How do you run your Dragons? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

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Katana1515

2013-06-17, 08:04 AM

The dragon is perhaps the single most Iconic monster in the game and often feature heavily in my games. However I have found many novice DMs (including a friend who's game i played in recently) struggle to make good use of them. In mid to high OP games the dragon can be an anti climax casually brought down in 2 rounds of spell slinging. This is often due to the fact that the dragon has been taken straight out of its respective MM, has no magic items and the preassigned feats are largely garbage.

So I thought I would ask the playground to compile the various ways you level the playing field for our scaly friends, so as to help newbie DMs as they face the task of customising their own Draconian Horrors! :)

Personal favourite is trading out a feat slot on Black dragons for pounce, I find it fits well with their fluff of being stealthy ambush predators and opening the encounter with a full attack on the party Barbarian (or Wizard if he's getting a little too cocky) tends to set the scene nicely!

Humble Master

2013-06-17, 08:26 AM

ksbsnowowl

2013-06-17, 10:45 AM

I play Dragons as being super intelligent beings that have had multitudes of years to plan and ready their defenses. All of my dragons basically have a personal army of Kobolds/mercenaries/Lizardfolk/Mind Raped minions/Slaves/All of the above that will defend the Dragon to their deaths. The dragons lair should be decked out in the most cunning and malicious magical defenses. Pools of lava disguised as a normal floor with illusions, sniper positions with enchanted ballista that shoot fireballs, secret healing stations for the minions ect. Also the dragon itself should have as many, if not more magical items on them than a Wizard of the same level.

Yep, good plans. The dragons should generally be smarter than the DM who is running it, which is part of why they often don't live up to their CR. The DM should put a lot of forethought into the dragon's plans; the dragon should have AT LEAST two preplanned methods of escape. It should also be able to recognize the threat within a round. If the PC's are in danger of killing it, it should either have a spell to neutralize them, or it should back off to buff up and return to take them out.

A dragon should never be just a random encounter with little thought. The DM should carefully choose their feats, spells, and equipment.

buttcyst

2013-06-17, 11:11 AM

I build them from the ground up, ignore WBL (and sometimes caster level... shhh), and try to get into their mindset as if they were my actual character, not an encounter. I don't do the armies of minions at their fortress in the sky though, I use cunning and misdirection. currently I have a dragon encounter planned for my party, he is a black dragon using a disguise kit as well as the bluff skill and the alter self spell to make himself appear as a bronze dragon awaiting friendly adventurers to ask a few riddles in exchange for magic items.

right now I work on it little by little, improving tactics, escape routes, new riddles. all the while waiting for the party to walk by the cave and see the sign that says "ring the bell for a riddle"

let it go a couple rounds back and forth, give them some trivial things, then when they start to get comfortable... wham (haste cast on self when bell rang) full attack, move away, ready spell for countering, and preferably be airborne.

the book of challenges has one like this, almost exactly, I ripped it off originally as a random encounter and then realized that I needed to put a lot of my own work into it to make sure it didn't die in 1 round. great book for getting abstract ideas on how to make an encounter more complex

Humble Master

2013-06-17, 11:14 AM

Shining Wrath

2013-06-17, 12:05 PM

On a leash, if they can keep up with me.

ksbsnowowl

2013-06-17, 12:45 PM

thethird

2013-06-17, 12:46 PM

All my dragons strongly believe that they are Tzeench.

Urpriest

2013-06-17, 12:50 PM

Each Dragon is different. The joy of Dragons is that most of the time you need to fill out their feats on your own, which means that unlike other monsters a Dragon is never just plopped out of the MM unoptimized.

OzymandiasX

2013-06-17, 01:16 PM

Shining Wrath

2013-06-17, 01:23 PM

As someone mentioned, dragons need to (and should!) fight very intelligently. Just like a party will size up opponents immediately on seeing them, a dragon should do the same and exploit a party's weaknesses.

Pick the most vulnerable party member (already inured, wizard, etc) and try to drop him in 1-2 rounds.
If the party isn't buffed (don't have fly spells, etc) and the dragon is big enough, grapple the wizard and fly off with him.
Use flight and range, if possible, to a huge advantage. Maybe stay up high, let the wizard burn a few damage spells, then heal up and attack the party when they're low on spells.
Have a Quickened spell or two ready. Tossing out a Suggestion for the party's cleric to FLEE! in the middle of combat can make a big difference.

To have the party respect dragons, don't pull any punches and try your darndest (within the rules, of course) to kill at least one PC with a challenging dragon. It may or may not happen, but if you do any less, the party will come to think of dragons as just a good source of loot. :)

Dragons for the most part are a highly intelligent spellcaster with lots of wealth and time to prepare. Were it not for the arrogance of the breed, dragons should never lose level-appropriate encounters in their lairs. There should be traps activated by command words spoken in languages dead before the PCs were born, terrain safe for the dragon but hostile to most PCs, large areas suitable for flying combat, et cetera.

