I got literally every single reference in that post directly from DNDBeyond. Every stat, every effect, quoted straight from this very website. If you lack the experience or the creativity to effectively utilize your monsters, that's not my fault, and it's not the fault of the rulebooks either. A dragon is like a cross between an Abrams tank and a Lamborghini. Is an Abrams indestructible? No... but good luck. Can you drive a Lamborghini at 30 miles per hour? Sure... but what's the point?
Agreed but when a party of high level paladins and barbarians with legendary weapons comes after them they know about it well in advance and are well prepared recognizing them for being part of the other 10% and will use somewhat different tactics because of that. Again they may be vain but they are not stupid.
I completely agree.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I got literally every single reference in that post directly from DNDBeyond. Every stat, every effect, quoted straight from this very website. If you lack the experience or the creativity to effectively utilize your monsters, that's not my fault, and it's not the fault of the rulebooks either. A dragon is like a cross between an Abrams tank and a Lamborghini. Is an Abrams indestructible? No... but good luck. Can you drive a Lamborghini at 30 miles per hour? Sure... but what's the point?
Since my queue treats this post as a reply to me, I think you're replying to my post where I was amused by how your ultimate dragon thread was a mashup of the "BBEG" in Apocalypse Now and Cobra Command super tech in the cartoons? Like I said those regional effects seem pretty clearly reserved for Ancient, or maybe Adult dragons with legendary features. I get it, dragons are exculsively godkin or something in your world, your imagination is fixed on that. And that's fine, because we're discussing pretend.
My reading of the books put more weight on the "legendary" in the description of regional effects. I guess "I read it all on DnD Beyond" is your claim to establish authority. I'm familiar with the books too, hence my pointing out that "not all dragons" get those environmental effects, nor are they necessarily positions to "govern" their area into a fortress as you lay out. My counter proposal points the absurdity of universally treating dragons in the way you're presenting, and my invocation of the Githyanki comes from WotC texts too. The Githyanki are red dragon riders, per lore they have a deal with Tiamat, and don't have to walk through fire storms to mount up at their stables (because they ride young, whose growth are stunted when stabled in limbo so are always looking for an opportunity to forward deploy into the prime material).
I agree, as I wrote, putting a dragon down to duke it out mano et draco in melee is a waste of the dragon's design in game. However, not all dragons have to be played that way, and I point to Dragonlance to identify some real stupid dragons.
Now, I'm going to go back to homebrewing a weather dominator with an Orb of Dragonkind as an essential element to its function.
Also - when you go off to fight a dragon, the dragon is not the only thing you're fighting. Don't forget the regional effects! Miles before you even reach the lair you'll be experiencing regular earthquakes, or quicksand, or labyrinthine hedgerows, or blizzards, or sinkholes. Any water you find will be undrinkable if not downright poisonous. And literally every single thing that moves is a potential spy reporting status updates back to the dragon. You'll have to fight a wave of minions while half of you are stuck in pit traps. You'll face barrages of arrows from enemies hidden in the fog and mists. The party will be separated by ice walls, or sinkholes, or fissures filled with fire elementals! And we all know what happens when you split the party.
And this dragon has spent centuries learning and shaping every nook and cranny of its territory. It could be 30 feet behind you for a mile and you'd never know. It'll hit you with a breath weapon from 90 feet overhead while traveling 80 feet per round doing 26d6 damage. And then it'll do it again ten minutes later. And then again. And maybe, if you're really lucky, you might hit it once or twice. You might even drop it all the way down to 90% health.
And then nothing. Just more storms, more traps, more minions. You'll try to take a short rest to recover, but five minutes in - BOOM! - breath weapon! And a long rest? LOL! Forget it! Won't happen. The dragon will land right in front of you, hit you with Frightful Presence, and then just fly off laughing while everyone except the 20th level cleric with the 20 Wisdom is frightened out of their gourd. So now you're all at half health, you're running on exhaustion, you're burning through spell slots just clearing trash, or managing the environmental effects. And you haven't even reached the lair yet!
If you think dragons are an easy kill, you don't know how to play a dragon.
I like how this Dragon is part Col Kurtz/Part Cobra Commander, combining the final approach in Apocalypse Now with the Weather Dominator.
