Mastering the Majesty of Dragons: A Dive into D&D's Most Iconic Beasts

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Unleash the dragons! Together with the Johto-O, we're venturing into the thrilling mechanics and lore behind Dungeons & Dragons' most iconic creatures. Prepare to discover how these beasts challenge adventurers and Dungeon Masters alike with their arcane might and world-shaping presence. From lair actions that disrupt the turn-based flow of combat to the conceptualization of dragons as a primordial race, we're examining the complexities and joys of bringing these formidable foes to your tabletop. Tune in for a masterclass in creating encounters that are as memorable as they are deadly, all while ensuring they're tailored to the tastes and engagement levels of your players.

Ever wonder how a young dragon's magic evolves? We dive into that question with fresh ideas like sorcery points and metamagic, illustrating the growth of their magical prowess. And it's not just about the mechanics—dragon lore is rich with tales that defy expectations. We're celebrating the diversity of these ancient beings, from the protective enchantments of Waterdeep to the bonds of curses tied to dragon hoards, encouraging you to craft narratives that resonate with your players. With detailed character sheets for major villains and a mix of enemy types, we're sharing insights that will keep your campaigns vibrant and enthralling.

The episode crescendos with discussions on the intrinsic arrogance of dragons and its implications for your fantasy realms. We look at how this trait informs their behavior and the narrative possibilities it presents—from the impact of poisoning these creatures to their influence on the environment. With the Johto-O by our side, we're showcasing strategies to keep battles thrilling and the story enriched by these intelligent, prideful beings. Don't miss out on the chance to elevate your gaming experience with our deep dive into the world of dragons.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Alright, welcome back to the next episode of DMI.
Today, our topic is gonna be,honestly, probably my favorite
topic that we're gonna talkabout.
I really like dragons and Ithink that they have a lot of
really unique mechanics.
Today, I'm gonna be joined bysomebody a little bit different
from our usual.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, I'm the Johto-O .
I'm glad to be back and excitedto be talking about more D&D
conversations, more D&D topics.
Dragons are a really fun one,and they're great enemies.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
I think it would almost do the show zero favors
to skip out on dragons,especially right after talking
about intelligent monsters,because they're literally in the
title for the game.
It's almost like the holders,who are the poster child for D&D
.
These monsters are somethinglike you have to cover them, and
running them isn't easy, to behonest, but I don't know about

(00:53):
you but I run them at least oncein almost all of my campaigns
because there's a dragon forliterally every single setting.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, I finished one of my campaigns that I've been
running recently that had twonew players out of the group and
we had the final boss be amodified dragon, one that I knew
could handle being 5v1.

(01:23):
And not only that, but theentire world was basically built
on using this dragon soul tocreate the entire setting, which
was one sort of dungeon Icalled Bigglesbee's Mansion, and
anytime they were making stuff,they were using the dragon soul

(01:46):
as a power source.
So the secondary big bad brokehim out and the entire final
fight was those two against theparty.
So dragons are a big threat andthey can be your big band.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
And between, especially, lair actions and
multi attack and all these otherabilities that they have, they
really aren't as harmed by theturn economy as other monsters
are.
For example, if you toss a lichwith no horde against a max
level party, it's going to dieincredibly quickly.
The turn economy is a reallyimportant part of D&D and during

(02:25):
our next section, when we'retalking about more things that
are mechanic based rather thantheming, I do really want to get
into turn economy because it'san important thing to understand
and a big thing is people thatpower game.
They really understand kind ofthe turn economy and how to take
advantage of it.
So I think, especially for newDMs who are trying to learn, and
even veterans who don'texperience power gamers very

(02:46):
often, it's really important tounderstand how the turn economy
can be broken and destroy yourencounters and how you can
accidentally fuck up and TPKyour party pretty easily using
turn economy.
I mean horde of CR1 monsterscan very easily kill a level
seven party.
So but yeah, again, dragonsreally overcome this with those

(03:07):
lair actions and with theirabilities to kind of multi
attack and do multiple thingseach round.
And some dragons are scarierthan others, but regardless of
your setting, there's almostalways a dragon.
So, like right now, I'm runninga campaign where we just
started this, but it's a spacebased campaign that is focused

(03:30):
on spell jammer, the spelljammer setting, and I really
enjoy it.
Even in spell jammer, there'sdragons off of the planes
because they're solar dragonsand they're lunar dragons, and
you're never going to fight asolar dragon in its lair because
it is a sun literally literallyit's a sun.
I don't know many races that canhop on a sun and be fine.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, now the spell jammer book that's out,
regardless of the quality of itbased on the community.
There is a little part on howhow to exist inside of a sun,
and so you feasibly, technically, could do it.
You would just take, I think,55 damage per turn or that might
even be closer to 500.

(04:13):
So you're not going to bekilling a solar dragon inside of
a sun anytime soon.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
And that that's a campaign that I'm actually
running is using that book,which I know is not a popular
community book, but I'm kind oftweaking it and putting my own
little spin on it, which Ithought so far.
I've been playing it with myparty we're like three sessions
and I don't think it's as bad aseverybody made it out to be.
I think it has a lot ofredeeming qualities and I liked
how they kind of incorporatedall of the major races,

(04:42):
especially dragons, having theseastral dragons but also you're
visiting different planes, soit's going to dragons are going
to be as my favorite monster,something that my party sees a
lot of.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, and I think with dragons is dragons are.
They are like a Swiss armyknife in terms of how you can
run them.
You can have dragons who surejust land on the ground and just
fight you.
You can also have dragons whoare going to be flying around.

(05:14):
They're dragons who are goingto try and leave in the middle
of a combat.
There are dragons who mighttake a few players and try and
grab them and then fly off withthem and suddenly combat is
drastically different and thatmakes them very dangerous.
But, similar to last episodewhere you're talking about

(05:37):
intelligent creatures, dragonsare one of the biggest
intelligent creatures and whenyou're running them as just big,
mean guy, they can be run thatway and be very damaged, spongy,
but they also can be verydangerous because they will.

(05:58):
They know how to kill thingsefficiently and that's something
that, as a DM if you're, if youhave that mindset, that makes
them quite dangerous, even ifit's not the elder dragon and I
will say that like let's talkabout this in all honesty 5e has
gutted dragons power.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
If you are a DM and you want to run one as a final
boss, there is no 5e dragonsthat are named, that have a
spell list, and it is a majordisservice to dragons as a whole
because in older editions theyused to give ancient dragons who
are well known spellcasters andmonsters.
If you're going to name adragon, give it a spell list

(06:40):
please, because Fizben'sTreasure of Dragons I did a
review of it.
I love that book.
It was a phenomenal book.
It mentioned in multiple nameddragons spells for one in
specific it's an ice dragonspell that freezes you in place
is named after a named icedragon that we see in Horde of
the dragon queen, the pre madecampaign.
They did not give that dragon asingle spell.

