How come dragons get such crazy attack bonuses?

[MrWaeseL]

In all the fantasy I've read, Dragons are scary because they are unkillable (thick armor) and because they can breath fire like a mofo. However, none of them mention that they can also duke it out in hand to hand and be more effective than breathing fire every 1d4 turns. So why did WOTC take this route for their dragons?

[Username17]

Long story short:

In Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, the biggest, oldest, most powerful Red Dragons had 88 hit points. A 12th level party could seriously get surprise (1 out of 6 times) and seriously kill it before it had a chance to roll initiative.

The game is called Dungeons & Dragons, so a lot of people get all wilty in the pants when killing Dragons is easy and fun. So ever since then Dragons have been getting various funky powerups to various abilities, numerics, and rubrics in their definitions at random. The intention behind every single upgrade was to make Dragons less of a bunch of pussies - which is hard because by definition players spend more time thinking about tactical strategies for dealling with Dragons than all other enemies combined.

So Dragons are arbitrarily good at everything they do. Both in the sense that they are very good at everything for no reason, and in the sense that the degree to which they are good at things has no rrelationship to anything.

-Username17

[Fwib]

...and on top of making dragons pretty damn hard, it is also said that the CR of dragons is artificially low, just to make them more nasty.

Of course, if the GM has put very little thought into it, and the players have planned carefully, the poor dragon is still going to die 'before it gets to roll initiative'.

See this site: http://baddragon2.tripod.com/ (sadly not updated for years )

[User3]

Of course, retarded dragon fetishization has the side effect of no one ever wanting to use them.

DMs who know what they're doing don't use them because all it does is under-reward players and has a very good chance of killing an unprepared party.

Setting designers don't use them because they're afraid of ticking off the dragon fanbois and frankly because they're a boring, basic monster. Their writeup is that they are giant grumpy reptiles with elemental abilities that guard treasure. That's it. Dragons don't plot world takeovers, don't sacrifice minions for their undead army, don't make plans to overthrow the natural order, none of that. The best they do in source material and in D&D modules is that they hang out in their caves and either have minions do them favors or ravage the countryside now and then.

And ironically enough, the people who cream their streaked Braveheart underoos over the thought of dragons don't use them because they're afraid of cheapening the dragon experience.

In my opinion, Dragonlance treated these things exactly for what they are; cool mounts. Unfortunately, certain moron fanboys have so idealized these creatures that they aren't even good for that--a dragon that wouldn't be overpowered for someone to use also breaks the theme. Notice the woeful lack of actual dragons in Dragonlance 3.X. That's the work of these morons. Argh.

[RandomCasualty]

1147471578[/unixtime]]
In my opinion, Dragonlance treated these things exactly for what they are; cool mounts.

Only good as mounts? What?

super intelligent, access to spells, and really tough to kill... Why can't they plot world domination again?

As far as D&D BBEGs go, the dragon is about as much a staple as the evil wizard.

While I agree the LotR dragon paradigm is a bad one, I think dragons have way more potential than just being a big griffon.

[User3]

super intelligent, access to spells, and really tough to kill... Why can't they plot world domination again?

As far as D&D BBEGs go, the dragon is about as much a staple as the evil wizard.

The fact that they have all of that fanboy-appeasing crap is an aspect of third edition, not theme.

And the reasons why dragons are a bad idea to use in those above things are in the previous postings. Either you cheat your players or you tick the fanboys off. Neither are particularly any good. Any utility you get from having a powerful dragon can also be gotten from a character like Jafar, Orochimaru, or Maleficent--all of the scheming and wizardry and as a bonus they can change into huge reptiles for the final battle. We don't need dragons here!

[RandomCasualty]

1147474279[/unixtime]]
The fact that they have all of that fanboy-appeasing crap is an aspect of third edition, not theme.

And the reasons why dragons are a bad idea to use in those above things are in the previous postings. Either you cheat your players or you tick the fanboys off. Neither are particularly any good. Any utility you get from having a powerful dragon can also be gotten from a character like Jafar, Orochimaru, or Maleficent--all of the scheming and wizardry and as a bonus they can change into huge reptiles for the final battle. We don't need dragons here!

