Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 34 - Monster Series - Dragons

Episode Date: August 16, 2020

Dragons.  They should be important encounters and villains.  Hell, they're in the name "Dungeons and Dragons".  How do you make encounters with them epic?  How should they take on the plucky band of adventurers who seek to steal their treasure from their lairs?  In this 20 minute episode, we look at things from a dragon's perspective and discuss tips and tricks for running these all powerful badasses like they should be run.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Taking20 episode 34, another of our monster series, this time focusing on dragons. This week's sponsor is your browser's incognito mode, when no one at your house really needs to know what you're doing online, which I'm sure is only shopping for gifts. Now to start off this episode, imagine you're a dragon. Gosh, there's almost a band name there. Dragon Imagination? Mdragonation?

Stop dragging my heart around? I'll figure it out later. This topic's probably radioactive. Imagine you're a dragon. You're more than 550 years old. You're 35 feet long from nose to the tip of your tail. You can fly for days at a time. You can lift a car around and carry it with you if you so choose. You can cast spells like some of the most

powerful arcane spellcasters in the world. You've lived in your lair for a hundred years and meticulously designed it to be a place to protect your vast sums of wealth. You can stand in the fires of an active volcano and it feels great. When it comes to personal power, you are just this short of a deity. Nations have risen and fallen around you. You've seen some shit and survived it all. If you were a dragon and conflict around you degenerated to combat, would you be rash, rush headlong into melee a mile from your lair, stand there trading blows until either you or the potential invaders die? No! But too many adventurers and too many DMs run dragons this way, like

they're some brutish ogre with an intelligence of eight. And that, my friend, simply will not do. To get into the mind of a dragon so that you can actually roleplay them correctly, we need to understand what they are. The Pathfinder roleplaying system kind of glosses over dragon descriptions. It gives a lot of detail about per color, but not really overall. I do prefer 5e's description. True dragons are winged reptiles of ancient lineage and fearsome power. They are known and feared for their predatory cunning and greed, with the oldest dragons accounted as some of the most powerful creatures in the world. Dragons are also magical creatures whose innate power fuels their dreaded breath weapons and other preternatural abilities.

The specifics of dragons will vary from game system to game system. Their tactics, their attitudes, common places they live may be described as different. There's a ton of commonalities, especially between 5e and Pathfinder. Now, if you start bringing in Shadowrun, Dragonlance, other gaming systems, things go sideways fast. So I'm going to focus on 5e and Pathfinder and specifically what's in common between those two gaming systems. So dragons are enormous and fearsome creatures. Dragon abilities, and especially their breath weapon, vary depending on the color of their scales. They can radiate fear around them so that you're just scared being even near them.

They have very high ability scores almost across the board. They can fly, they have tremendous endurance, and they all have breath weapons. Now, by the way, a lot of us gloss over the fact that, yeah, they have breath weapons, but think about how truly terrifying that would be. And they all have breath weapons. Now, by the way, a lot of us gloss over the fact that, yeah, they have breath weapons, but think about how truly terrifying that would be. Imagine a creature the size of a double-decker bus that can melt gold by breathing a two-story gout of fire on it, or freeze you solid, dump gallons of acid on you strong enough to melt you into a puddle,

funnel a lightning strike directly into your chest. Much less specialized dragons that have come out through the years that could breathe, oh let's see, necrotic energy, paralyzing gas, an energy blade, a torrent of seawater, superheated light, lasers, a line of force, hurricane force winds, deafening sound, rot, magnetic in the 80s, and not to be missed, burning venom. Yeah, things got really weird with monster design in the 80s and things got a little psychedelic. But combine their powerful breath weapons with their fear aura and I would imagine everyone voids their bowels just before the dragon voids the warranty on their new armor. Another thing dragons have in common almost across

all gaming systems is that dragons make lairs. Not only that, they know their lair backwards and forwards. They have fantastic memories and they remember where every trap and pitfall is that they've set up inside their lair. They build their lairs to be the ultimate in home field advantage. In 5e even, dragons get bonus abilities and actions inside their lair, so why fight anywhere else? Dragons in general are broken up into two groups, traditionally good dragons, called metallic dragons, and traditionally evil dragons, known as chromatic dragons. Chromatic dragon concepts go all the way back to the D&D White Box, 1974, originally written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

