How do you dragon?

[Yora]

This is a problem that is especially noticable in D&D, but probably affects almost any RPG that has dragons.

Usually dragons are supposed to be super-awesome and the most powerful beasts around, but at the same time most campaigns take place at lower levels where PCs aren't capable of taking on these massive beasts in an equal fight.
You could always use weaker dragons, and in D&D dragons can be found in sizes small enough that even a first level party might have a shot, but doing that would almost always feel just lame. If you are going to fight the biggest, meanest creature in the world, you want to defeat the real thing, not a downsized kiddy-version. It's particularly bad in D&D, which made dragons not only big and powerful, but also hyper-intelligent and capable spellcasters. In D&D 3rd Ed., a party would have to be about 9th or 10th level to be able to fight the weakest of the big dragons, and I think I've seen only two groups that ever got to such a high level.

So what are your thoughts about giving dragons a presence in non-high level campaigns?

[unbeliever536]

You could just treat the dragon as a part of the environment. Fighting it, then, is a whole seriesof encounters along the lines of fighting your way through a heavily trapped dungeon. The party never faces the dragon in a straight-up fight; instead they spend the whole day fighting it. This also lets the gm give the dragon a more cinematic death than "that last sword-stroke, unlike the previous ten, kill the beast.

[Rhynn]

AD&D 2E and D&D 3.X had dragon inflation: dragons of any reasonable age became hugely more powerful.

For comparison, Khisanth, the black dragon lairing in Xak Tsaroth in the AD&D 1E module DL1 Dragons of Despair, is an ancient huge black dragon... with 8 HD and 64 hp (the maximum). That's the strongest a black dragon can be in AD&D 1E, unless you use the optional age categories from the original Forgotten Realms supplement. The default PCs are 3rd to 6th level.

So in AD&D 1E, a party averaging 4½th level or so could take on the mightiest standard black dragon.

edit: Khisanth's breath weapon deals a flat 100% of her hit points, halved by a successful save, this being AD&D 1E. If Khisanth is uninjured, that's almost enough to kill Tanis, Caramon, Riverwind, or Flint at full health even on a successful save, and on a failed save will kill any of the default PCs on one hit. So it is pretty epic and dangerous to fight Khisanth. /edit

It's a matter of scale, and not nearly all RPGs hyper-inflate dragons' mechanical capabilities the way AD&D 2E, D&D 3E, and D&D 4E do. There's no objective or external measure by which this is necessary. Indeed, looking at the source material (the Volsungasaga, Saint George, The Hobbit, etc.) a single mid-level fighter should be able to solo dragons, if at great risk...

[TheCountAlucard]

Indeed, looking at the source material (…The Hobbit…) a single mid-level fighter should be able to solo dragons, if at great risk...

The book, not the movie. That was some bull-donk!

To clarify, the movie has a thirty-plus-minute fight scene in which Bilbo and the dwarves drown Smaug in molten gold. It also retconned Bard's black arrow as a giant effin' harpoon fired from a massive metal ballista.

[Rhynn]

The book, not the movie. That was some bull-donk!

I have no idea what you're talking about. I fell asleep during the first, second, and third hour-long exhausting unnecessary fight scenes that weren't in the book.

Edit: Oh, also, Turin Turambar and Glaurung, the second-most iconic dragon of Middle-Earth.

[Zombimode]

Usually dragons are supposed to be super-awesome and the most powerful beasts around, but at the same time most campaigns take place at lower levels where PCs aren't capable of taking on these massive beasts in an equal fight.

Your use of the word "but" indicates some sort of contradiction, but to me the second phrase seems to be a conclusion from the first. I don't see the conflict.

[Rhynn]

Your use of the word "but" indicates some sort of contradiction, but to me the second phrase seems to be a conclusion from the first. I don't see the conflict.

It's "dragons are iconic but most PCs can't fight them," i.e. in D&D 3.X, it's rare for a dragon of impressive age & size to be even a remotely suitable challenge for PCs.

[Kish]

Your use of the word "but" indicates some sort of contradiction, but to me the second phrase seems to be a conclusion from the first. I don't see the conflict.

Yes, this.

I prefer to have dragons as NPCs the PCs can't simply beat up, unless the PCs are in "epic hero" range, and even if they can kill a dragon it's not ever something they'll file as "killed 12 orcs and 2 dragons today."

