoid races
2. They had a lot of time to assess these young races, and anticipate the direction in which their evolution takes them and what effects this will have on the denizens of their homeworld and on them in particular.
The compelling conclusion is that in a world where dragons exist in even a reasonable amount of abundance, humanoid races should’ve been hunted down and dwindled to near extinction.
Even if the above is nearly impossible ecology-wise, dragons with polymorph and Alternate form should’ve easily made it to almost every key political position and set global-scale wars among the humanoids – just to keep them too busy to ever become a threat in any way.


Does anybody follow my trail of thought ?
Am I making any sense ?
Am I missing something other than “snap out of it man, it’s just a game” ?
.

hamishspence
2010-08-01, 02:46 PM
This is a common issue with dragons.

In Faerun- they once ruled most of the world, before the Dracorage Mythal was constructed, causing them to periodically go berserk. This is why they rarely build truly long-lasting empires.

Metallic dragons do tend to gravitate to high places. And in Eberron, the dragons rule a continent, and have devastated continents like Xendrik when the inhabitants have really offended them.

Fail
2010-08-01, 02:56 PM
{Scrubbed}

hamishspence
2010-08-01, 03:00 PM
Its more a "given all the advantages dragons have, why don't they rule the world and keep everyone else down?" question.

Which can be answered several wauys- the simplest of which being "because it wouldn't be fun to play in that kind of setting"

That said, there are others. Usually involving the unwillingness of dragons to cooperate with each other, internal battles between different kinds of dragon, and possibly psychological differences (with most dragons, even evil ones, not wanting to run empires, and those that do, being rare exceptions).

Fail
2010-08-01, 03:52 PM
Yeah, using anything but the OP as a reference and not making dragons specifically invincible would help a lot. :D

Also, according to the book (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm), the best humanoid wizards are smarter than dragons (Int 39 counting age, IIRC, and that may still not be the maximum; versus Int 32 for the typical - and stupidly rare - oldest of the smartest species).

Spiryt
2010-08-01, 03:54 PM
Which can be answered several wauys- the simplest of which being "because it wouldn't be fun to play in that kind of setting"

That said, there are others. Usually involving the unwillingness of dragons to cooperate with each other, internal battles between different kinds of dragon, and possibly psychological differences (with most dragons, even evil ones, not wanting to run empires, and those that do, being rare exceptions).

Isn't "because there's not enough of them" easiest solution?

ericgrau
2010-08-01, 03:57 PM
Part of a dragon's long lifespan comes from the rarity of higher level adventurers. While they do have magical abilities they are relatively low level.

SurlySeraph
2010-08-01, 05:21 PM
1. Conflict between the different kinds of dragons. There are a ton of different kinds, and none of them like each other.
2. There are extremely few of them. The number of different species and their intelligence exacerbates this; finding another mature dragon is ridiculously difficult given that they're so rare in the first place and tend to be reclusive, finding another mature dragon of their species is even harder, and finding another of their species that they like is even harder than that. Dragons don't breed much.
3. They're goddamn dragons. Almost everyone else wants to kill them in preemptive self-defense (including other dragons of different species/ alignments), and sometimes they succeed - especially against younger ones. And seeing their children killed every few decades causes a fair portion of the dragons that actually do manage to find mates to succumb to despair and stop trying.
4. As a result of all of the above, they are extremely reclusive and paranoid. Sure they could have lots of power easily if they flew into town and declared themselves ruler, but very few of them are willing to take such risks.

MythMage
2010-08-01, 05:59 PM
You could also have a perfectly interesting setting running with the assumption that dragons do rule the world, and mortals have to deal with the challenges presented by the dragon hegemony (such as navigating dragon politics, where you might serve one against another; or attempting to overthrow draconic control in some manner).

I saw a setting called Iokarthel which was set up this way; if anyone's interested, I can see if I can drum up a link to some material.

ericgrau
2010-08-01, 06:24 PM
Or I've heard of worlds that are post dragon-wars: the chromatic and metallic dragons fought it out, and after the carnage the humanoids came out on top.