Most chromatic dragons, the evil ones, have followers and worshippers and minions. They use these minions as a mix of slave labor, food, and ego fuel. They use them to carve out a bigger lair, farm for other slaves, gather resources and information. They use them as food because, well, hey, let's face it, some dragons are voracious eaters. They'll consume as food because, well, hey, let's face it, some dragons are voracious eaters. They'll consume slaves if the dragon's feeling lazy and doesn't want to hunt, or if the captives just aren't pulling their weight. They also use these minions as ego fuel. Dragons are egotistical. They think they're the pinnacle of creation, especially red dragons, by the way.

Ego the size of a Mack truck. They love to be worshipped. They love to be fawned over. As long as slaves are being appropriately deferential and stay useful, that slave may be kept alive for years. The thing is, eventually the human or dwarf or elf or halfling slave outlives its usefulness. Or it may be because the dragon gets angry periodically and the slave winds up with debilitating scars all over their body from the dragon's breath weapon and they just can't perform as well as they once did. And then, congratulations, you're now food. Dragons almost exclusively live for centuries and they should not be treated as rash because of it. Even the ones that are described as rash, like white dragons

that a lot of times are described as more feral. They're only rash by comparison of their other kin. Most dragons, especially chromatic dragons, do not care one lick about honorable combat. They are sneaky, underhanded, they have tricks in their lair, and they will use them to their every advantage. They'll squirrel away combat resources in their lair in secretive places that only they know about. They don't hesitate to pull those out if they think that would turn the tide in their lair in secretive places that only they know about. They don't

hesitate to pull those out if they think that would turn the tide in their favor. Dragons tend to be fairly reclusive and territorial. Even good dragons who care about the world tend to settle in more remote locations. So if you want to use a dragon as a foe in your D&D campaign or your Pathfinder campaign, how do we do it? Well, let's start thinking about how dragons can be used and some of their tactics. Number one, dragons are rare, powerful, and potentially kingdom-ending foes. As adversaries, they should not be played like they were just bigger versions of a human. Therefore, number two, dragon combats should never be played like common everyday combats. Dragons are brilliant

and ruthless planners. Some of them have been on the planet for a millennium. They're not stupid. They have fought countless fights and survived to tell the tale. They have high intelligence, even the quote-unquote dumb ones, so they're going to have thought about combat, and they're going to fight smart. Which is why three, dragon combat should rarely, only in the rarest of circumstances, occur outside their lair. I mean, as we talked about earlier, in some gaming systems, they gain additional abilities inside their lair, so why would you fight anywhere else? Maybe the party has stolen a dragon egg. Maybe the party killed one of their young and the dragon is out to hunt them. Four, when you're designing dragon lairs,

make sure they have every single advantage you can think of. They'll set up traps, some of them built by them or maybe even their minions. Some of the traps may be magical, like an unexpected anti-magic field over a deep crevasse. Oh, well, I've just got to get across this deep, deep crevice here. I'm just going to float over this cliff and down they go. They may set up explosive runes in tight corridors. They may set up non-magical traps like collapsing floors and ceilings, pit traps, swinging hazards,

mechanical traps like blades that they can just skip over, step over, phase through, what have you. They will set up their lair to take advantage of their environment. Obviously they can fly, so a lot of them will set up their lairs high up on a cliff where there's no easy way to walk to it. If 99% of the things in this world that would come to kill you walk, why would you set up your lair in a place that somebody could just walk up to? Even within their lair, their really valuable pieces may be placed high up in their horde, 50 feet up on a wall or at the top of a massive pile of coins. Since they can fly, dragons may have a bug-out area, for lack of a better term, an area where they can escape their lair if things go completely sideways. They'll put that high up on the wall, high up on a ledge, something they can get to easily but maybe their opponents couldn't,