[Blarmb]

You could just treat the dragon as a part of the environment. Fighting it, then, is a whole seriesof encounters along the lines of fighting your way through a heavily trapped dungeon. The party never faces the dragon in a straight-up fight; instead they spend the whole day fighting it. This also lets the gm give the dragon a more cinematic death than "that last sword-stroke, unlike the previous ten, kill the beast.

Correct Answer.

[Red Fel]

So what are your thoughts about giving dragons a presence in non-high level campaigns?

1. Not all dragons are monsters. You have plenty of powerful NPCs - the King, the Guildmaster, the Wizard Who Lives On The Hill - why not the Dragon? Maybe he's tyrannical, maybe he's benevolent, maybe he's a leader of men or a religious figure, maybe he dwells among mortals in disguise, maybe he lives openly. You can make him a non-combat encounter, at which point you don't have to worry about his stats (unless your players are suicidal).

2. Not all dragons are present. A dragon can have a presence in a campaign without being present. You can have the stories of Tabazak, an ancient Gold Dragon who lived centuries ago, whose image is emblazoned across sacred ruins and modern temples, whose legacy gave rise to the current monarchy. You can have legends speak of Gabsican, a Silver Dragon who holds the secret to some great magical spell, who lives in hiding in the Mountains of the Mist, and whom countless heroes have sought, but none have found. A dragon can have an impact on the campaign, even if you never meet him face to face.

3. Not all dragons are dragons. As suggested above, the PCs may encounter a dragon disguised as another creature. Don't expect this dragon-in-disguise to use the full array of its draconic powers.

4. Not all dragons take you seriously. If the PCs do fight a dragon, it may toy with them rather than brutalize them. It may playfully bat them around a bit, before tiring of them and departing. Note that, if the PCs try to keep it around, its playfulness may turn into annoyance.

[Rhynn]

Yes, this.

I prefer to have dragons as NPCs the PCs can't simply beat up, unless the PCs are in "epic hero" range, and even if they can kill a dragon it's not ever something they'll file as "killed 12 orcs and 2 dragons today."

I generally agree, in that I think dragons should require special effort, one way or another. Either you need special preparation (like killing Vermithrax Pejorative in Dragonslayer), or you need to be a mythical hero (Gilgamesh/Marduk and Tiamat and the whole Proto-Eurasian "hero fights chaos water dragon" motif)...

But, in the context of D&D specifically, I don't think it's necessary to put dragons as enemies in the upper level range only or primarily. In AD&D, finishing around 9th - 12th level was much more common than 20th level, so it made much sense that the toughest dragons would be appropriate opponents around those levels. "Mythical hero" isn't defined by the rules as any particular level range.

[ShadowFireLance]

Well, for starters...

1) In truth, all Dragons would actually be smarter than Humans. They're both Nigh immortal, and natural spellcasters. They wouldn't be caught dead in any disadvantage.

2) They. Don't. Land. They strafe the party, they don't Ever land.

3) At lower levels, yeah, you kill the young Dragon, but I swear to Tiamat if the Elder isn't around the corner, BS will be called. May just be me, but If you don't Dragon right, don't Dragon.

4) Prep Time. Dragons can scry. Dragons really don't like surprises (Personal experience here.) so they would know pretty much everything about the Party.

5) They're the closest mortals to godhood. It follows that they would possess the following of ones. Use Tucker's Kobolds to beat the crap outta them first, THEN have them face the Dragon.

About all I got right now, I'll be back at some point to finish.

[Coidzor]

So what are your thoughts about giving dragons a presence in non-high level campaigns?

Well, you either downgrade the dragons or you upgrade the power level of starting characters. Or you accept that you want to start at a higher level than level 1/introductory characters.

As far as I can tell, it's just that simple.

[Rhynn]

1. Not all dragons are monsters
2. Not all dragons are present.
3. Not all dragons are dragons.
4. Not all dragons take you seriously.

I like these ideas, too.

For instance, in Glorantha (RuneQuest/HeroQuest), there are enormously powerful dream dragons, minor legless winged wyrms, and dragonewts (neotenic humanoid dragons who are reincarnated over and over according to their spiritual progress in an effort to transcend the physical world)... but the True Dragons (like True Giants) are creatures that fought on an equal footing with the greatest gods before Time began. Now, most are only present as geography - mountain and hill ranges are frequently named for dragons, because their sleeping forms form a large part of that range. There's also the Dragon-Emperor of Kralorela, who takes a human form. So that's basically all four.