Evard
2010-08-01, 08:14 PM
That sounds like how the world evolved... Reptiles ruled the world and then something bad happened... And mammals came out on top :P

Aran Banks
2010-08-01, 11:44 PM
Of course, in our natural world there was no such thing as magic. I think Dragons could avert a crisis or save themselves (200 year duration for imprisonment cast on self or something).

Arbitrarious
2010-08-02, 12:37 AM
Asking why dragons don't rule the world is like asking why the abyss doesn't flood the material. There is nothing stopping them, and looking at the hard rules they have all the tools they need.

But Hami said it best, that kind of game world may not be fun for the default game world.

Aran Banks
2010-08-02, 02:00 AM
yeah, it's like the reason we have dungeons even though they're tactically disadvantageous, especially with scry-and-die.

Fail
2010-08-02, 06:01 AM
yeah, it's like the reason we have dungeons even though they're tactically disadvantageous, especially with scry-and-die.And that's why one goes out and fixes stuff. (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=28554#28554)

nonsi
2010-08-02, 06:45 AM
>> why the abyss doesn't flood the material
This could easily be explained by the material not being their natural environment. "They might just not like it over here".

>> yeah, it's like the reason we have dungeons
>> even though they're tactically disadvantageous,
>> especially with scry-and-die.
IIRC, Scrying requires you to have some familiarity of the target.
This reduces tactical advantage significantly, when you have no idea if there's even anything in there.


And as far as dragon go, I can think of a way of putting things back in order:
1. swap spellcasting with the DFA's invocations. This is a lot more credible for being "magic from within" rather than "magical studies".
2. make a significant Int reduction, say all start with 5 and end up with 18, gaining +1 per age category till "Ancient" and +2 for the last 2 age categories. This will at least make it reasonable that they didn't take over the world.

Eldan
2010-08-02, 07:39 AM
I don't know how it is in 3.5, but Planescape very clearly states that Tanar'ri can not leave the Abyss unless summoned. Exceptions are very rare.

Anyway: dragons are extremely powerful. They can level mortal armies when they want to, so there needs to be an explanation for that. Some I've heard:

They don't care. Let the humans build their silly kingdoms, it will be no threat to me while I do really important stuff. Some dragons hop over and let themselves be worshiped as a god for a decade or two, but that's kid's stuff, really. Real dragons research magic, and unlock the secrets of time, space, belief, creation and other such fundamental concepts.

As dragons age, they get more and more passive. A great red wyrm will level a country when he wakes up, but his metabolism is so slow, he only does that once a millenium. The chances of any two great dragons actually meeting are slim, so they can not really collaborate on that sort of thing.

They are held in check by equally powerful forces opposite them. Be it dragons of other colours, the gods or tippy wizards, they aren't the biggest lizards in the pond.

Oslecamo
2010-08-02, 09:43 AM
I don't know how it is in 3.5, but Planescape very clearly states that Tanar'ri can not leave the Abyss unless summoned. Exceptions are very rare.

+1 to that. Fiendish codex states that most rank and file demons wiish for an oportunity to leave their horrible home. Only the big dudes can enter and leave at will, but those prefer to stay in their personal layers surrounded by their armies than go out there and get ganked by adventurers.



Anyway: dragons are extremely powerful. They can level mortal armies when they want to, so there needs to be an explanation for that. Some I've heard:

They don't care. Let the humans build their silly kingdoms, it will be no threat to me while I do really important stuff. Some dragons hop over and let themselves be worshiped as a god for a decade or two, but that's kid's stuff, really. Real dragons research magic, and unlock the secrets of time, space, belief, creation and other such fundamental concepts.

As dragons age, they get more and more passive. A great red wyrm will level a country when he wakes up, but his metabolism is so slow, he only does that once a millenium. The chances of any two great dragons actually meeting are slim, so they can not really collaborate on that sort of thing.

About that, Dracomicon states that while dragons are very powerfull they're also very lazy. Think about it. You can go out there spread a trail of destruction and risk a lucky group of adventurers kill you.

Or you can rest in your cave for centuries only eating those who aproach your lair too much and you'll become even stronger, smarter and more powerfull just because of aging! Why bother working hard when you'll become stronger just by waiting?

