I think Wizards just added more to the [Awesome] Tag...

[Leress]

4th Edition dragons are among the most dynamic, exciting monsters in the game—as they should be. They’re different from each other, across categories (the metallics aren’t like the chromatics), across colors (reds and whites don’t have all the same attacks), and across age categories (fear the ancient dragons). Here’s just a taste of what a fight against an ancient dragon might feel like:

• 
  
• On the dragon’s turn, the first thing it does is burst out in an inferno of flame, searing every PC within 25 feet—a free action. Then, with a standard action, it slashes out at the fighter and the cleric with its two front claws (even though they’re both 20 feet away). As another free action, it uses its tail to slap the rogue, who was trying to sneak up behind it, and pushes her back 10 feet. It’s getting angry at the wizard, so it uses a special ability to take another standard action: it spits a ball of fire at the wizard, setting him on fire. It has a move action left, which it uses to fly into a better position for its breath weapon. That ends the dragon’s turn.
  
  
  
• It’s the fighter’s turn. He charges the dragon and manages to land a solid blow, dropping the dragon down below half its hit points. Oh—that gives the dragon the opportunity use its breath weapon as an immediate action. A huge cone of fire bursts from the dragon’s mouth, engulfing all four PCs. But at least the dragon is below 500 hit points!
  
  
  
• Now the rogue moves around to flank with the fighter. Ordinarily, that would let the dragon use its tail slap again as an immediate action, but the dragon has used its immediate action already. That’s lucky for the rogue, who actually gets to make an attack this round! Unfortunately, she fails to hit the dragon’s AC of 49.
  
  
  
• The wizard fails to put out the fire, so he takes more damage. Worse yet, the dragon’s breath scoured away the wizard’s fire resistance, so he takes the full amount. He blasts the dragon with a ray of freezing cold, but this isn’t 3rd Edition. The dragon takes normal damage, but it’s not enough to slow it down.
  
  
  
• Finally, the cleric is up. Calling on the power of her god, she swings her halberd at the dragon—a critical hit! The damage isn’t bad, but even better, the wizard gets a nice surge of healing power.
  

He’s going to need it—it’s the dragon’s turn again.

Did they just make dragons even better? Or is just hot air.

[Lago_AM3P]

AWESOME?! That's not awesome, that's...


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!

MOTHERFUCKERS!

It was fucking hard enough to kill a motherfucking dragon in 3rd Edition and you didn't even get properly compensated for doing this monumental deed which would make Sisyphus weep in pity for you!

DO THESE DRAGONFELCHING FANBOY OTHERKIN REALIZE THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO BE ABLE TO KILL A FUCKING DRAGON?!

I WANT TO KILL A FUCKING DRAGON FOR ONCE!

Fucking assholes.

[Leress]

From Dungeons and Dragons to Dungeons and Bullshit

[Lago_AM3P]

I hate dragons more than kobolds and elves COMBINED now.

You knuckleheads.

[cthulhu]

The other intresting thing is that means that the warrior can do atleast 250 damage in one hit.

Two observations with that: Either hitpoints are much higher than before or fighter damage output is insane.

Save or die spells just got even better than evocation.

[MrWaeseL]

1187941100[/unixtime]]From Dungeons and Dragons to Dungeons and Bullshit

Wow, it didn't take long at all for your opinion to turn around.

[Leress]

1187942875[/unixtime]]

1187941100[/unixtime]]From Dungeons and Dragons to Dungeons and Bullshit

Wow, it didn't take long at all for your opinion to turn around.

What do you mean, that was in response to Lago's post.

I think dragons are fine as they were, then the Dragonomicon came out and dragons got even more ridiculous with certain spells.

This dragon describe in the article is vicious and adds even more to the [Awesome] Tag. Now it seems that different dragons will have different levels of "Awesome" depending on age and type.

[Koumei]

I still love dragons, I just don't love their implementation in D&D. Seriously, can't they just be a normal, solid challenge, and let the DM decide if they want a wandering monster, a lair monster, or a supreme overlord with hundreds of traps, illusions, minions and an entire economy that depends on them? No, they have to all be [Awesome], and good at everything.