That 3x treasure must be *earned*.

Feralventas

2013-06-17, 01:27 PM

All my dragons strongly believe that they are Tzeench.

While I don't hold this to be invariably true, many of the dragons I've had to run in a draconic-themed campaign do hold true to this. Over the course of years of encounters, conflicts, and following a story that started out as hack-and-slash, shifted into revenge and revolution, finally phased into nation-building and continental conquest, nearly every encounter has either been instigated or influenced by a particularly old Dragon, which the PC's sometimes do or don't take notice of.

That said, I'm running the Xorvinatal Dragons of the Great Game from MM5, so most of them Have to be at least reasonably qualified as Scoundrels.

Several of the posts so far have mentioned that the threat of a dragon isn't just in its stat-block; it's in the surrounding area and how they manipulate That as well. A well-established dragon has not only rooted themselves into the surrounding communities, they know all the little tricks and traps native to the area and how to avoid the harm that comes from them.

So, if taken to the absurd extreme: A Dragon
>Will have circumstantial bonuses to Knowledge Local and Geography.
>Will have spent time either endearing or intimidating the local populations.
>Will have built up some manner of wealth and value in the process.

But this need not be done so directly as "You're going to give me tribute or I'm going to tear up the town and slaughter the people."

This direct and to-the-point method works alright temporarily, but there are much better ways to do things. Rather than intimidating the civilizations nearby, buy off a group of bandits to act as agents, while using social skills or spells to ensure that they won't go blabbing about who's backing them. They slowly infiltrate towns and cities near-by, using the dragon's wealth and wisdom to gain positions of power, political, military, even economic. The dragon can, from this position, affect laws, business, and day to day conduct of the surrounding populace without ever having to show its face. Better still, spend a few years training the agents, have them act as go-betweens to prop up their Own agents and friends who are instead the ones making decisions so as to add another layer of distance between the dragon and anyone looking into the operation.

Depending on how it progresses, the Dragon can chose to look at the holdings it develops as part of its horde; an economic entity's growth becomes the growth of the Dragon's horde, both in concept and literally as it funnels and launders more money to the monetary horde. A political entity's growth of conquest expands the dragon's territory and brings back wonders and treasures from afar.

So, if an adventuring party goes dragon-hunting and simply looks in the country-side, they get arrested for trespassing or poaching. If they try to get permission, they're stonewalled by bureaucracy and red-tape. If they look into the matter carefully, they might find that the power players in town are taking an unusual interest in their business. If they confront and wrest answers from one of the powerful people, they direct them to a "friend" who supports their efforts regularly and made a few simple requests while offering enough to look the other way. They track down the supporter, and finally, FINALLY are able to put things together that the dragon has known they were after it the whole time and where they can find it if they think they can best something so well entrenched in the area.

And then they go off to fight a well-prepared reality-warping flying reptile of great size with tons of claws and huge teeth which is very intelligent and who by now will have probably hired assassins to hunt the adventurers first.

Extra-Planar

2013-06-17, 01:40 PM

Dragons are probably best thought of as individuals, they all have their own motivations and goals, their own agendas and enemys.

The thing that you can't stress enough is that no two dragon encounters should be the same. After about the third "dragon holding a town hostage" adventure your party runs, it's gonna get boring. I like to vary a dragons role and situation for each one that I run, with large swaths of territory separating the nearest rival, dragons don't share.

Some examples of Dragons I've used: Jassahix the Desert Tyrant, this is a pretty standard dragon, a huge **** who hides his lair deep under the evershifting sands of a vast desert, a terror to behold as he attacks anyone unfortunate enough to encounter him. One of the parties in the world I'm running only ever ran into him once, got blasted with a blast of lightning breath, and never ran into him again. This is typical of what should be happening at super low levels, since Dragon= dead party at those levels. The dragon is an undeniable beast that everyone must bow to, but maybe the party wants to tempt fate and steal a piece of fabled treasure from it. Either way, it's not the only way you can deal with this...

Often with dragons, their ever-feared names far precede them. The instant those players realize that the dragon their fighting is the same mythical blight upon the world their characters have been hearing about all their lives, they'll think long and hard about running. Some of the best campaigns are those where there's absolutely nothing pointing to a dragon being in charge, when the party finds out that the hobgoblin raiders they've been hired to fight is run by a juvenile Red Dragon, it might already be too late.

