I was reading through Fizban's a few days ago and not only did I find the Great Wyrms to be horribly weak (the current design mandate seems to be to make monsters suck) but the Mythic Actions were both weak (usually fixable with increased dice, range, etc.) amd uninspired. The weird telekinetic spears made zero sense to me for these creatures. Simultaneously, I do have to admit I'm unsure of what else could be done for Mythic Actions that would both be useful and make sense. My own ideas were to give the Dragon a single target fear attack against which saving once did not make you immune (though as always Heroes Feast does, depressingly), a lashing tail "aura" that made terrain for maybe 15 feet around Difficult terrain plus providing a low DC chance of being knocked prone, and lastly making it so the Dragon had an aura of it's breath weapon damage around it that also sparked on Melee attacks.
Does anyone else have anything along the lines of better ideas that also make sense for a gargantuan Dragon and Calamity? I promise not to denigrate your ideas, I'm just trying to spark some creative thinking on my own part that pops out of the box. Thanks in advance.
The Dullahan already exists in official D&D, and it has pretty good mythic actions that make a lot of sense for it's general vibe. A Dullahan is a headless horseman, and it's mythic action thing is that it summons a bunch of floating heads as allies, which are controlled by the Dullahan on its turn.
I think it fits perfectly with the lore, and it will cause a lot of panic for a party that doesn't know how a Dullahan operates. While summoning allies probably isn't the most creative ability, It might be a good place to start when thinking about decent mythic actions!
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I was reading through Fizban's a few days ago and not only did I find the Great Wyrms to be horribly weak (the current design mandate seems to be to make monsters suck)
That's less of a mythic actions problem and more of a "D&D isn't creative" problem. Mythic actions were created to address the problem that 5e combat is repetitive and boring, and they don't solve it at all. Now, I've only ever played 5e, but I've seen enough 3.5e monsters to know that 5e monsters are, in contrast, uninteresting. What D&D monsters need is gimmicks unlike anything else official monsters have, which cause effects that no monster has caused before.
On the other hand, greatwyrms are broken if you do a double-take. According to the "dragons and spellcasting" rules in the MM, a greatwyrm can learn 10 ninth-level spells. Very few parties can call a creature weak after being hit with Prismatic Wall, Power Word Kill, and Meteor Swarm, in addition to seven other spells that could range from insane buffs to complete healing to even Wish itself.
Sorry, I got off track. Let's talk mythic actions. Giving two more legendary actions to the monster when it enters mythic mode should be a decent band-aid for now, considering the setup of legendary and mythic actions right now.
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Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair
I was reading through Fizban's a few days ago and not only did I find the Great Wyrms to be horribly weak (the current design mandate seems to be to make monsters suck) but the Mythic Actions were both weak (usually fixable with increased dice, range, etc.) amd uninspired. The weird telekinetic spears made zero sense to me for these creatures. Simultaneously, I do have to admit I'm unsure of what else could be done for Mythic Actions that would both be useful and make sense. My own ideas were to give the Dragon a single target fear attack against which saving once did not make you immune (though as always Heroes Feast does, depressingly), a lashing tail "aura" that made terrain for maybe 15 feet around Difficult terrain plus providing a low DC chance of being knocked prone, and lastly making it so the Dragon had an aura of it's breath weapon damage around it that also sparked on Melee attacks.
Does anyone else have anything along the lines of better ideas that also make sense for a gargantuan Dragon and Calamity? I promise not to denigrate your ideas, I'm just trying to spark some creative thinking on my own part that pops out of the box. Thanks in advance.
I think the great wyrms were generalized as a templates to avoid having to make a unique stat block for each. Personally I dont mind as I kind of think that every one of these super powerful dragons should be a named NPC with unique abilities as many other dragons should be any way.
Personally I added the following
added elemental effects and damage to the javelins and flare abilities the dragons got. Typically these were things like [Tooltip Not Found] ability to prevent reactions though I can think of more interesting ones like an like [spell]witch bolt[spell] that deals damage until they break line of sight either with the dragon or another player/object.