And when you finally reach the end of your life? then you can ascend to something even greater! Who cares about the short lived mortals and their ephemeral kingdoms? It's fun crushing one now and then but indeed you've got better things to do.

In conclusion, dragons have lots of reasons to don't risk their lifes. Mortals decay as they grow older so they have some reason to choose "Live fast and die young", but a dragon has a lot more to gain from playing it easy and bidding his time whitout risking atracting the atention of a group of adventurers. Sure you could crush them, but there's still a chance you end up geting killed.



They are held in check by equally powerful forces opposite them. Be it dragons of other colours, the gods or tippy wizards, they aren't the biggest lizards in the pond.

That too. Dracomicon states as well some older dragons will make a personal quest of hunting and killing dragons of the oposite alignment.

Rin_Hunter
2010-08-02, 09:59 AM
I'm actually reworking the dragons to fit my setting better. I've removed the metallic variety and added about 5 new colours.

It's a large project and nowhere near finished and it's all in the name of making my setting a little more unique.

But yeah, I agree with a lot of what has been said above. Dragons are lazy and self-interested, why would they bother with lower races? And a setting where dragons rule the world would befun for a one-off campaign, but as a default it wouldn't be very interested because it would be difficult to play it.

Roderick_BR
2010-08-02, 10:15 AM
I think dragons doesn't rule everything for simple reasons.

First, they don't care. Yes, they could use the world as their playground, but seeing as they are antisocial and loners by nature, they don't bother with lesser beings. They can take what they want, whenever they want, so they don't need to worry with anything.

Seconds, dragons, for being "obviously" "superior", doesn't deem the lesser races as worth enough to bother with them. It usually proves their downfall as they neglect the ability the lesser races have to increase in power.

True, a 100,000 old dragon should have seem enough of the world to know there are some powerful individuals out there, but they either refuse to believe a puny human can defeat it, or, when well played by a DM, will have enough experience to know better, although many younger dragons around will do these mitakes still.

In short: Dragons have awfully inflated egos, and don't see others as menaces, until it's too late, and their head ends up on the adventurer's wall.

Lix Lorn
2010-08-02, 10:46 AM
You could also have a perfectly interesting setting running with the assumption that dragons do rule the world, and mortals have to deal with the challenges presented by the dragon hegemony (such as navigating dragon politics, where you might serve one against another; or attempting to overthrow draconic control in some manner).
Someone should run a campaign like this. I'd play it.

hamishspence
2010-08-02, 10:57 AM
An Eberron campaign set on Argonnessen, or a Faerun campaign set prior to the first Dracorage, would be ideal for this sort of thing.

Did Council of Wyrms make the assumption that dragons are In Charge of most of the world?

Eldan
2010-08-02, 12:42 PM
Or a nation game where everyone is playing a single dragon out to rule the world...

hamishspence
2010-08-02, 01:17 PM
You could draw on PHB2's "Organization" rules- only each dragon's organization is actually a small nation.

LOTRfan
2010-08-02, 01:22 PM
Which edition of the PHB2?

hamishspence
2010-08-02, 01:23 PM
3.5 edition.

Starbuck_II
2010-08-02, 02:11 PM
Not all dragons are smart.

Look at White dragons:
Even at Great Wyrm (CR 21) is only as smart as a 1st level human (Int 18).
They only have 14 at Wyrm age.

Greens/Blue/Red are only above average (14) till reach Adult

Blacks are only above average (14) till Old

Int scale is White/Black/(Greens/Blue/Red).
CR 15 to be Int 16 minimum for evil dragons.

Sadly for most of a dragons life: they are big dumb lizards.

hamishspence
2010-08-02, 02:20 PM
Technically Int 11 is above average (very slightly)

White dragons are probably the only dragon which could be called stupid for much of their lives. Especially considering dragons live for a long time past starting Great Wyrm age.

Then there's the metallic dragons- significantly smarter, earlier (most of them).

MythMage
2010-08-03, 01:44 AM
Someone should run a campaign like this. I'd play it.
I don't know about active campaigns, but here's that campaign setting I mentioned: Iokarthel, created by WarDragon (http://dicefreaks.superforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2873). You should let him know if you try to use his setting. :)

Haarkla
2010-08-03, 04:52 AM
Yes, they did get dragons wrong.

