TacticsConsort @ TacticsConsort @yiffit.net

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2 yr. ago

Oh, I've got your back!

So, if you want to run a dragon really well, the first thing you should do? Go online and check out a PDF of the Draconomicon. Don't get me wrong, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons isn't bad, it gently encourages you to make up creative stuff for your dragons. Draconomicon hands you hard, detailed lore on how dragons are built to survive, thrive, kick the ass of everything else and succeed as a species within a fantasy world. Even if its' spells and rules are for a different, wildly imbalanced edition of DnD, the information in the Draconomicon is second to none, and will greatly enhance your skills.

Now, you want magic items? I can do magic items!

First, let's look at how they can wear them. Magic items in most settings will canonically reshape to fit their wearers (hence why both the Dwarf Fighter and Elf Paladin can fit into that +1 Platemail). How drastically you allow items to reshape is up to you, but if it's a large alteration, you could allow magic gauntlets to become anklets for your dragon's forelegs, or have boots turn into leg-wraps for their hindlegs.

Weapons: Generally no need, but there is an official item called the Insignia of Claws, which turns a wearer's natural weapons into magical +1/2/3 weapons depending on the rarity. The insignia just sticks to someone's body, so that can go anywhere. Doesn't even need Attunement!

Armour: Generally no need

Cloaks: Can either be worn on the back between their wings (and if it's a really massive cloak it can spread out along with their wings, for that ridiculous overkill swag), or if they have a large cloth band to tie around their neck, they can wear the cloak like it's a cravat.

Rings: Can be worn over their claws, or over their horns.

Gauntlets and Gloves: Potentially can be altered to become anklets when the dragon attunes. Your call.

Helmets: While it would take a significant reshape on attunement, it's not too hard to imagine a dragon with a helmet.

Boots: Potentially can be altered to become legwraps when the dragon attunes, same deal.

Necklaces: Can be worn as normal.

Now then, with the actual methods of wearing the items set out, let's take a look at what items a dragon might actually benefit from using. The really good stuff tends to provide utility that the dragon can't get with Innate Spellcasting and its' basic abilities- damage upgrades are normally a waste of an Attunement slot when their breath already hits like a truck (except for on Green dragons, because literally 1/3rd of all enemies in 5e are immune to poison)

Great items that don't need Attunement:

-Bag of Holding -Insignia of Claws -Boots of Elvenkind (Ambushes are incredibly fucking deadly) -Cape of the Mountebank (Saves a spellslot and allows for certain escapes from death, they only get a few spells after all) -Rod of Security

Good official items:

Uncommon: -Brooch of Shielding -Amulet of Proof against Detection and Location (Very good for ambushing higher-level parties) -Cloak of Elvenkind -CLOAK OF PROTECTION. Easy to find one, and when you already have high AC and saves? +1 to all of them is absolutely shockingly good for such a low level item. -Gloves of Missile Snaring -Headband of Intellect -Ring of Mind Shielding (Good for RP, useless in combat)

Rare:

-BRACERS OF DEFENCE! A free +2 AC for any dragon, they look great, and dragons already have a good base AC. These are an A+ pick for any dragon you make. -Cloak of Displacement -Helm of Teleportation (This item should not be classed as Rare.) -Mantle of Spell Resistance -Periapt of Proof against Poison -Ring of Evasion (Dragon Dex Saves are their only bad ones) -Ring of Free Action (Amazing protection from Hold Monster) -Ring of Spell Storing

Very Rare:

-Crystal Ball (They can already fight well without items- this lets them set up favourable fights by seeing people coming.) -HORN OF VALHALLA. Summoning a ton of reinforcements tips the action economy massively. This item is unimaginably broken and should never be allowed to fall into player hands. -Ring of Regeneration

Legendary:

-Cloak of Invisibility -Ioun Stone: Mastery (The only Ioun Stone with the correct rarity) -Ring of Invisibility

I have plenty of Homebrew items and Unofficial or Past-Edition items too, if you're interested in them? But this post is quite long already, so I'll only grab those for you if you ask for them.

Having checked out that comment: Yes, that's absolutely the correct way to run your dragons! Making use of that intelligence of theirs, using every tool at their disposal, is the difference between a forgettable one-off piece of the day, and an encounter with the king or queen of fantasy itself, personified.

Of all monsters that you absolutely must not disrespect, either as a player when you encounter them or as a DM doing worldbuilding and running an encounter, it's the dragons. They're some of the only monsters that I will allow to go no-holds-barred against players, because even if a dragon does kill a player: If they do it with enough style, strategy and awe? Then that PC can live on in heroic infamy, possibly become a defining part of the party's story. The PCs see one and know it's time to bring their A-game, and if they win, they know that they seriously earned it. There's no way you can get that kind of impact by just slinging your dragon into melee with the fighter and watching its' HP tick down as the Action Economy takes effect.