I gave them unique spells they could cast often with special casting rules. One I really like is being able to use mislead and hide at the same time time so they turn invisible and then have an illusion move instead.
I added unique breath effects like I gave a storm dragon the ability to turn all ground hit by it's breath into a mirror which it could then use for weird mirror magic. I gave fire dragon a burning cloud left behind its breath
some also got unique traits like I had a lava dragon that gained temporary hit points in the form of a molten stone skin when ever it used it's tunneling speed and it would leave these magma pools where it tunneled until the cooled. I also really like some of the abilities of the elder elementals like the elder tempest for making dragons feel like living disasters
Oh wow, I just noticed that thanks to you mentioning it. I would have been fine with the Frightful Aura being a Legendary or Mythic action, possibly without the caveat of one successful save making someone completely immune, but for it not to be there at all is shocking to me. Good catch!
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I was reading through Fizban's a few days ago and not only did I find the Great Wyrms to be horribly weak (the current design mandate seems to be to make monsters suck) but the Mythic Actions were both weak (usually fixable with increased dice, range, etc.) amd uninspired. The weird telekinetic spears made zero sense to me for these creatures. Simultaneously, I do have to admit I'm unsure of what else could be done for Mythic Actions that would both be useful and make sense. My own ideas were to give the Dragon a single target fear attack against which saving once did not make you immune (though as always Heroes Feast does, depressingly), a lashing tail "aura" that made terrain for maybe 15 feet around Difficult terrain plus providing a low DC chance of being knocked prone, and lastly making it so the Dragon had an aura of it's breath weapon damage around it that also sparked on Melee attacks.
Does anyone else have anything along the lines of better ideas that also make sense for a gargantuan Dragon and Calamity? I promise not to denigrate your ideas, I'm just trying to spark some creative thinking on my own part that pops out of the box. Thanks in advance.
The Dullahan already exists in official D&D, and it has pretty good mythic actions that make a lot of sense for it's general vibe. A Dullahan is a headless horseman, and it's mythic action thing is that it summons a bunch of floating heads as allies, which are controlled by the Dullahan on its turn.
I think it fits perfectly with the lore, and it will cause a lot of panic for a party that doesn't know how a Dullahan operates. While summoning allies probably isn't the most creative ability, It might be a good place to start when thinking about decent mythic actions!
Being gender-fluid and pansexual makes roleplay a lot easier!
That's less of a mythic actions problem and more of a "D&D isn't creative" problem. Mythic actions were created to address the problem that 5e combat is repetitive and boring, and they don't solve it at all. Now, I've only ever played 5e, but I've seen enough 3.5e monsters to know that 5e monsters are, in contrast, uninteresting. What D&D monsters need is gimmicks unlike anything else official monsters have, which cause effects that no monster has caused before.
On the other hand, greatwyrms are broken if you do a double-take. According to the "dragons and spellcasting" rules in the MM, a greatwyrm can learn 10 ninth-level spells. Very few parties can call a creature weak after being hit with Prismatic Wall, Power Word Kill, and Meteor Swarm, in addition to seven other spells that could range from insane buffs to complete healing to even Wish itself.
Sorry, I got off track. Let's talk mythic actions. Giving two more legendary actions to the monster when it enters mythic mode should be a decent band-aid for now, considering the setup of legendary and mythic actions right now.
Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair
I think the great wyrms were generalized as a templates to avoid having to make a unique stat block for each. Personally I dont mind as I kind of think that every one of these super powerful dragons should be a named NPC with unique abilities as many other dragons should be any way.
Personally I added the following
Somewhat related, but have any devs commented on the omission of frightful presence from the new dragons?
Oh wow, I just noticed that thanks to you mentioning it. I would have been fine with the Frightful Aura being a Legendary or Mythic action, possibly without the caveat of one successful save making someone completely immune, but for it not to be there at all is shocking to me. Good catch!