have healing magic stored away there, and give them the ability to fly away somewhere else, heal, and then come back. Some dragons live on the coast and can breathe air and water, so obviously you would take advantage of that. If a lot of the things that are coming to kill you can't breathe water or can't breathe air, why wouldn't you create a lair that had both? Take advantage of the rising and falling tides to create whirlpools and eddies that can drown hapless adventurers. Desert dragons will set up sinkholes in their lair that they know about, they can skip over, but they may even sprinkle the tops of these sinkholes with treasure to try

to tempt would-be thieves into dying before they reach the real horde. Forest dragons will use the forest canopy to protect themselves from above and may be tangling vines or thick hedges on the ground for miles around. Swamp dragons may create brackish, stagnant, diseased-filled cesspools around their lair to try to catch and weaken potential prey. Not only do they make sure they fight in their lair, dragons will try to wear down the party before they even reach the lair. Most dragons have abilities that allow them to detect when parties or potential threats are within miles of their home, so they don't let a party rest unmolested. They send minor attacks, vermin, or some other method of disturbing the party every, say, four to six

hours while the party's resting. Keep them from completing a long rest or getting a night's sleep. The inability to rest and the inability to regain abilities, the fatigue and exhaustion that comes along with it, are anathema to adventuring parties. Dragons will use that to their advantage. Five, dragons will use their minions, if they maintain them, to gain the upper hand. If a dragon has a web of lackeys, informants, and worshippers, they will use them to find out about the party. Maybe have their minions talk to them, or maybe the dragons will talk to them themselves in humanoid form. Learn their names, learn their strengths, learn their weaknesses, find out everything they can about the party before they ever engage them in combat. As a matter of fact, if the dragon's minions can

catch the party early enough in their search, they may even provide incorrect information to the PCs and send them off on a wild goose chase. 6. Dragons are very difficult to catch off guard. If dragons get whiff of a potential threat, they want to learn more about it. Many dragons build information networks through connections to creatures, humanoids, cities, towns, etc. And they will use this network to gain information, as I talked about earlier, and possibly throw the party off the trail. 7. If confrontation is inevitable, they'll spend resources, including some of their wealth, to discover the party's tactics and counter them. I mean, again, dragons are smart and they are long-lived. They should take steps to counter the most common or effective party tactics.

If the party's primarily built of melee characters, dragons will do what they can to get out of close quarters combat any way they can. Dimension door, teleport, invisibility, some way of getting away from the sword-wielding morons. If it's primarily a ranged party, then they're going to have magics like protection from arrows, protection from magic missiles, protection from ray attacks, a wall of force shield spell. They may also get magic items that make it difficult to target them, such as blur, concealment, wall of fog, and so forth. If the party primarily consists of spellcasters, then they are going to be ready to counterspell and use dispel magic quite often. You're taking away a party's strongest abilities because a smart dragon would do just that.

8. Dragons can fight for hours, maybe even days without sleep. Over that time, players begin running low on resources, ammo, spells, per-day use items. It's like in boxing. And okay, I know, not many people listening to this watch boxing anymore, but I'm old, get off me. In boxing, one boxer will punch the other one to the gut, and rarely do gut punches knock another boxer out. But they do wear the other boxer down. It makes them tired. It makes their ribs sore. It makes them drop their hands to protect their sore torso. Then the knockout shots can happen to the head, face, and chin. That's how dragons fight. They're patient.

They wear down the party. They make them use up combat and healing resources. Dragon breath weapons recharge over time, and many of them can be used theoretically an unlimited number of times per day. Unlike PCs who have limited use wands and limited use abilities that they need long rests or a night rest to recuperate. So dragons erode the party's ability to fight over time. Makes them tired. The dragon may even play with them a little bit, teasing them, taunting them, like orcas do with seals, so that when the dragon finally does go for the kill, their opponent knows they are beaten in every way. 9. Dragons can live for a millennia. A lot of the things I talked about in the Undead monster series apply here.