(07:02):
It is an ancient named dragon.
If you're trying to make them afinal boss or like a mid mid
game boss, give them a spelllist because, like, for example,
the one from Rise of the dragonqueen, they talk about the fact
that they're bringing up thisnamed dragon and that named
dragon has articles on it fromD&D's second edition where they

(07:23):
talk about the fact that itlikes to whore, hide and burrow
and jump up and use freezingattacks to keep its prey in
place and it has a tremor sense.
It is given none of thosethings.
I just give you a base ancientdragon stat block, and that's
kind of something that I've seenin a lot of these pre made
campaigns recently and somethingI wish wizards would fix, but
unfortunately they're not gonna,because they want dragons to be

(07:46):
something people can fightearly and they're really not
something you can fight early,unless it's like a dragon worm.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, and that's why they have in the monster manual
dragons of various ages and asthey get older they get more
dangerous.
But, that being said, you don'tnecessarily need to be a low
difficulty and not have spells,especially with something as

(08:15):
dangerous as a dragon.
You can, even if it's ayoungling, look at other stat
blocks and gauge how magicallypowerful is this dragon and you
can kind of just take the statblock that has some spells on it
and kind of apply it, give thatto the dragon.

(08:36):
You just want to make sure thatwhen you're altering in this
way, that will change thedifficulty of the dragon.
You want to make sure that,even if you don't use like CR or
anything like that, you want tomake sure you understand the
basic ballpark of how dangerousa dragon, whether it is a
youngling that you edit thiswith or whether it is an ancient

(08:59):
dragon, you know how powerfulthat dragon will be.
And if you've been followingalong and making sure that your
party you have an overall ideaof how powerful your party is,
not based on their level, buthow efficient and how good their
teamwork is, you'll be probablyfine because you're already

(09:24):
gauging that.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
And I would say I definitely agree with you.
The slight thing that Idisagree with you on is from a
lore and a DM and a storyperspective.
I will not give anything aboveunder an adult dragon spells.
There's a reason that I do thisFor me I keep it in my head of,
yes, these are fantasycreatures, but if you think

(09:46):
about it, even with people whenyou're really young, those
dragons to them are like kidsand at most teenagers they're
still learning their ownphysical strength.
They're not going to really havehad the time to kind of sit
down and buckle down.
And dragons are wizards.
They're not actually sorcerers,even though they do have innate
magic abilities, but they'remore closely related to wizards,

(10:07):
as is said in the gold dragonslore in the monster manual.
And I think that that's areally important thing to keep
in mind, because a young dragonisn't going to have taken the
time to actually learn magic yet, whereas an adult dragon
they've gotten out of thatangsty teen phase.
They kind of know who they areas an identity of a dragon

(10:28):
because they do parallel humansin a way, because they're such
an intelligent monster.
So to me it makes sense to waittill they're an adult dragon to
start incorporating some ofthese spells, because they are
wizards.
They do have to learn theirmagic, even though they have
innate magic.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Or maybe one idea that you could do is maybe they,
a youngling, has magic, butthat magic may not be anything
above a first level spell, orperhaps any time they try and
cast magic, as a side effectbecause they haven't honed their
abilities, maybe something likea wild magic surge or something

(11:02):
more chaotic, moreuncontrollable, because they're
still learning how to controltheir magic.
That could be an interestingscenario for a party, for sure,
but maybe one in which you wantto more carefully make sure,
when you're using wild magic,that there is nothing that could
one hit your dragon youngling,or that one hit TKOs the party

(11:30):
TPKs the party.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
I actually really like that idea.
What would your thoughts be andthis might be something I test
with my party, and they probablywon't like this of just giving
it a bunch of sorcery points andforcing it to have up to second
level spells?
But it has to cast using metamagic and giving it relatively
weak spells and meta magicingthem to be stronger because

(11:52):
sorcerers one of the ancestriesis the draconic one and I think
it could be really interestingto use meta magic in place of
spell slots.
So the dragon has to buy itsspell slot and then modify this
pretty weak spell to make itstronger, and they would get
better at that as they get older.
So then that's where the morepowerful spells and more spell
slots would come in.

(12:12):
That's kind of what I got, justfrom what you said.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
And I think that's a pretty good idea.
The only concern would be isthat you wouldn't want to base
your sorcery points based off ofhow many A level and sorcerers
have.
You would want to base it offof how many sorcery points you
think it would be usable,because it's pretty easy to go

(12:36):
through and get two third levelsorcery spell slots and then
that's it.
So you would want to balance itnot based off of how many
sorcery points a sorcerer wouldhave at level seven, but maybe
you would have to do sometesting and give them maybe 10

(12:58):
or 12, especially if you wantmaybe to have them do more than
just add spell slots with that,but maybe also do stuff like
heightened spells, powerfulspell, twin spell too, depending
on how deeply you want to gointo it.
But it's a cool idea, especiallyif, let's say, you have an
actual sorcerer who is adraconic sorcerer and in your

(13:20):
campaign you want sort of thatplotline of how their family has
had this draconic magic for along time.
This would fit really well in,because then it would make sense
.
Hey, I got my magic fromdragons.
Wow, these dragons have a verysimilar magic to the type I have
.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Well, actually here's a way that you can refine this
idea a little bit more is you goreally down that route and you
give them a sorcery point forevery year of age on the dragon
and then you don't give them anyspell slots and then they have
to take that very, very high,steep cost from the sorcerer
thing of buying the spell slotand that's a way that it

(14:01):
balances it down where theycan't cast a ton of spells and
because they're a dragon,they're going to have access to
all of the innate meta magicsright away and then you can
really get creative as a DM.
I really kind of like this ideaand it's something I might like
refine and tweak.
But the only concern that Ihave with this is if your party

(14:23):
is not one that power games,there is a very, very high
chance you blow up your entireparty.
If you are like me as someonethat has basically only played
wizards and sorcerers myplaythroughs of D&D, I've
basically only playedspellcasters, so I understand
where there's a lot of strengthin spellcasters.
So me as an individual I cansee, oh, I could buy this spell,

(14:45):
this spell and heighten theseand make sure, itpk.
So then it would be on you, butthen also, if the fight's going
poorly, you as a DM can chooseto go easier on them and make it
look big and flashy, but nothit them for the full amount.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Oh yeah, and I think also you could kind of, if
you're concerned about If thisdragon might TPK, well, maybe
it's Based on the personality,so what if this is a?
You could create a dragon who,if you know that your party is
gonna fight a dragon, well,maybe this dragon is a little

(15:24):
more like, oh Well, if I don'thave to fight, I won't.
Or if I think they're justgonna run away, well, I'm not
gonna put my all into it, youknow, and then that will make
your dragon a little moreinteresting.
But maybe if your party isreally like they're gonna tempt
fate and they're gonna really goin and they're gonna try and
kill it, then he will up hisante as well, just as much as

(15:46):
the party is going to up theante on their side.
So perhaps maybe that'ssomething that you kind of look
at.
You know, the the fizz bandtreasury book really talks about
Dragon personalities and how tojust quickly roll one out.
Roll out a personality based onthree different quirks, based
on a couple of different tables.
So that's something that youcould go in instead of rolling

