Tag Info

There are three somewhat-contradicting definitions of True Dragon, from Monster Manual, Draconomicon, and Races of the Dragon (listed by publication date). Monster Manual The first definition, in the Monster Manual, is simply the “Dragon, True” entry, which lists ten creatures, five “chromatic” and five “metallic.” ...

Resurrection This spell functions like raise dead [...] Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be resurrected. Raise Dead Target: Dead creature touched [...] Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be resurrected. Dragons aren’t listed, and so can be raised normally.

Two ways. First, they're intelligent and can speak, so hiring or intimidating people to drag their treasure around for them would be relatively trivial. This can be tribute (as mentioned by Jadasc) but can take any form that minions would be capable of motivating (extorting, hiring, cajoling, bribing, what have you). Second, dragons are typically arcane ...

Tribute. The dragon sends emissaries to the town, or does a fly-by scorching, and then informs the wealthiest of its residents that unless they relish the idea of being charred or eaten, they'll deliver some choice valuables to the cave near the mountain once a month.

Swallowing has been modeled in D&D 4e on other creatures. You should be able to adapt one of them to the dragon just fine. For example, the Purple Worm DDI Swallow (standard, at-will) The purple worm tries to swallow a bloodied Medium or smaller creature it is grabbing; +21 vs Fortitude; the target is swallowed. The swallowed target ...

I will base my answer on how dragons are depicted in Dungeons and Dragons, and also other RPG's and movies and books. You should have a checklist of certain things that will identify you as a dragon, in character. These are, in no particular order: Wisdom: As Bobby mentioned, dragons are old. Very old, indeed. As such, they will not rush any decision, and ...

Dragons do need to breathe (note that black dragons have the ability water breathing, indicating that a dragon without it can't breathe under water and is subject to drowning rules), so anything that asphyxiates them will kill them, regardless of the element. A dragon's resistance to damage of certain elements doesn't save them from needing to breathe, just ...

What a great question. My perspective is from being a DM. This was a game with PC dragons (metallic). I found I had to adjust substantially for the shapechanging abilities. This was unexpected - what I was more prepared for was (for example) the players being a very desirable target for the local nobility. Dragonslaying was all the rage in the land where ...

There's always Mongoose Publishing's 'The Slayer's Guide to Dragons' which should offer you at least some idea of the culture of dragons. Chapters include: The Physiology of Dragonkind Dracos Invictus (this is pretty much just an additional age-class for the dragons) New Races of Dragons Habitat Dragon Society Methods of Warfare Roleplaying with Dragons ...

Like any monster PC, you have hit dice and level adjustment, and progress by taking character class levels. The difference is that when a dragon PC hits the age listed, he is required to take his next level in his Dragon progression (Table 3-21) instead of a normal character class. Creating a dragon PC As per the standard monster PC rules, you begin with ...

There have been various suggestions for mixing dragons and creating hybrids, from calculating average values for the hybrid (adding up the values of the parents and dividing them by two etc) through applying a colour theory of sorts (a blue and a yellow parent would produce a green offspring) and other solutions to applying unofficial templates (such as I ...

Taking Dragon HD I’m reasonably sure you couldn’t find rules for this because Wizards never wrote rules for this. Personally, I’d rule “no,” since you are not a dragon, you just have the dragon’s body for a while. In dragons’ case in particular, advancement by HD seems to be a matter of it simply aging and coming ...

I've found some various things about running PCs with nonstandard races, although they're mostly from the GM side. Monstrous PCs, dragons included, will usually have a substantially different outlook on things than most humanoids. There are a lot of reasons for that: a longer lifespan, more powerful (well, they do have a pretty high level adjustment), and ...

Check out D&D's Council of Wyrms setting I don't think it's been updated for 3.5 rules, but it's a good start. You can also look into the Dragon Kings expansion to Dark Sun.

One thing that occurs to me is that a highly intelligent and powerful dragon might consider the low-powered human to be its pet. It might even be amused by the human's view of the relationship and attempts to "take charge." It may occasionally help the PC out of extreme situations, but it would do so for its own reasons, and possibly not always in ways the ...

I read in the Draconomicon that it is a common practice, at least in D&D 3.5e, for dragons to swallow their plundered loot and then regurgitate it at their lair. This would be akin to birds swalling a worm only to bring it back to their nest to feed their babies. However, it is just as common, if not moreso for the dragons to "convince" the remaining ...

