must everything exist to be killed?
And while I looked and looked and couldn't find a picture, the 80's movie Dragonslayer included a few dragon whelps as well.
The first picture is a comedy, the second is an ice drake or something, and third is Eragon so it doesn't count (yes, young adult fiction doesn't get a vote).
Wyrmling stats add nothing to the game. You might as well include stat blocks for frost giant todders so that "heroic" low level PCs can get their baby-killing in their adventures.
Ps. The Godzilla babies were not intelligent, so its not the same (and it was a straight rip-off from Jurassic Park).
I disagree. Huge dragons have to come from somewhere, and as the Japanese saying goes, "Even a cub is still a wolf." Heck, to me dragons bigger than Huge strain credibility. I know they're supposed to be magical flying lizards, but I prefer my dragons more lizardy and less magical. YMMVLarge is the size of a horse or a bear. Huge is the size of an elephant, and thats pretty small compared to what we see in fantasy drawings. You could get one in a headlock and expect to win.
I've never even seen a dragon smaller than Huge in a fantasy drawing (pseudo-dragons not included), and most are as big as a house so that if you ride one it you don't look like an idiot.
**note that this is not a serious argument by me, for my examples I will use reds, which is cheating because they are bigger and stronger**
I would say that a badger(small), black bear(medium), and tiger(large) are good examples of comparison in size. I would encourage you to try to get one in a headlock and see how that turns out. :P
This is also noting that none of these creatures can fly, are fundamentally armor-plated, can set you on fire, and are quite possibly smarter than you are.
I kind of like the little dragons, but that may be because I rarely use them below 10th level. Even then I always kind of see them as a tough fight as a toddler for humans, kind of an example of how far beyond dragons are from humans.
It certainly adds perspective. How unimpressed must an ancient red dragon be by the thought of a 10th level band of "mighty dragonslayers" after they are victorious over what basically boils down to a overly-hostile 12 year old, and brag how they only lost one of their band in the process.
That's like the cops comming to arrest your nephew Timmy for riding his skateboard in the street, and he KO's one of them and puts two more in the hospital before they get the skateboard away from him.
Flavor your food to suit, but please don't say that "Wyrmling stats add nothing to the game" because by their very existance, they do. The add an option to the game. Remove the stats, remove the option. If you don't like them, thats cool. I can totally see taking the Epic Dragon paradigm across the board: wyrmlings are Huge, and can flatten empires if they so please.
It really all depends on the specific nature of world versimilitude you want. Removing the current dragon age category system and its subsystems would change that versimilitude, in a similar way to making cantrips at will, or rolling Disable Device into Open Lock. Its not a bad thing, but it is a choice that, when made, changes the inherent nature of the game, maybe not much, maybe imperceptably, but it does change it. If that change is to your taste, awesome! If not, change it again.
Since the Sweet Spot of adventuring seems to be 10-12, at least as far as PC levels go, then it follows that CR 14-16 is the upper range of "holycrap that thing is gonna kill us but we might have a chance". At those CRs, most dragons are huge, a few of the lesser ones might be gargantuan. None of them are collosal. That in and of itself is interesting, now that I think about it.
BTW, that first picture with the strung up green dragon is one of my favorite pictures of all time.
Yeah, me too, theres no comedy there, thats the first real picture in the 2nd Ed PHB regarding "adventuring". It shows it pretty well: Banged Up Adventurers, a dead monster, and a chest full of loot to buy the drinks that make the bruises not ache so much.
And David, I wanted to add, your post was win, and I will quote it in the future just to further emphasize why the "Big Red" really isn't impressed with your adventurers "awesome power". Great post!
Wait, Eragon doesn't count because its "teenage" or "adolescent"? What the heck? I admit, I don't like Eragon personally, but you do realize that, by your own declaration, ALL D&D novels and to a large degree D&D itself by proxy doesn't count either? They go on the same shelf in the library, you know?
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**note that this is not a serious argument by me, for my examples I will use reds, which is cheating because they are bigger and stronger**
I would say that a badger(small), black bear(medium), and tiger(large) are good examples of comparison in size. I would encourage you to try to get one in a headlock and see how that turns out. :P
This is also noting that none of these creatures can fly, are fundamentally armor-plated, can set you on fire, and are quite possibly smarter than you are.
I kind of like the little dragons, but that may be because I rarely use them below 10th level. Even then I always kind of see them as a tough fight as a toddler for humans, kind of an example of how far beyond dragons are from humans.
