Why dragon are so hard...

[cynthialee]

'Roll three combat dice when attacking with this sword. If you are attacking a dragon, you instead roll five combat dice, and the dragon rolls half as many combat dice in defense, rounded up.'

I would go so far to give it these dice only against one specific dragon.
And I would let them find it after the first encounter, not before.

Make them sneak into the lair of the dragon and recover a shed scale apiece for the heroes. Each hero that has a scale at the end of the dungeon can have a normal un-enchanted weapon enchanted to harm that specific dragon.
This way you have a spiffy dragon slayer sword or whatever weapon but it is just a normal weapon in all other encounters and after the mission it is a basic item as the dragon it is enchanted to harm is now dead. {perhaps award the hero who gets killing blow with a permanent 2 extra dice against all dragons with that particular weapon. Perhaps it is a psychosomatic thing, anyone else gets zero extra with the weapon.}

[Count Mohawk]

Make them sneak into the lair of the dragon and recover a shed scale apiece for the heroes. Each hero that has a scale at the end of the dungeon can have a normal un-enchanted weapon enchanted to harm that specific dragon.
This way you have a spiffy dragon slayer sword or whatever weapon but it is just a normal weapon in all other encounters and after the mission it is a basic item as the dragon it is enchanted to harm is now dead. {perhaps award the hero who gets killing blow with a permanent 2 extra dice against all dragons with that particular weapon. Perhaps it is a psychosomatic thing, anyone else gets zero extra with the weapon.}

Oh, I like this! It gives a convincing reason why the Heroes should sneak into the dragon's lair before the actual battle with that dragon.

[cynthialee]

One thing I am really big on is temporary magic.
For instance I present to you the "True Shot Spell" that we use at my table in our RPG, altered for Hero Quest:

True Shot
This spell may be cast by the Elf or a Battle Mage type spell caster, it is not open to the Wizard or a Necromancer.
When this spell is cast the caster rolls their Mind Points looking for skulls. Each Skull rolled will temporarily enchant a weapon to attack with an extra dice for a single combat.

Could be altered to the spell "Enchant Dragon Slayer Weapon", make the spell work the same mechanic but only award extra combat dice against dragons. Require some hard to get material components like dragon scales....

[whitebeard]

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

So I play tested a quest last night with my son, The "Dragon's Den".

DragonMap.pdf

Summary:
"The Emperor's nephew has freed XYZ Keep from the Orcs and Goblins who had taken up residence, but he has not been heard from for some time. More troubling are the reports of a red (fire) dragon in the area raiding the trade caravans. Yada yada yada. You must discover what has happened to him and kill or chase of the dragon if possible."
Notes:
There are many "open doors" in this quest. They are represented by doors with slashes through them. Rows of open doors are actually archways allowing the central room to be larger.
There are no treasure search based traps. Cards of this type which are drawn mean NOTHING was found.
The falling block traps are controlled by the dragon. The dragon may smash the wall at ANY time (including as part of a hero's turn and is not counter as an action) and activate the trap but it must be standing at the appropriate adjacent edge of the room (or passes while moving).

A. A grand entry hall. The CW on the side represent statues and suits of armor of former lords of the keep. They are NOT CW and will not come alive.

B. The skeleton in the corner is a fallen soldier, quite dead and not animated. The tomb reads "Here lies…[Emperor's Nephew]."

C. The table is turned on its side as a barrier and the skeletons represent three more dead soldiers. There are goblin arrows in the soldiers and protruding from the table. There was previously a side door but it is barred with debris. Note the door "D" is not initially available (see "D").

D. When this falling block trap is triggered, the wall on the opposite side of the chamber collapses. Represented by the open door.

E. The Dragon:
Move 5 (one pivot counts as a move). Pushes heros out of its way (if pushed during a single space of movement, the hero immediately decides which adjacent free space they will occupy). The dragon cannot be prevented from moving. The dragon cannot double back on its movement.
Attack: Claws and bite: 2 x 6D (must be two separate targets) in front. All rear opponents 3D tail. Breaths fire every 3 turns. 4 dice fire damage front adjacent heroes. 2 dice all heroes in front (45 degree cone) extends down hallways.
Defend: 12D front. 9D side and rear.
BP: 12
Mind: 10

Impervious to fire spell damage.