Dragons especially those with known lairs can make great focuses for adventures, but sometimes they're better used as a springboard to other adventures. The party hears about a terrible ancient Black Dragon living in the valley nearby, they want to find out whether it's died or if it's still living in it's lair. The villagers send the party to the house of a wise sage, The party finds this old man's hut and enters it to find a massive mansion within a seemingly tiny hovel. They find this sage, and he does know of the dragon they speak of, because he's its lover! (twist!) He reveals that he too is a dragon, a copper, and has long courted the powerful mistress of the valley. He agrees to accompany the party, gives them some things out of his horde to help them than goes off with them to the valley. The party is drawn into the valley they were avoiding, feeling confident with a dragon at their back. Dragons make great allies as long as they aren't doing all the work.

Sometimes it's best to have dragons be a distraction from the real danger, since everyone who ever sees a dragon give it their undivided attention generally. In the same adventure as the preceding paragraph, the party is confronted by the spawn of this Ancient Black Dragon, a pair of Young Adults. The more bad-ass of the two fights the Copper Dragon while the second fights the party, not too much by any means for a party of their strength at that point. They beat it after a hard fight and moved towards the Dragon's lair, to find the metallic and chromatic dragons fighting each other in a ferocious fight! They get there and help the metallic dragon overwhelm the other of the young adults, only a moment before beating him, the caves shake and a maddening howl can be heard from deep within the caves. An advanced, fiendish beholder blasts a hole in the floor and floats up, caving in the whole complex. Their ally was dead, and so was the two young adults. The party later excavated and came upon the dead ancient, slain by this otherworldly aberration. Now the question wasn't "what's up with these dragons?" so much as it was "Holy ****! What was that thing that just killed this dragon!?!"

(A little note here, I find parties that fight dragons often develop strategys for killing said dragons. Shivering Touch is effective for this sort of thing, since Dragons often have less than ideal Dex scores. Undead Dragons solve these problems.)

Enter the idea of a Vampiric Fang Dragon. A juvenile managed to stop a group over tenth level in their tracks.... Lets see why. The fang dragon (Monsters of Faerun) has no breath weapon, instead it gets a bite that does (save of permanent) Con damage. Add on the fact that a fang dragon's attacks are treated as one size category larger than they are, and the fact that vampires deal negative levels with natural attacks, ouch. Fang Dragons have the ability to mimic voices they've heard, and Vampiric Dragons can charm with their voices, it makes for some scary scenarios. Add that dragon as part of an undead cult, and it gives him all the more resources to work with. Even if the party gets close to killing it, vampires can assume a gaseous form... instant escape through a tiny hole in the floor. I couldn't have made the dragon any bigger, **** got rough and if it had made it any nastier it would have been a TPK right there.

Also, it pays to take an ally and make him a villain. After their metallic friend was killed in battle, the party didn't bury him, they instead went back and looted his house. Well, in game it's been about two weeks and he about to come back as a ghost and haunt them. Ghost Dragons (scary) can breath a mist that ages any who are hit by it by 1d100 years. Nuff said.

When your making dragons, and you want them to seem different from each other, the best thing you can do is to vary the names as much as you can. Here's some names I used.

Jassahix (Mature Adult Blue Dragon)
Fandrel (Juvenile Red Dragon)
Gnash and Blytsneezer (Young Adult Black Dragons)
Tiadam (Red Wyrm)
Shreddus (Vampiric Juvenile Fang Dragon)
Etherion (Mature Adult Copper Dragon)
Wentaslaus the King (Gold Great Wyrm)
Sarfang (Tundra Landwyrm{Draconimicon})
Fu Shi Ren (Tun'mi Lung Dragon {Oriental Adventures})
Ballaguish (Old Red Dragon)

There are way too many examples to list em all, but you get the idea. Dragons Rule.

buttcyst

2013-06-17, 01:47 PM

While I don't hold this to be invariably true, many of the dragons I've had to run in a draconic-themed campaign do hold true to this. Over the course of years of encounters, conflicts, and following a story that started out as hack-and-slash, shifted into revenge and revolution, finally phased into nation-building and continental conquest, nearly every encounter has either been instigated or influenced by a particularly old Dragon, which the PC's sometimes do or don't take notice of.

That said, I'm running the Xorvinatal Dragons of the Great Game from MM5, so most of them Have to be at least reasonably qualified as Scoundrels.

Several of the posts so far have mentioned that the threat of a dragon isn't just in its stat-block; it's in the surrounding area and how they manipulate That as well. A well-established dragon has not only rooted themselves into the surrounding communities, they know all the little tricks and traps native to the area and how to avoid the harm that comes from them.

So, if taken to the absurd extreme: A Dragon
>Will have circumstantial bonuses to Knowledge Local and Geography.
>Will have spent time either endearing or intimidating the local populations.
>Will have built up some manner of wealth and value in the process.

But this need not be done so directly as "You're going to give me tribute or I'm going to tear up the town and slaughter the people."

