Dragon Maneuverability

[BWM]

Hey there,

Everybody always says that the best tactic to fight with a dragon is to keep it in the air and keep it flying. I cast Wings of Air on my dragon (Maneuverability goes up by one) and now their Maneuverability is Average...



Which still kind'a sucks if the players cast Fly on themselves (Dragon is not old enough for dispel) since they can easily keep away from said sad dragon.

Especially the minimum forward speed and making a turn in mid-air are killing me...


Do I fail?

[Eloel]

There's a feat, Hover, that makes any heavy investment in maneuverability obsolete. It just means you need to stop as a move action before turning back, but it's still better than crashing into random walls because you can't turn in time.

[zarakstan]

Indeed, hover will prove most useful in you're situation, I have also occasionally invested in "Improved Maneuverability" which as you may have guessed boosts maneuverability by 1 category (although this is only worth it if it gets maneuverability to "good").

[Twilight Jack]

Indeed, hover will prove most useful in you're situation, I have also occasionally invested in "Improved Maneuverability" which as you may have guessed boosts maneuverability by 1 category (although this is only worth it if it gets maneuverability to "good").

Which it will do when combined with wings of air. I'd also suggest Wingover and/or Flyby Attack if you've got the feats to spare.

Hover is definitely a must have, if you can't get your manueverability up to good by some other means. That will be an important thing when you get to an age that is naturally "clumsy" in flight, as wings of air plus Improved Manueverability won't get you to "good" anymore.

[jmbrown]

Keep in mind that the spell "fly" doesn't allow a character to run. The dragon can always outpace them until their spell wears off but yes he'll have trouble maneuvering. Still, unless you're flying through an intricate cavern or dense forest it's pretty tough to out fly a dragon with a simple fly spell.

[Doug Lampert]

Hey there,

Everybody always says that the best tactic to fight with a dragon is to keep it in the air and keep it flying. I cast Wings of Air on my dragon (Maneuverability goes up by one) and now their Maneuverability is Average...



Which still kind'a sucks if the players cast Fly on themselves (Dragon is not old enough for dispel) since they can easily keep away from said sad dragon.

Especially the minimum forward speed and making a turn in mid-air are killing me...


Do I fail?

A dragon's flight is FAR FAR faster than PCs with fly. So it ALWAYS gets to engage when and only when it wants to. Coming in from a distance it can ALWAYS hit the target it wants. It's "poor" manuverability only matters if it insists on staying close, which defeats the point of staying in the air, which is to assure that it engages on its terms.

Additionally, there IS NO FACING in 3.x! At the start of its turn the clumsiest dragon in the world can move in any direction it wants, turning, and restrictions on turning radius, ONLY applies during a move, not at the start of turn. So the PCs can't avoid the dragon even if it does stay close.

But against a party without overwhelming ranged attacks the dragon should close ONLY if it's breath weapon is recharged, and should take out those with effective ranged attacks first. Heck, a dragon is SMART, and has far better senses than any reasonable PC group, it can open the range and wait for the bloody fly spells to go down! Anything but overland flight is short duration.

In the open dragons are deadly because the fight is ALWAYS on the dragon's terms, and the PCs get only long duration buff spells.

[Epinephrine]

I'm assuming you say that they can avoid the dragon based on readied actions to move? Otherwise, the dragon simply charges in from a huge distance away. If they have readied actions to move when the dragon gets within X feet though, the dragon won't be able to adjust its course sufficiently to compensate.

I agree that (barring pressing needs) a dragon can simply wait for spells to wear off, and can do flyby attacks using its breath (unless the players can move really fast). After all, even if the players ready an action to move, the dragon can still adjust to some extent, and assuming its breath has a decent range it may well catch them with it.

If readied actions are a headache for your dragon, give it the sorcerer spell Incite? Denies the ability to ready actions or delay in combat. Handy tactical spell, and as a swift action to cast it doesn't waste much of the dragon's valuable time.

[jmbrown]

A dragon's flight is FAR FAR faster than PCs with fly. So it ALWAYS gets to engage when and only when it wants to. Coming in from a distance it can ALWAYS hit the target it wants. It's "poor" manuverability only matters if it insists on staying close, which defeats the point of staying in the air, which is to assure that it engages on its terms.