Let's also be mindful you're describing in mechanical terms Ancients and Great Wyrms. I mean it's cool and all but all dragons are not the apex. I mean if Young and Adult Dragons had all that mojo, a Githyanki raiding party will never be able to get to their mounts because of the Astral inferno they'd have to brave to get to their stables.
Dragons can be a lot of things. Yes, they can be the game ender, they can also be something else's instrument and a little less world shattering.
On the high iNT. Let's also remember INT is usually used in conjunction with the ability remember facts (think of all the INT skills and how that stat is actually used in game) and maybe "raw arcane mind power" for some class features. A high INT does not equate to any degree of control over emotional volatility. You can have cool dragons if you want, you can also have dragons that are prone to fits of wrath, much in line with what's in the MM.
It's ok to play the same monster differently.
I agree with that completely but would like to point out that at higher ages, dragons also tend to have decent to high wisdom, which usually goes cover control over emotional volatility.
That's fair. I might give me some wiggle room on what WIS is too though. Not to go all DSM on D&D but, I mean, I'd say many sociopaths may have impulsivity issues despite their ability to sense vulnerabilities or exploits in people. Kinda like how CHR doesn't necessarily make you a nice person, just an "effective" personality. I don't think any of the mental. stats really regulate any sort of conduct at the end of the day beyond their (if you look at it) fairly narrow mechanical obligations in the rules.
And there are sociopaths who have caused rather a lot of damage before getting caught at all and others whom, as far as we can tell, have never been caught. And those are humans without the power and resources a Dragon has. Wisdom in this context does not mean 'good,' it means 'not foolish.'
A high wisdom high intelligence chaotic evil will fight smart and will understand discretion in their cruelty.
From the depths of time, 40 years ago plus a few months , Dragon Magazine #48:
Red Dragon Blues by Roger E. Moore (to the tune of Folsom Prison Blues)
I hear the party comin’ into my dungeon lair
Some fighters, thieves, and clerics, and two mages with white hair
And I think my end’s a-comin’, no quarter will be shown;
I’m stuck inside a dungeon prison that was once my home
When I was just a hatchling, my mama told me, “Lad, “
Keep your scales well polished and watch out for Galahad.”
But I attacked some lawful peasants, just to watch them fry;
And now the lawfuls’ve come to get me, for being a not-so. nice guy.
When I moved into this dungeon back a hundred years or more,
I wish that I’d remembered to install a new back door;
But now my long career is over, no more fiery raids;
I’m stuck in a dungeon prison, facing Vorpal Blades!
I think WIS is more a stat that can be located in a number of places on a spectrum between "judgement and feelings". Some high WIS may be astute, others may good "gut instincts" and other may have just been around the block a lot. It's still all recognition, and can inform action but not necessarily. I don't think my experience is unique socially, so I'll reckon we all know people we think of as insightful and trusted for their advice but who also don't seem to apply their wisdom to their own actions. Everyone by a certain age knows people who jam themselves up who should have "known better."
Actually the Dragon channeling Johnny Cash is similar, the song's POV is proclaiming they should have known better but instead have backed themselves into this hole to contend with the party. Sorta like the dragons of questionable judgment that make up half the dragons in Dragonlance.
Also - when you go off to fight a dragon, the dragon is not the only thing you're fighting. Don't forget the regional effects! Miles before you even reach the lair you'll be experiencing regular earthquakes, or quicksand, or labyrinthine hedgerows, or blizzards, or sinkholes. Any water you find will be undrinkable if not downright poisonous. And literally every single thing that moves is a potential spy reporting status updates back to the dragon. You'll have to fight a wave of minions while half of you are stuck in pit traps. You'll face barrages of arrows from enemies hidden in the fog and mists. The party will be separated by ice walls, or sinkholes, or fissures filled with fire elementals! And we all know what happens when you split the party.
And this dragon has spent centuries learning and shaping every nook and cranny of its territory. It could be 30 feet behind you for a mile and you'd never know. It'll hit you with a breath weapon from 90 feet overhead while traveling 80 feet per round doing 26d6 damage. And then it'll do it again ten minutes later. And then again. And maybe, if you're really lucky, you might hit it once or twice. You might even drop it all the way down to 90% health.