(16:08):
on those tables for thepersonality.
You think about how to what,what kind of personality would
give me a Feasible out, withoutfeeling like I'm just being nice
to a player and I will say thisthis is my personal favorite
way to build bosses, andespecially with fizz bands.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
I highly recommend this.
I Actually like monster blocks.
They're really fun, they'rereally thematic and they're what
I post.
A lot of the content for thischannel I post in the form of
monster blocks because it's whatpeople are used to.
That being said, when I runmonsters, and especially bosses
and dragons and things that arebig and powerful and scary, I

(16:44):
Actually use character sheets.
I fill out a full charactersheet for the monster,
especially if they're gonna bemy big bad, my campaign, at the
beginning.
I write out the whole thingbecause then I have their
personality traits, their ideals, everything right in front of
me and I actually think that thecharacter sheet is laid out
pretty well.
I mean, if we're being honestand especially for dragons, if

(17:05):
you go with this idea of givingthem sorcery points and having
them buy Everything and all themeta magics, I think that that
would be the way that I wouldrun this.
Especially, if you're buildinga dragon from fizz bins, then
you grab that, look up a basicdragon that you want it to be of
kind, grab it stats, justtransfer those right in and then
put all your custom personalitytraits where they would be on

(17:26):
the character sheet.
I think that's what I would do.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
It's something to consider here is how much time
do you want to put into thissheet?
You know this, this is a.
This is all.
This can be a lot of work forsomebody who maybe doesn't have
a lot of time, but this can be ahelpful way of really fleshing
out.
I would say, if you're gonnathrow Like a dragon into just a

(17:48):
random dungeon and you don'twant to spend a lot of time, I
would maybe focus more on justdoing a base stat block.
If this is a dragon that youreally want critical to the plot
, I think you want to expand itas much as why it plan, you know
, like recommends with a wholecharacter sheet, you know,
especially if this is acharacter who will reoccur or is

(18:11):
one that you really want theparty to say I hate this guy and
I want to kill him, yeah and I.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
This goes back to something I think I've mentioned
on this podcast already.
I highly recommend having, justfor monsters, for NPCs, having
a base stat block with no nameattached of different Classes in
your DM binder.
That way, when somebody goes,I'm gonna kill it.
You have a response because ithappens once per campaign, or do

(18:39):
you disagree?

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, about once per campaign I.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Can't tell you how many times saying I want to rob
the shop, keep, and I have nostat block prepared and I go.
Well, and that's literallywhere it's at.
So it's like the best way todeal with that is to have, like,
typically, I'll keep one to twomagic casters, one to two melee
casters at most five charactersheets Just sitting there with

(19:04):
stats and abilities.
That way, when they go, I'mgonna fight the blacksmith.
I'm sitting right there with afighter stat block and if they
go, I'm gonna kill the localmerchant who does Like health
potions.
I have a, I have a wizard statblock and I think that that's
fair.
If, like, you're going into adragon horde, just have a base
stat block for a dragon prepared, have a base cobalt, something

(19:27):
that they're gonna, they'regonna be controlling, and maybe
keep a bandit one on you as well.
If you're planning on being ina dragon area for a long period
of time because, like, blackdragons Don't typically keep as
much of a horde but they domanipulate a lot of humans and a
bandit is a is a pretty easyway to go, if I'm being honest,
and if you have those spare onesin your binder already, you

(19:48):
could use your custom, human onethat you rolled out.
And then you get to build acharacter too, which I enjoy
building characters, but I don'twant to play half of.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
And the bandit is really good because if you're in
like a Dungeon for like a blackdragon and it's very dangerous
and a lot of the gameplay isAvoiding traps, avoiding enemies
, trying to get the jump onenemies when you have to do a
fight, by having a bandit justrandomly thrown in there, you're

(20:19):
Changing up the tempo of thegame and you're changing up what
the party's doing, because nowthey're gonna be like who the
heck is this guy?
Oh my god, and they're gonnastart role-playing with this
bandit and they're gonna try andget information from him and
maybe come in with a littleextra information or try and
improv it out.

(20:39):
But that's that's gonna bereally interesting and maybe
even that bandit can then givethe party more Information on
the dragon before they even seehim.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
And there are dragons that you're going to find in
places where it doesn't seemlike you should find a dragon in
the under dark.
There's deep dragons.
There's a area of between, inthe forgotten realms, between
Like bedrock and the under dark,which is considered like deep
ground.
That's where purple dragons arefound historically in D&D.

(21:15):
Now those aren't somethingthat's been talked about a lot
and there's something that yourparty should be afraid of.
They breathe plasma.
To put it in perspective for you, and finding stat blocks for
them can be used to be reallychallenging Because there is a
youtuber who just does monsterstuff and recreating old
monsters really love his channel.
Can't remember it off the topof my head right now.

(21:36):
That being said, look up purpledragons, look up orange dragons
.
It'll be the first YouTubevideo.
You find his stuff's reallygood.
He breaks down, bag man, allkinds of different unique
monsters and I really enjoy hisvideos.
I'll give him a short littleshout out, but if you go under
on his channel, he recreated allof the different dragons and I
think it's interesting because,like orange dragons are
something that I knew aboutBecause I'm a fan of dragons and

(21:57):
I looked up the old comics.
There used to be a color chartfor dragons on roughly what they
did, what they wanted them tohave, and so it explained how to
create the areas in between.
So like an orange dragon isgonna be found on a coastal city
and it breathes salt and and incross your players and salt
which deals damage and these arekind of and it has a swim speed
and a yellow dragon Somethingthat's gonna be found in a

(22:19):
desert and it has a burrow speed.
A Yellow dragon popping out ofthe sand is terrifying, but
these are those dragons that youdon't expect because they're
not kept in the handbook anymore.
I mean, there was just so muchthat was left out, even in
fizzbans, like I expected tofind those stat blocks in
fizzbans.
They're not there and it'ssomething where I think it's sad

(22:40):
.
I think it's a missedopportunity.
But the old resources does itdo exist and there are people
who convert them to 5e now,including myself.
I've converted a couplemonsters over, but they're
challenging.
Like there are things that youdon't expect that you may have
to go out of your way to lookfor, but they're interesting and
they're worth that kind of timeinvestment, because Once you've

(23:03):
watched a YouTube video orfound the article, you're gonna
remember that for a while andthen also, once you've seen it
out the information once it'sgonna be a lot easier to pull it
up a second time.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, and, and the, the youtuber puffin forest.
He once said he just made likethis offhand comment about you
know as a DM how often do you,how did you like?
Look at the Monster manual?
And this monster that you'refighting Will suddenly realize
you haven't seen in the dungeonmaster the, the monster manual.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
So you're like oh, what the heck is this?