Well honestly, if every BBEG is an evil wizard, that's pretty damn boring if you ask me. We actually need more viable BBEGs, not less. As it is now, you've pretty much either got to be a high level caster or something else that casts spells about as well as a primary caster, like a dragon. And really there isn't much like that in the game right now.

And as for ticking off the fanboys, I'm sure making dragons into just mindless mounts is going to tick them off the most.

[PhoneLobster]

Lets see.

I have players who totally want to kill a dragon and take its stuff. Because they see it as a big brute in a cave guarding treasure.

But I don't do that all together too often because the MM work up of dragons still requires half an hours extra accounting to make one usable in the game, and the CRs are out, and they do annoying funky stuff like spells.

I have players who totally want to kill it and make swords out of its teeth or armour out of its skin. Because they see it as a big pile of useful materials on angry legs (like a buffallo or something).

But I don't do that much for basically the same reason. And also because the really big ones (with the biggest best materials) are INSANELY high CRs, its daggers or arrow heads from teeth up to pretty much most CRs our group will play to.

I have had countless requests for dragon side kicks or steeds, because players see dragons as cool side kicks and ridable beasts.

But aside from the dragons being written up with all these zany spells and shapechanging and stuff I know I can't give them a dragon steed (or even familiar) without writting up a completely new monster from scratch, so I don't do it. I mean you can't even give out a fairy dragon without problems, (what does EVERYTHING with the word dragon in the name have to be dumb?)

I have even had players ask to play as dragons, because dragons are cool and they totally assume that if they are too crash hot to be side kicks they must be like equals to PCs and totally balanced and playable right?

And we know why thats a problem.

But do I EVER have the players say to me "Hey you know what would be cool, a dragon that constantly plotted and schemed and sent its minions to thwart us for multiple levels!".

No I don't. Most sane players seem to see dragons as pretty much anything other than the grand mastermind.

Theres as much chance of me using a dragon as a mastermind any time soon as there is of me executing my grand plan of having a talking horse be an evil mastermind.

And the talking horse is totally more cool and evil.

[User3]

Well honestly, if every BBEG is an evil wizard, that's pretty damn boring if you ask me.

You're damn right about that and that's one of 3rd Edition's biggest failings, thematically, if you ask me.

Even if you tool up a powerful non-magic user like an exalted Frenzied Berserker with a mount, they just do not make good bad guys. Even if they are able to compete against PCs toe-to-toe, they are very limited to the types of plots they can initiate. Basically they can lead an army or sit in the throne room for the PCs to challenge them.

Or if they want to do things like turn the populace into his undead knights, make flying castles, craft EEEEEEvil magic swords, place the world into an eternal solar eclipse, or any of that crap, they need to find a wizard themselves or find an artifact.

So BBEGs at high levels are usually spellcasters. I'm not even joking.

...

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the only reason dragons are credible BBEGs at all is because they can cast spells. Otherwise they're like other powerful non-stupid monsters.

[Username17]

No, Lago's got it right on. Dragons are so good at everything that they aren't good at anything. They have no weaknesses, and thus by comparison they have no strengths. Dragon spellcasting is enough to break the game (a young adult Red Dragon can wraithstrike and Power Attack for 19, hitting you so hard with a full attack progression that your momma dies), but it's not big enough to even notice at the level of ass kicking that dragons actually live in.

When the Legion of Doom gets together, the Dragon isn't The Man at any task. Consider for the moment, a party of evildoers:

A Mindflayer
An Umber Hulk
A Very Young Red Dragon
A Blue Slaad
A Succubus

So all of these baddies are roughly equivalent to PCs in the 7th-9th level range. A strong 8th level party could take them on. You've got a number of guys with a particular schtick - the Succubus is the evil Diplomancer and probably has deluded a number of fools into foolishly following their evil directives. The Mindflayer is totally the master plan guy. The Blue Slaad is an amazing Archer and intrusion expert. The Umber Hulk is a burrowing melee expert who jumps out of the ground and confuses people.

And what does the Dragon do? Well he's fast, poor manuverability with a 150 ft. fly speed is no fvcking joke. And he's got good saves. And he can breathe fire at opponents forty feet under him, so an opponent without ranged weapons or an escape plan automatically loses. And he has arbitrarily more hit dice than anything else on the list.

