OSSR: Draconomicon, 3E

[Ted the Flayer]

First, let me get something started: Shadzar, I don't care if you don't consider 3E old school. Neither does anyone else. You are forbidden from shitting this thread with your ranting. However, feel free to say anything else you like.

It was November of 2003. America was occupying Iraq due to the horrible crime of having oil and brown people living in it. Sars was scaring people with its symptoms that were slightly less than the strain of flu that went around every year. And WotC released one of my favorite supplements: Draconomicon. I won't lie, I love this book. However, there's a lot of crap in the book that can be mocked. To enhance the reviewing experience, I have chosen a drink that I feel will get me in the proper Gaming Den state of mind:

http://www.stonebrew.com/sublimely/

It's a bold flavored beer. Similar to Arrogant Bastard Ale, but with a richer, more robust flavor pallet.

Anyway, let's get this out of the way. Here is the illustration on the cover (front and back)

SQUEEEEEE! Almost adorable enough to make you not want to slaughter the lot to get their treasure. (almost).

The introduction starts out much as you would expect. It mentions the Big Bad at the end of the big 3E adventure path and goes on to clop to dragons some. As much as I like this book, I don't like the dragon clopping. As a wise man once said: "Dragon cock? I walk!" I'm going to need more booze, as I've already killed my bottle (22 oz of 8.7% alcohol).

Anyway, here goes:

Chapter 1: All About Dragons

The chapter starts with some fucking awesome artwork. I am not fond of the blue dragon design, but something about the picture both gets me pumped, and makes me wish dragons weren't so tiny in 3E. Remember the opening scene in The Hobbit: AUJ? Yeah, kickass. Anyway, to the actual content.

It starts out describing what dragons look like in case you're an idiot. Then it goes into a lot of details about anatomy, which is kind of cool. After a long bit of ranting about skeletons and draconis fundamentum and stuff, there's a sidebar about trying to rear dragon wyrmlings from stolen eggs. To survive, the wyrmling needs to make a consitution check of 25. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen with any regularity. Also, to raise the baby dragon, you need to beat a diplomacy/intimidate check, which the wymling gets +15 to the roll because fuck you that's why. That makes me sad, so I'm getting another drink.

It goes over dragon life cycles, which gives you some decent ideas for adventures and plots. The ends given to dragon lifecycles gives you some really neat ideas for awesome fucking places to have adventures. Dragon Graveyards make a for some pretty cool scenery that randomly spawns elementals, elemental storms, and ghost dragons. Pretty cool stuff. Becoming a draconic guardian turns you into a dragon-shaped log or stump or rock, and makes it so people can't see eggs of dragons of your type. Also, there's treasure hidden there, but the dragons don't like it if you go murder-hobo on it. Although adventurers piss off people all the time and it doesn't stop them.

Next is Dragon Senses. It goes into a lot of fluff again, while the sidebar describes the crunch. I'm not sure any of it needs to be elaborated on.

We now move to dragon movement. Again, nothing earthshattering so I won't mention it. Read the PHB and MM for swim, fly, and burrow.

Combat abilities! You know, I've run dragons many times, and every time I forget Frightful Presence. My players have been gypped. Also, dragons don't make constitution checks for extreme heat and cold, which i don't think was in the Monster Manual, but I'm not willing to make the checks for a monster anyway. There's also a large sidebar that takes up the whole page about what magic items slots a dragon has. Basically the same as a humanoid, just shaped differently.

This shit is fucking boring. And I'm getting pretty buzzed.

The chapter goes on about dragon society, a short half-paragraph about weaknesses, and more than needs to be said about mating.

There's a bit on Dragon Language. true story: a player chucked a D20 at me because a dragon he was fighting shouted "Yol toor shul!".

And of course, we have a draconic pantheon. I seem to remember every dragon deity before that having scimitar or heavy pick as favored weapons. Now they don't . Nothing really to say.

The chapter ends with descriptions of every dragon type, their size at every age category, profiles, etc. There's some nifty stuff. I hate how a lot of the metallic dragon's wings look, I can't wrap my head around the aerodynamics of beign motherfucking manta rays. That's the stupidest shit in the history of stupidity AND shit. And blue dragons kind of look like they crossbred a bulldog with a lizard, gave it wings and tree man disease, then pissed on it. On the other side, gold dragons look so cute ^_^ I want to nuzzle one so bad! <3 <3 <3

Another thing that's stupid is the statement "A fight with a metallic dragon is a fight that could have been avoided". Yeah, because big predatory lizards who can eat sentients and yet get a karma houdini and still be good wouldn't come into conflict with PCs. A DM that can't imagine a good creature coming into conflict with another good creature isn't trying hard enough.