Speaker 2 (23:39):
and so, especially if you have, like, other DMs at
the table ah, that, that commentreally resonated with me
because I Know if I have otherDMs at the table we're all
looking at the same main book,the monster manual, for sure.
And by kind of going that extramile and and finding either

(24:02):
stat blocks or Modifying adragon so it has the salt breath
or whatever, or the plasma,something like that, that's
gonna stick with a player Longerthan just throwing a red dragon
, because that when we think ofdragons we always think red

(24:23):
first.
So that's kind of the benefit.
And this doesn't just apply todragons, but this applies to any
enemy type, whether it's anillythid, beholder Dragon, any
of those types.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Naga and it's like Red and blue are like the two
everyone think about, and thenit's like gold and silver and
brass gets forgotten, like a lotof the Other ones get forgotten
purple dragons.
The reason that they actuallyweren't converted over to fifth
edition is Because they'rehorrifying, because that plasma

(24:58):
breath, because the ability onthe plasma breath that you may
want to take away, since they'reunderground in a dark condition
.
If they breathe plasma in frontof you, your character goes
permanently blind.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, that's terrifying.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, that's something that I would consider
cutting if I was gonna run that.
But it's like if they'relooking at them when they
breathe the plasma they're soclose, supposed to go blind.
And I would tell you I wouldsay, because I know a lot of
people do this if you're goingto run a campaign off of Certain
forms of media that a lot ofpeople like to do, like movies

(25:32):
and TV shows, the purple dragonI would go back and watch that
video or find the article,because it is a great in place
for a night fury from how totrain your dragon, I think it's.
It's actually a pretty decentstat block to use for that if
you were ever to do the scene ofhow to train your dragon, which
I know I liked that movie.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
So it's, it's one that people are a lot of people
in our generation are really bigfans of and something to make
like a dragon even moredangerous is what if the dragon
itself the lair that it foundwas that location was beneficial

(26:12):
to its breath weapon?
So you know spoilers for the,the D&D movie not really, but
the dragon in that one has alittle bit of a hard time firing
its breath and A lot of thetime it's just like the the gas

(26:32):
just comes out, but nothing, theigniter isn't doing anything,
and the party realizes this andthen uses that to their benefit.
So, potentially, what if youhad a Dragon living in somewhere
like the under dark, which isvery magical and a wild place
and it can be very dangerous?

(26:53):
Maybe the walls are likeseeping with Gasoline or
something flammable, and so assoon as it lights off, well,
it's using that to its benefit.
Because dragons are anintelligent creature, they will
use everything to theiradvantage, whether it is a
physical characteristic thatthey have or it is the
environment itself.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
And I will say I got an argument with a friend about
that movie, like not like anactual like argument argument,
but like one of those scufflesyou have with friends.
They did that dragon so dirtyand he was like no, it's really
fitting.
No, they did him so dirty, he'sjust this unintelligent.
You know, like it's so sad whatthey did with him, because he's
a named dragon who was supposedto be really clever and he just

(27:38):
go munch in the movie and itmakes me really sad.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
It's very much dangerous dog was the vibe I got
.
But and this is the really funthing about D&D is that that
campaign, which is a campaignfor all intents and purposes,
that campaign, that is what thedungeon master decided.
Hey, this, this dragon not verysmart this dragon, even though

(28:06):
he's named I, this is how hedoes his breath weapon and he's
hasn't done anything in so longthat he can't do it.
But maybe in your campaign,your interpretation of that
dragon or how the dragons act,well, that's what you modify, as
long as your players understandthat this your story here and

(28:35):
how you've modified, as long asthey know that you've modified
that and that can be done withinjust the regular story, and
there is.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
So there are intelligent dragons.
There is an unintelligentdragon.
I do have to mention these guysbecause they're not intelligent
, they are just monsters.
The, the my brain's blinkingnow.
It's the dragon that it's fine,there's just more editing.

(29:07):
It's the illythid, the illythiddragon.
It is an unintelligent monster.
It is just under the control ofan elder brain that is
implanted in its back, basically, that being said, it is not a
simple monster to fight, and Iwill mention that this is a
dragon that makes parties angry,which is why it's often a

(29:28):
forgotten one.
If you get hit with its breathweapon and you fail, a
constitution saving throw, youimmediately get infected with a
tadpole and start becoming illwith it.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
So there's a lot of dangerous dragons out there.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
There are a lot of very dangerous dragons out there
, and I mean, like, even withmagic starting to creep over
into D&D, with the settings likeTheros and Ravnica being
pre-made, which I think I thinkwizards should do more of those,
because magic has a lot ofreally rich lore, because they
used to write full books formagic with every single set, and
so there's a lot of things totap into now that they're both

(30:03):
under wizards of the coast, andI think that that's something
that I hope they'll expand onAlso, like my YouTube video that
came out a couple of days orweeks ago, I'm not exactly sure.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
What's the name of the video?

Speaker 1 (30:15):
It's converting the elder dinosaurs into D&D.
That's the topic of the video,and the elder dinos are
something that I very much enjoybecause they're from the
original plane I was on in Magic.
They're kind of this primordialcreature from the dimension
that they're in and they aregiant dinosaurs that kind of are
avatars of the god of the plane, and I think that there's a lot

(30:37):
of lore because there's merfolkon there and their entire bit
in Ixalon the plane is that theyare the explorers of the plane,
and then the vampires are kindof the knights and the
conquistadors, and then there'sthe Sun Empire, which built
their entire empire aroundworshiping the god, and then
there's six unique gods thereand, for example, the one god

(30:58):
killed another one and took hisplace as he was hatching from an
egg, because the gods hatchfrom a capsule like egg, and
that's something I hope theyexplore because there's a lot of
really deep lore for each plane.
But we've only explored twoplanes.
That being said, in one of thoseplanes we actually brought up
one of the most iconic dragonsin all of magic.

(31:20):
Unfortunately it's not NicolBolas, who was the big bad guy
for a very long time, for tenyears of magic's history, in a
20-year game.
He was the big bad, so wedidn't go through Nicol Bolas,
but we did get Nivmizet.
Nivmizet is a sorcerer who isalso a dragon that rules over
humans almost benevolently andhe rules over inventors who are

(31:43):
building things.
But he's a red dragon.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
But he's not evil, he's lawful good and this is a
very important part here is itcan be easy for DMs to get
caught up in that.
I mentioned this idea already.
But just because the book thisis the rules versus creativity,

(32:08):
just because the book says allred dragons are evil, is not
inherently the case, and you caneither follow that rule to a T.
You can say we're not reusingthat rule at all, or you can say
that that is a rule and here isa dragon that is an exception
to that rule, because no personis born inherently evil, so that

(32:34):
has to be learned, eitherthrough nature or through just
its experiences in life.
But there are dragons who.
What if there was a red dragonthat was dumped off at an
orphanage the good guy orphanageand he learns how to be a good
guy, and then that is a reddragon that should be evil but

(32:58):
instead is helpful.
Or alternatively, the oppositecould be true.
There are certain dragon colorsand types that mean towards
good.
You can have one, be evil aslong as you stink.
Once you've got an idea, stickto that idea.
Don't suddenly just be like, ohwell, this dragon, here's how,

(33:22):
he's a good guy.
And then, oh, this other dragonis good and I don't have an
idea why.
As long as you're consistentwith, that is the key.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
And an important thing to remember when deciding
whether your dragon is going tobe good or evil is knowing where
good and evil really comes fromin characters, in people, in
backstories.
It comes from the culture you'reraised, in, the parents and, at
the end of the day, thepantheon that you follow Back.
Dragons follow Tiamat, whoTiamat's a very different story.

