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I can already say I plan to use the existence of such a ritual to my advantage when writing my adventures. It's excruciatingly difficult to pack a large number of antagonist dragons in an adventure because as you get to higher levels dragons needs to be *old* to pose any threat. You then start wondering where all these old dragons have been all this time, and how if you put in 4 or 5 combats at high level with a few dragons you've likely cleared out the world's population of that kind of dragon. Not to mention that killing dozens of centuries worth of dragon-life is going to put you on the radar of uninvolved dragons who would be alarmed at such a mass extinction event of their species.
Thus dragon themed adventures tend to end up with lots and lots of non-dragon mooks to pad out the battles and it starts to feel like the dragonslayer adventurers barely got a chance to use their dragonslaying tactics and character choices.
A ritual to amp up a bunch of headstrong young dragons who think they're too good to just sit on treasure like their parents... you could fight a bunch of those and not cause an enormous world balance problem.
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At this point I'm considering making Sarusan a continent of dragons in my version of Golarion. Dragons can stay there and have a dragon centric existence, or the more ambitious or meddlesome ones can venture out into the wider world.
It should also be pointed out that, if you want your own dragon character to truly go out on a grand adventure and not just an afternoon snack tour, something like this ritual is vital. Not just for the sake of balance, but for lore and RP reasons.
Everything I have seen on Pathfinder and similar systems/lines of thought in fantasy indicates that dragons, like other extremely magical creatures, are heavily limited by said magic. Everything they do and are is only possible due to their inherent magic. And that magic is largely unchanging, though to a lesser extent for dragons, as theirs grows stronger with age. Them going from peasant to quasi-demigod in a matter of even a few years is literally impossible. They can grow stronger, but those benefits are extremely limited. To the extent that after achieving one or maybe two levels, your dragon character shouldn't be able to level up anymore for a few decades.
Obviously, you can just ignore this or just play shorter adventures, but I personally prefer to play by the rules for the most parts. I'm sure there will be some optional rules and sidebars as well, which will give advice on how to put a lot of that power back in earlier, like the level 1 fly speed rules in LO:CG. Not that I expect that PC dragons will terribly need that, as even just the base classes are often able to bully the less "competitive" dragons fairly quickly.
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At this point I'm considering making Sarusan a continent of dragons in my version of Golarion. Dragons can stay there and have a dragon centric existence, or the more ambitious or meddlesome ones can venture out into the wider world.
YOINK... thanks for that idea :D
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At this point I'm considering making Sarusan a continent of dragons in my version of Golarion. Dragons can stay there and have a dragon centric existence, or the more ambitious or meddlesome ones can venture out into the wider world.YOINK... thanks for that idea :D
Quite alright, I stole it from Eberron and Argonnessen. XD
What about Triaxus?
What about Triaxus?
Another possibility if you don't care to interact with Golarion as much, and just have your own setting there. Going to be a wintery one by default, but nothing saying you can't move their very long year forward or back a season or two.
Having the ritual so that you can fit these options into the rules is all fine, I'm just saying it doesn't fit into my 3.5 Dragon I played at all, there's no place for such a thing in his story. That's the first character I plan on playing with these rules, then my AD&D character. Just not a fan of hard coded rules that leave little room for stories. That's why the summoner was so great, your story is what ever you want it to be. It's why I hate necromancy always being evil just because of the way souls work, when one of my favorite characters (that as usual I didn't get to play long) was a cleric/wizard who worshipped a goddess who had a portfolio of love and undeath.
If I had a steady group of friends to play with, it likely wouldn't be a problem, but presenting ideas that are just shut down by certain rules or lore to random groups you join tends to be a nonstarter.
Hopefully it's presented as the usual way Dragon progression is quickened, not the only way.
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Having the ritual so that you can fit these options into the rules is all fine, I'm just saying it doesn't fit into my 3.5 Dragon I played at all, there's no place for such a thing in his story. That's the first character I plan on playing with these rules, then my AD&D character. Just not a fan of hard coded rules that leave little room for stories. That's why the summoner was so great, your story is what ever you want it to be. It's why I hate necromancy always being evil just because of the way souls work, when one of my favorite characters (that as usual I didn't get to play long) was a cleric/wizard who worshipped a goddess who had a portfolio of love and undeath.
If I had a steady group of friends to play with, it likely wouldn't be a problem, but presenting ideas that are just shut down by certain rules or lore to random groups you join tends to be a nonstarter.
Hopefully it's presented as the usual way Dragon progression is quickened, not the only way.
It is the widespread lore explanation for the "typical" adventuring dragon presented in this book, as it was important for the goal of examining the effect it would have on dragon society to have more details, but you can of course come up with any other reason if you like! And there's sidebars for if you want to adjust the amount of powers you get to fit the game and the story.
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Weird mutation with the same results could be a thing too. With even bigger fear and loathing and concern from unmutated dragons.
To me, my X-dragons.
I'm rewatching the 90s X-Men show right now and you just incepted the theme song into my head. Thanks for that.
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I'm rewatching the 90s X-Men show right now and you just incepted the theme song into my head. Thanks for that.Weird mutation with the same results could be a thing too. With even bigger fear and loathing and concern from unmutated dragons.