I've drank my four pack of ale, and I have to race like a piss horse so i'm wrapping this up. Next up: DM's guide to Dragons, plus I'm picking up some hard stuff to do actual rules.

[Maxus]

That thing about weaknesses made me shout at the book.

It opens up with a quote of a dragon going "Come and see how weak I am!"

And doesn't say anything like, look for a bare patch in the hollow of the left breast. Or "if you can stick a spear through its windpipe, that'll do it" or "if you can trick it into flying full-blast at a cliff, that should put it down" or anything that would indicate there are people who have found ways to kill dragons without hacking it to death.

Instead we get "Dragons with the [fire] type are weak to [cold] effects, just like anything else with the [fire] type. And [cold] types are weak to [fire]".

Then the dragon wanking resumes.

[Ted the Flayer]

I forgot to mention one thing: I got into arguments with other DMs in the area about elemental cleric rebuking and dragons. That chapter vindicated me. Dude threw a fit that the hellfire cleric had rebuked a red dragon with his fire domain power.

[Username17]

To survive, the wyrmling needs to make a consitution check of 25. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen with any regularity.

No Wyrmling has a Constitution modifier of more than +2. Most have a +1. A natural 20 is well short of what they need to roll to not be stillborn. The only way to get dragons out of eggs is to have Bards do motivational speeches about egg hatching.

-Username17

[Koumei]

I'm pretty sure that rule is specifically for eggs you find lying around out in the wilderness that aren't being tended to by parent dragons.

But yes, dragon hatcheries need high level bards and marshals and crap. And still end up with a lot of omelettes.

[Whatever]

Limited Wish could let it automatically pass the check, but it's up to the DM whether that's "in line" with the spell's other effects.

[OgreBattle]

Does the anatomy section say if dragons have penises or nipples?

[Slade]

A strange thing: it says the Skeleton/zombie fragons attack all living creatures that arent dragons going to die there.
But it stays dragons sometimes leave their wyrmlings there to be grow up.

So doesn't that mean the skel/zombie Dragons must attack the Wyrmlings? That makes them have horrible parents.

Oh and the treasure at the graveyard: it says it doesn't care if you grab the treasure, but if you mess with anything else at the graveyard it gets upset.

So don't kill any skeleton/zombie dragons and the graveyard ghost is chill (although since there are Firestorms hitting the graveyard every few hours, how do most things survive?).

[Prak]

I'm pretty sure that rule is specifically for eggs you find lying around out in the wilderness that aren't being tended to by parent dragons.

But yes, dragon hatcheries need high level bards and marshals and crap. And still end up with a lot of omelettes.

I will point out that there are seriously real animals that can have trouble hatching from their eggs. Typically the parents will crack the eggs.

[Ted the Flayer]

One post before I get started on chapter 2. I get that Draconomicon is supposed to be kind of fan-wanky. they just went in a "dragons are special and you can't get close to them" way instead of "here's a way to have a wise-cracking dragonling as a sidekick". The latter is the good kind of fan-wank, the former is just bleh. By D&D rules, Spike gets a +15 roll to resist helping Twilight with her latest magical research, and that's lame.

Chapter two will follow this post.

[Koumei]

Typically the parents will crack the eggs.

Smash the world's shell

Rather, that's why the difficulty in surviving and hatching is specifically if you don't have a dragon parent there - they know how long to wait and how to safely crack the shell.

[Ted the Flayer]

Chapter 2: A DM's Guide to Dragons

Alright, this chapter begins some actual rules to critique. First ruling of notice is a sidebar that suggests altering the reach of dragon's attacks because certain dragons have longer necks, longer tails, and so forth. I have used that, and I don't think my players even noticed. I'm not sure that it's worth it.

There's some flavor text about dragon motivations, but I'm pretty sure a DM worth his dice can write his own.

We get to a section called Running a Dragon Encounter, where it gives the brilliant advice of having large dragons stand still and make full attacks. Because when you have a flying creature that can easily cover hundreds of feet with a move action, racial ranged attack that does multiple dice of damage every 1d4 rounds, and innate spellcasting when they get old enough, you want to have them ignore all of that and fight like a big, scaly orc. (GENIUS!)

