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D&D Older Editions
Revised and rebalanced dragons for AD&D 2e
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<blockquote data-quote="Just Passing Through" data-source="post: 8074453" data-attributes="member: 7025960"><p>The problems that I wished to solve with dragons in 2e are manyfold. Here are just a few of them.</p><p></p><p>1.) Inconsistently scaling of abilities.</p><p>A dragons combat bonus applied to its damage, but really it mostly just serves to highlight one of the legacy problems that was ported over straight from 1st edition, namely that a great wyrm dragons damage is not actually that much higher than a wyrmlings. A wyrmling dragons bite does anywhere from 9 to 21, and only goes up by 12 points despite the vast difference in size and power between a newly hatched 12 foot dragon and a 400 foot great wyrm. While a dragons melee damage does scale as they age, the scaling is linear, with no actual thought given to the size and power disparity. </p><p></p><p>A dragons breath weapon is another example of this lack of scaling in one area. A wyrmling dragons breath weapon is identical to a great wyrms in every way except for damage, the range never increases despite the dragon's increased size.</p><p></p><p>2.) The breath weapon and rocket tag.</p><p>On the other hand, a dragons breath weapon does in fact scale at a steady rate. However, they scale far too well for how many hit points characters have. Much like 1e dragons, many 2e dragons would be capable of one-shotting themselves with their own breath weapons, any character caught in the breath weapon of a powerful red dragon will likely die immediately even on a successful saving throw. </p><p></p><p>Dragons also have some incredibly unbalanced abilities in the form of there tail slap and to a lesser extent there crush attack. Tail slap is a multi-target at will multi-round stun that also deals high amounts of damage and most egregiously gives a penalty to the saving throw equal to the dragon's combat modifier (-12 for a great wyrm). Crush also has a similar issue with the colossal saving throw penalty thrown in on top of an already deadly attack. The penalty is also applied only to those 2 abilities, it is not applied consistently to the dragon's other abilities, such as there frightful presence and breath weapon. </p><p></p><p>Dragons are likewise very vulnerable to the rocket tag aspect of 2e, and are liable to die extremely fast to pcs or even just a random roll. One of my goals with building this was to make dragons somewhat less deadly, but compensate by boosting their defenses and most importantly make them more interesting while doing do.</p><p></p><p>3. Special Abilities.</p><p>A dragons special abilities make them difficult to run smoothly in engagements, because of how many clauses and exceptions there are to what a dragon can do in a turn. A dragon can make 3 attacks in a round...unless it is diving at which point it can make either 2 or 4 depending on whether it is targeting someone in the air or the ground. A dragon that kicks only gets one claw attack and cannot attack with its tail. A dragon that hovers can attack with all of its claws and its bite, but not its wings or tail. A diving dragon can snatch creatures in its claws...but can it bite against a creature as well? A dragon can do nothing else in the round in which it breathes, and it must glide to breathe and cast spells. A dragon can combine its innate abilities with any other form of attack...except for spells and breath weapons. Exception after exception, ruling after ruling, all of which make running dragons in combat far more of a chore than it should be. </p><p></p><p>Dragons in 2e have many interesting abilities and riders on some of there attacks, however, the unwieldiness of dragons and the wild power differences in there abilities make it difficult to run them as written.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Just Passing Through, post: 8074453, member: 7025960"] The problems that I wished to solve with dragons in 2e are manyfold. Here are just a few of them. 1.) Inconsistently scaling of abilities. A dragons combat bonus applied to its damage, but really it mostly just serves to highlight one of the legacy problems that was ported over straight from 1st edition, namely that a great wyrm dragons damage is not actually that much higher than a wyrmlings. A wyrmling dragons bite does anywhere from 9 to 21, and only goes up by 12 points despite the vast difference in size and power between a newly hatched 12 foot dragon and a 400 foot great wyrm. While a dragons melee damage does scale as they age, the scaling is linear, with no actual thought given to the size and power disparity. A dragons breath weapon is another example of this lack of scaling in one area. A wyrmling dragons breath weapon is identical to a great wyrms in every way except for damage, the range never increases despite the dragon's increased size. 2.) The breath weapon and rocket tag. On the other hand, a dragons breath weapon does in fact scale at a steady rate. However, they scale far too well for how many hit points characters have. Much like 1e dragons, many 2e dragons would be capable of one-shotting themselves with their own breath weapons, any character caught in the breath weapon of a powerful red dragon will likely die immediately even on a successful saving throw. Dragons also have some incredibly unbalanced abilities in the form of there tail slap and to a lesser extent there crush attack. Tail slap is a multi-target at will multi-round stun that also deals high amounts of damage and most egregiously gives a penalty to the saving throw equal to the dragon's combat modifier (-12 for a great wyrm). Crush also has a similar issue with the colossal saving throw penalty thrown in on top of an already deadly attack. The penalty is also applied only to those 2 abilities, it is not applied consistently to the dragon's other abilities, such as there frightful presence and breath weapon. Dragons are likewise very vulnerable to the rocket tag aspect of 2e, and are liable to die extremely fast to pcs or even just a random roll. One of my goals with building this was to make dragons somewhat less deadly, but compensate by boosting their defenses and most importantly make them more interesting while doing do. 3. Special Abilities. A dragons special abilities make them difficult to run smoothly in engagements, because of how many clauses and exceptions there are to what a dragon can do in a turn. A dragon can make 3 attacks in a round...unless it is diving at which point it can make either 2 or 4 depending on whether it is targeting someone in the air or the ground. A dragon that kicks only gets one claw attack and cannot attack with its tail. A dragon that hovers can attack with all of its claws and its bite, but not its wings or tail. A diving dragon can snatch creatures in its claws...but can it bite against a creature as well? A dragon can do nothing else in the round in which it breathes, and it must glide to breathe and cast spells. A dragon can combine its innate abilities with any other form of attack...except for spells and breath weapons. Exception after exception, ruling after ruling, all of which make running dragons in combat far more of a chore than it should be. Dragons in 2e have many interesting abilities and riders on some of there attacks, however, the unwieldiness of dragons and the wild power differences in there abilities make it difficult to run them as written. [/QUOTE]
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