This direct and to-the-point method works alright temporarily, but there are much better ways to do things. Rather than intimidating the civilizations nearby, buy off a group of bandits to act as agents, while using social skills or spells to ensure that they won't go blabbing about who's backing them. They slowly infiltrate towns and cities near-by, using the dragon's wealth and wisdom to gain positions of power, political, military, even economic. The dragon can, from this position, affect laws, business, and day to day conduct of the surrounding populace without ever having to show its face. Better still, spend a few years training the agents, have them act as go-betweens to prop up their Own agents and friends who are instead the ones making decisions so as to add another layer of distance between the dragon and anyone looking into the operation.

Depending on how it progresses, the Dragon can chose to look at the holdings it develops as part of its horde; an economic entity's growth becomes the growth of the Dragon's horde, both in concept and literally as it funnels and launders more money to the monetary horde. A political entity's growth of conquest expands the dragon's territory and brings back wonders and treasures from afar.

So, if an adventuring party goes dragon-hunting and simply looks in the country-side, they get arrested for trespassing or poaching. If they try to get permission, they're stonewalled by bureaucracy and red-tape. If they look into the matter carefully, they might find that the power players in town are taking an unusual interest in their business. If they confront and wrest answers from one of the powerful people, they direct them to a "friend" who supports their efforts regularly and made a few simple requests while offering enough to look the other way. They track down the supporter, and finally, FINALLY are able to put things together that the dragon has known they were after it the whole time and where they can find it if they think they can best something so well entrenched in the area.

And then they go off to fight a well-prepared reality-warping flying reptile of great size with tons of claws and huge teeth which is very intelligent and who by now will have probably hired assassins to hunt the adventurers first.

I have some more work to do....

Lord Vukodlak

2013-06-17, 02:17 PM

Dragons are powerful enough having them wear magic items like characters is to much they collect a horde out of obsession not out of a desire to attain more power. They should find more interest in gems, works of art and other such finery then they do practical magic items. If your going to have a dragon start wearing equipment you need to up its CR.

Dragons for the most part are a highly intelligent spellcaster with lots of wealth and time to prepare. Were it not for the arrogance of the breed, dragons should never lose level-appropriate encounters in their lairs. There should be traps activated by command words spoken in languages dead before the PCs were born, terrain safe for the dragon but hostile to most PCs, large areas suitable for flying combat, et cetera.

The problem is the lair is about the only place you can fight a dragon to 'its' death. No magic can let you out fly a dragon its just to fast and there are no sure ways to force the dragon to the ground where the PC's can keep up.(due to a dragons good saves, if your banking on a one you might as well use save or die).

The dragon's lair and obsession with its horde should be seen as a weakness not as strength, a dragon should wants his lair to be comfortable he wants his servants to be able to approach to worship and give tribute without being killed because they built a death trap and not a home. They also wouldn't want the lair's defenses to damage the horde. But most importantly Dragons are also territorial so many of there defenses should have other dragons in mind. Which means they'd want there bed chambers to be large enough to fit them but not a second dragon of equal size. They'd want their rival to be forced to fight from the narrower hallway at a penalty. The older a dragon gets the more it should fear other dragons then it does meddlesome adventures until finally it really doesn't fear anything at all.

hamishspence

2013-06-17, 02:21 PM

No magic can let you out fly a dragon its just to fast and there are no sure ways to force the dragon to the ground where the PC's can keep up.

Turning yourself into a dragon might give you the speed needed.

Emperor Tippy

2013-06-17, 02:27 PM

First off, the stupidest adult dragon (the White) is as smart as the average human. The stupidest Great Wyrm (again the White) is well into the genius range (18 Int).

A wyrmling Red is as smart as the average adult human while an Adult Red is a genius and a Great Wyrm Red is firmly into the superhuman range for intelligence.

Silver and Gold are even smarter.

What does this mean? That there is no such thing as a stupid dragon.

Also, to become an adult dragon means that said dragon has at least a hundred years of life experience. A great wyrm has a thousand years of life experience.

That is before getting into their racial memory.

There is no such thing as a living Great Wyrm that is not paranoid and optimized to an extreme level. And remember, dragons with more than 20 HD can take Epic feats.

Permanent Emanation: Selective Antimagic Field is practically standard on any 21HD+ dragon that I run. Permanent Emanation: Selective Otiluke's
Impressing Field (Conjuration) is also often taken.

Tenacious Magic: Permanency plus having every spell that can be made permanent on a dragon made permanent is also standard (with Tenacious magic chaos shuffled after it is used).

Every dragon has its HD worth of Craft Contingent spells, including for things like Wish (to remove them from the area if they would die) and True Resurrection (to bring them back to life if they do die).

Persistent Greater Ironguard, Persistent Xorn Movement, Mind Blank, Persistent Delay Death, and Persistent Death Ward are all also fairly standard for a Great Wyrm.

And this is all just on the dragon its self. Their lairs are even worse (even the ones that aren't on their own personal demiplanes).