Spells: All heroes are initially struck by Fear (see spell card) when they first behold the dragon. The dragon may use the command spell (one time, see card) on any hero that is actively afflicted by fear. The fear effect is nullified if the command spell is attempted.

When the dragon has 3 or fewer BP, it will attempt the fly out (up and out of the dungeon). "The dragon begins to flap its wings and lift into the air". The heroes have one remaining turn to kill it. It will be removed from the board on Zargon's next turn.

Consult the treasure tables (not written) to see what you find when searching for treasure. Heroes can search for treasure MANY times.

F. Two turns after the Dragon is defeated (or driven off). These monsters charge (all four groups simultaneously). Heroes investigating this area before this time "see very dark hallways filled with yellow (or red) eyes. You might have better odds against the dragon." If the hero is persistent then the two nearby groups will appear and attack.

E. Four turns after the dragon is killed, these monsters will open the door and charge. If the heroes open the door, then these monsters will hold their ground if the dragon is not dead, or charge immediately (on Zargon's next turn).

Wandering monster : before the dragon is slain, you wake the dragon, tell the heroes nothing, but Zargon may reposition the dragon however he wishes. After slaying the dragon the wandering monster is 4 Orcs.



We used that 2x3 Reaper "Fire Dragon". And newly minted "Champions".

play_test.JPG

Everyone had at least one Healing potion. There was one more healing potion (elf), a heroic brew, and strength potion. The spell ring had "Tempest" stored. They found a few more goodies in the main chamber (healing potion and heroic brew).

The Barbarian was the last to enter the fight!

The 12 BP dragon went down in 5 turns:
Turn 1: Fire breath and block trap (pinning the Elf and Wizard inside the room)
Turn 2: No action (Tempest)
Dwarf rolled an 11 and ran to the side of rear of the dragon.
Turn 3: No Action (Tempest)
Dwarf now has Heroic Brew and Courage, not looking good for the dragon.
Turn 4: Pushes the Dwarf around. breaths fire on him (4 dice) and the approaching barbarian (2 dice)
Barbarian drinks strength potion. Dwarf continues to chop away with courage…
Turn 5: 1 front attack on Barbarian one tail attack on Dwarf. Announced the dragon is taking off.
Barbarian chops him down before he can leave.


Nobody even needed to use a healing potion. When you think about it, the 12 BP just is not enough for this monster (at the scale shown). 12 BP = 1.5 Barbarians against the charged up party of 4... Not nearly enough. That and Tempest 2x sucks!

My son started to cry when the hordes approached (he was tired and being silly). But it was not so bad, I finished it on my own, fun really to see it play out. Searching for treasure as he was… you can be quite spread out in the room and caught totally off guard. And the goblins run 10 spaces! But the barbarian held a spot at the only remaining entrance (the south one) and the dwarf stopped even further out (exposed on 4 sides but diagonal to the Barbarian… fearing the wizard might not make it out). The wizard used "swift wind" and ran right past into the safe area (after dropping a fire ball… he used fire of wrath on the dragon. it laughed). The elf ran into the spot behind the dwarf. They did some rotating (and so did zargon). The Dwarf used his healing potion (2 I think). The Barbarian was healed by the wizard after retreating to the back. The heroes gave ground in the passageway and things were looking good, so the wizard also casted "pass through rock" on the barbarian. Then the Barbarian rolled a 3 for movement!!!! I laughed and thought it was all for naught, but there was actually good spot he could reach (not where I was initially thinking), so he went there. The fimirs were dispatched and the gargoyle was cut down last (after forcing the elf to drink a healing potion!).

All in all, pretty good. I will write it up as a formal quest and post all of the source code.

[cynthialee]

Thank you for that play test.