It would make sense. Dragons get more powerful as they age, and seeing as Bahamut and Tiamat made some sort of proto-universe (The First World) which shattered when other gods tried to colonize it, resulting in all the different DnD worlds and timelines (as well as the two of them becoming eternal enemies, so I'd bet my boots that Tiamat wanted to kill anyone that tried to colonize her world, while Bahamut sided with the colonizers and protected them. Of course the colonizers ended up capturing Tiamat and tortured her until she had five split heads, and actually did overload and shatter the First World, also killing Sardior in the process, so perhaps it's not so hard to see how Tiamat went from creating a world to being the biggest, baddest and most far-fallen villain of all time)...

Well, my point is they must be really freaking old. Perhaps very little of their power has to do with being divine, and it's more just that they're nearly as old as the universe. The divinity just means they can't die of old age or be permanently killed, so they can (slowly) get more powerful forever.

While I think this is definitely true, there does seem to be a notable exception to that in Bahamut and Tiamat, right? They're both pretty powerful deities, but unlike other deities, their own races don't actively worship them.

There's probably some obscure lore in there that I don't know, I suppose.

ROLL20

USE ROLL20

You don't need to take the game itself off Discord, but Roll20 is free and does exactly what you want it to do: Easily track the position of everything. It's what I do and it improved my experience to the point it felt like a whole different game.

Okay but the Tiamat one slaps; you can't go wrong making the same joke again and adding DnD's most fun villain to it

Protip: Literally just do it, because the easiest and fastest way to learn how to DM is to DM something and then think about how you DMed it.

I would recommend an official module to you as a way to help you learn how to balance encounters, but you must be aware that most if not all official modules are actually critically flawed in such a way that negates the main benefit of DnD: A pre-made adventure can only allow your players to follow one path.

All told I think the pre-made adventure that's the least bad is Ghosts of Saltmarsh, followed by Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but these both have VERY rough level 1 adventures, so honestly just make your own. You can adjust things like enemy HP and hit modifiers on the fly if you realize you've made a horrible mistake (just don't tell the players).

Oh, but my one key piece of advice? If you want to run an adventure your players are going to love? Simply ask them what they want out of the adventure, and react accordingly. If they want loot, then give them coins, gems, and unique valuables. If they want an overarching plot, make up a villain and have their minions be thematic. If they want to meet dragons, introduce one early and make the players meet them and some other dragons who know them a few more times throughout the adventure. DnD's greatest strength, by an absolute mile, is the ability to tailor content exactly to what the players want. No video game can do that.

God now that's relatable alright. Good meme boyo

Yes, but I was under the entirely reasonable expectation that I would indeed get my niche thing (that being three or four lines of dialog), given the game's overall setup, mechanics, advertising and franchise. It wasn't just not included, it was actively averted as hard as possible.

Would you not be disappointed in the same circumstances?

Boy he literally murdered his closest, oldest, and most well-intentioned friend in cold blood, threw the body in a dungeon, and let their soul find no rest for several centuries.

But am I wrong? Making an unreasonable complaint?

I know that most people don't like dragons as much as I do, but... is it really that weird to want them not to get screwed to the Nth degree?

Yes, exactly! There's nothing wrong with a tragic hero, but when every hero is not just tragic but tragic to a degree that I doubt most writers would even be willing to inflict upon human characters, then it's clear that something else is needed to bring balance and freshness.

If this becoming a copypasta is what it takes to get me some dragons who have happy endings, then Holy my Hell.

Thank you kindly. But I know that it's just not a realistic expectation.

I feel you. I REALLY feel you. I'd say more to commiserate, but everything I've got to say on the matter is already up there, and while I'm upset, I don't want to rant everyone else into being frustrated. Best of luck to you finding someone you can save in your games?

I could, but after getting burned so badly in BG3, I'm very much feeling cautious about touching anything else this studio's made.

Probably the only thing that could convince me to head back and finish the game tbh.

I wish, oh I wish.

Seduction would have been like winning the Euromillions. Extremely nice, but totally unrealistic and I know it. I just wanted a nice chat and some pocket money after trekking all this way.

Better late than never. I'll certainly not complain.

I'm so glad to hear it, honestly! DnD's been an absolute favourite hobby of mine and it's really nice to see it going a bit more mainstream while preserving the things that make it special (the ability to do almost anything you can think of).

(Now to get Pathfinder one of these...)