And then nothing. Just more storms, more traps, more minions. You'll try to take a short rest to recover, but five minutes in - BOOM! - breath weapon! And a long rest? LOL! Forget it! Won't happen. The dragon will land right in front of you, hit you with Frightful Presence, and then just fly off laughing while everyone except the 20th level cleric with the 20 Wisdom is frightened out of their gourd. So now you're all at half health, you're running on exhaustion, you're burning through spell slots just clearing trash, or managing the environmental effects. And you haven't even reached the lair yet!
If you think dragons are an easy kill, you don't know how to play a dragon.
I like how this Dragon is part Col Kurtz/Part Cobra Commander, combining the final approach in Apocalypse Now with the Weather Dominator.
Let's also be mindful you're describing in mechanical terms Ancients and Great Wyrms. I mean it's cool and all but all dragons are not the apex. I mean if Young and Adult Dragons had all that mojo, a Githyanki raiding party will never be able to get to their mounts because of the Astral inferno they'd have to brave to get to their stables.
Dragons can be a lot of things. Yes, they can be the game ender, they can also be something else's instrument and a little less world
I think WIS is more a stat that can be located in a number of places on a spectrum between "judgement and feelings". Some high WIS may be astute, others may good "gut instincts" and other may have just been around the block a lot. It's still all recognition, and can inform but not necessarily. I don't think my experience is unique socially, so I'll reckon we all know people we think of as insightful and trusted for their advice but who also don't seem to apply their wisdom to their own actions. Everyone by a certain age knows people who jam themselves up who should have "known better."
Actually the Dragon channeling Johnny Cash is similar, the song's POV is proclaiming they should have known better but instead have back themselves into this hold to content with the party. Sorta like the dragons of questonable judgment that make up half the dragons in Dragonlance.
That song was more of a joke about the cliche than anything else, though. If there is a dragon in the area, why doesn't a party armed with vorpal blades, i.e. an end game party, already know about it? Why is it not aware of them? Why does it have this lapse of judgement at this point in its life?
Oh definitely, outside of epic tier access to extradimensional/gating magic (and even then depending on the dragons own magic, especially with the amped up dragonsight in Fizbans) a dragon's going to know the party, any party is coming. Now will the dragon dispatch an army of minions to wear them down with arrows before a fire breath fly by? A dragon could do that. Could they rely on a carefully designed -and maintained- lair of hazards that will drain the party before meeting the dragon? A dragon could do that. Can a dragon be lazy? Sure, they could be that too. I think some folks with the time and energy may critique, "your in the final chamber 60' by 60' with 20' ceilings, the dragon is flopped on top of a hoard of treasure in the middle, roll for initiative" as subpar design; but we're still talking a game whose foundational design came from a sensibility where "you enter a 10' by 10' room with a kobold in it" was common design principle. Some DMs and players want a lot more than that, and they're not wrong in that desire. I'm one of those folks. But if folks enjoy finding a dragon inside a featureless vault, I'm not going to say they're doing it wrong. To go back to someone's earlier pushback, if someone's driving their lambo at 35 mph, not how I'd handle that ride, but I didn't drive that lambo off the lot, so let em.
I get the Folsom parody is parody, but it is addressing a type of play that actually happened and continues to happen in many games. On paper, in the manuals, the dragon's got much fiercer capabilities (like the regional fire elemental effect, that's dang cool); but in the end the dragon's set up to fail or prevail via the DMs notes. Nothing wrong with encouraging engaging the creature's features, but D&D in the end is more Burger King than Cordon Bleu, it's a space to have it your way rather than adhere to some sense of "should."
Started a thread in lore seeking information some of these long time dragon runners may have some insight on, off color dragons. Just trying to build a bibliography/collect perspectives to flesh out a loose idea I presented via NPC/patron to the party after drinking too much Mountain Dew but based on feedback I'm apparently now committed to running.
Ancients can cast 9th level spells so maybe they balanced that around dragons casting abilities.
What part of my previous comment is not RAW?
I got literally every single reference in that post directly from DNDBeyond. Every stat, every effect, quoted straight from this very website. If you lack the experience or the creativity to effectively utilize your monsters, that's not my fault, and it's not the fault of the rulebooks either. A dragon is like a cross between an Abrams tank and a Lamborghini. Is an Abrams indestructible? No... but good luck. Can you drive a Lamborghini at 30 miles per hour? Sure... but what's the point?
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
Wait a minute!
Dragon #48 came out in 1981. That wasn't 40 years ago. That was maybe 20, at most.