I thus offer these new stats for a small dragon, larger dragons can easily be inferred from my prior post on this topic and this one:

Small Red Dragon: size in squares, 2 long, 1 wide
Move 8 May do a rapid pivot for 2 points of movement. Although a bit too large for the dungeon the dragon has the ability to squeeze through door ways at a cost of 2 move points. Movement in flight: 32
Body: 12 Mind: 6
Attack: 5 Defend: 6 Defends on all shields.
Breath Weapon: May attack with a breath weapon 3 times per dungeon, which attacks with 4 dice that is defended against with only Black Shields. The Breath Weapon fills entire room or hallway forward of the dragon with fire. Flammable items in the room will ignite.
Roar: Once per Dungeon. The Dragon may roar while physically attacking. Acts as a low power fear spell. After hearing a Dragons roar a Hero must roll Mind dice looking for a White Shield to stand stalwart. If this roll is failed the EWP will move the effected hero out of the immediate area by 6 squares as the hero is fleeing in panic. After this point when it becomes the heroes players turn they must roll their heroes Mind Points looking for a Black Shield. If the roll is failed the EWP will move the hero 6 move squares, in the direction of the dungeon entrance, if the hero makes it to the entrance, they are removed from play for the duration of the dungeon. The player has a chance to recover their heroes wits each time it becomes their turn. Again they may roll Mind Points looking for a black shield to break the fear, and if they fail again the EWP moves the hero another 6 points to the exit. Once the fear is overcome the Hero may be played again as normal.

[whitebeard]

hmmm… conflicted here. My dragon needs to be more difficult (1.5x barbarian BP is too low for so large a creature). But "defends on all shields" seems like a great solution. Not really unreasonable for the medium dragon to have the same BP as the entire party (8+7+6+4 = 25). This appears like it would still only require 1 healing potion per player (champions).

[Count Mohawk]

If the dragon is the only monster the Heroes face, or close to it, then yes, it should probably have close to 20 BP for the optimal challenge.

In contrast, however, putting a 20 BP dragon as the end boss of a quest already filled with monsters seems like a terrible idea unless the Heroes were already decked out in artifacts, gold and potions up to their necks.

[torilen]

Since I started this thread and haven't weighed in on anything yet...I'll throw in my
at this point.

In my idea of quest design, a dragon would/should have few other monsters with it. The dragons
I have had experience with...in various games and stories...they have been loners. Perhaps the
quests leading up to the dragon, there might be creatures that complete the "theme" of the dragon
boss one is using...there might be other monsters that Chaos/Morcar/Whoever has to help stop the
heroes from meeting their goals.

But in the end, the dragon would be by itself.

[whitebeard]

If the dragon is the only monster the Heroes face, or close to it, then yes, it should probably have close to 20 BP for the optimal challenge.

In contrast, however, putting a 20 BP dragon as the end boss of a quest already filled with monsters seems like a terrible idea unless the Heroes were already decked out in artifacts, gold and potions up to their necks.

Check out the PDF Heroscribe map I attached. The heroes basically "walk in the front door" to fight the dragon they think is there. There are no additional monsters until after the dragon is slain (they want the treasure). The treasure search afterwards (2 turns before the monsters descend) can easily contain a refresh of healing supplies. Do you defend the treasure which you are still not done searching through, or do you take what you have and run?

I always thought of dragons as equal opportunity treasure collectors and eaters. This dragon would not tolerate goblins making off with its treasure while it was off hunting. I expect that they would have quickly learned to keep their distance. Unless you play with more social and opportunistic, perhaps polymorphing, dragons like Cyn. Then yeah, dungeon filled with monsters would be expected… carefully selected and well placed monsters, and traps! While intelligent, my dragon is too arrogant to bother with any kind of planned defense (e.g. Smaug). Without a custom corner overlay, you basically have to use the center room for a decent sized dragon, and if you open that up to the corridors there isn't much room left for a dungeon anyways.

12 BP getting hit by 2 Tempest spells was WAY too easy. You may be right about the 20 BP being a good number. The heroes were very lucky with the fire damage rolls and the falling block trap worked out pretty well, trapping the 2 weakest attackers with the dragon for several turns while the more dangerous warriors needed to run around (largely nullifying the Tempest spells). Once the Barbarian and the Dwarf get in position, the dragon will lose like 5 BP per turn. I think 25 BP will not be too bad and make for a more epic battle. Zargon could always add 5BP if the dragon is "defeated" before it breaths a third time?

[cynthialee]

Give the Dragon one or two of these potions:

Power Up Heal Potion
This potion when quaffed will replenish all lost Body and Mind Points. Further it will enable a spell casting imbiber to recover a recently cast spell, or for mystic beings the potion will replenish a racial ability for an additional use if the imbiber has used the power already in the dungeon.