And so what? He's a fvcking Monk, except that unlike the PC version noone expects him to be the same level as the other monsters in his group. That's the big Dragon dealio - you get to be higher level than the other folks in your sand box. But he still doesn't fill a role in that group. He's a monster with no weaknesses and no strengths who is slightly higher level than the other monsters in his group.

Which means that he's extremely lame and can't do shit.

-Username17

[User3]

Theres as much chance of me using a dragon as a mastermind any time soon as there is of me executing my grand plan of having a talking horse be an evil mastermind.

And the talking horse is totally more cool and evil.

You got that right.

[RandomCasualty]

1147475578[/unixtime]]
And so what? He's a fvcking Monk, except that unlike the PC version noone expects him to be the same level as the other monsters in his group. That's the big Dragon dealio - you get to be higher level than the other folks in your sand box.

Well so what? I mean that's what being the BBEG is all about, being more powerful. Unlike PC groups, there's no reason monster levels can't be unbalanced. NPC parties don't necessarily have to have well defined roles. They just need to be able to do stuff that you need them to as a group. In fact a good BBEG better be pretty well rounded and powerful otherwise he's going to end up being taken out in the first round of combat.

Balancing monster encounters isn't really about making all the monsters equal. It's perfectly okay to have a big bad guy and a bunch of weaker lackeys.

[Username17]

I mean that's what being the BBEG is all about, being more powerful.

And that's exactly why Dragons make such shitty BBEGs. Any creature that is more powerful than the other PCs can be a BBEG. But a Dragon can't do anything else at that power level.

Any other creature would have some set of powers and schticks that if they were higher level than the players would make a decent BBEG. Power + Schtick = a memorable BBEG. Power + More Power = A shitty BBEG for a slightly higher level party.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Well I view dragons like clerics. Extremely well rounded and capable of doing anything. You want a caster who stays in the back and uses a bunch of powerful spells, a dragon/cleric can do it. You want a guy who buffs himself and rushes into melee? A dragon/clerci can do it. You want an expert ranged attacker? A dragon/cleric can do it.

Really, dragons are no different from having a cleric as your BBEG. Dragons just kinda perform the clerics role even better.

[User3]

Dragons are victims of the "cool things must be more powerful" argument. Because they are awesome, they must just be arbitrarily more powerful. See also Beholders, Swarms, and Incorporeal crap.

But thats for monsters. PCs are the flipside where being awesome is something you must pay through the nose for simply because having an awesome concept means that your on-screen time is more distracting than everyone elses. In this case, we get things like Monks. since being a Monk with wicked martial arts is a cool concept, players who want to do that must be punished.

I hate to keep harping on the same subject, but this is another effect of not knowing what people should be able to do at any particular evel. While cool villains are supposed to be more powerful than individual PCs, they are supposed to be a tough battle for the party.

When we decide exactly howe much power levels should grant, the reward for cool flavor can be more enjoyable games and the punishment or bad flavor can be less enjoyable games. Playing a Half-Dragon Minotaur should be as powerful as a Fighter without any reward or punishment for its flavor.

[Username17]

You want a caster who stays in the back and uses a bunch of powerful spells, a dragon/cleric can do it.

Since when?

An Adult Blue Dragon casts spells as a fifth level sorcerer. That's enough to cast wraithstrike on himself, but it's not enough to count as casting powerful spells from the back ranks by the time an Adult Blue is a reasonable thing to encounter. He has 241 hit points, and an attack bonus of +27 and has 7 attacks per round.

He's intended to be the ultimate bad dude for a 14th level party. And I'm sorry, but a 14th level party just can't be convinced that some guy sitting in the back throwing 2nd level spells is a threat. His worst save is +12, and he has a Charisma of 16. He can make a save against his own best spell on a natural 3 - and frankly so can the PCs.

Dragons are not spellcasters. They aren't even bullshit half casters like Rangers, they just have a very small number of extremely low level spells that noone cares about as a total after thought.

Dragons are fighters, pure and simple. They are big, they fly fast (though not well), and they hit crazy hard with their teeth. Each of them also gets an area effect elemental attack that it can invoke several times per day that allows them to deal with all kinds of bullshit without even really thinking about it. Also they are automatically apprised of the locations of all enemies within sneak attack range and are arbitrarily immune to Paralysis and Sleep as part of the insult to injury program.

