I’m looking to make dragons truly formidable foes, and was considering giving all dragons Mythic abilities. How bad of an idea would this be? What I was thinking is
-Dragons have an automatic MR equal to their age category-2 (so a Wyrmling would have 0, but a Great Wyrm would have 10).
-However, they don’t gain the actual Mythic subtype (that would be reserved for dragons that were already Mythic).
-If the dragon as it stands wouldn’t have DR, it still doesn’t.
So what do people think? I like the idea of true dragons simply being so powerful and primal that they naturally tap into the same wellspring of power that most creatures could only dream of, and the oldest and most powerful dragons are beings on-par with demigods. Is this a good way to make dragons truly special once again? Or is it a sure-fire TPK?
Assuming their CR gets scaled up a bit one of the first noticeable effects is that PCs will be facing smaller dragons. I find this annoying, YMMV. If it doesn't then PCs are more likely to face something entirely outside their abilities hence a TPK chance.
Maybe add mythic only to the very top end of dragons?
It doesn’t increase their CR by much, actually (going by the book). Since they don’t even get their first Mythic Rank until they’re Young, by the time that they are Adult, it’s only a +2 to CR, on a dragon that’s normally CR 9+ already. By then, dragons are at minimum Large, but could be as big as Gargantuan already. The first time that the Mythic boost would affect the size of the dragon by a “noticeable” amount would be going from Adult or Mature Adult to Old, where the +3 CR puts it at the same/1 higher than the CR for the Old dragon, and it would get a size boost.
So I’m not too concerned with the increased CR causing the PCs to fight smaller dragons, more just that using anything Mythic against non-Mythic PCs might a very bad idea.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That is kind of a lot once you get to mid-to-high levels and the delta is higher. An ancient white dragon with 8 mythic ranks is a terrifyingly powerful force compared to the same dragon without said ranks, maybe even more powerful than the extra +4 to CR would indicate if the path abilities are chosen just so.
And lets not forget- dragons are already insanely dangerous when used effectively (usually dive bombing with breath, heavy use of spells, and whatever traps and minions are appropriate).
In general, giving mythic ranks to dragons is one of the best ways to remove dragons from most encounters until players are higher level and maybe have mythic ranks of their own.
Which is cool. That might just be the kind of game you are running. You are trying to literally deify dragons, after all.
Okay. Maybe 1/2 age category then? So it only scales up to MR 6 by default? Would that be better?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Let's take a look at what that ancient white dragon could get for their 4 MR & hence +2 CR. I'm trying this as I go, I haven't messed around with mythic stuff much.
2 ability boosts, let's make those +2 Str & +2 Con.
2 mythic feats. Make those mythic improved initiative and mythic vital strike, the dragon has the non-mythic versions of those feats. The latter has a lethal rep, but let's try it anyway.
4/day mythic power, surge +1d8.
+4 natural armor.
5 powers. Dragonblood (1d8 cold) and dragon fury (ditto) aren't much but they seem like natural things for a dragon to have. Dual intiative, mistsight and powerful blows are more useful and still appropriate.
Adding it up most of those bonuses are fairly minor, but doubling the actions/round and giving +20 initiative on the first of those is significant, and vital strike for ~160 damage combos with flyby attack very well. It might kill a PC a round - it's going to miss more often than not, but it might get lucky and kill two in one round which could easily create the conditions for a TPK.
Let's take a look at what that ancient white dragon could get for their 4 MR & hence +2 CR. I'm trying this as I go, I haven't messed around with mythic stuff much.
2 ability boosts, let's make those +2 Str & +2 Con.
2 mythic feats. Make those mythic improved initiative and mythic vital strike, the dragon has the non-mythic versions of those feats. The latter has a lethal rep, but let's try it anyway.
4/day mythic power, surge +1d8.
+4 natural armor.
5 powers. Dragonblood (1d8 cold) and dragon fury (ditto) aren't much but they seem like natural things for a dragon to have. Dual intiative, mistsight and powerful blows are more useful and still appropriate.Adding it up most of those bonuses are fairly minor, but doubling the actions/round and giving +20 initiative on the first of those is significant, and vital strike for ~160 damage combos with flyby attack very well. It might kill a PC a round - it's going to miss more often than not, but it might get lucky and kill two in one round which could easily create the conditions for a TPK.
Flawless victory fatality
Are you looking to raise dragons up to the point that they are for the most part out of reach of the party? Adding mythic abilities to most dragons is going make so that the party really does not have much of a chance. This also assumes you are not running a mythic campaign. If your party is mythic, than this might not be a bad idea.