And then you have the Simulacrums of its self and any powerful creature that it has faced that a Great Wyrm has lying around (they are free with Ignore Material Components after all).

A dragon is an optimized tier 1 or 2 caster with all the feats and power that such a state implies. Killing a Great Wyrm is the thing that Epics are written about.

hamishspence

2013-06-17, 02:32 PM

There is no such thing as a living Great Wyrm that is not paranoid and optimized to an extreme level.

Unless you're playing an adventure with a pre-statted, unoptimized dragon.

Emperor Tippy

2013-06-17, 02:54 PM

Unless you're playing an adventure with a pre-statted, unoptimized dragon.

Rewrite the stupid thing then.

More seriously, it was cursed by the gods to be sucky and was the runt of the litter.

Shining Wrath

2013-06-17, 03:29 PM

Rewrite the stupid thing then.

More seriously, it was cursed by the gods to be sucky and was the runt of the litter.

Or it just got too arrogant. A Great Wyrm that has chased off all local rivals of the draconic sort might well feel that no mere mortals could possibly challenge it.

The weakness of dragonkind is not the Smaug-style hole in the armor plating but the Smaug-style belief that they are impervious to harm.

Tvtyrant

2013-06-17, 03:45 PM

Unless they are persisting spells that do in fact make them impervious to harm :smallamused:

I use Dragons in the same way I use Beholders and Aboleths, but more so. A dragon's lair is basically a menagerie/death trap. Illusionary walls coat everything because the dragon has true seeing, a hired Cleric puts a series of Hallows with Dispel Magic for alignments different from the dragons to strip entrants of their magical buffs, a number of dumb but vicious monsters have been collected in permanent wall of force prisons using Ray of Stupidity (powerful dragons have Garganths, Prismasaurus' and Behemoth's, weaker ones have animals.)

An evil dragon from Wyrmlings up will have a cult of Kobolds, Spawns of Tiamat with colors matching theirs, and all manner of dragons and reptiles for servants.

A black wyrmling dragon I ran had a large platform surronded by a moat that he lived on. The moat was filled with crocodiles and there was a Kobold Village on the platform around his throne/bed. When the party arrived the Kobolds started shooting arrows at the party, and Grekzis used flyby attack to pour acid on the party 1/4 rounds and then retreat behind the houses to avoid return fire.

ksbsnowowl

2013-06-17, 03:45 PM

And remember, dragons with more than 20 HD can take Epic feats.
Minor quible: Although that is true of most monsters, Draconomicon specifically states that true dragons of Old age and older can take Epic feats. Most true dragons have well more than 20 HD before they reach Old age.

Of course, a DM is free to ignore such a guideline.

Waker

2013-06-17, 03:52 PM

Going along with some of what has been said, unless the party is fighting a hatchling, the dragon they face has had decades, centuries or millenia to think of plans and counterplans to anything the party might try.
Make specific plans against the party, including all of the usual tactics and resources. You aren't meta-gaming, the dragon has plans for every hypothetical approach the party might try, as well as a couple hundred they won't. Plan at a minimum two escape plans and don't hesitate to use fiat once or twice. Remember, you are a super genius with centuries to scheme.
Use the environment against the party. Dragons can usually fly, swim and dig way faster than the party could ever hope to. They also tend to lair in places inimical to us soft skins. A red dragons lair bombards would be dragons slayers with lava, scalding steam, choking poisonous gas and potentially unstable rock formations before they decide to add something and make it dangerous. Black dragons have lairs full of dark clouded water, myriad of animals carrying poisons and diseases, plants that want to eat you... Use all of this stuff to your advantage.

Emperor Tippy

2013-06-17, 04:07 PM

Minor quible: Although that is true of most monsters, Draconomicon specifically states that true dragons of Old age and older can take Epic feats. Most true dragons have well more than 20 HD before they reach Old age.

Of course, a DM is free to ignore such a guideline.

Any creature with 21 or more HD can take epic feats. Any Old Dragon (regardless of HD) can also take Epic Feats.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-06-17, 04:10 PM

I'm a Xorvintaal fan too, so most of the dragons in my setting that aren't very young or very old are busy moving their pieces around the board. If you can actually get to one in one peice you're generally not in too much trouble, assuming you even realize you've found his lair and/or that the one guy you met a while ago -is- the dragon (yay alternate form!).

It's only the older dragons that have retired from play that are really, independently dangerous.

In any case, I play them with the same tactical savvy I play any of the more intelligent monsters.

TripleD

2013-06-17, 04:30 PM

The weakness of dragonkind is not the Smaug-style hole in the armor plating but the Smaug-style belief that they are impervious to harm.

This.

One thing about dragons that I don't think I've ever seen anyone exploit is the fact that, for all their immunities, they are not immune to disease. Which means they can actually get sick and die just like any other creature. Granted disease is ridiculously easy to cure via magic, but if you have any house-ruled exceptions, or just don't count genetic conditions as "diseases", it opens up some interesting possibilities.

