Tinkering with Dragons

[Animus]

Hey all,

As much as I love D&D dragons, they are difficult to stat up and run well. Spellcasting makes it more complicated to run in combat. My goal is to simplify running them in combat. What would be the benefits and drawbacks of the following:

[B][U]Alternate Dragon Abilities[/U][/B]
Instead of the caster levels older dragons get, select one column and receive
benefits from that column only (i.e., if you pick the fighter feats column you
stick with that for the rest of the advancement). for all abilities, treat the
dragon's old caster level as its new level for class benefits.


[u]CL	Fighter		Barbarian	Paladin/Blackguard[/u]	
1st	bonus feat	Rage 1/day	Smite Evil/Good 1/day	
3rd 	bonus feat	---		---
5th	bonus feat	Rage 2/day	Smite Evil/Good 2/day
7th 	bonus feat	---		---
9th	bonus feat	Greater Rage	Smite Evil/Good 3/day
11th 	bonus feat	---		---
13th	bonus feat	Rage 3/day	Smite Evil/Good 4/day
15th 	bonus feat	---		---
17th	bonus feat	Tireless Rage	Smite Evil/Good 5/day
19th	bonus feat	Mighty Rage	---

Has anyone tried something like this? Discuss.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

An interesting idea. This system should boost CR by 2 or so, because these class abilities don't need standard actions to use and directly influence combat.

 

[Animus]

An interesting idea. This system should boost CR by 2 or so, because these class abilities don't need standard actions to use and directly influence combat.

Totally fine with that. I'm going to playtest it, but it's good to have a general idea of what to shoot for going in.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Have you looked at Draconomicon where all the core dragons are statted? Other companies have done something similar, even publishing them in cards.

Other than that, I'd say to drop the CR by AT LEAST 2. There's no way in Heck that giving up casting 1st-9th level spells is equal to smite evil 5/day. Let me see, I can cast gate, wish, time stop, etc. or just smite evil by getting close to my enemy despite the fact that "It prefers to fight on the wing, staying out of reach until it has worn down the enemy with ranged attacks."

Now, if your goal is to completely alter dragons into being melee machines (and they're good at it, don't get me wrong), then giving them an option of two melee tracks is the way to go. Removing full casting abilities, however, severely gimps them.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Have you looked at Draconomicon where all the core dragons are statted? Other companies have done something similar, even publishing them in cards.

Other than that, I'd say to drop the CR by AT LEAST 2. There's no way in Heck that giving up casting 1st-9th level spells is equal to smite evil 5/day. Let me see, I can cast gate, wish, time stop, etc. or just smite evil by getting close to my enemy despite the fact that "It prefers to fight on the wing, staying out of reach until it has worn down the enemy with ranged attacks."

Now, if your goal is to completely alter dragons into being melee machines (and they're good at it, don't get me wrong), then giving them an option of two melee tracks is the way to go. Removing full casting abilities, however, severely gimps them.

I have to disagree. Spells provide options sure, but mostly dragons use them for preparatory buffing because they're so vastly inferior to their fighting prowess. I'd say that dropping a dragon's spells has the biggest effect outside of a fight where they can actually use utility spells to good effect. So dropping spells in lieu of even more combat prowess should definately not DROP CR, at least in the case of dragons.

 

[Arkhandus]

Low-level spells are near-useless to dragons in combat. The first several caster levels given up don't really hurt a dragon much (they might miss out on a bit of AC, Str, Dex, Con, or something, but chances are, the dragon will have a magic item that gives the same, or better, in their horde and likely just don the item when expecting a battle).

The middle caster levels lost do cause a bit of weakness, and the later caster levels lost have a somewhat significant impact. I'd increase the dragon's CR by 1 or 2 points for those dragons that give up only 1-7 caster levels, not adjust the CR at all for those who give up 8-13 caster levels, and decrease the CR by 1 or 2 points for those who give up 14-20 caster levels. I'm not entirely sure though, yet.

Also, to note: extra Rages per day don't really help a dragon much (unless he/she is an adventurer themselves!). Similarly, in the opposite vein......multiple Smite Goods per day would be awfully powerful for an evil dragon, against adventurers, and even just 1 SG would likely be enough to let the dragon kill off a party's wizard or rogue in one hit (after, say, charging, or taking a move action in flight to get around the party's fighter and cleric).

 

[Stalker0]

Low level spells aren't that strong, but high level spells are. High level fights, if you don't have any magical ability you might as well go home. Seriously, as a dm I'll take a level 20 wizard over a level 20 fighter any day of the week as an npc to throw at my players.

Its not that the fighter isn't powerful, he's just not as flexible. A high level party has a ton of different options at their disposal, if you can't handle those you'll quickly die. A high CR dragon needs its magic to compete imo.

 

[Li Shenron]

Hey all,

As much as I love D&D dragons, they are difficult to stat up and run well. Spellcasting makes it more complicated to run in combat. My goal is to simplify running them in combat. What would be the benefits and drawbacks of the following:

...

Has anyone tried something like this? Discuss.

The idea is nice.

I am a bit concerned about the fighter option, lots of feats may be easier to run than lots of spells, but still it could be a burden.

Anyway, notice that for a CR evaluation, you ALSO have to keep in mind how much the dragon is going to use those abilities compared to how many spells he would have cast.

For example, Rage is very likely going to be used ONCE against the PC, so it's more important how much is the bonus than how many times he can use it. Smite Good is better because it's going to be used many times during the same fight, and so a feats (particularly if many are passive feats).

Spells however are much more powerful, so I agree that the CR should be decreased overall!

 

[pallandrome]

Personally, when I'm running a high level dragon, he tends to toss meteor swarms at the party until it's time to go melee. Then he cast's Iron Body, which then triggers Tensors Transformation, Haste, and Greater Heroism off it's Improved Contengency. And no, I do not think this makes the dragon weaker than smite good 5 times a day. Not to mention the dragon probably has precience running, as well as a few other buff, because his divination spells have already told him the encounter was in the offing.

 

[Vuron]

While low level spell casting is generally a waste of time for the dragon in combat once a dragon can cast dispel magic it becomes a very useful round one spell to cast to reduce PC buffs or can be used to remove negative effects cast on the dragon.

Later on mid to high level sorcerer spells can often provide the dragon significant advantages in controlling the battlefield. Forcecage and Maze can remove powerful melee specialists from the fight while Feeblemind can be used to ruin an arcane spellcaster's day.

While most people don't use dragons as conjuration specialists (too much headache) the summon monster spells can be extremely useful in providing dragons cannon fodder to wear down the PCs.

In short taking away spellcasting is a massive change to dragon abilities and worth a very significant reduction in CR.