4th Edition Dragons

[MindForge]

Man the 4th edition dragons are cool as hell. Okay. Here is an example of a fight between two dragons that a friend and I just did. It is not word for word but I won initiative. Elder Green vs. Elder Blue.

I used the lightning breath as a first attack and hit, I stand still.

Breath attack from the green dragon. I fail the saves and will begin to notice how lethal the damage is going to be in a couple rounds from here.

We used some of their abilities and in order to use a breath attack you basically roll for the breath each round and you want a 5 or 6. So the recharge is kind of random. At one point I used a breath weapon 3 times in a row. We went on and that poison damage just killed me by the end. I was slowed from the poison almost the whole time and I couldn't ever get going after I was slowed from the first breath.

I have already noticed a couple things we did wrong though and I want to look up ongoing damage a little more. We just kind of played by ear and wanted to see dragon abilities in action. One of the cool things happens when a dragon gets bloodied (lose 1/2 hp) they get a free breath attack.

Looking further at other dragons. The red dragon's secondary breath weapon effect strips fire resistance away. Yes, dragon breath is that hot.

Also, the entire area around a red dragon just erupts on fire by its presence. Everything within 20 squares (100') is an inferno. Everyone and everything just burns. Another cool effect is the fact that everyone in the area has concealment from ranged attacks. I could see this from several angles - the heat waves obscure vision and the arrows burn up in flight. Mind you, these auras are on the ancient dragons.

The monster manual is awesome. As I look at the monsters contained there are none that I didn'r really like. I liked them all and while some of the lame ones are gone from the 3.5 MM the good ones are still there and the book is stuffed with great content as far as monsters go. I do also like how the monster creation stuff is in the DMG this time. Everything that is based around needing to create stuff for games can be found in the DMG.

[xaotik1]

I agree that the monsters are nicely thought out, and their powers tend to mesh well within their listed groupings. Unfortunately, in some cases the descriptions of the creatures suffers horrendously. I dislike the way that they stripped all the color from the descriptions, and just give stat blocks. The lack of physical description kind of sucks as well. Yes, you do get a picture, but I already miss the old school attention to details other than straight up stats and tactics in combat.

[MindForge]

As I have always said in games. The description is in the DM/GM's hands. It doesn't matter how cool the description in the book is if a person cannot take their own matter and make it fun. I prefer crunch heavy because I am the storyteller, not the book description. That is how I prefer it anyway.

[Niko_Kaze]

Well I do like a bit of a discription in the book too. However if all the monsters have a picture tha could work for me as well. What monsters did they leave out?

[MindForge]

Not sure really what they have left out. But there are pics of all the goblins in a group with a caption identifying them.

[Niko_Kaze]

Now here is my big question: Are dragons the things that makes the world shake again? Do I put a dragon out on patrol, the PC's see it and cry?

[MindForge]

Yeah. Dragons are solo monsters. Examples:

A young red dragon is a level 7 solo Soldier) encounter. It has 332 hp.

A macetail behemoth is a standard level 7 soldier. It has 82 hp.

Okay. On top of that the macetail behemoth basically has some cool attacks a tail sweep that knocks people down and a tail strike that bludgeons people. Cool.

The dragon would eat several of these things alive not to mention an unprepared adventuring party. Why?

Hitpoints aside it has some nasty attacks. It has an immediate action attack if anyone flanks it. So, any one trying to get some flanking benefits gets nailed with a tail strike which pushes opponents back in addition to doing damage. Even this young dragon has a frightful presence that acts as a burst aura attack it can use once per encounter.

The claws and bites are more powerful than its powerful breath weapon, so no longer is it weaker in melee than it was dropping fire breath. It is stronger in melee and will make short work of anyone not thinking about the sheer immensity of this encounter.

When it becomes bloodied (1/2 hp) it gets an immediate breath attack.

As a solo creature it has two action points to use in the encounter also.

Solo encounters are not really meant to kill characters but a level 7 party better think good on the fly or prepare for a battle with this thing. Don't know if I mentioned or not but a double attack from claws if both hit will deal 4d6 +12 damage. Now, while this isn't going to kill a character in one hit. It is going to be enough to really say that the character got hit hard. A cleric with an alright con would have about 55 hp. So on average from that hit they would take 26 damage. In one round they would be bloodied and most likely due to the bonuses of the dragon they are going to get hit with both of them.. Now, they have to try and take it head on because that tail in the back is pretty dangerous if someone should try and get into a flank.

[Niko_Kaze]

Good dragons should scare people.

[TiFFman]

I agree with Niko on this one. I've always seen dragons as immensely powerful beasts. I found they make good NPC's to throw into a campaign but to actually fight one, would be death (personal opinion).

I like how they made the melee of a dragon stronger. Yes their abilities are powerful as well, but getting hit with a big claw or tail from a dragon should hurt :P

[MindForge]

Yeah. Even the smallest dragon is a solo encounter. If you want to use dragon like things they are there... the dragonspawn. I can't wait to pit a redspawn firebelcher and some other beasties against PC's.

[celticzazen]

Well I do like a bit of a discription in the book too. However if all the monsters have a picture tha could work for me as well. What monsters did they leave out?

well 3.5 mm has over 400 monsters while the 4th mm has around 150... the game I am running in the realms is thinking of making the conversion to 4th but it will require alot of work on my part (not complaining) to bring in monsters that aren't in the 4th...

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

Here's the thing I dislike about Dragons in 4e (and dragons in other editions).

There's that -goddamned- hidden subtype, "awesome", which in 3.5 was done intentionally (they are all under-CR'd) to make them scarier. This was frequent. The flaw in this is that ultimately it skews the CR system when an arbitrary change is made... on top of that, players were less rewarded for taking out dragons than they were 'fair' creatures of their level, both in XP and in treasure. That skews the entire system, since statting a monster means "Oh, will it have the hidden awesome subtype that makes it hard as hell to kill? or will it just be a normal monster, and such?"

This is why Dragons are their own chapter in Savage Species.

4e, I thought, could do much better than that. However, look at -any- Dragon, and you will find it is much 'cheaper' to buy dragons with that XP pool per encounter than it is for any other solo monster... and dragons are better. In other words, that damn hidden subtype comes up again.

*is frustrated at it*

yes, they are awesome. But I will not use them until they elect to -properly- give them XP values that aren't deliberately low to make them tougher.

[Choas]

Agreed Gorthaur. Seems that wizards does like slipping things under the "fair" rope. Its funny that they would do this but I guess they feel like they can bend the designs of their own system for an experience that they want the players to have against these creatures. I just always give my players so much xp and loot that I am hardly afraid to throw whatever I please at them.

[Mask]

I can say this from experience; dragons be scary.
My new wizard (yay Magic Missile at-will!) took on a lvl 3 White Dragon the other week. The combat was fast paced, highly mobile, and healing intensive as the dragon slowed the defender and other melees and homed in on the squishiest party member... me, the wizard. Survival depended on quick heals from both paladin and cleric, excessive use of thunder wave to gain distance, massive application of debuffs, and lots of maneuvering to cut the potential for the breath weapon to hit multiple party members.
Best combat I've ever seen at low level. Dragons are fun again.

[MindForge]

I turned a goblin into a nasty encounter like the white dragon... I basically built a solo creature from scratch that looked like a goblin but was more like a white dragon... it was a great encounter... one fatality in the party... been playing a lot of table games lately.