It states in the flying section that dragons are at a disadvantage in the air again, but it does have some useful diagrams showing the face/reach of big dragons, as well as explaining how a dragon with differing maneuverabilities take corners. I found that very useful, because flying was always hard for me to wrap my mind around and the pictures really help. Also included are templates showing cone-shaped breath weapons of differing ranges. Nifty to have.

There's a section about spellcasting. It gives the good advice of saying that the save DCs and spellcasting level means you need to select your spells based around needing neither. Then it says to take Dispel Magic. Here is where I finish my beer and get a new one, because I facepalmed hard enough to break my own nose and I need something to make the pain go away.

There is a whole section about how awesome a dragon's blindsense is. Which is true, but the whole chapter has Blindsense and Blindsight confused and gives some really bad advice. A dragon is just as affected by Deeper Darkness as anything else, and although a dragon know where everything is after casting Obscuring Mist it still gets the 50% miss chance for not actually seeing it. [Note that it is true that a dragon dropping a solid fog or better onto a player group then strafes it with a breath weapon is a pretty smart tactic. Considering that whoever wrote this chapter has sprouted a big, rubbery one for full attacks I think that would be giving him way too much credit. Especially when it states that black dragons like acid fog because "they are immune to acid damage". Why would a creature based on superior mobility even enter an acid fog if they cast it themselves? The mind wobbles]

Feat are next, but let me address the elephant in the room: Metabreath feats are great if you're a DM and you REALLY hate your players. It makes a breath weapon really awesome now, in exchange it increases the recharge time. It is entirely possible to give up breath weapons for a minute or two in order to crush a party of PCs SUPER HARD. Also, if a half-dragon player manages to get a breath weapon on a 1d4 round recharge time, they can beat the enemy party super hard and wait a few minutes to go again, but no one is going to play a half-dragon. Also, there's mention of epic feats, and yet another rule for monsters to take them! Dragons of old age can take epic feats. I'm sure some DM cheese can come from that, but given the nature of epic feats (i.e., of all the ass feats they are the fattest and sweatiest of them all) I'm sure that it's going to matter less.

Alright, going through all the feats:

Adroit Flyby Attack: Like Spring Attack, except flying only and easier for dragons to take.

Awaken Frightful Presence: Gives a dragon frightful presence, or increases radius/DC of existing presence. Worded so that it only is affected by racial hit dice, just to remind half-dragon players they suck at life.

Awaken Spell Resistance: Gives a dragon spell resistance, or boost existing spell resistance by 2. Again, a half dragon can take it... and get SR 0. I'm finishing my beer before going any farther.

Clinging Breath: For +1 recharge time, the breath weapon deals half its damage again the next round, but you get another save to negate it. It's worded so you can use it as many times as you want, but it halves the damage every round so it's usually not worth it. However, the feat states that it applies to ability damage and negative levels. I know when the DM gives Shadow Dragons clinging breath, I realize it was a bad idea for me and the rest of the group to run a train on the DM's mother the night before.

Devastating Critical: Turns critical hits into save or die attacks. Based on hit dice, and dragons tend to have a lot of them.

Dire Charge I could take this feat... or take one level of Lion Totem Barbarian, or levels of druid. NEXT!

Draconic Knowledge: I have no idea who this feat is for. First off, it's a shittier version of Bardic Knowledge. If it's for players, they can just take levels of Bard if they want bardic knowledge so bad. If it's for an NPC, the DM already has determined what the NPC knows and the skill is pretty useless. This feat is so stupid it's giving me cancer.

Embed Spell focus: You embed one spell focus per level into your scales. Thematically cool and appropriate from a folklore standpoint, but not worth setting a feat on fire for.

Endure Blows: Just like the feat as written in Savage Species, but now only dragons can take it because fuck you that's why. I've allowed a dwarf fighter to take the feat and honestly I didn't think it was anything to even blink at.

Enlarge Breath: Increases range of breath weapons by 50%. Better for cones than lines. Adds +1 round to refresh time.

Epic Saves: Comes in fortitude, reflex, and will varieties and increases them by +4. If you are high enough level to take them, I'm pretty sure you're either off the RNG or have numbers so high that you only fail on a Nat 1 anyway, so I question the value of these feats.