Alignment. I find it impossible to justify on philosophical grounds dragons having an "always" alignment. Differing alignment also makes for a more fun game. Neutral dragons are even mentioned in the players handbook.

Dragons breath fire. All except white and silver dragons should be able to breath fire. Other breath weapons should be in addition.

Too many types. Having so many different types of gigantic mobile intelligent apex predator is unneccesarily unrealistic. Is it really sensible having separate bronze/brass/copper and white/silver dragons? I reduce the core types to Red, Green, Black, White, Bronze and Gold for my games.

Blue dragons. I find the discription and lifestyle of the blue dragon as portrayed in the 3.5e Players Handbook unconvincing even for a fantasy world. Clearly a lot of people did, they changed it for 4th edition.


I reduce the core types to Red, Green, Black, White, Bronze and Gold, all of which vary from their usual alignment, and all except White breath fire as well as their stated breath weapon.

hamishspence
2010-08-03, 04:56 AM
In Basic D&D (Eric Holmes edition) several of the chromatic dragons had two alignments listed- suggesting that they varied.

Eldan
2010-08-03, 05:06 AM
I reduce the core types to Red, Green, Black, White, Bronze and Gold, all of which vary from their usual alignment, and all except White breath fire as well as their stated breath weapon.

That is probably what you should do anyway: no game world includes the entire contents of the MM1 (when was the last time anyone used a Ravid or Tojanida?), why should you use all dragons? Really, most of the time, an entire campaign goes by and perhaps one single dragon is mentioned.
In my games it's generally assumed that all creatures exist somewhere, but that's because I play Planescape. If you have infinite prime worlds, you can have a variety of dragons.

hamishspence
2010-08-03, 05:10 AM
Steve Jackson's Fighting Fantasy setting uses 6- only Silver instead of Bronze.

In this setting, Silver Dragons are bad guys.

One of my favorite adventures from that was Night Dragon- the creature on the cover looks almost like something drawn by H. R. Giger. And the hero attends a conclave, where all the dragons have put aside their differences to support a hero to deal with the main villain.

Rithaniel
2010-08-03, 05:42 AM
One thing that has never made any sense: why are dragons considered so awesome? They are beaten by many things in combat, namely Angels and Demons, easily. They can easily be outsmarted by many things. Avolakia (disgusting cockroach/cricket/worm/octopuses) are actually more charismatic than dragons. They are outnumbered on virtually every front. They're cocky (villainous "gonna ruin his own plan by thinking he's anything more than a moron" style cocky) half the time. And they can't even fly well.

Yet 'dragons', for whatever reason, have a dozen feat chains, 10 races, 15 subtypes, 9 or so PrCs, and 3 entire source-books dedicated purely to them and them alone. Why? Why do we think that dragons would be anything at all? Why do we assume that there gonna be dragons in a game at all, when they can be so undeniably cut out of any game without the DM blinking an eye? Why do we care about dragons in the first place?

PS. Ravids are the most awesome creature. If you've never used them, you should.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-08-03, 07:25 AM
One thing that has never made any sense: why are dragons considered so awesome? They are beaten by many things in combat, namely Angels and Demons, easily. They can easily be outsmarted by many things. Avolakia (disgusting cockroach/cricket/worm/octopuses) are actually more charismatic than dragons. They are outnumbered on virtually every front. They're cocky (villainous "gonna ruin his own plan by thinking he's anything more than a moron" style cocky) half the time. And they can't even fly well.

Yet 'dragons', for whatever reason, have a dozen feat chains, 10 races, 15 subtypes, 9 or so PrCs, and 3 entire source-books dedicated purely to them and them alone. Why? Why do we think that dragons would be anything at all? Why do we assume that there gonna be dragons in a game at all, when they can be so undeniably cut out of any game without the DM blinking an eye? Why do we care about dragons in the first place?