Don't make the summoner finish the ritual, let the dragon be still connected to the source of the ritual, so that it is being drawn back to the plane to which it was summoned from. This should be clear after a while, make the dragon's figure thin out, perhaps reduce its power during its last rounds in the material plane. So the dragon stays there for a ...

Okay, so I found a reference in this archived thread on the Giant in the Playground forums to a Dragon Familiar feat in the Draconomicon. There are rules for acquiring a dragon cohort using the leadership feat, which the character can take now. Depending on their charisma, they'll either be able to take a pseudo dragon (+0 cha), a brass wyrmling (+3 cha), ...

I'd say, that depends: What character is he? Build his appearance and actions around that character. After all, first it's your character, on second it's a dragon. We all do think differently about dragons, as mentioned by rishimaharaj, that's also my favorite version, but f.e. I have the version of the dragons from Drakensang (The Dark Eye) in my head, ...

If ever I were to roleplay a dragon, I think I would base it off of Sean Connery's Draco from Dragon Heart (1996): sometimes humorous, kind, brave, giving, noble, etc.. Out of all the dragons I've encountered (read as "not many"), he is definitely the most memorable.

The difficulty you are having is that you've decided that this dragon absolutely must not die for plot reasons, yet you are planning to put your players in a position where they might reasonably expect to be able to kill it. You state in your question that you do not want to make the dragon completely invulnerable, yet you also make it clear you do not want ...

The key is for the players to know that they absolutely CANNOT beat this creature. If they think that a lucky shot might take it down, they might just hang about for that to happen. If the party just "happened upon" the summoner, then I guess it's too late for foreshadowing .... Hmmm .... Can the party start taking damage from some kind of aura? 1 ...

Tiamat and The Chromatic Dragons In Mesopotamian religion Tiamat is a Chaos Beast, a primordial goddess of the ocean and is depicted as a serpentine dragon. The image we see of Tiamat in D&D is based off of another creature known as Lotan who is a seven headed sea serpent or dragon from Ugaritic myths. The reason Tiamat (and therefore the rest of the ...

Spike says "Hi" Despite the nature of the show, there are a number of useful lessons we can learn from it, especially with characterization. Humans naturally anthropormorphize our conceptions of other creatures. We do so, because it's really difficult and not particularly interesting to try to understand aliens who are fundamentally alien. Therefore, ...

I see no reason that a dragon would have any trouble at all bringing treasure back to its lair. Most of them cast spells, and many can polymorph. They are also highly intelligent and could easily finds ways to circumvent any restrictions that their anatomy put on them. Personally I think their options are only restricted by their individual creativity.

First, remember that substitution levels can be taken in whole or in part; you can take one of these substitutions and not the others, if you wish. Dragonblood Sorcerer 1 Familiars are generally better than Draconic Heritage; only do that if there are particular feats that require it that you wanted to take. I don’t remember there being any that were ...

Make the summoning slow. As the dragon is appearing, it's invulnerable (but also unable to harm the PCs), which gives them a chance to talk or flee or whatever. Dragons are highly intelligent. If the dragon was not expecting to be summoned, it might want to know who the PCs are, who the sorcerer was, and might be e.g. very angry indeed that the PCs can't ...

I kind of picture a dragon viewing humanity as a cat would view a mouse. It would be amused with the silly creatures and enjoy toying with them. If someone were to come up and ask if they could have some ridiculous thing or achievement, the dragon would happily spin a litany of complicated tasks and assure the person that at the end they will have what ...

There are two obvious extremes to avoid. NPC-as-bazooka(note 2), and the ever dreaded Escort Mission, where the NPC is obviously helpless. However, there is a far more fatal trap: Giving a bazooka to a Tier 1 character. The depressing thing is that at level 5, a wizard or cleric with access to all of the books will destroy a ECL 5 dragon. A Brass Dragon ...

The AD&D setting/option Council of Wyrms had less of a familiar setup and more of a symbiote set up. On alternating adventures you'd either play a dragon or their human, so they would have a similar relationship to a familiar and a wizard, but it wouldn't be the same as having the dragon constantly around you to constantly do your bidding.