I'd like the CR system to actually mean something, in other words, and for dragons to be as cool as mythology paints them to be, but keeping in mind that D&D heroes are significantly more awesome than most mythological ones, so should be able to kill them. I guess I'm just not quite the dragon fanboy.

And I think I'll stick by the "Dragon cock? I walk." rule as well. It works.

[RandomCasualty]

I think the most disappointing thing of that whole block was that they had that ability that gives the dragon an additional standard action. I was hoping they'd learned their lesson that handing out more actions is a bad thing. I guess not though.

[MrWaeseL]

What do you mean, that was in response to Lago's post.

I think dragons are fine as they were, then the Dragonomicon came out and dragons got even more ridiculous with certain spells.

This dragon describe in the article is vicious and adds even more to the [Awesome] Tag. Now it seems that different dragons will have different levels of "Awesome" depending on age and type.

Oh right. I read it as:

L: Hey guys dragons are totally sweet in 4e!
LA: No they're not
L: You're right they're not!

[Koumei]

Yeah, I first thought Leress meant they got something *right* and there was something awesome in 4Ed. Then realised "Wait, no, that's the [Awesome] subtype, for creatures that will kick your ass just because WotC/fanboys won't have it any other way."

[MrWaeseL]

On the subject itself I actually kind of like the idea that a monster has lots of tricks and different attack modes, and we're given way too little information to go "RAAAH 4E SUCKS NOW"

[Lago_AM3P]

On the subject itself I actually kind of like the idea that a monster has lots of tricks and different attack modes, and we're given way too little information to go "RAAAH 4E SUCKS NOW"

I don't particularly mind it in theory, I just really hate masturbatory language on how cool and awesome and threatening a certain monster is, ESPECIALLY when it pertains to elves, kobolds, or especially language.

We don't know how the cleric and fighter and everyone else are supposed to function yet. So I can't pass judgement on the system. But I can tell you that 'oh look how coooool dragons are because they were simpering bunnypants in 3E' blathering is already a really bad sign if this sort of mindless design intent passes muster.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I totally want to fight any monster that can do the following in a round:
- combust as a free action
- attack as a free action?
- use 2 attacks on 2 opponents with a standard action
- has 2 standard actions
- has a breath weapon
- can fly...

Seriously though, dragons were bullshit monsters to begin with. Anything that gets spells+awesome full attacks+flying+awesome AC is a bullshit monster.

Also, wtf is AC 49 even supposed to mean....

[Koumei]

I'm not worried about the spells that dragons originally had - they didn't have level-appropriate casting anyway. A few spells caused this to become annoying, like Wraithstrike, sure, but for the most part, they basically didn't see use.

But who knows what they have now?

[erik]

1187942296[/unixtime]]The other intresting thing is that means that the warrior can do atleast 250 damage in one hit.

Two observations with that: Either hitpoints are much higher than before or fighter damage output is insane.

Save or die spells just got even better than evocation.

Read carefully. It doesn't say that the dragon is fresh at the start of that example. For all we know this is round seven and the fighter only did 10 HP damage to bring it below 500, which is implied to be half HP (so apparently it has 1000 HP and 49 AC... just what DnD needed, bigger fvcking numbers).

If the fighter did deal enough to take it from fresh to half dead in one round, well fvck, I couldn't give a crap what the dragon can do. It's dead next round.

Further, if the WotC pinheads can figure out a way for their fighter to deal that much damage, then I expect it will be trivial for an outsider to figure out a way to double that and just kill the stupid dragon outright on round 1.

As a halfling.



I have no idea where they got the shit that "dragons are among the most dynamic, exciting monsters in the game". They're all fvcking small, they have the same bullshit AC, HP and melee attacks. Other than their color coordinated breath weapons, they're nigh identical. 'Dynamic and exciting' must mean 'stale and boring' in Washington.

[tzor]

One of the things I notice is the warp speed nature of 4E combat. Back in my 1E days we got one attack in a combat minute and we liked it. Here in this example we see within the 6 second combat round the dragon getting two major breath weapon attacks, a minor breath attack, multiple attacks as a standard action (not counting the other attacks the dragon still gets for free) and a move action just for shits and giggles. But don't worry, the cleric can heal someone and attack someone else at the same time ... WTF?

