Draco Historial - Dragons in D&D!

[Morrus]

Draco Historia -- Dragons may have been a part of D&D since the beginning, but their mightiness has certainly varied over the years.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4alum/20140425

 

[I'm A Banana]

While I'm ambivalent about DL, D&D dragons have been a thing that I've been doing a lot with recently. My favorite addition came in 2e, when they introduced some minor, but wonderfully thematic, spell-like abilities at various age categories. That locked in the variety and potential of the various dragons for me. Blue dragons weren't just "red dragons that breathed lightning instead," they were manipulative illusionists who used the desert to wear down their enemies. And red dragons themselves weren't just fire-breathing rampagers, they were greedy and possessive in the extreme. 3e maintained these to a large degree, but when they were absent in 4e (where combat stat blocks made things like divinations and illusions nonsensical for their dragons, much as they may have been in 1e), I kind of lost interest in what 4e was doing with dragons, since it wasn't what I wanted out of a D&D dragon.

The lairs of 5e make me more optimistic. I don't know if they'll return the spell-like abilities to prominence again or not, but I think even if they don't, the game should be modular enough to make that something I can do pretty easily, and hopefully not so weighed down by the default assumptions of "what a dragon is" that I can't have my blue illusionists and my green forest-tenders back!

 

[Derren]

While I'm ambivalent about DL, D&D dragons have been a thing that I've been doing a lot with recently. My favorite addition came in 2e, when they introduced some minor, but wonderfully thematic, spell-like abilities at various age categories. That locked in the variety and potential of the various dragons for me. Blue dragons weren't just "red dragons that breathed lightning instead," they were manipulative illusionists who used the desert to wear down their enemies. And red dragons themselves weren't just fire-breathing rampagers, they were greedy and possessive in the extreme. 3e maintained these to a large degree, but when they were absent in 4e (where combat stat blocks made things like divinations and illusions nonsensical for their dragons, much as they may have been in 1e), I kind of lost interest in what 4e was doing with dragons, since it wasn't what I wanted out of a D&D dragon.

The lairs of 5e make me more optimistic. I don't know if they'll return the spell-like abilities to prominence again or not, but I think even if they don't, the game should be modular enough to make that something I can do pretty easily, and hopefully not so weighed down by the default assumptions of "what a dragon is" that I can't have my blue illusionists and my green forest-tenders back!

I agree fully with the first paragraph. 2nd and 3rd edition dragons (and also many other monsters) were written very well because they were more than just combat encounters and could affect the world outside of combat without massive handwaving and deus ex machina from the DM.
Sadly 4E removed all that and, together with making many of them non good just so that PCs can kill them, made dragons rather uninteresting.
But I do disagree with your 5E outlook. Lairs still seem to be combat centric and out of combat interaction still does not seem to be considered in monster design.

 

[The Human Target]

4e didn't remove jack.

Noncombat abilities just don't need to be in stat blocks.

 

[Derren]

4e didn't remove jack.

Noncombat abilities just don't need to be in stat blocks.

Except that they were not to be found outside of the stat blocks either and thus got removed.

 

[Morrus]

I think it'd be amazing if they made something other than red dragons the default baddest-asses of the five chromatics.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

"... will continue to be core from the start."

Like they'd actually consider releasing D&D without dragons? And just call it "Dungeons &"?

 

[I'm A Banana]

4e didn't remove jack.

Noncombat abilities just don't need to be in stat blocks.

Your first sentence is factually incorrect.

Your second sentence is very debatable.

What do you think about dragons in historical D&D and going forward?

 

[Henry]

Your first sentence is factually incorrect.

Your second sentence is very debatable.

What do you think about dragons in historical D&D and going forward?

Damned Ipad ate my first post, so i'll just say this: 4e dragons solved what were problems for me in 3e of action economy and "stat cloud" monsters, who were tougher than what was in the stat block due to spells and capabilities in said stat block, so I preferred the 4e way of doing them and hope they continue the trend.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Damned Ipad ate my first post, so i'll just say this: 4e dragons solved what were problems for me in 3e of action economy and "stat cloud" monsters, who were tougher than what was in the stat block due to spells and capabilities in said stat block, so I preferred the 4e way of doing them and hope they continue the trend.

I can totally get on board with streamlining. Having to make entire spell lists to use 2e and 3e dragons was not one of their strong suits.

But 4e's approach failed on two basic metrics for me with regards to the dragons.

First, it ditched the identity of the dragons as conveyed by their magical abilities in 2e/3e. As an example, blue dragons in 4e were dire pikachus -- great with a bolt of lightning in a fight. They weren't the clever illusionists who got their victims lost in the desert while obliterating water supplies that the 2e abilities helped them be for me. The latter is much more interesting to me than the former.

Second, it narrowed their focus to the fight. Since combat is only one part of D&D for me, and I still need rules support for the rest of the game, this made them boring and uninteresting to me. I can imagine using a blue dragon that uses mirages and destroys water in play. A blue dragon that just crackles with lightning doesn't inspire me to do anything with it, really. Got no reason to fight it.

The simplification was a good thing, and I hope 5e keeps it simple. Spell lists are not a thing I want to go back to. I just hope it adds back in those two things that 4e dragons lacked for me -- the thematic abilities that made each color interesting and unique, and a context beyond the 30 minutes it'll take to reduce that sack of XP to 0 HP.

I imagine 5e dragons, like the beholder mentioned in today's Q&A, are going to have a "non-legendary, non-laired" mode they can run on, ("legendary" and "lair" seem like things you can add to a critter), which sounds like it'll be useful for anyone wanting a simpler dragon. I just hope that simple dragon still evokes the unique abilities of the 2e/3e era dragons -- that my black dragons unleash insect plagues and taint wells, that my blue dragons use illusions and eradicate water, that my green dragons have charms and nature manipulation that rival the fey...

Those things are fun gameplay elements for me. I imagine they won't be hard to add if 5e doesn't do it by default (it's likely going to be easy to take those spells and just say, "the dragon can use 'em."), but I'd be pleased to see those abilities in there. Given 5e's general "good ideas from history" vibe, I wouldn't be shocked.

But if 5e gold dragons don't grant luck and 5e white dragons don't control the weather, I'm probably not going to be that enthusiastic about 'em.