Why dragon are so hard...

[Anderas]

The biggest stopper for me is the size a good dragon should have.

Take a Dino as basis, then it is already as big as the central room. Put in some fantasy, and the dragon might occupy a quarter of the table. Talk about Smaug and you have to imagine that the entire Hero Quest Board is surrounded by him if he decides to roll himself into the form of an o.

Luckily the average fantasy dragon has the size of two or three cows, not more.

I would go the witch lord way: Make two encounters. The first encounter, the heroes have no chance. If they'ré intelligent, they flee. However they see the basic weakness of the Dragon. Whatever. A fire dragon doesn't like water spells, something along these lines. Then you add two or three quests to study the weakness, find the parts and to assemble the holy water sword of the algae lord. Then they might come back and try to kill the dragon, if they dare. If the attempt fails, they have to flee again. It shall not be save to attack the dragon, even if you know and exploit his weakness.

[Count Mohawk]

Dragons usually have a treasure hoard, a room filled with mountains of gold coins and other shiny things they stole in the course of their burninating the countryside. One or two Quests before the final encounter, the Heroes may have the opportunity to sneak through the hoard themselves while the dragon is sleeping! Of course, take too much treasure and it might wake up...

I'm planning just such an encounter, by the way. While in the treasure room, if the Heroes Search for Treasure, they may take as much Gold as they want from the hoard in 50-coin increments, but must roll a combat die each time. If they get a Black Shield, they have disturbed the dragon out of its slumber, and had better run while they can!

[cynthialee]

I never did like the dragon as a symbol of another evil.
I like the sheep stealing, maiden eating, knight crunching dude who does it because he has few options left. No mastodons or giant sloths left to eat, might as well eat people and cattle.

[Big Bene]

That's because you are a fan - the most outspoken fan around here - of realistic treatment of the inhabitants of fantasy worlds, expecially of their morales and motivations. And this is a good thing. Being a child of the modern time, I also enjoy a book with believeable antagonists better than one filled with stereotypes. But I also can enjoy the centuries old original myths with all their symbolism. It's a matter of context.

[GimmeYerGold]

Dragons usually have a treasure hoard, a room filled with mountains of gold coins and other shiny things they stole in the course of their burninating the countryside. One or two Quests before the final encounter, the Heroes may have the opportunity to sneak through the hoard themselves while the dragon is sleeping! Of course, take too much treasure and it might wake up...

TROGDOR!!!!

My thought exactly, Mohawk! It would be cool to incorporate a dragon as a sort of environmental character, that is, an overarching menace that frames a quest pack--the heroes don't actually get to go toe-to-toe with the beast, but the dragon destroys towns, spews fire down narrow corridors, etc.

Sort of like how Smaug is portrayed from Bilbo's point of view in The Hobbit? No amount of defend die, movement, etc. would be needed, and a story-read telling could play out the Dragon's eventual demise, and resolution of the quest pack for instance.

In this way, the dragon is like Zargon himself, a threat that cannot be defined by mere dice, he is capable of almost anything!

[cynthialee]

Well I never liked analogy or riddle.
Tell it like it is...

The idea presented above of the country side ravaging beast that is defeated by the storyline instead of toe to toe is not a bad idea. Have the monster dispatched by a high power NPC who was too old to go questing to get the spell components he needs to cast his dragon slaying spell.

[QorDaq]

Some great ideas in here for sure.

Personally, I think D&D got it right when they started differentiating dragon power/size based on age. Which can allow for both an arch-nemesis for the party (The Great and Aged Wyrm behind the scenes), as well as smaller beasts that can be actually encountered on occasion. Definitely room for both if used judiciously.

maj!

[cynthialee]

One thing I liked about D&D was that all dragons are not created equal. Some are tough, some are push overs. What I didn't like was the dragons were automatically assigned an alignment based on which sub-species they were born as.

This thread sounds like a good place for favorite dragon stories:
The party had just been formed. Everyone wrote up level 5-8 D&D Characters and the quest was set. They set to the trail and as soon as they were out of sight of the towns towers a Juvenile Red Dragon wielding a glowing long sword jumps out from behind some boulders and demands a ransom to continue on their journey.
Well the heroes decided that they really didn't want to tangle with this dragon outside so they made good on the blackmail and paid the dragon well.
The funny thing was I had just gotten the dragons book (I don't remember what it was called but it was to play Dragons as Player Characters) from the days of AD&D first edition right before they went to second edition (maybe it was shortly into 2nd edition...)IDR and the dragon was just so I could try out some of the rules for dragons in comb at. The beast only had 2/3 of the Hit Points of the warrior in the party and one or two spells I think. The beast and encounter was simply designed so the heroes could wet their blades and whet their appetites for more of the storyline and I could play with my new rulebook. The glowing sword was simply a long sword with a glow enchantment on the blade. It had no other magic other than looking powerful when it wasn't.

Needless to say this dragon has become a favored NPC. Infernos Slitherskin of the Fire Drake Clan. He is a cunning and ruthless highwayman. A young adult with a nice collection of magic items.

Which just shows that no plan of action survives contact with the enemy.

[Goblin-King]

The old plastic Warhammer dragon from Talisman is the only model I'd ever consider using in HQ.
It's from the same range of minis that fit in pretty good with the HQ minis.

So... actually using a dragon in HQ?
I would set it up as a campaign. A dragon should not be a chance encounter in a game like this.
The heroes would be expected to be fully equipped, with max mercenaries.
Two of the fire spells have a good chance of inflicting a couple of hits no matter how high defense the target has.
With a few high impact hits and enough small stabs I think it's possible to whittle a dragon down.

12 body
12 defense - What's that? 2 shields per roll? 4 shields if it uses white shields?

So far so good. Seems like a reasonable challenge.
But how should it attack? It must be powerful enough to reflect the monster that it is.
But on the other hand you don't want to one-shot the heroes...

Maybe instead of attacking it will cast spells at random targets.
1st round - 2 ball of flame
2nd round - 2 ball of flame
3rd round - Firestorm

[cynthialee]

If I was to use a dragon that cast spells every action I would get that look of disdain that says 'ok we get it, you are in a mood and just going to kill our characters'.


Now I am thinking Wyverns....
In the game universe I run, wyverns are to be found at all levels of play. From tiny hatchlings at the beginning to great wyrms that dwarf the average dragon at very high levels of play.
I have my players characters constantly watching the skies as they travel overland. Have a Hero snatched out of their saddle and never seen again a couple times and they get the message the skies are dangerous. Small to medium sized dragons exercise great caution when the wyvern flock is in the area.

The creature is a relative of dragons in D&D lore and many of us have come through gaming with that as back ground. In some ways it is more dangerous than its more intelligent cousin the dragon. Some might posit that the wyvern is just another type of dragon instead of a species from the same genus.

any way, they are pretty nasty customers and should be included in discussions of dragon.