To me, my X-dragons.
DUNANUNANAHNAHNAH
So, do you people have any favourite dragon types you look forward to seeing?
My personal favourites so far are the blue, sea and havoc dragons. They all just look so damn good and at least the first two at least have some real fun mechanics to boot :D
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So, do you people have any favourite dragon types you look forward to seeing?
My personal favourites so far are the blue, sea and havoc dragons. They all just look so damn good and at least the first two at least have some real fun mechanics to boot :D
Silver and Red!
I use blue dragons as antagonists as a GM enough already, so I'm in no rush to play one.
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At the moment Magma. I have a Magma dragon summoner I want to make, and if things should take a bad turn for him I might have him return in a form that's permanently merged with his eidolon.
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I'm most excited about the new dragon types they are introducing. I already have ideas for what types of adventurers the existing dragons might be. Gimme that new inspiration!
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Blue, sea, silver, red, and magma all have such fun and interesting potential stories and personalities tied to their lore (due to how I'm writing this, I haven't gotten to havoc yet; I am creating a fully complete version of the core content with the 20 dragons that exist in PF2 first and then going to go dragon by dragon and insert the appropriate pieces for the ones that don't).
I could see those five dragons in a party and it would be fractious, but interesting. In my head, they probably all let the red say she is the leader while the blue is manipulating things behind the scenes, the sea is going around assisting in really grandiose ways that build the group's renown, the silver is making sure they stick to their cause, and the magma is kind of rushing into things.
What a dynamic! :D
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I created a paradise dragon ancestry for a player back at the start of 2e. I'm looking forward to that dragon in particular and plan to convert the PC over to those rules.
I could see those five dragons in a party and it would be fractious, but interesting. In my head, they probably all let the red say she is the leader while the blue is manipulating things behind the scenes, the sea is going around assisting in really grandiose ways that build the group's renown, the silver is making sure they stick to their cause, and the magma is kind of rushing into things.What a dynamic! :D
When I ran Council of Wyrms oh so long ago we had a red, gold, amethyst and copper the group. The red and gold players were half brothers. The copper just looked for ways to brighten the mood and explore to find fun things, the amethyst tried to either keep the peace or keep out of the way, the red declared himself the group leader and tried to use the group as his own work force for increasing his hoard, the gold undermined the red constantly and humored him like you would a child so they got into arguments often. It was very enjoyable, but like all games when I was young it didn't last long. Eventually one of the brothers did something foolish, as he was prone to do, and it caused things to spiral out of control, the argument turned into a fight the amethyst and copper had to break up and so I said the council broke the group up as it seems they could not work together.
Would love to have another all Dragon game sometime.My favorite is always going to be silver dragons, I can't wait to read more about elemental and planer dragons though.
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I don't know when I'll get around to it, but a Pathfinder-ized Council of Wyrms game is on my list of things to run. I played the boxed set a lot but never ran the full cradle to grave campaign I wanted because the way experience and time interacted had some weird consequences.
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This might be an odd question, but with the announcement that the book will be internally playtested in the near future, would you mind if my group and I help out with that a bit? I'm pretty sure other people here who also have bought the book wouldn't mind lending some more support this way ^^
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This might be an odd question, but with the announcement that the book will be internally playtested in the near future, would you mind if my group and I help out with that a bit? I'm pretty sure other people here who also have bought the book wouldn't mind lending some more support this way ^^
+1
Would love to do a playtest and report. If only for an excuse to run a full dragon party.
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will Linnorm dragons be a playable dragon ancestry?Blue, sea, silver, red, and magma all have such fun and interesting potential stories and personalities tied to their lore (due to how I'm writing this, I haven't gotten to havoc yet; I am creating a fully complete version of the core content with the 20 dragons that exist in PF2 first and then going to go dragon by dragon and insert the appropriate pieces for the ones that don't).
I could see those five dragons in a party and it would be fractious, but interesting. In my head, they probably all let the red say she is the leader while the blue is manipulating things behind the scenes, the sea is going around assisting in really grandiose ways that build the group's renown, the silver is making sure they stick to their cause, and the magma is kind of rushing into things.
What a dynamic! :D
Not in this book. In this one we will "only" have the regular dragons - metallics, chromatics, outer, planar, esoteric and primal - and 5 new true dragons. But I doubt that this will be the last book we see on this topic ^^
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Things just took an interesting turn... my campaign, in addition to being a dragon campaign, now also has a naval theme. Probably living the privateer life for Vidrian. So that happened.
Yay for dragon pirates :D
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I can't wait for the more detailed preview Glicker promised a few weeks ago. No date was given - understandably - but it shouldn't be too much longer. Basically after the playtest, so I guess mid December-ish? Or maybe we get some info earlier if we can participate in said playtest ;)
Anyway, I think the most difficult part to overcome once the book is out is actually not the mechanics of how to play a dragon. If the table agrees, you can always crank things up a notch or five. No, the real difficulty will be mindset, at least as far as my experience goes. Dor both characters and players.