(33:55):
Tiamat will always be.
Tiamat will almost always beevil, unless you're changing
base D&D's lore because IO, theoriginal dragon, in most
iterations split into a good andevil half and IO was really the
kind of that neutral, trueperson and split into two
aspects, which are Bahamut andTiamat.
So Tiamat will always be eviland as long as they're always

(34:17):
exposed to Tiamat's kind ofpantheon and followers and
chromatic dragon parents, theywill always be evil.
But if a red or a black dragonis picked up by golden dragons
who follow Bahamut and are good,they're probably going to turn
out at least slightly good.
They may not fit in and ifthere's bad things in their
upbringing they may switch tobeing evil.

(34:39):
But you don't always have to doit.
Just make sure if they're goingto be a good, chromatic dragon,
you have to have a reason whythey're good and why they're not
following Tiamat.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
And maybe this is this would be an interesting
dragon is having a dragon thatfollows Tiamat.
That is a good guy, but he'sonly a good guy for his, it's
only a means to an end.
So, oh hey, he's going to helpout, he's going to help out,
he's going to be a really goodguy.
Oh, I've changed a whole bunch.

(35:10):
Oh, I can take over the entirenation and have it been to my
will.
That's really why I'm I've beenhelping the party, or I've been
helping and being acting like Ihave changed is because I'm a
double crosser.
I'm a double, I'm a, you know,a double agent.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
And I would say that that's still an evil character,
though, to me, because for me Iview it as intentions versus
actions.
That is an evil character thatis pretending to be good.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
He's still a follower of Tiamat.
He's just pretending he isn'tfor future investments down the
line.
And then he's like, oh no, Iactually I'm a law idiot.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, and definitely when you're considering that
there's things like is it waterdeep that has the staff that
protects them from dragons, andno dragon can enter water deep.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
I think.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
I think it is, but I'm not a hundred percent but it
was made by chromatic dragon,if I remember correctly, to ward
off other chromatic dragonsthat were evil.
So it's not inherentlysomething that doesn't happen.
That being said, a big part ofhow dragons act, especially
named dragons, the bigger andolder the dragon is there's this

(36:25):
thing that is mentioned inFizmans, called true site.
Where they begin, they obtain,as a dragon, the ability to see
through other planes and seeother iterations of themselves.
So they can see every existenceof them on every plane, and
usually they kind of go a littlebit crazy with it, because the

(36:46):
more versions of them there are,the less power that they have.
So there actually is a dragonin D&D's lore whose name starts
with a I want to say an I but Ican't remember it right now.
I can't remember his name offthe top of my head, but it's
mentioned in Fizmans.
He sees every iteration ofhimself and decides to start

(37:07):
going dimension hopping to killevery other version of himself
to have as much power aspossible.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
And that's scary.
That's Kang the Conqueror, Isthat?
No, that's not his name, butthat is a.
That is a Marvel villain whodoes the exact same thing.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, so all dragons have this innate ability too.
So also, you have to questionyourself are they going to
develop that ability?
And typically, in D&D's lore,only really old dragons who have
an like large amount of powerdo that.
So keep that in mind whenyou're running your games.

(37:45):
I would say, though, one thingthat makes dragons stand out our
layers.
Do you have any particularstrong feelings about layers?
I'm sure, I'm sure you'll enjoymine.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah.
So I think that when it comesto dragons that have layers not
all of them do, but the onesthat do are supposed to be more
deadly.
These are a little bit more ofan investment in the by the DM,
because you have to not onlyread the stat block, you also
have to read the layer actionsand figure out when you want to

(38:23):
do a layer action.
But basically, when you have adragon in a layer it's supposed
to be more dangerous than adragon flying around.
There's a lesser risk usuallywith finding a dragon out in the
wild than in a layer Because,as an intelligent creature, if

(38:48):
the dragon starts seeing, hey,I'm going to lose this fight,
the dragon is not going tosunken cost fallacy.
The dragon is typically notgoing to try and win against the
party.
There's not a lot that thedragon has to gain by killing a
party If it costs him a lot ofpain and it makes him injured.

(39:09):
So in the wild they'retypically going to fly off.
In a layer, however and thisdepends on the dragon, either
personality or color they'regoing to more likely defend
their horde because a lot ofdragons have a lot of treasure,

(39:31):
have a lot of gold, have a lotof things that they value and
you're in their domain.
So with stuff like layeractions, this makes dragons more
dangerous, because they're notgoing to run away.
They're up against the wall.
They're going to give youeverything they have because

(39:53):
they don't want to die and theydon't want you taking their
stuff.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
So my parties, usually refuse to enter dragon
layers for any reason, and thereis a reason for that.
I love dragons.
They're my favorite monster,unless you have to.
You do not want to fight adragon in a layer with me, you
will.
There is a 90% chance that atleast one person will die.

(40:17):
They're going to use everylayer action, and climbing down
their layer to get to them willbe riddled with traps because
they've had time to plan.
And then you're going to get tothe bottom and you're going to
have to fight this dragon andkill it with its layer actions.
So good luck.
Normal, normal DM things tear.
My traps are particularly badas well.
If you kill it and it is anevil dragon, it will return as a

(40:42):
dragon.
It will literally stand back upand you will have to kill a
dragon which after that becauseI mean, let's be honest, if it's
an evil dragon and you justkilled it in its hoard and tried
to steal its stuff, it is goingto resurrect itself from the
dead and make you miserable.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
You could also, potentially, instead of using,
like a dragon, which the term isDraco, which it is Draco which,
yeah, so you could you coulduse the Draco Lich Stat Blanc,
which is incredibly mean to doto your players after they use
everything to kill the evildragon.
But this is one of my favoriteenemies, not because I've ever

(41:24):
actually run it, but it's theconcept and the writing of it
that I really like.
The Revenant If an evil dragonsees it's going to lose, and it
gets more and more man with theconcept of the Revenant as an
enemy.
It's an undead, it's a zombiethat comes back to life because

(41:47):
it is so angry at whateverhappened that it died, whatever
the circumstances.
It was so angry that it has ayear to get revenge before it
turns back into nothing.
So you could potentially cursethe party and have a dragon come
back later, but it's a littlebit less strong.

(42:09):
Or if you still kind of want todo a sort of oh, you've done
three quarters of the fight bykilling this evil dragon, now
you've got a weaker Draco Lichwith some Revenant capabilities
or something, something whereyou kind of make it a little
easier once you've gotten tothat point.