If that was 40 years ago, then I'd be an old man by now.
Oh. . . wait. . . .
sh*t
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
I completely agree.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Since my queue treats this post as a reply to me, I think you're replying to my post where I was amused by how your ultimate dragon thread was a mashup of the "BBEG" in Apocalypse Now and Cobra Command super tech in the cartoons? Like I said those regional effects seem pretty clearly reserved for Ancient, or maybe Adult dragons with legendary features. I get it, dragons are exculsively godkin or something in your world, your imagination is fixed on that. And that's fine, because we're discussing pretend.
My reading of the books put more weight on the "legendary" in the description of regional effects. I guess "I read it all on DnD Beyond" is your claim to establish authority. I'm familiar with the books too, hence my pointing out that "not all dragons" get those environmental effects, nor are they necessarily positions to "govern" their area into a fortress as you lay out. My counter proposal points the absurdity of universally treating dragons in the way you're presenting, and my invocation of the Githyanki comes from WotC texts too. The Githyanki are red dragon riders, per lore they have a deal with Tiamat, and don't have to walk through fire storms to mount up at their stables (because they ride young, whose growth are stunted when stabled in limbo so are always looking for an opportunity to forward deploy into the prime material).
I agree, as I wrote, putting a dragon down to duke it out mano et draco in melee is a waste of the dragon's design in game. However, not all dragons have to be played that way, and I point to Dragonlance to identify some real stupid dragons.
Now, I'm going to go back to homebrewing a weather dominator with an Orb of Dragonkind as an essential element to its function.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think WIS is more a stat that can be located in a number of places on a spectrum between "judgement and feelings". Some high WIS may be astute, others may good "gut instincts" and other may have just been around the block a lot. It's still all recognition, and can inform action but not necessarily. I don't think my experience is unique socially, so I'll reckon we all know people we think of as insightful and trusted for their advice but who also don't seem to apply their wisdom to their own actions. Everyone by a certain age knows people who jam themselves up who should have "known better."
Actually the Dragon channeling Johnny Cash is similar, the song's POV is proclaiming they should have known better but instead have backed themselves into this hole to contend with the party. Sorta like the dragons of questionable judgment that make up half the dragons in Dragonlance.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Whoops, messed up my quoting.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
Oh definitely, outside of epic tier access to extradimensional/gating magic (and even then depending on the dragons own magic, especially with the amped up dragonsight in Fizbans) a dragon's going to know the party, any party is coming. Now will the dragon dispatch an army of minions to wear them down with arrows before a fire breath fly by? A dragon could do that. Could they rely on a carefully designed -and maintained- lair of hazards that will drain the party before meeting the dragon? A dragon could do that. Can a dragon be lazy? Sure, they could be that too. I think some folks with the time and energy may critique, "your in the final chamber 60' by 60' with 20' ceilings, the dragon is flopped on top of a hoard of treasure in the middle, roll for initiative" as subpar design; but we're still talking a game whose foundational design came from a sensibility where "you enter a 10' by 10' room with a kobold in it" was common design principle. Some DMs and players want a lot more than that, and they're not wrong in that desire. I'm one of those folks. But if folks enjoy finding a dragon inside a featureless vault, I'm not going to say they're doing it wrong. To go back to someone's earlier pushback, if someone's driving their lambo at 35 mph, not how I'd handle that ride, but I didn't drive that lambo off the lot, so let em.
I get the Folsom parody is parody, but it is addressing a type of play that actually happened and continues to happen in many games. On paper, in the manuals, the dragon's got much fiercer capabilities (like the regional fire elemental effect, that's dang cool); but in the end the dragon's set up to fail or prevail via the DMs notes. Nothing wrong with encouraging engaging the creature's features, but D&D in the end is more Burger King than Cordon Bleu, it's a space to have it your way rather than adhere to some sense of "should."
Started a thread in lore seeking information some of these long time dragon runners may have some insight on, off color dragons. Just trying to build a bibliography/collect perspectives to flesh out a loose idea I presented via NPC/patron to the party after drinking too much Mountain Dew but based on feedback I'm apparently now committed to running.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
By my count, a Silver Greatworm has up to 14 damage dice per round if it doesn't miss...
Average damage = 21+13+19*5 = 129 (if it hits with all it's attacks)