An idea I've had for a while now (which I'll admit I completely ripped off from "So You Want To Be A Wizard") is a Silver/Gold Dragon with Alzheimer's. The dragon's Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma slowly drop, eventually getting low enough that it can no use magic of any level.

At first the villagers of the valley, who have lived for several generations under his protection, do their best to help him cope, but after accidentally killing a small child whose toy he mistook for an artifact from his horde, they realize that he has become a danger to himself and their families, and ask my player's party for help.

Lightlawbliss

2013-06-17, 05:02 PM

...

An idea I've had for a while now (which I'll admit I completely ripped off from "So You Want To Be A Wizard") is a Silver/Gold Dragon with Alzheimer's. The dragon's Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma slowly drop, eventually getting low enough that it can no use magic of any level.

At first the villagers of the valley, who have lived for several generations under his protection, do their best to help him cope, but after accidentally killing a small child whose toy he mistook for an artifact from his horde, they realize that he has become a danger to himself and their families, and ask my player's party for help.

how old will the white be before it is THAT old. if I remember correctly that will be the youngest that could happen with.

TripleD

2013-06-17, 10:09 PM

According to the Draconomicon, Metallic Dragons start dying at CHA * 100 + 1200, so I'd place any Great Wyrm in the same category as a 65+ human (Not quite venerable, but getting there). Any dragon in the "Ancient" or higher I would put at risk for early onset.

Arcanist

2013-06-17, 10:14 PM

*snip*

Pretty much this, however for me this extends to just about every type of creature that is long lived and super intelligent. Effectively these entities are fighting on the level Darkseid, challenging Demon Lords, Sorcerers and Gods.

TuggyNE

2013-06-17, 10:24 PM

how old will the white be before it is THAT old. if I remember correctly that will be the youngest that could happen with.

Humans can, occasionally, suffer Alzheimer's as young as their 40s or 50s.

Coidzor

2013-06-17, 10:28 PM

Pseuo-Freudian, in that dragons have altered perceptions of reality along racial lines which, in humans would be considered mental illness, but the one factor that all forms of dragonkind share is the tragic flaw of hubris.

Marxism

2013-06-17, 11:03 PM

I see dragons as one half of a very good encounter. They have d12 hitdice, massive stats across the board (except for dex ****ing dex). They have a bit of casting 6 attacks per round (precheese) and an incredible grapple. They are the best frontliner you could ever ask for.

The second half is their minions. Why feed the PC's free exp when you can solidify your defense around yourself? My favorite is a sorcerer that is basically a buff stick for the dragon and a cleric that is there to heal and distract the pc's add snipers for flavor! The most recent dragon encounter I did looked like this:

The party: Evil party with a druid no animal comp. Bard/sublime chord, rogue/assassin, and barbarian/frenzied 'zerker. all 15th level mid-range optimization but practically all glass cannons.

My team: 1 adult gold dragon with massive defenses, something like AC:40 Dr 15/- Fast healing 10 or 15 and 350 hp. That was with full buffs. I forget how but I was probably cheating and it had a fly speed of 350 (perfect). With him was a 12th level sorc and a 12th level cleric Those two had practically no defenses. The encounter area was a large open room with plenty of space for flight. The casters were behind cover the Dragon waiting in front of the door to hit them with fire.

The fight. The druid used an earth elemental to scout it all out. The dragon noticed and simply blasted the door and wall with fire creating a puddle of lava between the PC's and the dragon. The rogue broke off to kill the casters as I had hoped. The druid summoned a huge earth elemental to tangle with the dragon. The dragon shrugged off it's attacks. The barbarian charged and landed one hit that dealt a bit of damage. The bard cast dispel magic on the casters. the next round the sorcerer was dropped by the rogue and the cleric was going to die soon. I decided to get real with them and had the dragon full attack the barbarian dealing about 120 damage and forcing her to frenzy. The Barbarian hit back and did about 40 damage. Skip a few turns and the dragon's casters are dead multiple summons have been torn through, The bard is immobilized by weakening gas the dragon is at half health, the rouge is pinned at 1/4 health and going to die next turn the druid is an eagle flying around casting. In a wonderful turn of events the druid and bard pulled a beautiful heal chain bringing the barbarian and the rogue back to the fight and the bard back to being able to move. The barbarian and rogue then hit the dragon as hard as they could and the bard enervated it. It was at 50 hp but I felt they had had too easy of a time doing this fight so I had it take off blast them with fire and run. overall a good fight in my opinion.