If there's one dragon hunter that's causing all sorts of trouble, wait 50 years, then come back and eat them and their kids and their kids' kids. You can afford to be patient when your lifespan is so long. 10. Dragons are intelligent, so play them that way. How do you roleplay something much smarter than you are as a DM? If you're listening to this podcast, obviously you are one of the more brilliant people on this planet, but none of us are as smart as a dragon is. If you look at a dragon's stats, some of them have intelligence scores of 26, 28. They're unbelievably brilliant. So as a DM, how do you role play something that is so much smarter than you are? You cheat. Unless the party comes up with a plan that is so beyond the realm of brilliance, then the dragon was prepared for it.

Oh, we're going to sneak in through the vertical air ducts. The dragon detects the change in air movement with a perception check, and it's sitting at the bottom of the air duct waiting for the first character to drop into the room on the rope. I'm in and it looks empty. If there's a way into their lair, not only do they know about it, they probably even designed it. Even good dragons who readily accept visitors and would happily entreat with anyone who chose, they don't stand for stealthy attempts to access their lair. 11. Unless their description says otherwise, dragons will retreat to fight another day if necessary.

See the bug out plan I talked about earlier. Having healing potions, teleport, gate, invisibility, gaseous form, soft ground to burrow through, a high point to fly from, a deep high pressure well to swim out of. They may even have a pre-made safe spot to rest and recuperate already built and waiting for them. The dragon may run, but I guarantee you they won't forget. They'll likely harass the party at some point in the future. I believe it's in Pathfinder where dragons can even smell your heritage. If Jeremy tried to kill a dragon and it learned what I smelled like, my great-grandson comes to visit that dragon.

That dragon will know it was related to me, and my great-grandson comes to visit that dragon, that dragon will know it was related to me, and my great-grandson may have a harder time interacting with that dragon because the dragon may still remember what his great-grandfather did. 12. If a dragon is your big bad evil guy for a campaign or an adventure, they will have a plan. They will have a purpose for doing what they're doing. Don't make them cartoon villains that are just trying to do evil for the sake of evil. They want to conquer land. They want to secure resources. They want to protect their young. They want to expand their horde. Some reason for doing the evil that they're doing that makes the party rise up. As an advice, give dragons unique

characteristics based on the color colors description in your gaming system. For example, 5th edition, blue dragons are described as ambush predators. They live in deserts, they bury themselves in sand, and will watch from afar. They are very patient combatants and happy to fight for days. They love talented minions, wizards, sages, artists, and assassins, and will reward them for worshiping and serving the dragon. Maybe this particular blue dragon wants to establish a kingdom. He's been raiding caravans for food and slaves, but that just doesn't do it anymore. Talented slaves he starts treating as guests, and he promises them positions in this kingdom he's establishing. So the blue dragon

meticulously establishes contacts in towns to learn how to best put himself or his puppet in power, learn secrets about the current leaders and blackmail them, bribe officials, outright murder of some others. Over time, he starts steering these towns towards a reverence of dragons, and when they adequately understand how inferior they are to dragons, the Blue Dragon reveals himself as the true leader, establishes shrines to himself in the town, demands offerings each year from each town.

The PCs are contacted by a secret cabal who want freedom from the dragon. Bam! Campaign is born. Lucky 13. Give dragons personalities just like you do with other NPCs. Give them dimensions by adding hobbies, passions, personality quirks. Who's to say that the gold dragon doesn't also dabble in winemaking? The bronze dragon secretly supports a local school and invites the most gifted students to learn more powerful magic directly from her. The red dragon, while

being mean and standoffish, does love a good game of darts while in human form. So it invites all invaders to play a game of darts with it. The stakes are just very high if you lose. I am way out of time and there is plenty of material here for another episode. I'll probably revisit this topic some point in the future. Listen, dragons aren't common bandits, simple dinosaurs, or mindless killing machines. They are super intelligent, incredibly strong, wise, and careful planners. Dragons are apex predators wherever they live. Meeting the dragon should present the party with a sense of awe, wonder, reverence, and fear. Fights with dragons should be epic affairs that leave the party spent, exhausted, and with the feeling that they were truly lucky to survive. Thank you for listening to Taking20 episode 34, Monster Series focusing on dragons.

I once again want to thank our sponsor browser incognito mode, do your family and all of us a favor. Go ahead and lock the door as well. Whatever you're doing doesn't need to be seen by anybody else. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.