It certainly adds perspective. How unimpressed must an ancient red dragon be by the thought of a 10th level band of "mighty dragonslayers" after they are victorious over what basically boils down to a overly-hostile 12 year old, and brag how they only lost one of their band in the process.
That's like the cops comming to arrest your nephew Timmy for riding his skateboard in the street, and he KO's one of them and puts two more in the hospital before they get the skateboard away from him.
Well said. I do agree 110%
And thanks for the laughs.
Officer Bill: We got him sarg! He's in the back in a re-enforced cell.
Sargent Jones: That's the last time that little punk will be skateboarding in the park...I CAN TELL YOU THAT!
Officer Bill: Yea...some of the guys are banged up and I think John's jaw might need to be reconstructed, but it was worth it.
Sargent Jones: Well we need to keep these streets safe. We took a pledge.
Officer Bill: Uh oh...
Sargent Jones: What?
Officer Bill: His Dad is outside...
Sargent Jones: Oh s$%@...oh...Do something! Call the ARMY! HIDE THE DOUGHNUTS!!*
*Any police please forgive the doughnut comment...I cannot pass up a cop-doughnut joke.
When I think of slaying dragons, I think of this Elmore painting from the basic set.
That's ironic because the painting referred to earlier in the thread, with the low level adventurers posing proudly in front of a small treasure chest with the dead baby dragon strung up behind them like a shark on a pier is an Elmore also... It's called "Dragon Slayers and Proud of It".
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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The first picture is a comedy, the second is an ice drake or something, and third is Eragon so it doesn't count (yes, young adult fiction doesn't get a vote).
Wyrmling stats add nothing to the game. You might as well include stat blocks for frost giant todders so that "heroic" low level PCs can get their baby-killing in their adventures.
Ps. The Godzilla babies were not intelligent, so its not the same (and it was a straight rip-off from Jurassic Park).
[sarcasm] So anything that doesn't support your arguement isn't admissible, got it. [/scarcasm]
Anyone who played sunless Citadel knows how dangerous a Wyrmling White can be to an unsuspecting party.
And for Frost Giant toddlers, use bugbear stats. Juvenile forst giants, use hill giant stats.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32
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Anyone who played sunless Citadel knows how dangerous a Wyrmling White can be to an unsuspecting party.
AMEN! That little bugger just about killed us, expecially since we were using non-lethal damage to try and subdue instead of kill! I'll take on a tribe of orcs before I tussle with another wyrmling.
I think the key to running a wyrmling is to remember that while it's young, it's the young of a top predator that has clawed its way to that position for a reason. It's deadly, even when little. And it's wily, in the way that a cornered rat is wily.
Anyone who played sunless Citadel knows how dangerous a Wyrmling White can be to an unsuspecting party.
Once more with feeling: no one is arguing that dragons need to be made tougher. Bumping up dragons by a size category or so (without changing anything else) wouldn't really make them tougher.
The only claims I've seen are that:
(1) Dragons of size Huge or larger make for cool visuals, but you don't even get to see one until level 10+.
(2) Killing the babies of an intelligent species isn't very heroic. (Opinions differ on this one, I guess.)
I agree that baby versions of dangerous (sentient) creatures can be good for comic effect sometimes, though. (Like in Sunless Citadel.)
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Yeah, but making them huge but fragile could send out the wrong signal: dragons = pushover.
Look, it's a real case of "whatever floats your boat". I can see you point of view. But smacking down a big, weak dragon isn't really a hell of a lot more heroic than smacking down a small, tough dragon. It's just bigger.
(Y'know, there strikes me as being a really Freudian undertone to a lot of this. Let me just say, I'm satisfied with the size of my wyrm.)
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BTW, that first picture with the strung up green dragon is one of my favorite pictures of all time.
Off topic... but I have to agree... Not only is this one of my favorites, but it depicts the game better, in my mind, than any other bit of art. It certainly makes me nostalgic for my early adventuring days some ~ahem~ years ago.
On topic, I like them of all sizes, as they are past of an ecological niche and as such encountering the young seems natural. I remember setting a green wyrmling on a party of low level adventurers, and it started with chuckles and ended with 2 dead and WAY more respect for anything that mean! Now if I were to make a fiat dragon change I would make them all evil, but I guess I should start a new thread for that.