Meanwhile, in Dark Sun, there's just one Dragon (not counting the revised edition Troy Denning incomplete-dragon-king material), and he's a force of nature more than an enemy to be conquered. I like the possibility, the opportunity, the theory of the PCs one day fighting the Dragon in my Dark Sun setting... but at the same time, I'm not going to make them, and I'm not going to "let" them win - if they want to do that, they have to take the initiative and they have to earn that victory, probably at incredible cost. Until then, the Dragon will be more akin to sandstorms and droughts: something terrible and deadly but almost impossible to resist or overcome directly.

1) In truth, all Dragons would actually be smarter than Humans. They're both Nigh immortal, and natural spellcasters. They wouldn't be caught dead in any disadvantage.

Most D&D dragons would almost certainly be younger than the average elven wizard of 200-300 years, and especially in e.g. AD&D 1E (and many other games), their lifespans are no greater and (again, in AD&D 1E) may even be shorter than those of elves. This true of, for instance, Middle-Earth.

Also, age doesn't make them smarter past their own limits for intellect. Even in D&D, there are references to dragons becoming decrepit and suffering old age after a certain point. Nevermind that dragons might just not be able to be smart past a certain quantity, or be smart in a certain way.

[1337 b4k4]

It's a matter of scale, and not nearly all RPGs hyper-inflate dragons' mechanical capabilities the way AD&D 2E, D&D 3E, and D&D 4E do. There's no objective or external measure by which this is necessary. Indeed, looking at the source material (the Volsungasaga, Saint George, The Hobbit, etc.) a single mid-level fighter should be able to solo dragons, if at great risk...

Well, to be fair, in the Hobbit, that single mid-level fighter does so only with a an ancestral legendary weapon and only after a previous epic battle (with an army no less) uncovered the weak spot. Saint George (depending on your version) didn't actually kill his dragon in a battle, he dealt it a wound and while it was reeling, charmed it and then coup de gras'd it later in the city. And while some later tellings describe the dragon as massive, most artistic depictions show it as not larger than a horse. Fafnir was a massive dragon, but wasn't killed in outright combat either, it was a trap. Granted said trap was effective because Fafnir was not a giant bag of HP, but none the less an outright battle would have been suicide.

All of that is to say while D&D has definitely inflated their dragons over the years, especially given that in legend not all dragons are massive towering creatures, they aren't pushovers either and D&D likely makes them mechanically difficult to take on in a toe to toe battler precisely because in legend, you don't take on a dragon toe to toe, you stack the deck.

To answer the OP's question, if my players are going to take on the dragon head on, it's probably going to go exactly by the mechanics. One does not simply walk into the dragon's lair without some preparation. On the other hand, if my players are going to be clever about it, I'm more apt to go with some version of the 16 HP Dragon (from Dungeon World). It still may not be easy, but they also won't have to paper cut it to death.

[Slipperychicken]

It's "dragons are iconic but most PCs can't fight them," i.e. in D&D 3.X, it's rare for a dragon of impressive age & size to be even a remotely suitable challenge for PCs.

That's how they get to such an age. If any loser could just up and kill a 3,000 year old dragon, it probably wouldn't have lived that long.

The Hobbit

a single mid-level fighter should be able to solo dragons, if at great risk...

1. Bard didn't "solo" Smaug. He had an entire town tanking for him, plus every archer in that town giving damage support.

2. If I were to represent that fight in mechanical terms, I'd say that Bard scored a ridiculous attack with exploding dice (i.e. roll 6->roll another die) in a diepool game like Shadowrun or WoD (where one could theoretically one-shot a dragon, but it's not realistic).

[Rhynn]

only after a previous epic battle (with an army no less) uncovered the weak spot.

Er, Bilbo noticed the weak spot while speaking to Smaug, and then a bird flew over to relay the information to Bard. The Battle of the Five Armies takes place after the dragon is dead. (My favorite part of dragonslaying adventures: securing the loot!)

[Driderman]

Generally, unless my setting dictates otherwise, dragons are pretty much in the same category as Gods typically are, meaning that if you want to kill one it's probably going to be the central goal of a longer story.