(42:29):
But also that's.
That's a choice that I would do, because I'm nicer, see
actually I view that as meaner,really.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, because how I would run that if the dragon
comes back as a remnant?
I like the idea that withremnants there was a alternate
rule put into one of the one ofthe Dungeon Master Hand books
for them, where they constantlyknow where the people they're
trying to get revenge on are.
And to me, a much more cruelone is that every time it comes

(43:07):
back it tracks them down anddestroys anything and anyone
that helped them.
So now the party has no friends, no allies and no towns, and
they're a walking curse, andthey're and every time that they
go into a town they know thattown will die yeah, I wouldn't
use that rule.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
But another neat idea kind of based off of that is
what?
If you kill the evil dragon,you get the horde, you're good,
all the bones fall and crumbleand everything.
And then maybe it takes sometime, maybe it takes a month,
maybe it takes a year, dependingon how long you think the

(43:47):
in-game time will tank.
But over time that's whatbrings the dragon back and it
becomes a draco.
Lich is, it doesn't just autores, but just his bones.
It takes a period of time andthen the party has a period of
time where they think everythingis good before suddenly they

(44:11):
are fighting this draco lichagain and that's actually a good
idea too.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
I do think one thing you could do that would be kind
of fun is also, with them, youcould have the horde be cursed.
I mentioned this because it wasan idea I'm actually using,
thinking about using for my, formy campaign.
That is an astral one.
One of my party members wantedto have a gambling addiction and

(44:36):
so whenever a coin touches himit gets stuck on him until
someone breaks the curse and hecan become encumbered from it.
What if every single coin therecan't be spent because they get
stuck on you?
If it's a coin, horde or insome way curse it?
I'm thinking almost like apirate the Caribbean-esque curse

(44:57):
where it's only lifted wheneither you have a high-level
cleric break the curse or whenall of the gold has been
returned to the horde, or all ofthe items and that's something
a dragon would do, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Now here's another idea of an evil thing you could
do with a horde that a dragonwould do.
I believe it's in Tasha'scauldron of everything.
There is a mimic horde.
It was a mimic that is a that'strying to pretend to be a horde
of money.
A pile of gold, a large pile ofgold.

(45:35):
I could see a dragon.
This is one evil dragon.
I could see a dragon getting amimic, having it be a horde and
then having his horde somewhereelse and if, let's say, the
party comes across the mimichorde they're like oh my god,

(45:59):
great, we did it.
And then the mimic horde isactually what alerts the dragon,
or it's.
The horde is actually hidden insome secret compartment further
in, but the party would have tosearch deeper for it, or
something along those lines,where they kill the dragon and

(46:20):
they're like we get the horde.
It's not the horde, it's now amimic horde.
That might be a littlefrustrating to players, but that
would be very funny, especiallywhat if there was some kind of
magical item in there that theyhad needed to get and later they
actually have to return and nowthat they're more wise and in

(46:41):
there a much stronger party,maybe then they actually find
that dragon horde and they getinto the actual room it is in,
or something along those linesand I really like the idea of
okay, this is one that I ran andit wasn't.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
I've run this in two groups and one group loved this
idea and one group hated thisidea.
They had to go in and kill ablack dragon that was destroying
a town.
Pretty pretty stock standard.
They had to kill the dragon.
Well, I don't know one of howmuch you know about black
dragons, but they have anoptional horde.
Where they're they keep bonesand things of people that

(47:18):
they've killed as trophies ofstrong warriors.
The entire horde of bonesresurrected as skeletons that is
an evil idea.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
But man, is that a cool set piece of an idea?

Speaker 1 (47:32):
oh yeah, it was.
And again I ran it with oneparty and they hated it and I
ran it with another party andone of my players literally
looked up at me goes well, yep,fuck us, we get this and and his
point and and the reason hefelt that way is because they,
their group that is a little bitmore power gamey and they've

(47:56):
they in in that campaign.
They were, they were murderhoboing and so he goes.
And he looked up and he goesyep, fuck us.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
And I was like this is our comeuppance, this is our
well.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
We're not gonna be surviving this one they lived,
but also only one of the partyof six, like it was a massacre,
because I ran old skeleton rulesfor D&D where it steals
permanent hit points and theywere just, they were gone.

(48:27):
They were really gone becausethey didn't have a cleric either
, because they were all playinglike the really strong power
gamey ones where they wereplaying like padlocks and things
that were broken and no onemulticlass into cleric because,
um, they weren't expecting tohave to deal with large hordes
of undead, because I told them,well, I'm not gonna deal with a
lich.
When they asked me aboutcharacter creation, they're like

(48:48):
well, we see a lich at anypoint?
I was like no, so they thoughtthey were fine to you know.
Well, they asked specificallyare we gonna see a necromancer?
I said no, but you saw a blackdragon who performs evil magic.
So I thought that that wasn'tnecessarily a lie.
The horde was cursed and theykind of agreed on that, but they
loved that idea.
But my more role play heavygroup, they they understood the

(49:12):
role play piece but they hatedthe encounter and that's where I
would tone it down and have ithave a smaller horde, but I feel
like that kind of almost killsthe vibe, so I wouldn't really
do it in that case.
It just depends on your party,I feel like yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
And this is just one of those things where you got to
engage with your players.
You know, you know you've got areally role head, role play,
heavy group.
Maybe kind of keep, this is aset piece.
Maybe don't go the full mile.
If you know, this is a groupthat loves to fight and loves to

(49:54):
try and make optimal characters.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
This is great yeah, and it's like having a curse on
the horde can be fun.
It just, I would say, gauge yourcurse based off of the party,
because like a curse where it'salmost pirates of the Caribbean
they can't taste food, theycan't sleep, they're just
miserable until every singlepiece is back, like in Piracy

(50:17):
Caribbean, one that could bereally fun for a role play heavy
group versus a, and like thecurse where a coin sticks to you
and you become encumbered.
That could be really fun for arole play heavy group and
they're gonna realize it prettyquick as they like touch the
coin and then they can't get itin the bag, so they're not gonna
put like a hundred on them atonce.
But then when they go into townand they start touching other

(50:40):
money and it starts gettingstuck on them and they're like
well, I can't pay for anythingeither because it it's stuck on
me.
That's something that's likereally inconvenient.
But then you just kind of haveto find a high level cleric, or
you have to.
You make another stipulationwhich you could have the dragon
have a note in there orsomething, or you could have

(51:02):
them meet a cleric and be likeoh well, you can dispel it this
way and just like make it astory piece and that I feel like
is gonna be better for a roleplay group, then okay, now all
of the coins merged togetherinto one iron four iron golems.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Have fun after they've just killed a dragon
yeah, oh, how cool would it beif suddenly you get the horde
and then suddenly, like some ofthe coins, start forming like a
golem.
You're like, just like a coingolem.
That would also.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
This is why dragons are cool dragons are really
versatile and I think that'swhat makes them fun, and really
it comes down to how vindictiveyou feel the dragon would be.
Also because, I'm gonna behonest, dragons are very
arrogant creatures by nature.
All of them, regardless of whatalignment they have, they don't

(52:00):
know humility.
There is not a such thing as ahumanitarian dragon.
They don't exist.
So if you guys are gonna killthem, they're all gonna be
really vindictive, whetherthey're good or not, like a.
So I'm gonna be real with you.
A gold dragon that you murderwho is leading a town, who is a

(52:20):
good guy, it's probably gonna bereally, really mad, and their
horde is usually magic books.
He's probably gonna set up amagic trap that's gonna blow you
to heaven, like and just beinghonest, or like teleport you to
another plane, like the astroplane, where then you'll
suffocate.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
Yeah, or look at a paper Mario in the thousand-year
door as an example of dragonswho are a little more.
They're selfish, but they alsothey aren't just solitary, like
beholders are solitary.
Each beholder thinks that theyare the best beholder.