Ace Nex

2013-06-18, 02:13 AM

Those who use dragons full attacks are in fact, stupid. Putting the dragon in the middle of the party will just get it focused and killed. Chances are if they're fighting a dragon, they've either A. Encountered it while it's out and about and probably has a bunch of spells up on it giving it protection against those particularly nasty spells or B. The PCs have infiltrated the dragons lair, probably exhausted many of their daily resources after battling several waves of its minions and unable to fight at their %100. The Dragon probably would have plenty of time to prepare as well. Things I use in dragon fights generally are,

1. Darkness. You won't believe how many people overlook this little thing. Dragon with Darkvision and the ability to dispel lights. Suddenly those without darkvision can't see, making LOS spells impossible and giving everything else a 50% miss. Same goes with invisibility.

2. Spells, even the lower level spells offer great utility. Mirror Image makes those wonderful charge based characters extremely frustrated as they get AOOs and miss chance. My favorite is the "Blood Wind Spell", so now it can full attack at range, like when flying. This keeps it out of range from those pesky melee fighters while still allowing it to pump out damage. The best part is that it's a first level spell.

3. Flight. The ability to fly and strafe with breath/cast spells REALLY is overlooked by a lot of DMs I've played with. This effectively keeps them out of harms way and allows them to pump out quite a bit of damage.

4. Focus down one target, specifically, the healer/caster. Doing this removes their ability to counter attack effectively. The party has to scramble to their allies defense instead of attacking.

Yuukale

2013-06-18, 03:30 AM

having skipped the posts, I recommend this when dealing with "smarter-than-the-DM" creatures: take note of how many spells per circle the dragon can cast. Do not prepare them beforehanded, just assume they are there because the dragon thought so. Create traps and dangers to the players on-the-fly because, of course the dragon prepared for such occasion!

Do never deploy the dragon as a challenge = to its CR. Use a weaker CR dragon but with enough room for you to lay traps (as in "dangers to the party", not necessarily actual built traps) on the lair so that to compensate for its CR.

In a nutshell, have room for creating stuff on demand to impress and surprise the players with the dragon's genius, pulling the "I knew you'd do this" trope.

hamishspence

2013-06-18, 06:10 AM

A dragon is an optimized tier 1 or 2 caster with all the feats and power that such a state implies.

Mostly tier 2, by way of being spontaneous casters- I can't think of any dragons offhand that come with prepared casting rather than spontaneous.

thethird

2013-06-18, 08:58 AM

Spellhoarding dragons are prepared.

Tragak

2013-06-18, 09:06 AM

The way I imagine Dragons, Good or Evil:

1) Near-Immortals: unless a dragon gets killed in a fight, it would take thousands of years to die of old age, so they would probably not even pay attention to the societies of mortals that don't even make it to half a millenium. Remote dragon societies would encourage individuals not to "waste time" on such short-lived beings, thinking of those who do in the same way that we think of the crazy cat lady who doesn't have "real" human friends. Even the good dragons probably only care about evil dragons attacking mortal towns the way we think of animal cruelty.

However, some good renegades might be fascinated by how much more work we put into each of our far fewer years, perhaps wanting to preserve our mortal accomplishments in their own immortal memory before we are lost forever. On the other hand, some evil renegades might just want to have more fun, thinking that populations of such short-lived people won't be missed anyway and/or that other dragons could defend themselves better (think future serial killers that start with small animals instead of other people).

Also, by a mouse's standards, would a human be considered arrogant?

2) Super-genius spellcasters: This has been covered pretty well; any dragon is going to be smarter than the DM, any of the players, and most of the player characters. If "pests" (mortal adventurers) get into a dragon's home, there are probably already traps and "guard dogs" (minions and/or monsters).

3) Treasure obsession: how is that different from humans :smallbiggrin:

Bonus points to anybody who didn't need to be told that I was describing dragons as Time Lords.

Coidzor

2013-06-18, 09:31 AM

Also, by a mouse's standards, would a human be considered arrogant?

2) Super-genius spellcasters: This has been covered pretty well; any dragon is going to be smarter than the DM, any of the players, and most of the player characters. If "pests" (mortal adventurers) get into a dragon's home, there are probably already traps and "guard dogs" (minions and/or monsters).

Bonus points to anybody who didn't need to be told that I was describing dragons as Time Lords.

So, what, White Dragons are the Master? :smallamused:

Arcanist

2013-06-18, 09:37 AM

Bonus points to anybody who didn't need to be told that I was describing dragons as Time Lords.

Confirmed: Dragons are now Time Lords and in every single one of my campaigns there is now a Silver Dragon named "The Doctor" :smallamused:

Mutazoia

2013-06-18, 10:30 AM

Something I forgot. If there is a town/city nearby then the Dragon should blackmail the crud out of that town. The town should be forced to, on penalty of incineration, provide supplies and food to the dragon. The town militia should also be tasked with assassinating anybody who looks like an adventurer that is talking about raiding a dragons lair. Heck, if the general populace even knows were the dragon's lair is you are not playing the dragon right.