My group isn't Mythic, but it is a larger group than normal (on a regular week, we'll usually have 6, but sometimes we'll have as many as 7). My hope is that I can make it an epic fight any time they fight a dragon, something that requires smart tactics and oftentimes prep to survive/win. If they do something stupid (like try to attack a dragon in its lair), then it's nearly impossible.
At the moment, I think that I would do 1/2 age category for Mythic, because then it doesn't scale quite as badly. Also worthy of note is that I'm looking to make dragons more fundamentally unique (beyond just feat/spell selection), and I feel like using Mythic abilities might be a good way to go about that.
So your requirement is actually stated as:
My group isn't Mythic, but it is a larger group than normal (on a regular week, we'll usually have 6, but sometimes we'll have as many as 7). My hope is that I can make it an epic fight any time they fight a dragon, something that requires smart tactics and oftentimes prep to survive/win. If they do something stupid (like try to attack a dragon in its lair), then it's nearly impossible.
Which really sounds like you just don't see dragon encounters as being as difficult as you would like for them to be.
This would not require mythic ranks to fix.
Played "correctly" (i.e. for appropriate values of 'correct'), almost any dragon of a "sufficient" (i.e. for appropriate values of 'sufficient') age will have what was mentioned before: mazes, machinations, and minions, in addition to might.
You appear to be trying to pump 1 of those 4 where adding e.g. more minions in an encounter would sufficiently change the balance that you could more easily fine tune an encounter. Or making their lair more dangerous with more traps and ambushes. Or making their associations outside their lair more dangerous.
There are a number of levers you could pull before making the dragon itself more powerful.
I am aware that dragons have minions, have highly dangerous lairs, etc. However, what I am trying to do is explicitly make dragons more dangerous themselves. I like the idea of minions, and will use them accordingly. However, what I'm trying to do is to make dragons themselves suitably epic, without needing to rely on their minions.
...Plus, I recently got my claws on Path of Dragons from Legendary games, which includes a bunch of Mythic abilities for dragons, and I want to figure out some way to use it. I just don't want to go overboard.
So yes, I am aware of all the ways one can play dragons properly, make them deadly because they are super smart, super prepared, and are flying murder-machines. I just want to be able to play a dragon v. party fight and have it not be anticlimactic, and then also bring in minions when appropriate.
BTW, none of what I mentioned above is intended to say "don't do this". I also make dragons more dangerous and more unique than the Bestiary would suggest, as do many other campaign settings (Hi, Dark Sun!). Just be aware of the actual difficulty adjustment you're imposing rather than the difficulty suggested by the laughable "2 mythic ranks = 1 CR" formula. When in doubt, start with the CR guidelines for custom monsters and adjust for concerns that those guidelines couldn't predict.
The biggest problem when trying to run an encounter of a dragon without minions is that the action economy heavily favors the party. When the dragon gets a single action and the party is getting 4+ actions it is hard the dragon to keep up. If the party also has pets and uses summoned creatures it gets even worse. To make an encounter truly epic you need to have a way to counter the action economy the players have.
Mythic rules tend to increase damage more than defenses. This means that a mythic foe is often able to take out a player in a turn. What that means is that in order to win the party has to take down the dragon very quickly or they lose. Often who wins is going to depend on who wins the initiative. You encounter is going to be very short with one side being obliterated and the other hardly touched. This to me is exactly the opposite of what you are looking to do.
One thing you could do to make dragons tougher is to give them the magus spell combat. Dragons often have decent spells, but if they cast instead of attacking they increase the action economy advantage the party already has. If a dragon can cast and do something else they become a lot more formidable without being so over powered the players cannot deal with it.
I am just going to throw a random homebrew idea out (can't remember if I came up with it or not)- rather than the high damage of mythic, how about a highly flexible defensive power that amount to the GM hitting the undo button when the boss is about to die.
What would this do? Well, for example, if the dragon got caught by an enchantment spell that would basically just end the battle, it could automatically expend a use of this 'divine power' to give itself immunity to mind affecting effects. Or if it ran out of HP after being blended by the barbarian, it can suddenly resurrect itself back to full HP. Or it could give itself a new kind of movement (such as burrow) in order to run away from the party.
This might sound cheap, of course. But the key here is that this 'divine power' has limited uses. Maybe a low level boss would only have a single use, while high ranking bosses would have 2 or 3 uses. So while the boss would be able to get out of a single bad situation, it would use up its trump cards. The party would have to hit it as hard as they can, with as many methods as they can, in order to force the enemy to bring the monster down to just a normal stat block.
You can flavor this as the "favor of an evil dragon god" that allows them to rule over reality itself.