In my current setting, dragons are Gods, albeit impostor gods. Still, they have enough magical ability to have grown immensely powerful through the worship of the mortal races and as such, would require either relics or power from the Original Gods, or a dragon patron, to defeat. Assuming you could even reach them in their inhospitable lairs that have been formed and improved over centuries.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

(The thread title has me imagining a catchy earworm song. How do you dragon? Dragon? Ah-cha-cha-cha.)

[Toofey]

I typically DM 2nd ed, so keep that in mind with regards to all the mechanics issues I raise.

First off, an encounter with a dragon is always an encounter where any of the characters involved could die, and I don't handwave deaths in those fights. I make this clear to the players at the start of any given campaign (I think every campaign should have at least 1 good dragon fight)

I divide dragons into smart, normal, and stupid categories and Gigantic, Huge and Large.

Smart dragons I give the XP of their effective casting level as both a wizard and a Cleric or to distribute as they will. Normal dragons get the XP of either a cleric or wizard, and stupid dragons get the normal abilities listed in the monsters manual. G dragons get D12 with Max hp H dragons get D10 with max hp and Large dragons get the normal D8 (also at max, it is still a dragon after all)

I double the number of claw attacks, give them a prehensile tail with it's own slap and constriction attacks, and I play them to their intelligence.

Finally, I remember that dragons are people to. As in they are as inteligent and have the depth of life experience of a person as opposed to simply being gigantic monsters. This means everything from sufficiently experienced dragons having a full slate of wizard and/or priest tricks (including enchantments etc...) to Dragons being open to conversation as often as not, and willing to accept your surrender (honestly or with plans to kill you anyway depending on the dragon)

Finally I almost never use a full on Dragon as a random encounter, and typically I make it clear when people are in Dragon territories. the biggest part to making sure dragons are special as opposed to just very powerful, is to use them when it' special.

[Azreal]

Most D&D dragons would almost certainly be younger than the average elven wizard of 200-300 years, and especially in e.g. AD&D 1E (and many other games), their lifespans are no greater and (again, in AD&D 1E) may even be shorter than those of elves. This true of, for instance, Middle-Earth.

Also, age doesn't make them smarter past their own limits for intellect. Even in D&D, there are references to dragons becoming decrepit and suffering old age after a certain point. Nevermind that dragons might just not be able to be smart past a certain quantity, or be smart in a certain way.

The shortest lived dragon in DnD according to 3.5 books is a white dragon at like 5,000, which is what 5x the Elf lifespan?
Gold Dragons can live up to 10,000 years, that's 10 elf life spans, and like 100 human lifetimes assuming they even live that long.

Dragons in DnD have stats that increase with age save Dex (because a moving mountain while impossible to break you can still hit it) to the like 40s.

I'm sorry but they are second to gods and the terrasqe in terms of power and shouldn't be treated lightly. There's a reason they lived for millennium so I don't think pulling punches for older dragons is cool.

[Rhynn]

The shortest lived dragon in DnD according to 3.5 books is a white dragon at like 5,000, which is what 5x the Elf lifespan?
Gold Dragons can live up to 10,000 years, that's 10 elf life spans, and like 100 human lifetimes assuming they even live that long.

I assume that's the D&D 3.X Draconomicon? The numbers shake out very different in, say, AD&D 1E, nevermind other settings/games.

I'm sorry but they are second to gods and the terrasqe in terms of power and shouldn't be treated lightly. There's a reason they lived for millennium so I don't think pulling punches for older dragons is cool.

Oh, my bad, I thought since you were quoting me you were talking about something I wrote, but I see that's not the case - you're talking about something someone else said (or that no one said, I guess).

That's cool too!

[veti]

AD&D 2E and D&D 3.X had dragon inflation: dragons of any reasonable age became hugely more powerful.

For comparison, Khisanth, the black dragon lairing in Xak Tsaroth in the AD&D 1E module DL1 Dragons of Despair, is an ancient huge black dragon... with 8 HD and 64 hp (the maximum). That's the strongest a black dragon can be in AD&D 1E, unless you use the optional age categories from the original Forgotten Realms supplement. The default PCs are 3rd to 6th level.

Well, yes, but everything remotely high-level has been subject to inflation since 1st edition. Tiamat herself had, IIRC, 120 hit points - the same as Orcus. Those default PCs would be considered 'mid-level' by 1e standards.