From an in-game perspective, it's most likely because they're native to the Prime, and thus would be both more commonly seen than aberrations and outsiders and more likely to "mess around" and produce all those dragon-descended creatures. With their varying age categories, they can terrorize anything from small hamlets to major cities, while it would take a fairly powerful caster to call up aberrations or outsiders and thus (A) they probably wouldn't bother the common people that much, focusing on bigger fish and (B) the weaker ones wouldn't be seen as often since the casters would go for the biggest baddest ones they can control.

From a metagame perspective...the game's called Dungeons and Dragons, for Bahamut's sake; of course there's going to be a bias! Also, some speculation on my part: given the whole "D&D is Satanic" ordeal in the AD&D era, I wouldn't be surprised if the devs were more comfortable focusing on a race that's generally accepted to be purely fantasy as opposed to either fiends or aberrations for PR reasons; the BoED and BoVD were labeled "mature" because one theoretically needed to be mature to handle its treatment of alignment (though it didn't quite turn out that way...) but also likely because they wanted to be able to claim they weren't "corrupting our youth" with those books. Even though the sentiment has mostly gone away, there are still those sites out there claiming that D&D, Harry Potter, etc. are all terrible and should be burned/outlawed, so covering yourself on that front makes sense.

Oslecamo
2010-08-03, 07:47 AM
Why do we care about dragons in the first place?


Because they're one of the if not the biggest fantasy monster. King Artur went dragon slaying. LOTR started with an hunt for a dragon's hoard. Pretty much every fantasy game has dragons as bosses/elite enemies.

Also, they're treasure collectors. The angel/demon may be a stronger oponent, the coackrach thingy may be smarter, but slaying the dragon will be much more profitable!:smallcool:

Finally, they're fire-breathing dinossaurs with wings. Everybody loves dinossaurs. And dragons are pimped up dinossaurs!:smallbiggrin:

Rithaniel
2010-08-03, 08:28 AM
From an in-game perspective, it's most likely because they're native to the Prime, and thus would be both more commonly seen than aberrations and outsiders and more likely to "mess around" and produce all those dragon-descended creatures. With their varying age categories, they can terrorize anything from small hamlets to major cities, while it would take a fairly powerful caster to call up aberrations or outsiders and thus (A) they probably wouldn't bother the common people that much, focusing on bigger fish and (B) the weaker ones wouldn't be seen as often since the casters would go for the biggest baddest ones they can control.

From a metagame perspective...the game's called Dungeons and Dragons, for Bahamut's sake; of course there's going to be a bias! Also, some speculation on my part: given the whole "D&D is Satanic" ordeal in the AD&D era, I wouldn't be surprised if the devs were more comfortable focusing on a race that's generally accepted to be purely fantasy as opposed to either fiends or aberrations for PR reasons; the BoED and BoVD were labeled "mature" because one theoretically needed to be mature to handle its treatment of alignment (though it didn't quite turn out that way...) but also likely because they wanted to be able to claim they weren't "corrupting our youth" with those books. Even though the sentiment has mostly gone away, there are still those sites out there claiming that D&D, Harry Potter, etc. are all terrible and should be burned/outlawed, so covering yourself on that front makes sense.

Okay, not gonna get into fluff reasoning, cause fluff is usually mutable (the game could take place entirely in the Nine Hells, with the PCs actually being Teiflings who grew up there, and the low level encounters being lantern archon raiding parties :P), but, your meta-game perspective makes sense. Course, then again, the "D&D is Satanic" sentiment faded before 3.5e, iirc, and, most of the dragon stuff, came in 3.5e. Also, yes, the game is called 'Dungeons & Dragons', but 'Gears of War' doesn't necessarily have anything to do with gears. That's always the argument that people use, of course, that it's "in the name", but, compare to 'Final Fantasy'. It's a label, not the game itself.


Because they're one of the if not the biggest fantasy monster. King Artur went dragon slaying. LOTR started with an hunt for a dragon's hoard. Pretty much every fantasy game has dragons as bosses/elite enemies.