Extend Spreading Breath Weapon: Has a lot of prerequisites, but it turns your breath weapon into a fireball spell. I'm not sure it's worth it.

Fast Healing: Epic feat that gives fast healing 3. I'm not sure anyone cares about that, considering that damage is expressed as functions of infinity at epic levels.

Heighten Breath Weapon: Increase the DC of your breath weapon by an amount up to your con bonus, increasing recharge time by a like amount. After taking Skill Focus: Breath Weapon, why the hell not?

Improved Maneuverability: Increases your flying ability up to Good. It has its uses when taken by bigger dragons, but it's not a gimme feat.

Improved Multiattack: If you were going to use melee attacks and have a lot of them, this feat is pretty awesome. If you're going to be flying around using your breath weapon and using buffs/battlefield control spells, it's a waste of a feat. I gave it to an advanced Otyugh one time. It nearly killed the party.

Rapidstrike: I'm not sure what this feat does, but this is my best understanding: If you have a paired or better natural attack (two claws, two wings, or three claws, etc.), you get an extra attack with all of them at a -5 penalty. The Improved version gives you a third set of attacks at -10. I can see one time where it would be useful: If the dragon knows Wraithstrike. Again, the things you learn when you and a couple dozen of your buddies run a train on the DM's mother.

Improved Snatch: Hold on there, the Book of Erotic Fantasy is a couple threads down. What, this feat has nothing to do with it, and in fact doesn't actually do anything? I'm disappointed. It lets you use snatch against foes two sizes smaller than you. You can already use snatch against things one size smaller than you or smaller without taking this. Oh, I get it, take this feat if you want to get screwed.

Improved Speed: A dragon feat, gives you +20 flying speed and +10 regular speed. If you have a dragon mount, have it take this feat. Excellent for ass-rest cohorts.

Improved Spell Capacity: Gives you higher level spells than your class can grant. If you're going to use metamagic feats, it's better to find ways to negate the cost. Epic piece of shit.

Large and In charge: Like Stand Still, except it has more prerequisites and actually does what it claims to do (it stops movement into your threatened area if a strength test is failed).

Lingering Breath: Like Clinging Breath except it affects an area. And this one is worded so that the breath weapon deals half it's regular damage, not half the damage it did the round before. With the right setup, it becomes easy to create a dead zone if you don't mind waiting 1d4+TEXA$ rounds for your breath to recharge.

Maximize Breath Like the metamagic feat. There's a note that you can't quicken a breath while maximizing it.

Multisnatch: I think I saw that hentai. It reduces the penalty to grapple without being considered grappled to -10. It could be of some use.

Suppress/Overcome Weakness Reduces your elemental weakness to +25%/+0% damage, respectively. Also requires you to set a feat on fire. Because dragons don't have treasure or intelligence or spellcasting to shore up elemental defenses.

Overwhelming Critical: It's overwhelming how shitty this feat is. For a bunch of feats and epic levels you get... +1d6 damage on a critical hit! I'm finishing my beer on this one.

Power Climb: You can gain altitude and still move your full speed. Yay?

Power Dive: This feat is simply overshadowed by how fucked up falling damage is calculated. As written, it's like improved overrun except you get an additional slam attack that deals a bit of damage based on size, but if you miss you deal the slam damage to yourself. Except that a typical armed warrior whose weight in full battle kit is 200 pounds deals the same damage as a multi-ton colossal dragon if he jumps off a 10' cliff onto someone, with no chance of suffering that damage himself. It's the same reason why the Hulking Hurler is so borked, it's not that the damage is really that game-breaking, it's that the rules themselves are written funny.

Quicken Breath: This is the only meta breath feat that's unfiltered ass. Why is Quicken Spell so awesome? So you can cast two spells at once. Although I could see some use in casting solid fog, then dropping a quickened clinging lingering (x10 rounds) breath weapon on some foolios and waiting a few hours for the breath to recharge. If you hate your players, that is.

Recover Breath: Reduces recharge time by 1. Not sure if it's worth setting a feat on fire.

Rend: If you're not flying around and are a closet troll, it's pretty good. Seeing how actual trolls get this for free, I'm not sure who this is for.

Shape Breath: You can pick a line or a cone for your breath weapon. I like to take this with dragons that have line breath weapons. Probably the only meta breath feat a DM can use without hating his players.

Shock Wave: Fuck you if you're a half-dragon PC, otherwise you get to knock down everything around you if they fail a bull rush attempt. It has potential, but it's not earthshattering either.