There are seriously no weaknesses there. But there's also nothing interesting for them to do. They just hit things and arbitrarily ignore a laundry list of standard tactics.

As BBEGs, they are shit. Not "boy this weed is some good shit" shit. Just "Oh my goodnes, what are you tracking into my house you disrespectful fvck" kind of shit. When the dragon shows up, you have to pull crazy tactics against it. Not because it has any special abilities that you need to defend yourself against, but because it gets to defend itself from most of your tactics for free and it has numbers set so high that it's going to arbitrarily whup your ass if you step up and fight fair.

As final villains they are both uninteresting and inappropriate.

I'm not even talking about the fact that their CR is messed up such that by the book they are tremendously underpaid, I'm talking about the fact that any actual power level you set for them you could have just used a more interesting and memorable monster that has some damned personality.

A 5th level party could go up against any of the Legion of Doom as their BBEG. And they'd all have their thing going where they were really tough and pulled crazy crap. Except the Dragon, it's just hard to kill. The only advantage the Dragon has is that it is a suggested monster for the 5th level party. But being a suggested monster for an 8th level party actually means that the Mindflayer is a suggested BBEG for a 5th level party anyways. And throwing down the Mindflayer is even less work, because the Dragons come only 2/3 assembled and in an extremely puzzling format.

-Username17

[power_word_wedgie]

Well, as for the powerful melee angle for dragons, I think that this is due to that dinosaur fossils were thought to be "dragon bones." (>LINK, under History section) After looking at some dinosaur bones, my first inclination is that most would have been some excellent melee combatants. Thus, dragons were not solely based off of fantasy literature but also historical reference.

I do agree with Frank with the fact that dragons are hard creatures to run in 3rd edition. As a DM running a pre-made adventure at the correct character level, I basically had to pull my punchs because the dragon had breath weapon and the rest of the party didn't have missile weapons/spells - I basically had to have the dragon fly away laughing. Then, I was on the opposite end when one was sprang on the party basically immobilizing us in one round. We basically gave him all of our magic items just so that he didn't kill us.

[RandomCasualty]

Yeah, the under CRing of dragons is pretty crappy. I don't know why they did that. CR is supposed to be a tool for the DM to not TPK his group, then they go an give them a ridiculously low CR, encouraging a TPK.

As for dragons being too tough because ti requires that the party carry missile weapons. Well honestly... that's their own damn fault. If they want to make all meleers, then yeah, they're going to get pwned against a fast flying thing with a breath weapon. That's just life.

That's like the party wizard whining at you because all he took was fireballs against a fire elemental.

Nothing is stopping every fighter at that level from carrying some kind of bow, nothing at all. They've got full martial proficiency for a reason. If they're too cheap to spend the 300 or whatever gold on a decent composite bow, then screw em. They took a gamble and it didn't pay off.

Also, there should generally be somewhere to take cover and hide if the dragon is trying to stay high up in the air and out of range. It's a heck of a lot easier to fight a dragon in a cave with a somewhat lowered cieling and passages to hide. Not to mention concealing darkness beyond it's darkvision range. If you're fighting the dragon out in an open featureless field in full daylight, then the dragon is fighting in perfect ideal terrain. yeah it's going to be tougher of course. But then, the PCs weren't whining when they picked off the dire bear using thier fly spells either.

Two edged sword.

[Josh_Kablack]

1147483404[/unixtime]] they just have a very small number of extremely low level spells that noone cares about as a total after thought.

Not quite. At higher levels, the low caster level of draconic spellcasting combines with their tactical speed, the buff-happy nature of 3.x spells and dragons relative immunity to normal tactics enough to make Dispeling something PCs suddenly care very much about.

[User3]

I've got to say that the 'dragons as pre-balanced (by age category, or a similar advancement scheme) inelligent mounts' idea is certainly the best I've heard. I don't think the dragon fangirls & boys can complain when you puul them straight out of an Anne McAffrey novel as flying PC libido extensions.

If you want spellcasting dragons, it isn't hard to have them take levels in spellcasting classes.

Of course, the simple fact that among all the magical beasts, dragons are alone in having their own type should indicate something.

But christ, that breath weapon range really should be toned down.

[PhoneLobster]

I don't think the dragon fangirls & boys can complain when you puul them straight out of an Anne McAffrey novel as flying PC libido extensions.