Additionally, there IS NO FACING in 3.x! At the start of its turn the clumsiest dragon in the world can move in any direction it wants, turning, and restrictions on turning radius, ONLY applies during a move, not at the start of turn. So the PCs can't avoid the dragon even if it does stay close.

But against a party without overwhelming ranged attacks the dragon should close ONLY if it's breath weapon is recharged, and should take out those with effective ranged attacks first. Heck, a dragon is SMART, and has far better senses than any reasonable PC group, it can open the range and wait for the bloody fly spells to go down! Anything but overland flight is short duration.

In the open dragons are deadly because the fight is ALWAYS on the dragon's terms, and the PCs get only long duration buff spells.

Just being pedantic here but only a handful of dragons actually have high intelligence.

With that said, yes the dragon will definitely outstrip a simple fly spell armed party. I don't know what kind of ranged attacks you have in mind but whenever I play low level dragons I usually have them drop heavy rocks on the party until his breath recharges.

[Twilight Jack]

A dragon's flight is FAR FAR faster than PCs with fly. So it ALWAYS gets to engage when and only when it wants to. Coming in from a distance it can ALWAYS hit the target it wants. It's "poor" manuverability only matters if it insists on staying close, which defeats the point of staying in the air, which is to assure that it engages on its terms.

Additionally, there IS NO FACING in 3.x! At the start of its turn the clumsiest dragon in the world can move in any direction it wants, turning, and restrictions on turning radius, ONLY applies during a move, not at the start of turn. So the PCs can't avoid the dragon even if it does stay close.

Although there is no facing in 3.5, I don't believe that is the intent of the rules. I just believe that the devs forgot to include a sentence spelling that out in the DMG. After all, facing was a consideration in 3.0 (although it had all sorts of problems). Otherwise, the whole concept of aerial tactical movement as a consideration swiftly ceases to hold any water (air?). I've always ruled that the minimum forward speed necessary is always in the direction you were moving during your last round of flight.

And I know that the RAW, by omission, does not support me. I just don't see much point in detailed tactical movement rules for flight manueverability, if they can be rendered utterly irrelevant by a lawerly adherence to the lack of facing.

[hamishspence]

especially given the amount of text in Draconomicon stressing how dragons turn slowly.

[Gralamin]

Just being pedantic here but only a handful of dragons actually have high intelligence.

With that said, yes the dragon will definitely outstrip a simple fly spell armed party. I don't know what kind of ranged attacks you have in mind but whenever I play low level dragons I usually have them drop heavy rocks on the party until his breath recharges.

If by a handful, you mean "Any dragon who is not black or white."
3 Mettallic Dragons have Int 14 when they are a wyrmling, 1 starts at 12, and the final one starts at 10. From there, even the 10 grows by +2 per 2 sizes.

White Dragon's start at 6, Red starts at 10 but rapidly increases, Green and blue follow the pattern of the dumbest metallic, Black starts at 8.

[Darcand]

As clumsy as dragons are in the sky, they can be extremely agile on land.

I made an adult black dragon with a crippled wing once. He couldn't fly, but what he could do was cast expeditious retreat on himself to gain a total movement speed of 90 for three minutes and use that to come out of nowhere and bullrush armor wearers into deep water.

Then I slotted him up with ranks in jump and tumble, hide, move silently, and swim. He had Run and Acrobatic too I believe. He could clear like 30 foot gaps with a roll of 1 or move silently and hidden 45 feet a round.

Certainly alot of his power was wasted making so ground capable, but he is one of the most memorable dragons I have ever put out, and that usually counts for more.

[Keld Denar]

Other magical swag to increase dragon's flight capabilities include the Pectoral of Flight in the Draconomicon. Again, increases maneuverability by 1. Stacking that, Improved Maneuverability and that Wings spell, you can get most dragons to Perfect maneuvuerability.

[jmbrown]

If by a handful, you mean "Any dragon who is not black or white."
3 Mettallic Dragons have Int 14 when they are a wyrmling, 1 starts at 12, and the final one starts at 10. From there, even the 10 grows by +2 per 2 sizes.

White Dragon's start at 6, Red starts at 10 but rapidly increases, Green and blue follow the pattern of the dumbest metallic, Black starts at 8.

I was speaking of chromatic dragons, the ones most commonly encountered by heroic parties. They're all pretty savage and dumb. The smartest chromatic dragon has intelligence 16 as an adult and while that's around genius level it comes from living centuries.