Snatch and Swallow Use your improved snatch to swallow things. Wait, that came out funny...


Spellcasting Harrier: Casting Defensively now provokes an attack of opportunity from you! Too bad an epic wizard is not going to be within melee reach unless something has gone very wrong.

Spreading Breath: Centers a breath fireball on yourself. Great for squashing town guards, but not worth it against PCs.

Split Breath: Halves your breath weapon damage, but lets you shoot two out. I would consider taking this if my breath was a line, but the penalties are really steep so not really.

Tail Constrict: You grab a foe with your tail, and you get a constrict attack. The penalties for grappling without being considered grappled are steep, but might be worth it against a frail wizard type.

Tail Sweep Knockdown: When you use a tail sweep attack, it knocks everything prone. If you find yourself surrounded and unable to fly, having this feat will make you wish you weren't a creature with really shitty dexterity and could use combat reflexes.

Tempest Breath: Here's how this feat works: The DM has a dragon use it, then has to crack open the DMG to figure out wind effects. I seem to remember wind effects boning flyers pretty well, so that's an option.

Whirlwind Tail Sweep: Turns tail sweep to a circle instead of a semi-circle. See Tail Sweep Knockdown.

Wingstorm: Like Tempest Breath, but you can extend the duration for as long as you can hold a position. Good versus fliers and ranged attacks, but not very useful otherwise.

To be continued...

[Koumei]

but it does have some useful diagrams showing the face/reach of big dragons, as well as explaining how a dragon with differing maneuverabilities take corners. I found that very useful, because flying was always hard for me to wrap my mind around and the pictures really help. Also included are templates showing cone-shaped breath weapons of differing ranges. Nifty to have.

Yeah, those bits are really good, and would have made an awesome page or two in the regular MM/DMG or a D/D magazine.

Dragons of old age can take epic feats. I'm sure some DM cheese can come from that, but given the nature of epic feats (i.e., of all the ass feats they are the fattest and sweatiest of them all) I'm sure that it's going to matter less.

There's player tjeese too. If you play a Dragonrort kobold, you can take Epic Feats as soon as you get your first "not level 1" feat, as long as you meet any other requirements. So you could totally take Fast Healing 3 at level 3.

Worded so that it only is affected by racial hit dice, just to remind half-dragon players they suck at life.

The +3 LA and bullshit breath weapon didn't fuck you hard enough? Well let's see what else we can do!

Rapidstrike

From my understanding, Rapidstrike basically takes one of your paired (or more than paired) weapons (2 Claws, 2 Wings, 4 Face Tendrils) and gives you a single iterative attack, and Improved gives you the next iterative attack, so your Ulitharid has Face Tentacles of +20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+15/+10. Find a way to put Negative Levels onto your attacks or ignore this feat. Actually, just ignore it.

Recover Breath: Reduces recharge time by 1. Not sure if it's worth setting a feat on fire.

If you have a Breath Weapon, you kind of have four options:
1. Just ignore it (or use it once and then forget about it). Costs 0 Feats.
2. Kite with it. Costs 0 Feats.
3. Fire it off every round. Costs 3 Feats (Recoverx3).
4. Nuke. Costs a bunch of feats to have a Fully Heightened, Enlarged, Lingering*$TEXAS breath, preferably with Admixture or Stunning tacked on from spells.

Do not try doing 3 and 4 at the same time, you're a fool.

Rend: If you're not flying around and are a closet troll, it's pretty good. Seeing how actual trolls get this for free, I'm not sure who this is for.

Dragons and Mind Flayers I guess.

Wingstorm: Like Tempest Breath, but you can extend the duration for as long as you can hold a position. Good versus fliers and ranged attacks, but not very useful otherwise.

IIRC it's a hilarious one for Rogues to take for their Bonus Feat (no requirements lol).

[Prak]

Metabreath feats are great if you're a DM and you REALLY hate your players. It makes a breath weapon really awesome now, in exchange it increases the recharge time. It is entirely possible to give up breath weapons for a minute or two in order to crush a party of PCs SUPER HARD. Also, if a half-dragon player manages to get a breath weapon on a 1d4 round recharge time, they can beat the enemy party super hard and wait a few minutes to go again, but no one is going to play a half-dragon.