(52:56):
A dragon is willing to workwith other dragons if they see
the beneficial goal.
So for instance, in paper Marioin the thousand-year door there
is a dragon very early on thatMario takes care of, using a
weakness of it, but then lateron he finds another dragon, and

(53:18):
what?
This is the brother to thedragon that Mario vanquished
earlier in the game, and thenyou have to deal with that, and
that can be really fun too andthere's also like all of this,
there's like cosmic dragons, andI know they exist in D&D
because I've seen him homebrewat least.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
I think they work.
Can't think at one point, butthey they're, at least in some
game this way, where once adragon hits a certain level of
strength, they become oneomnipresence and they understand
all things.
If you're dealing with dragonslike that, they're going to be a
horde, they're going to be anenlarged group, they're going to
kill you.
You don't want to fight acouncil of solar dragons, yeah,

(54:03):
like there's there's no otherway to put it like when you get
them all together, dragons arereally interesting because
they're versatile, but you alsokind of have to recognize the
traits that aren't gonna go awayon dragons.
Dragons are always arrogant.
That is the one thing everydragon shares and part of that
arrogance, story-wise, lore-wise, is.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
That's what makes that's their weakness.
Society and civilization workstogether.
Dragons think individually.
They are inherently flawedcreatures, regardless of how
many there are, whether they'rean endangered species or whether
you find them all over theplace, they fail to kind of work

(54:47):
together.
And because they don't worktogether that is why they aren't
, they all being the kings, thethat subjugate everybody in the
forgotten realms and Eberron andin the magic worlds, etc.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Etc and I will also point this out because this is a
very important lore piece and Ithink it's a big thing to
mention, especially in new DMs.
Dragons have never and willnever want to control everything
.
They want to control their areaand they are happy with that.
They don't.
There is not a dragon who trulywants to go out of his way to

(55:27):
conquer everything.
They may like lust for power,but they're never gonna try to
conquer every single thing thatexists and the reason for that
is dragons are the original racein D&D.
If you read Visman's strategy ofdragons, no matter what D&D
lore you go with, dragons arefrom the original world and
you're an in D&D.

(55:48):
The world's have been destroyedmultiple times and brought back
together.
The illithids held the entireplanet at one point.
The I think they're asheras,they also hold held the whole
world at one point.
Humans held the whole world atone point.
All of these races have heldthe world at one point during
different iterations.
The creators of the Naga, whichI can't remember their name,

(56:09):
but they were snake people theycontrolled the whole world in
the whole galaxy at one point,really long time ago.
Yeah, a really long time ago.
But dragons, which literallyare.
Regardless of which pantheonpeople follows other than AO,
are the only creators of theuniverse.
If they wanted to, they alreadywould have.

(56:31):
Their gods are still alive.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Bahamut is still alive and he is one of the
original entities with AO,tiamat one of the original
entities with AO, and theyhaven't taken the world, and so
that kind of shows that theywant to have their little piece
of heaven and be left alone oneof, I think, the coolest thing
you can do this with othercreatures to crack ins beholders

(56:57):
big name threats is when youenter an area or if they just
took over an area relativelyrecently this is from both fizz
bands and the monster manual ischaracters that are so powerful
magically dragons and beholdersspecifically they will start to

(57:20):
affect the area they are in.
So a cool idea could be is yourparty goes to a town and they
explore the town and like thetown, but you know it's time to
move on from Hupperduke.
When they come back toHupperduke maybe they're just
passing through or maybe theycome back for some plot reason

(57:41):
suddenly the town is covered ina blizzard.
And now you know that somewherein the overall geographic
vicinity, a I think it's a Whitedragon has taken up residence,
and you know this because of thearea.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
Silver dragons are the same way too.
They'll.
They'll do it too, but they'rethe good version.
So maybe a silver dragon hasbeen hanging out there for a
couple of years, and that's overthe time frame of years.
If your party leaves for acouple of years and you do a
flash forward, that's when theywould come back and see that.
It's not like a right-of-waything, but what I actually
really like is because they'refrom the original world.
If a red dragon homes near atown, maybe the whole area in

(58:24):
that planes Literally becomes amountain range.
Like these creatures are sostrong, they're literally moving
the tectonic plates of wherethey're at and they may just be
breaking up the land and usingmagic.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yeah, and if you're concerned about, like the year
rule or anything like that,remember rules versus creativity
.
If you want to create a coolset piece, just stay consistent
with it.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Yeah, I would just say I wouldn't do it like where
the party leaves and they comeback and it's a winter
wonderland within like a night.
Yeah that seems a little tooquick, but I would even say,
give it a month like a month.
The storm could have started,it could have started to pile up
, but you wouldn't have thingslike glaciers yet.
Glaciers might take timeglaciers.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
And maybe, maybe it takes a week after the white
dragon has been slain for theNatural environment to start
returning less and less snowover time, you know the
temperature starts gettingwarmer and warmer.
You know, slowly you're seeingit go from what the dragon's

(59:36):
breath weapon is into how thatarea should normally be and
Before this comment happens, I'mgonna address before the
comment happens.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
Well, why?
What about wish?
If a dragon has a wish and yourparty comes back to fight them,
it can just wish that yourparty is dead.
So you don't want to give adragon wish.
I'm just gonna be honest.
That is something you neverwant to give the dragon's access
to.
It's just, if they're gonnawish for the train to be
different, they're gonna wishfor your party to be dead.
That's that's honestly my belief, because when you're building

(01:00:11):
these encounters, I would say,stay under six level spells for
any like general encounter, evenif it's a boss fight.
Give them more spell slots.
Don't let them cast spellsabove, above, like probably a
level.
Anything above a level just isgame-ending, and I I have
personally even played somepower gamey characters Trying to

(01:00:33):
actually win a fight against aboss with eighth, ninth level
spells if your DM knows whatthey're doing is nearly
impossible, and I think thatthat's really important to keep
in your mind.
That being said, there's a lotyou can do.
There is a lot that you can do,and Anti-magic fields are
something fun that dragons couldcast that are a little wonky.

(01:00:54):
Yeah, I mean, it's like it'sone of those things where it
could gut them really well.
It could gut the party, but it'salso gonna cut the dragon.
So it's kind of, as you'redragging, gonna take that game,
they're gonna just magicthemselves out of existence.
But it could be fun becausethen they're gonna your party's
gonna suspect that somethingthere that's not a beholder or a

(01:01:15):
dragon, because there's nomagic.
Why would there be a magic bosshiding in an anti-magic?
And that's where you can kindof be sneaky to try to hide
dragons.
Hiding dragons is really,really interesting, and what I
like to do when I'm doing thatterrain effect that you talked
about, joe, is it Slowly spreadsfrom around them as like the
epicenter, so it might take timebefore it hits the town.