Be it a full dragon party or just integration into a "normal" party, I and the people I have talked to about this would expect most dragons to think very differently. Especially when it comes to social interactions. Beyond the obvious difference in pure physical capability, dragons aren't terribly social and such dragon societies that exist would obviously be different from humanoid societies. There are regular exceptions in quite a few cloud, brass and imperial dragons, but that looks to be an outlier. If you think a regular adventurer's attitude towards things like property and law is rather exotic, I would expect this to be several times worse.
It's far from impossible to overcome, but might prove tricky without leaning too hard into the "actions have consequences" direction. Which is another reason why I am really happy that my players reacted so positively to me directing them towards a more piratey path. Well, after I chase them through a bit of jungle on a treasure hunt, but that's basically the same thing ^^. This allows me to introduce their characters - at least those with a more typical dragon attitude - to society and laws without arresting them every five minutes or them burning several towns. Win win :D. So yeah, starting with more a (socially) limited location seems like a really good idea for many dragon PCs.
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Did anyone else see in the latest kickstarter update they're looking for a small number of playtesters for the dragon ancestries?
I'm hoping I can contribute!
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Did anyone else see in the latest kickstarter update they're looking for a small number of playtesters for the dragon ancestries?
I'm hoping I can contribute!
That'd be so cool. I wish I had capacity in my weeks to help out. At the very least, it sounds like Dragons are coming along and that's pretty neat.
Yeah, the opportunity to give direct feedback and have an input in the creation really is amazing ^^.
Anyone who meets the criteria - you have pre-ordered the dragon book and are willing to sign an NDA - should get on that as quickly as possible. The book is meant to release early next year after all, so if you want to give feedback, it needs to be now or never.
How do you even message them to sign up for the playtest?
Don't use KS much so no clue if there's a way to do it there.
On the main KS page, under the "Pre-order now" button, you can click the "Roll for Combat" name. There is a big "contact me" button on that new page. That should do it.
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For anyone who isn't in the playtest - you are in for a treat when this book finally comes out. I can't talk about specifics (especially rules), but Mark really nailed the "dragon" feel without upsetting the balance of 2e.
And if your GM doesn't allow Free Archetype and/or Ancestry Paragon yet, it is time to apply some pressure ^^. Maximum dragon is straight fire!
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I agree, we had a lot of fun playing as Dragons in our playtest, they did a good job with it overall, and the lore is fire.
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I was pleasantly, I don't want to say surprised so let's go with satisfied, by how much dragon feel was there right out of the gate AND keeping parity with standard characters.
Like just a really strong set of rules, at least as strong as official paizo material (it's Mark so not surprising but felt like it's worth mentioning for those fearful of 3pp).
And yeah, the lore is just scrumptious.
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Yall. The teases are killing me. Hurt me more.
Relatedly: I'd love if Mark would drop some tidbits about the playtest, either now in a way that doesn't violate NDA or afterwards in a retro style. Both? :)
The design process is always so fascinating.
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Desperate for any and all scraps of info on those playable Outer Dragons!
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Desperate for any and all scraps of info on those playable Outer Dragons!
Sadly, none of the outer dragons were part of the playtest, so we are just as eager!
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What outer dragons are people's favorites? I'm currently enjoying the expanded lore I'm working on for lunar dragons. Having just a little bit of lore to work with as a prompt gives me space to expand.
What outer dragons are people's favorites? I'm currently enjoying the expanded lore I'm working on for lunar dragons. Having just a little bit of lore to work with as a prompt gives me space to expand.
I would love lunar, but my cloud dragon player was originally going to play a Void or an Astral dragon before we found out what was available :)
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I've used a Solar dragon NPC before as an antagonist. Players wanted to be evil and one begged to be a graveknight. So having something that could fly his armor to the heart of the sun was a good threat to keep looming around.
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I decided to take all the favorites for outer dragons here (counting posts, and also favorites, but if the same person favorited the same dragon in multiple posts then only counting once) and found that lunar dragon had the most thanks to my post. So I'm going to send the lore for lunar dragons to the playtesters as a New Year's preview. They can't give specifics, but they can tell you if it's awesome!
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I decided to take all the favorites for outer dragons here (counting posts, and also favorites, but if the same person favorited the same dragon in multiple posts then only counting once) and found that lunar dragon had the most thanks to my post. So I'm going to send the lore for lunar dragons to the playtesters as a New Year's preview. They can't give specifics, but they can tell you if it's awesome!
Can confirm since this made me go look, its awesome and actually my favorite bit from any of the descriptions so far, I would *love* to play a character motivated by what lunar dragons are motivated by.
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Yeah, all the lore sections we got so far really help with getting into the mindset of each dragon type. It is so damn useful for character creation.
Any indication on when it will be released? For some reason I was under the impression it should already have probably me misremembering. I am not asking for a specific date just something more informative that early this year
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Any indication on when it will be released? For some reason I was under the impression it should already have probably me misremembering. I am not asking for a specific date just something more informative that early this year
We have the very, very tentative date of mid-end of February. Originally, the idea was to release it at the end of December or early January, but about tripling the length of a book tends to somewhat delay its release :D