That's all well and good for a youngish dragon. An older dragon would be a bit more long sited (IMHO).

In the past I've had a dragon as the crime King Pin in major cities. A dragon, in polymorph disguise as a humanoid, loansharking (good way to grow your hord with little to no risk to your own scaly butt) smuggling...the whole 9 yards. Has a nice large lair hollowed out under the city (his minions know it as the "boss's Vault...nobody goes near it.") where he can assume his normal from once in a while and roll around in the mountain of treasure he's collected over the years. The city walls, the city watch, the cities own army providing excellent protection for the Dragon and his lair. With a few bribes in the right hands the crime boss is left alone to operate. Occationally the Dragon gate's out to wreak havoc on some rival city or destroy a rival crime lord's shipment's (stealing the cargo for himself)...

The Dragon would know of the PC's arrival in town long before (if ever) they knew about him. They would usually wind up doing business with the Dragon, (fencing goods, buying rare items etc.) maybe even doing an occational job at his behest, never knowing his true identity. If the PC's ever find out the crime boss is really a dragon and decide to do something about it, the dragon has had decades (at the very least) to grow an army of minions, influence the city leadership, place his own people in positions of command in the watch and the army, lace his hide out with deadly traps and spells (I sugges a read of the old 2e Draconomocon if you can find it...excellent dragon spells in that one)... the PC's would esentially have to go to war with the town before they even reached the dragon....

Extra-Planar

2013-06-18, 11:18 AM

Feralventas

2013-06-18, 12:32 PM

Yep, when dragons get too old one of three things happen...

They get killed by other dragons or dickish PCs, become the ever feared Draco-Lich, or they simply fade away. I forget what the specific term for this was, but I think its called "the twilight" where they have to make saves or straight up fade away.

But what if a dragon chose to die... one last rampage, a blood sacrifice to open a portal to Avernus for Tiamat's army to come through.

Draconomicon expands on a dragon's demise as well. Some dragons acquire a horde of gold and treasure, consume it, go find a nice place to make a nest and become a kind of genius loci to guard future clutches.

Vaz

2013-06-18, 03:33 PM

In one of my campaigns at the moment, dragons are the movers and shakers.

Each dragon typically spends most of its time in humanoid form within the city (through polymorph, or alternate form, etc). They are the power behind the throne, but as each dragon (every true dragon, for example), and begins to build up large contacts within the city hierarchies. Each city is dedicated to a Dragon, similar to how Rokugan Clans are based off animals.

Each dragon is involved in Xorvintaal, and consequently their own hierarchy within themselves (the humanoid cities being unwitting pawns); so a city of the Silver Dragon has several dragons vying between themselves (who are each aided by the Exarch's) to elevate themselves to higher echelons. However, they also have to cope with the machinations of the nearby Incarnum dragon cities dragons and exarchs.

To add to this, there is an interplanar war between all of the extraplanar alignment outsiders. They have been recently defeated by the dragon cities, but are massing beyond the veils for another strike; at one another. It just so happens that this is another battle ground, the dragons are situated in No-Mans land.

Consequently, the extraplanar races are attempting to subvert the dragon cities into fighting for a cause; of course, not all of the Xorvintaal dragons like that; and as such, they are making moves against those trying to make contracts with the extraplanar races (whichever they be).

The PC's in this mess are free to use this as an open world; they can do what they want within it, but they've got to be careful, as I'm not above bringing someone down; angering the wrong "person" can result in an advanced epic dragon ascendant with all their exarchs coming to take issue with the problem. Just annoying a local guard with a connection to a thieves guild member who has a contact with a magistrate who happens to be a Xorvintaal Dragon in humanoid form could mess up a plan several decades in the making, preventing said magistrate from ruining a Xorvintaal Dragon. They are unlikely to be happy. Depending on the dragon (younger are more brash, have shallower plans that don't have as many fall backs or secondary positions, making them more susceptible to failure if one things goes wrong; they are more likely to attack than a bigger dragon), the party could then either become food, or they could become an unwitting pawn in the dragons plans (whether the party know it or not). I do have one party member (a Sorcerer, fittingly enough) who is wishing to become an Exarch, for example, but he is wanting to be one for a dragon to whom three other members of the party are currently unwittingly attempting to topple at the behest of a Yugoloth spy, so there's some conflict going on.

Imagine each one of the dragons is Petyr Baelish on steroids from Game of Thrones.

Someonelse

2013-06-18, 03:40 PM

I once calculated a dragon's treasure value and had him use that money to totally deck him out in magic items, what money was left over the dragon wore as jewelery, gems and coins stuck in his scales. The concept was that this was an adventuring dragon who didn't have a lair, he just carried everything with him. Probably the toughest dragon I ever ran, and had a few relatively useless items, since full plate fitted for a gargantuan dragon won't fit the paladin without a polymorph spell.