Also, they're treasure collectors. The angel/demon may be a stronger oponent, the coackrach thingy may be smarter, but slaying the dragon will be much more profitable!:smallcool:

Finally, they're fire-breathing dinossaurs with wings. Everybody loves dinossaurs. And dragons are pimped up dinossaurs!:smallbiggrin:

The vast majority of series and fantasy myths tend to also have demons as well, and sometimes Djinn, and for the 'standard English fantasy', Giants, but you don't see Giant races, PrCs, and source-books everywhere, do you? Never really been big on them. Course, what is the motivation for the Dragon hoarding stuff, exactly? That's never made sense either. Why gather money if you're not going to spend it? Don't say it's used as a bed either, cause that makes about as much sense as sleeping in a muddy pit when there's an inn right behind you, they could get a gigantic (real) bed with all that money.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-08-03, 08:41 AM
Okay, not gonna get into fluff reasoning, cause fluff is usually mutable (the game could take place entirely in the Nine Hells, with the PCs actually being Teiflings who grew up there, and the low level encounters being lantern archon raiding parties :P)

Well, if you look at the average D&D game, it's more likely to be set on a Prime than somewhere else. And don't forget, there are planar dragons. Say hello to the Hellfire Wyrm, little tieflings. :smallamused:


but, your meta-game perspective makes sense. Course, then again, the "D&D is Satanic" sentiment faded before 3.5e, iirc, and, most of the dragon stuff, came in 3.5e.

As I said, it's mostly faded, but there are actually still sites being put up today (as in, I stumbled upon a new site the other day that was put up within the last year, freshly outraged over Harry Potter and D&D--and the Avatar cartoon, of all things).


Also, yes, the game is called 'Dungeons & Dragons', but 'Gears of War' doesn't necessarily have anything to do with gears. That's always the argument that people use, of course, that it's "in the name", but, compare to 'Final Fantasy'. It's a label, not the game itself.

GoW does have the Cogs, though, and that's where the name came from. Basically, if there's a type of creature or character in the name, you can bet it'll be used. You can't fight a "final" or a "fantasy," but there are dragons in D&D, exalted in Exalted, mice in Mouseguard, metroids in Metroid, aliens in Alien, and so on.

Oslecamo
2010-08-03, 09:21 AM
The vast majority of series and fantasy myths tend to also have demons as well, and sometimes Djinn, and for the 'standard English fantasy', Giants, but you don't see Giant races, PrCs, and source-books everywhere, do you?

Fiendish Codex I and II. Book of Vile Darkness. Yugoloths, Devils, Demons , all with dozens of races each, Nine Hells, Abyss, Genhena while dragons don't have a single plane to call their own. Devils/demons have as much representation as dragons so you have no reason to complain there.

Giants on the other hand, altough common in fantasy I'll give it, were relegated to second plan. They're just big people. They don't make plans of world devastation. They're grunts of bigger forces of oversized bandits and raiders that the main heroes defeat whitout much trouble normally trough smart trickery.



Never really been big on them. Course, what is the motivation for the Dragon hoarding stuff, exactly? That's never made sense either. Why gather money if you're not going to spend it? Don't say it's used as a bed either, cause that makes about as much sense as sleeping in a muddy pit when there's an inn right behind you, they could get a gigantic (real) bed with all that money.

0-You really can't claim it doesn't make sense because dragons as giant flying fire breathing lizards are impossible as well. :smallwink:
1-Dragons are greedy. They just care about having as much valuables as possible. It's like Scrooge that works all life just to acumulate money whitout caring about anything else. Other monsters are almost mindless beasts interested just in destruction and eating. Dragons go a step beyond and spend their lives collecting valuables just because they're valuable. Even Beowulf's dragon has his own hoard.
2-Status. Several stories have dragons showing off their treasures as trophies of their life. Here's the crown of the king of the dwarves. There's the chainmail of the elvish prince. They're more durable than their skulls.
3-Dracomicon expands that idea by stating that a dragon can eat his hoard to ascend, but said hoard needs to be pretty big for a proper ascension.

Lix Lorn
2010-08-03, 09:45 AM
Also, their scales make it so they don't really feel the coins, except as a comfortable tickle.

Oslecamo
2010-08-03, 10:15 AM
Also, their scales make it so they don't really feel the coins, except as a comfortable tickle.