Also Dragonborn of Bahamut. And possibly Draconic Heritage sorcerers with the "sac a spell, use a breath weapon that turn." Metabreath feats are in fact awesome in those cases, as both are essentially at will.

Rapidstrike: I'm not sure what this feat does, but this is my best understanding: If you have a paired or better natural attack (two claws, two wings, or three claws, etc.), you get an extra attack with all of them at a -5 penalty. The Improved version gives you a third set of attacks at -10. I can see one time where it would be useful: If the dragon knows Wraithstrike. Again, the things you learn when you and a couple dozen of your buddies run a train on the DM's mother.

Not quite. Rapidstrike gives +1 attack in a pair (from 2 claws to 3 claws), and Improved Rapidstrike gives a fourth. Also, you have to take the feats for each set of attacks.

From my understanding, Rapidstrike basically takes one of your paired (or more than paired) weapons (2 Claws, 2 Wings, 4 Face Tendrils) and gives you a single iterative attack, and Improved gives you the next iterative attack, so your Ulitharid has Face Tentacles of +20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+15/+10. Find a way to put Negative Levels onto your attacks or ignore this feat. Actually, just ignore it.

Soul Eater PrC from BoVD

Improved Snatch: Hold on there, the Book of Erotic Fantasy is a couple threads down. What, this feat has nothing to do with it, and in fact doesn't actually do anything? I'm disappointed. It lets you use snatch against foes two sizes smaller than you. You can already use snatch against things one size smaller than you or smaller without taking this. Oh, I get it, take this feat if you want to get screwed.

Snatch allows you to grab things three size categories smaller than you or smaller, so Imp. Snatch does actually do something, though it's actual use is somewhat debatable.

Improved Spell Capacity: Gives you higher level spells than your class can grant. If you're going to use metamagic feats, it's better to find ways to negate the cost. Epic piece of shit.

Only use for this feat is to let bards get Epic Spellcasting, and let paladins take 9th level exalted spells, like the "kill yourself, deal your hp in damage as a fireball to evil targets" spell.

Lingering Breath: Like Clinging Breath except it affects an area. And this one is worded so that the breath weapon deals half it's regular damage, not half the damage it did the round before. With the right setup, it becomes easy to create a dead zone if you don't mind waiting 1d4+TEXA$ rounds for your breath to recharge.

I could see that being pretty useful, really. Even if it's just something for a dragon which, personally, likes brawling, or a dragon with an obscuring breath weapon or something.

Multisnatch: I think I saw that hentai. It reduces the penalty to grapple without being considered grappled to -10. It could be of some use.

More telling is that you explain this so poorly, I had to go look at the feat to have any idea what it actually does, where it was even more poorly worded. I kind of get what it does (if you try to grapple someone, say, one handed, you take a penalty. This feat lowers that penalty.), but it's still really poorly written, just from a comprehension standpoint.

[Koumei]

Also Dragonborn of Bahamut. And possibly Draconic Heritage sorcerers with the "sac a spell, use a breath weapon that turn." Metabreath feats are in fact awesome in those cases, as both are essentially at will.

The Dragonborn work, because their breath is based on a delay. Spellbreathing doesn't work, because there isn't the forced delay, likewise Dragonfire Adepts (until the higher levels where you actually can force a delay by using Bahamut's Breath or whatever).

Soul Eater PrC from BoVD

There's a whole separate argument about that - some feel that, because it doesn't specify an action type, it defaults to the Supernatural Ability action of a Standard Action to reach out and touch someone.

[Red_Rob]

Whirlwind Tail Sweep: Turns tail sweep to a circle instead of a semi-circle. See Tail Sweep Knockdown.

So, does the Huge Dragon do a 360° spin with it's tail out like an 80's breakdancer? Or does it just swing its tail round and kind of "hop" over it like it was playing Jump Rope?

If a DM described either of those to me during a tense boss fight I'd lose my shit right there.

[OgreBattle]

Whirlwind Tail Sweep: Turns tail sweep to a circle instead of a semi-circle. See Tail Sweep Knockdown.

So, does the Huge Dragon do a 360° spin with it's tail out like an 80's breakdancer? Or does it just swing its tail round and kind of "hop" over it like it was playing Jump Rope?

If a DM described either of those to me during a tense boss fight I'd lose my shit right there.

6 seconds is plenty of time to make one rotation with a big tail sweep.

[Leress]

Whirlwind Tail Sweep: Turns tail sweep to a circle instead of a semi-circle. See Tail Sweep Knockdown.