(01:01:37):
Your party may treach through asnowstorm in a mountain range
that is normally sunny andthey're like God, the high
elevation snow really suckstoday and then they come back in
a month, two months, and it's asheet of ice, a.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Whole sheet of ice and this also.
This sets up the danger of thedragon Early.
This also can get your playersto start thinking differently.
If he can do this all the wayout here, what can he do in
person?
Something really cool that D&D,I think, could do a little
better with is Doing things likethe Witcher.

(01:02:15):
The Witcher they have a lot ofdifferent monsters and they're
all very dangerous.
But if you come prepared andyou know what kind of monster
you're dealing with, that makesit feasible for a human to kill
something horribly monstrous.
If the party is already seeingthat the train around the area

(01:02:37):
that they've already been inApparently not has already been
in and has changed, this mightmake parties start feeling like,
hey, we have gone to Plan ahead, let's learn about white

(01:02:58):
dragons, let's learn about howdo we deal with this threat, and
that that is both You'repreparing for a combat, but also
that's role-play to at the sametime, even though you're not
fighting the dragon yet thepreparation, the prep time.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
So a thing that I don't actually mention to new
DMs very often because I wantthem to focus on things that are
more fundamental, but Iactually will say I'm gonna
include this episode anyways formore of our veteran DMs who
listen.
If your party's prepping for adragon, keep this in the back of
your mind.
Your players, depending on howmuch they're actually

(01:03:37):
role-playing if the dragon isstealing food from the town,
your players may want to poisonthe food that the dragon is
stealing.
That's a really great idea.
Don't take that away from thatplayer.
Actively reduce the maximum hitpoints or give it some sort of
negative debuff before yourplayers get there, because if
you just tell them no or youdon't do a stat change, you're

(01:04:01):
just stifling the game and thecreativity.
It's something I do, I'veplayed before and, yeah, if they
could sit there and just poisonit to death, I wouldn't drop
more than half of its max hitpoints or giving it a fairly
like mundane effect, like maybedrop its AC by two to five, but
that can be huge, like that'simportant.

(01:04:22):
So don't punish your playersfor having good ideas.
Let them have their good ideasand let them use them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
This could be a whole episode, honestly, where you
balance the the difficulty ofthe fight with the the
creativity of the player,because on one hand, you don't
want to make it too easy, but ifyou just say, oh yeah, well,
you did some, you, you helpedyou, you did this news a

(01:04:50):
creative idea, but Becauseyou're like, thinking about, it,
still needs to be a difficultfight, that then devalues the
emphasis on what the party hasdone to outsmart the enemy, and
so you, you lose out on thatsatisfying feeling of getting

(01:05:12):
the upper hand on the dragon.
So you want to make sure it'sstill not a cakewalk, but you
want to make sure that they feel.
They feel like they accomplishsomething before the fight began
by poisoning the food that thedragon was taking or by Forcing
it out of its layer or somethingof that sort.

(01:05:33):
That that is a big thing, thatis hard for Dungeon Masters to
do, but it's a more.
It's a more.
It shows your higher skill as adungeon master and, overall, I
would say, game designer and Iwould say that it comes down to

(01:05:55):
the fact of you have control.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
If the dragon is constantly eating poison food
from the village, it'seventually gonna stop getting
food from the village, or itmight move on and build a new
layer if it, if it hasn't beenthere that long.
That's on you as a DM to decidehow you want to deal with it.
But, like, if you are gonna letthem poison the dragon which
can be a fun idea Maybe make itlethargic, take away one attack,

(01:06:20):
don't take away damage.
This is a very important pointwhen you're trying to add some
more Interesting mechanics.
Don't take away damage, becausedamaging damage is what makes
the encounter feel scary,whereas you could take away a
see or health and you can roleplay that.
If he's feeling really sluggish,you see his back beginning to

(01:06:41):
to like cripple under the, underthe stress, and and you can
have them come in and himalready be kind of like Foaming
at the mouth, maybe bleeding alittle bit, maybe his eyes are
bloodshot and he's struggling tosee them, and you can even give
him disadvantage on his roles,maybe as an option for what
their poison has done to him.
But regardless, you reallyshould be planning for things

(01:07:03):
like that, because the dragon isimmune to paralysis and all of
these other things.
But you can still give yourplayers rewards in ways that
it's gonna make the dragon seem,and disadvantage is one that
could be pretty easy, because ifthey've been poisoning it for a
couple days, he reaches to takehis swing and he falls under
his own weight because he'sweakened by the poison.

(01:07:24):
That seems like something thatwhat happened and it's it's kind
of one of those Interactivepieces that I think is important
.
Do you kind of have any otherideas on like effects that could
happen from maybe him beingpoisoned.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
So this is kind of a funnier one.
But so Okay, let's say youpoison him.
Poison him, he eats the food,goes into his lair and you're
like, wow, hopefully that solvesthat crisis.
And Well, it won't.
But you see the dragon kind ofcome out of its lair and then
kind of comedically like, almostlike you see a cat Do it, you

(01:08:02):
see him up, chunk all of it, andthen you see him like angrily
look at the town, you can reduceits hit points Maybe if,
depending on how effective youwant the poison to be, dusing
the hit points maybe make everytime he has he tries to hit,
it's a minus two, minus three orsomething like that.
But you've gotten him out ofhis lair and Maybe a side effect

(01:08:28):
of the party Poisoning him inthis manner is that now he's out
of the lair.
But maybe the party isn't asprepared to fight him now in the
moment.
But now they have to and that'sit.
That is Still like that's alittle more on the challenge
rather than the reward foroutsmarting, but that is an
interesting story that hashappened Because of the party's

(01:08:55):
action.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
So here's a story one , and I love that idea.
What if, when the dragon firstmoves in, after your players
leave the area, the dragon makesa deal with the townspeople of
hey?
I won't kill you If you give memy stuff, but it's still harming
the townspeople because it'sstealing stuff and so it thinks

(01:09:17):
it's being benevolent.
But then the moment that yourplayers start poisoning it, yes,
it weakens it.
But now there's a dragon comingfor revenge on the town because
it views it as them being isbeing ungrateful because they're
intelligent and they'rearrogant, so it's gonna view
that as ungratefulness for theirallies, which it thinks it gave
them, and that's somethingwhere you can really kind of

(01:09:37):
convert that into a story piece.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
I feel like or maybe it's something where there, the
dragon is taking funds from thetown and they have to spend a
certain amount each month tomake sure he doesn't destroy the
town.
But then Something that aplayer could do is be like, well
, what if we hide in the wagon?

(01:09:59):
What if we hide and we do?
This and and Get in the pile ofgold that's going towards the
grad dragons layer, or we dosome reconning by doing that.
Druids are infamous for Reconlike that, so that that opens up
more ideas.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
Yeah, and I think this is really where I want to
cut the video, because I feellike we've covered a lot of
really good topics and given alot of Interesting topics.
If you enjoyed this video,potentially subscribe to our
YouTube channel.
We do have a patreon up if youwant to support the show, and we
do appreciate all of ourpatreon supporters.
Other than that, I really hopeeverybody has a wonderful rest

(01:10:39):
of the week and we will see younext time see you next time, you

(01:11:12):
, you.