At low levels, dragons are more or less features of the landscape. A dragon is something like a mobile volcano, and about as easy to kill. You might, by great luck, succeed in outwitting or robbing it, but it's an incredibly high-risk thing to attempt.

At high levels, that changes. Bard, Beowulf, St George - a dragon can be taken out by a sufficiently well prepared hero.

[Jay R]

Well, you either downgrade the dragons or you upgrade the power level of starting characters. Or you accept that you want to start at a higher level than level 1/introductory characters.

As far as I can tell, it's just that simple.

Or starting characters don't take on near-epic-level threats.

When Bilbo snuck into the mountain, he didn't attack the dragon. He really, really didn't. The Men of Lake-Town, and the Mirkwood elves, lived for 170 years with Smaug nearby on a mountain of gold and never tried to attack him.

He's a Dragon.

If starting characters are ready to fight a dragon, then the awe and majesty of dragons has been lost.

[Rhynn]

Well, yes, but everything remotely high-level has been subject to inflation since 1st edition. Tiamat herself had, IIRC, 120 hit points - the same as Orcus. Those default PCs would be considered 'mid-level' by 1e standards.

Er, yeah. That was my point. They made things tougher, increasing the levels that you need to be at to fight them. Yora's complaint was that you need to be high-level in D&D 3.X to fight dragons. I observed that this is not the case in many other RPGs.

I could swear I wrote all that already.

Edit: Also, where are y'all getting "starting characters" ? Not from Yora's post, that's for sure.

[Azreal]

I assume that's the D&D 3.X Draconomicon? The numbers shake out very different in, say, AD&D 1E, nevermind other settings/games.



Oh, my bad, I thought since you were quoting me you were talking about something I wrote, but I see that's not the case - you're talking about something someone else said (or that no one said, I guess).

That's cool too!

Yeah I believe it's the Draconomicon, I was talking about the more played systems (at least as far as I know) of DnD/Pathfinder


the second part of your quote from me was not directed at you more so then OP in that Dragons just typically aren't something you go out of your way to fight for the hell of it. They are powerhouses and rightfully so, the series was named in part for them. You can get away with killing younger dragons but at about Adulthood they starting around damage and resistance and ****ing spells like no one's business.

[paddyfool]

Of course, if you want to throw a big flying lizard at your low level characters, there's always a Wyvern. (You could even give it a level in Psychic Warrior or something to represent uncanny powers and throw your players off...)

[kieza]

My approach (which owes a lot to the Iron Kingdoms setting) is that dragons can create dragonspawn: creatures with various draconic traits, but much smaller and weaker, and bound to the will of the dragon. They're basically hosts that their creator dragon can possess, no matter where they are.

I've run two adventures featuring them; in the first, the boss at the end of the adventure was a dragonspawn that survived the death of its creator. It was more like a wyvern, physically, but it had a breath weapon and kept most of its creator's knowledge of magic. Over the course of the adventure, the party put together several clues and realized that the reason it survived was that it was the original dragon's back-up plan: given enough time, it would have regrown into a copy of the original, with most of its memories intact. (They killed it, though.)

In the second adventure, the organization that the party was up against had the backing of a dragon, and it sent them a few of its spawn, both as a symbol of its support, and to keep them in line. There was (if I recall) a big, brutal thing with lots of teeth and claws but no wings or breath weapon, a serpentine one with lots of legs that liked to grapple and constrict, and a humanoid one (sort of half-dragon-ish) that was an enchanter and diplomat. I had fun tossing various tag-team boss fights at the party with different combinations of the spawn.

I've also dropped hints in my campaigns that kobolds might be related to dragonspawn somehow...

[some guy]

Wyverns and drakes?
They're dragon enough to look like dragons (and might fool npc's) and could still put up a tough fight for low-mid level pc's.
The blog Playing dnd with pornstars (occasionaly nsfw, not this blogpost though) had a post about this problem.

[Raine_Sage]

I think the best way to do dragons at low levels is probably to treat them more like a trap or hazard than actual enemies.

Sneaking through a dragon's lair trying to steal an artifact, negotiating with a dragon, running through town trying to get to safety while a dragon rains fire down from above. Non-combat encounters which can turn into potential combat at higher levels once they've had a chance to get more powerful.