So, does the Huge Dragon do a 360° spin with it's tail out like an 80's breakdancer? Or does it just swing its tail round and kind of "hop" over it like it was playing Jump Rope?

If a DM described either of those to me during a tense boss fight I'd lose my shit right there.

I imagine more like a Skip It.

[OgreBattle]

I imagine more like a Skip It.

There's probably an exotic weapon proficiency for that.

[Prak]

Also Dragonborn of Bahamut. And possibly Draconic Heritage sorcerers with the "sac a spell, use a breath weapon that turn." Metabreath feats are in fact awesome in those cases, as both are essentially at will.

The Dragonborn work, because their breath is based on a delay. Spellbreathing doesn't work, because there isn't the forced delay, likewise Dragonfire Adepts (until the higher levels where you actually can force a delay by using Bahamut's Breath or whatever).

Oh. Um, good, I think.

Soul Eater PrC from BoVD

There's a whole separate argument about that - some feel that, because it doesn't specify an action type, it defaults to the Supernatural Ability action of a Standard Action to reach out and touch someone.

It says "your touch," so, I interpret it as, if your body comes in contact with someone else, you drain a level.

So, does the Huge Dragon do a 360° spin with it's tail out like an 80's breakdancer?

Dragon bard with ranks in Perform [Breakdancing]

[Ted the Flayer]

Snatch allows you to grab things three size categories smaller than you or smaller, so Imp. Snatch does actually do something, though it's actual use is somewhat debatable.

According the the SRD:

The creature can choose to start a grapple when it hits with a claw or bite attack, as though it had the improved grab special attack. If the creature gets a hold on a creature three or more sizes smaller, it squeezes each round for automatic bite or claw damage.

Improved Grab:

Unless otherwise noted, improved grab works only against opponents at least one size category smaller than the creature.

The description of Snatch in the SRD doesn't say you can't grab things bigger than three sizes smaller, but it does say it deals damage to creatures three sizes or smaller. Maybe it's the rules lawyer in me, but I'm reading it as "Works exactly as improved grab, with added effects if the victim is small enough".

This is curious to me, so I'm getting up off my arse to look it up in the DMG....

The DMG has the same text as the SRD, the Errata file has no mention. It's possible that Improved Snatch deals automatic claw/bite damage to something two sizes smaller instead of three sizes smaller, but that's not that much better.

[Maxus]

Sticks the tail out at a level, and does a hop/spin.

I'm almost certain there was some dragons in Dark Souls which did that.

[shadzar]

First, let me get something started: Shadzar, I don't care if you don't consider 3E old school. Neither does anyone else. You are forbidden from shitting this thread with your ranting. However, feel free to say anything else you like.

never read this book or had need to, so sorry to disappoint you. thanks for putting an edition with the book. that will go a long way for people viewing the threads to get a better idea what to expect within them, whether a reused name or not.

now, since i would have had no need to post in here until you start out by calling me out.... enjoy your review of whatever this book is.

[Prak]

Snatch allows you to grab things three size categories smaller than you or smaller, so Imp. Snatch does actually do something, though it's actual use is somewhat debatable.

According the the SRD:

The creature can choose to start a grapple when it hits with a claw or bite attack, as though it had the improved grab special attack. If the creature gets a hold on a creature three or more sizes smaller, it squeezes each round for automatic bite or claw damage.

Improved Grab:

Unless otherwise noted, improved grab works only against opponents at least one size category smaller than the creature.

The description of Snatch in the SRD doesn't say you can't grab things bigger than three sizes smaller, but it does say it deals damage to creatures three sizes or smaller. Maybe it's the rules lawyer in me, but I'm reading it as "Works exactly as improved grab, with added effects if the victim is small enough".

This is curious to me, so I'm getting up off my arse to look it up in the DMG....

The DMG has the same text as the SRD, the Errata file has no mention. It's possible that Improved Snatch deals automatic claw/bite damage to something two sizes smaller instead of three sizes smaller, but that's not that much better.

That's really weirdly worded, then.

[Ted the Flayer]

thanks for putting an edition with the book. that will go a long way for people viewing the threads to get a better idea what to expect within them, whether a reused name or not.

No problem, bro. I own the 2E Draconomicon (but have never read it), and am aware that there's like eleventy-billion 4E Draconomicons, so I decided to make sure I specify.