[Koumei]

I don't know, you do basically have to custom-build each one - they don't provide separate entries for each age category of each one (thank Loviatar, we don't need more MM pages wasted). Which does help them vary a little, but "Dynamic and Exciting" isn't what I'm thinking of.

And yes, they're too small. Wyverns for the motherfucking win.

Also, I bet that was a Wyrmling, to only have 500-1,000 HP and AC 49. Adults will have 9,999 HP, like in Final Fantasy. Because the Monkey Grip threads taught WotC one thing: Fans like Final Fantasy.

[CalibronXXX]

1187961288[/unixtime]]Also, I bet that was a Wyrmling, to only have 500-1,000 HP and AC 49. Adults will have 9,999 HP, like in Final Fantasy. Because the Monkey Grip threads taught WotC one thing: Fans like Final Fantasy.

The dragon was described as "ancient".

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1187945050[/unixtime]]
And I think I'll stick by the "Dragon cock? I walk." rule as well. It works.

I can't hear that without thinking of the Doug Winger character "Caliente". Who is actually pretty cute if you don't mind 18" dragon penis on your ladies.

Back on topic, I don't mind dragons being very powerful if you get better rewards for them in 4E. If that ancient dragon gives equivalent treasure and exp compared to a monster of similiar proportions, then I don't mind one bit. And I do like the idea that supposedly, dragons will be a little more varied than they are now.

[Username17]

My problem with this example is that the Dragon is fighting like an MMO monster instead of like a storybook monster or a tabletop miniatures monster. That means that they are taking things towards Warcraft and away from War for the Ring. That's probably bad.

In a video game, when a dragon gets an extra flame nova at smome frequency in addition to whatever else it's doing, the result is a minor taxation on th graphics card and nothing else. However in a table-top game that "extra" flame nova takes just as long to resolve as it would if it wasn't extra. The game-time that something takes up is in no way reflected by its real world resource draw.

So when they write things with extra fire novas and bonus limit breaks that people have to keep track of, they are fundamentally not understanding how a pen and paper role playing game works. In a computer game the actual resolution of to-hit rolls, saves, damage values and targetting is resolved basically instantly. The graphics have a barely significant draw on resources, but the entire genre is pretty resource-light. Mostly you're just throwing in enough stuff that players don't get bored and limitting events that require user response so that people don't get confused or lag off.

But in a pen-and-paper the entire story portion is easy. Graphics are handled instantaneously in your head and a featureless plain takes just as many resources as a bustling city full of spider people selling wares and cooking pastries. The resolution of hit points and targetting and to-hit rolls and crap takes real physical people rolling dice and comparing the results and adding them up and subtracting those things from other things.

So if they are adding more resolvable actions in a D&D combat to make things "more exciting" - it's because they fundamentally don't understand how a pen-and-paper RPG works. And considering who they are, that's completely insane.

-Username17

[Koumei]

1187968367[/unixtime]]it's because they fundamentally don't understand how a pen-and-paper RPG works. And considering who they are, that's completely insane.

Completely believable, though.

[Falgund]

And those actions also add more NPC "starlight time", thus reducing the PC one. How is that more exciting to the players ?

It's officially giving GMs a dragon cock to wave in front of the players ! "Look at me, I play, you watch !"

[RandomCasualty]

1187968367[/unixtime]]

So if they are adding more resolvable actions in a D&D combat to make things "more exciting" - it's because they fundamentally don't understand how a pen-and-paper RPG works. And considering who they are, that's completely insane.

Yeah, I can only imagine how long that combat round is going to take to resolve.

The whole system seems to be predicated on extra actions and crap.

I hope they haven't' done the same to the rest of the classes, where you've got wizards tossing 2-3 quickened spells per round and fighters with a bunch of other free action effects. If this is any indication of their design strategy for 4E, then this edition is going to suck... bad.

I want something that plays faster, not slower. As it is, high level 3E takes forever. It seems that 4E has managed to be even slower.

I mean look at how long it took to write out all that, I can't imagine rolling all those dice and actually resolving all that shit in play. Can't we just go with the basic three actions per round model and get on with our lives?

Also how it sounds with the tail slap, AoOs are now an immediate action.

[Artless]

Does this mean that Dungeons are getting actions too?