That reminds me that the dragon from the Hobbit slept in treasure so it would get "glued" to his belly, wich didn't have scales at all, creating an "armor" of treasure to protect his squishy underside.

RickGriffin
2010-08-03, 12:20 PM
If you have to ask why dragons are so awesome, you need to start over at this whole fantasy business.

Basically, dragons are awesome because they look awesome and do awesome things. A million splatbooks are made for dragons because they look awesome. The splatbooks are there just in case you wanted more dragons in your campaign for great awesomeness and didn't want to be tied down to using the small set they have in basic.

Demons are demons. Mechanically they're superior, but they're not dragons. Until you get dragon-demons, in which case they are. Asking 'Why dragons when demons are mechanically superior' doesn't quite matter. Since this is fantasy, what they ended up deciding on for the mechanics of each one is generally arbitrary--despite the power difference, dragons are still totally awesome because they're dragons.

Lix Lorn
2010-08-03, 12:44 PM
If you have to ask why dragons are so awesome, you need to start over at this whole fantasy business.

Basically, dragons are awesome because they look awesome and do awesome things. A million splatbooks are made for dragons because they look awesome. The splatbooks are there just in case you wanted more dragons in your campaign for great awesomeness and didn't want to be tied down to using the small set they have in basic.

Demons are demons. Mechanically they're superior, but they're not dragons. Until you get dragon-demons, in which case they are. Asking 'Why dragons when demons are mechanically superior' doesn't quite matter. Since this is fantasy, what they ended up deciding on for the mechanics of each one is generally arbitrary--despite the power difference, dragons are still totally awesome because they're dragons.
+1 inherent bonus to awesome.

Thinker
2010-08-03, 01:38 PM
One thing that has never made any sense: why are dragons considered so awesome? They are beaten by many things in combat, namely Angels and Demons, easily. They can easily be outsmarted by many things. Avolakia (disgusting cockroach/cricket/worm/octopuses) are actually more charismatic than dragons. They are outnumbered on virtually every front. They're cocky (villainous "gonna ruin his own plan by thinking he's anything more than a moron" style cocky) half the time. And they can't even fly well.
Are you referring to mechanically? Beginning with Young Adults, dragons cast as sorcerers of various levels with access to the sorcerer spell list and some have access to cleric spells as divine spells. The Dragon type's HD is very good. Along with their impressive spell selection and physical attributes (full BAB, all good saves, sleep/paralysis immunity), they get a decent allotment of spell-like abilities. Finally, their relatively high HD per CR means that they can have all manner of feats to provide an extra boost to their already potent abilities. Thanks to spell casting alone, dragons are far superior to devils or demons. Against angels, it is somewhat closer, but a dragon is still a larger threat 9 times out of 10.

I see little merit in your assertions that dragons are beaten "easily" by any of the things you mentioned.

The Big Dice
2010-08-03, 03:26 PM
Here (http://web.archive.org/web/20061031065811/www.tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/dar&drag.html) is a great article about dragons. It's completely system free and doesn't tie in to any game in particular.

What it does have is a cultural idea to explain why dragon play power games of epic scope. And the greatest description of just how different dragons are from humans.

Dragons are aliens.

Though they might interact with humans and try to understand them, they start off on a completely different footing than your typical near-immortal being. Elves, even if millenias old and more powerful than minor deities, still share much of daily life with humans -- they walk upright on two legs, see light in the visible spectrum, have opposable thumbs, and require a tool or magic to accomplish almost anything. The average fantasy human(oid) wakes up in the morning in a house she built with others of her kind, gets dressed in clothes which she sewed, cooks food in pots and bowls, works all day farming seeds she planted with tools she carved, and maybe meets six others of her species and can go see dozens more when they head into town that evening.

An adult dragon gets up (naked), flies around, kills prey with its claws, eats it raw, snoozes where it wants to (what will bother it?), takes shelter from the rain in a natural cave, lake, or burrowed underbrush, and flies hundreds of miles if it wants to see others of its species, which it can live without for years at a time.

Everything humans take for granted is different for dragons. They don't die of old age and can feed themselves with little effort, so they don't need jobs...or schedules...or even a concept of time. They have never, for all their power, built a tool or created something new. They don't have to. If they wait long enough and attack ferociously enough, they get the prey they want. This is why their plans usually take years to accomplish -- because they know no way other than to stalk, hunt and ambush their goal.

