Declining of Dragons

As those who know me personally, and those who see my profile can guess, I am a big fan of dragons. Dragons to me represent a lot of cool things and they're great in a lot of fantasy games because they can be powerful enemies, dangerous masterminds, knowledgeable oracles, puissant allies, you get the idea. In the fantasy role playing game that most people know, Dungeons and Dragons, the Dragon is one of the most dangerous opponents you can fight. They have thick armored scales, razor sharp claws and teeth, they hit like trucks, their breath is charged with elemental energy, the oldest dragons can shrug off all but the most heavily enchanted weapons and of course there's the fact that they can also use magic. The magic thing was probably one of the more interesting things with dragons as monsters, spells offer all kinds of variables and interesting options, it also meant that you could theoretically fight a full string of red dragons and the fights might be radically different in theme and feel based almost entirely on the spell list held by each dragon. Now for some people it was an issue, dragons could theoretically end up more powerful than listed because of a great spell selection or the person running might forget to use them, you get the idea. I mention this because of what they did for fourth edition D&D.

4th edition changed a lot of things, for one thing the vancian magic system was dropped. The vancian system being a setup where you had slots for spells that were expended in casting along with levels of power for different spells. This also meant that dragons no longer used magic, they followed the same format as the other monsters, this was both good and bad. The good was that they were easier to use and required less prep time. But there were two problems that came from this, well I'd almost argue three but some of it is my own bias and not really what I would say a system problem is.

The first problem was that the dragons got very samey, in that while dragons did vary color to color in terms of abilities and tactics one red dragon was more or less identical to another, they did add some stuff in their Dragonomicon supplements but things still felt fairly identical. The issue is that if the fights start feeling similar it's harder to stay engaged in the game and the story. Not to mention that the changes between the dragons in terms of age category (the older dragons get the stronger they get) was really fairly incremental. I understand that that's part of how the system works but it also meant that facing dragons through age categories didn't become inherently more threatening so much as it felt more like they were slightly bigger and maybe hit a bit harder, though once or twice getting a new power.

The second problem was a combination of how the dragons got stronger and again an issue with how monsters were designed. If you get a chance to look through monster manuals, (the first through the third one at least since my group more or less dropped the game before MM4 so I can't speak on it), the monsters at mid paragon tier and up level get craploads of extra effects. Not even attack exactly but constant effects, energy auras, things that kick in when they hit half HP, recharge effects, random reaction powers, their standard stuff, synergy effects, etc. The problem with this for me was that while yes, in theory a fight was easier and faster to prepare and design it took a hell of a lot longer to run and was harder to track. I had to keep reminding myself of how big an aura was so that if a monster moved or if a player did I could figure out if there were going to be things kicking in. I had to watch player positions because some monsters, dragons especially, had things talking about what happens if a player is in one place or another, IE player goes behind dragon, dragon automatically smacks with tail, forcibly moves player, and maybe adds a status effect. It meant that I had a much harder time keeping track of abilities and effects, I had players getting angry with me for not explaining something completely but I was trying to track everything and more than once had to pause or I had missed things that were supposed to happen because I was tracking other stuff. There were a few exceptions, the Cobalt Dragon from the second Dragonomicon was actually fairly tightly designed and also a fun monster as an encounter but sadly it seemed to be an aberration as far as that went.

What makes this funny/enraging to me is that back when I ran 3rd edition I had a much easier time running encounters than I did in 4th. I will concede that some of it was experience but that wasn't it alone and when I thought about it I realized why. When I built an encounter in 3rd edition many times I had either spellcasters or I had monsters that could use magic for high level stuff, and in many cases they started the fight with a lot of their magic already in use. They would cast self buff spells, conjure allies or other things. I could write down what the bonuses were and just mark what each thing was from, if someone could strip the buffs off, fine, if not then the stuff was listed there. What it meant was that while I did have to do a bit more work and take a bit more time designing the encounter it didn't take any longer to run or use in the actual battle. It also helped in other ways, spells are beautifully versatile and I can just play with the spell list a bit to change the feel and flavor in a combat as well as alter how the encounters work. Overall it meant that they could theoretically face 50 clerics of about the same level and each fight could be radically different. I'll wrap this up before I go on a full off topic tear but I'd say that it's a lot better to have to take a bit longer to design an encounter than it is to have to keep halting and pausing because you need to double check effects and interactions.

The third problem, and as I said before this is a personal thing rather than a direct problem in the system, is that dragons were demoted to being just another monster. I'll try to explain that in a way that makes sense, Dragons are supposed to be pretty damn powerful, but more than that, in 3rd edition they were best looked at as a kind of super character class, magic, highest base attack, best saves, along with a plethora of abilities, resistances and immunities. Dragons had a kind of majesty to them, and had enough built in options and versatility that dragons could be as varied as the player characters were, possibly even moreso. Because 4th edition is much more tightly structured the dragons were simply another solo monster, they might have been a bit tougher than the other solo monsters at their tier but they still didn't have the same level of oomph or majesty. I will say that a lot of it comes from the mechanics of the system but I am not going to call it a flaw of the system, more a side effect. I know people might have similar views on certain classes or maybe favorite monsters and while the systems format might make them stronger/weaker/whatever than they think the thing in question should be that's more an area of personal taste than a system hiccup.

The other thing in this, again a part of the system, was that dragons went down more or less the same way any other monster did. Back in the old days, I can't believe I'm saying that at my age, beating a dragon quickly normally was either a result of extreme luck or a lot of careful preparation assuming both sides are competent and the encounter is roughly level appropriate. In terms of luck it might be a series of lucky high damage critical hits, maybe the DM can't roll very well, but it comes down more to the players performing feats far above normal expectations, however this is still pretty good so long as it doesn't cause an anticlimax though plenty of groups might just enjoy it for the amusement factor. Careful preparation is a bit more common, the group tries to figure out what they can about the dragon, the color type indicates elemental strengths and weaknesses, the age helps determine size and power as well as hypothetically how potent the magic it can wield is as well as what sort of weapons or tactics might be needed. The other part of the preparation is using spells and consumable items (potions, scrolls, etc.) before the battle, IE you are also consuming a good chunk of resources to fight said dragon and make yourself really powerful against it. In this case they can probably overpower the dragon as well fairly quickly but they had to put a lot of work and resources into it which again is fairly reasonable. This level of planning is somewhat less necessary for other types of monsters barring things like titans, major demons and such, though they also don't have the full versatility either. Conversely in 4th edition the players can just charge in unprepared and the fight will be the same as against any other creature of about that level, though you can't really do out of combat preparations in 4th edition nor are there really many consumable items and such.

I guess some of this is my little lament about how dragons seemed to kind of decline. But also it's this, Dragons are in many ways the iconic fantasy monster, they're the big enemy, a symbol of fantasy. And I think in some ways the way that the dragons are portrayed and used can tell a bit about the game you're in, but that's just me.