I think they might.

A) Because they are insane.

B) Its been a while but couldn't miss she rewrites the same novel every half dozen years and laughs at anyone who believes she really "co-writes" her co-written novels

, er I'm off track here...

B) (second attempt) Memory may be confused but weren't her dragons so incredible hard core that they TELEPORTED and also TRAVELED IN TIME AND CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY MULTIPLE TIMES.

Dragon loons get at least part of their lunacy straight from her. Which considering she is a bigger hack than at least the much more creative Moorcock is kinda sad.

[power_word_wedgie]

1147496333[/unixtime]]As for dragons being too tough because ti requires that the party carry missile weapons. Well honestly... that's their own damn fault. If they want to make all meleers, then yeah, they're going to get pwned against a fast flying thing with a breath weapon. That's just life.

That's like the party wizard whining at you because all he took was fireballs against a fire elemental.

Nothing is stopping every fighter at that level from carrying some kind of bow, nothing at all. They've got full martial proficiency for a reason. If they're too cheap to spend the 300 or whatever gold on a decent composite bow, then screw em. They took a gamble and it didn't pay off.

The party didn't have a fighter, just a rogue, druid, and bard. Before the encounter, they didn't have too many problem with encounters.

Also, there should generally be somewhere to take cover and hide if the dragon is trying to stay high up in the air and out of range. It's a heck of a lot easier to fight a dragon in a cave with a somewhat lowered cieling and passages to hide. Not to mention concealing darkness beyond it's darkvision range. If you're fighting the dragon out in an open featureless field in full daylight, then the dragon is fighting in perfect ideal terrain. yeah it's going to be tougher of course. But then, the PCs weren't whining when they picked off the dire bear using thier fly spells either.

Yep, that where they were fighting the dragon, in a open, featureless field in full daylight. Like I said, it was from a pre-made adventure from the Shackled City adventure path.

[RandomCasualty]

1147536501[/unixtime]]
The party didn't have a fighter, just a rogue, druid, and bard. Before the encounter, they didn't have too many problem with encounters.

Yeah, this party in a featureless open plain at dayligth is pretty much the worst possible encounter you can throw at them.

Basically in that case you hope the fuck that there's some tall grass or some area you can hide (there really should be somewhere you can find at least partial cove rin any wilderness area).

You have the rogue and the bard split up and hide, and the druid wildshapes into the fastest thing he can and then flies the hell out of there. Alternately he turns into something pretty small and tries to hide himself as well.

In any case, fighting the thing in its lair should be the goal, not fighting it in a wilderness environment. Even then a rogue/bard/druid party would be particularly ineffective dragon slayers I'd guess. Unless the druid and rogue start flanking. Maybe the bard uses fascinate, then rogue and druid get into position.

Fighting a dragon in open terrain for this group is suicide though.

[power_word_wedgie]

1147544906[/unixtime]]
In any case, fighting the thing in its lair should be the goal, not fighting it in a wilderness environment. Even then a rogue/bard/druid party would be particularly ineffective dragon slayers I'd guess. Unless the druid and rogue start flanking. Maybe the bard uses fascinate, then rogue and druid get into position.

Fighting a dragon in open terrain for this group is suicide though.

The thing is that in both of the encounters described, the last thing the party was actively trying to find was a dragon. They were just going from point A to point B, and the dragon just happened to be the encounter in the way. Not all encounters with dragons are going to be with party knowledge of the dragon prior to them.

[User3]

1147510996[/unixtime]]

I don't think the dragon fangirls & boys can complain when you puul them straight out of an Anne McAffrey novel as flying PC libido extensions.

I think they might.

A) Because they are insane.

B) Its been a while but couldn't miss she rewrites the same novel every half dozen years and laughs at anyone who believes she really "co-writes" her co-written novels

, er I'm off track here...

B) (second attempt) Memory may be confused but weren't her dragons so incredible hard core that they TELEPORTED and also TRAVELED IN TIME AND CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY MULTIPLE TIMES.

Dragon loons get at least part of their lunacy straight from her. Which considering she is a bigger hack than at least the much more creative Moorcock is kinda sad.

No, that's all true, but remember that the dragons that teleported and changed time were all the cohorts of high-level PCs.