Think about all the ways in which we take tools and building for granted -- not to mention cooperation, families, words, old age, and a hundred other things dragons have never had -- and you'll understand how alien they really are. Even if they can change to human form, they will still think in the way most natural to them...human culture is like a foreign language, and the concepts don't translate all that well.

Humans evolved sentience because they were weak. Without claws, teeth, tough hides, fast legs or poison fangs, humans were snack food if they didn't cooperate, use tools and get smarter. Natural selection happens when a species is threatened; those that out-think or out-perform the threat survive. Dragons, as the undeniable top of the food chain, have little pressure to change (they probably evolved consciousness back in a primordial magical age where demons were a constant threat), so are not as adaptable as scrawny, spunky humanoids. When a dragon is faced with an undefeatable opponent, it waits for a better angle of attack. A human thinks...and designs a better weapon.
Rules constructs surrounding dragons have changed and changed again as RPGs have developed over the past 30-odd years. But I think that couple of paragraphs I quoted says everything that the GM needs to know about draconic psychology.

Oslecamo
2010-08-03, 05:03 PM
Rules constructs surrounding dragons have changed and changed again as RPGs have developed over the past 30-odd years. But I think that couple of paragraphs I quoted says everything that the GM needs to know about draconic psychology.

Far from it. It ignores all the dragons that actualy strive to build stuff, work togheter, their magic powers, and completely ignores the hoarding aspect wich appears in pretty much all fantasy. Those aren't dragons on that article. They're almost mindless beasts locked in self-stagnation that aren't even worthy of be hunted by adventurers.

The Big Dice
2010-08-03, 05:12 PM
Far from it. It ignores all the dragons that actualy strive to build stuff, work togheter, their magic powers, and completely ignores the hoarding aspect wich appears in pretty much all fantasy. Those aren't dragons on that article. They're almost mindless beasts locked in self-stagnation that aren't even worthy of be hunted by adventurers.

That's right. Mindless beastes that manipulate the fates of empires, collect hoards of treasure to fund obscure projects that last for milennia and use magical artefacts as a means of keeping score. The article says clearly "The dragons collect hoards of money to fund their projects and use magic or rare art objects as tokens of payment to one another...the money used in Monopoly."

These are dragons that only get hunted by adventurers if another dragon decides it's time to up the stakes a little.

Lord Raziere
2010-08-03, 05:19 PM
heh, this is actually one the issues my comic addresses:

my explanation? dragons are basically all seven sins wrapped into one monstrous package, they are so caught up enjoying abusing their awesome magical power and strength and so scattered that they cannot become organized enough to conquer the world again because once they lost it was a tremendous blow to their ego and vanity, so they retreated into themselves, each dragon building their own little world of riches and wonder, not bothering to come out and build a real one, not wanting to accept that the other races had beaten them, forever remaining as recluses who dream of an age lost past.

ericgrau
2010-08-03, 05:22 PM
yeah, it's like the reason we have dungeons even though they're tactically disadvantageous, especially with scry-and-die.

The DMG actually covers the topic of making sure your high level baddies expect divinations and so forth. The solution to the abyss, dragons and so forth are similar: because someone knows about it and is already handling it. Unfortunately the DM is the one who must control that someone, which makes for a lot of preparation.

The Big Dice
2010-08-03, 06:04 PM
my explanation? dragons are basically all seven sins wrapped into one monstrous package, they are so caught up enjoying abusing their awesome magical power and strength and so scattered that they cannot become organized enough to conquer the world again because once they lost it was a tremendous blow to their ego and vanity, so they retreated into themselves, each dragon building their own little world of riches and wonder, not bothering to come out and build a real one, not wanting to accept that the other races had beaten them, forever remaining as recluses who dream of an age lost past.

I figure that as far as the dragons are concerned,they already rule the world. After all, those puny bipeds that reed like rats and build like ants can't really be doing anything important. Well, other than bringing tributes of shiny metal and gemstones to add to the pile, that is.