parks@kpno.UUCP (10/11/83)
I have a problem that desperately requires the creativity of
other DM's. My problem is DRAGONS: just how do you keep the
darned things alive, anyway?
Perhaps some history is in order. The players in my party ran
across a dragon when they were all first level. He stuck his
head out of his cave, hissed a few times, and scared them all
off. A few weeks later, he heard them again outside the cave, so
he used his clairaudience spell:
"...shhh, not too much noise! Don't want the dragon to hear..."
"...O.K., let's just sneak over here..." (and other useless
conversation. That's the sort of thing the actual players were
saying at the time.)
Anyway, old Draco Confligatio Horribilis (or whatever the Latin
is) was real curious, so he sticks his head out to see what's
going on. Poised just outside his cave, in the valley below (at
long range) are 80 archers, 4 ballistas, 3 catapults, and five
much poorer party members (who had spent the last few weeks
hiring and drilling these mercenaries). In but a few seconds the
old drake's head looked like a pincushion! The guy had no
chance!
Well, ever since then they have been contemptuous of dragons, and
I have been making the dragons meaner and tougher and smarter.
Still, they always have a new plan, and the dragon always dies.
Now for the problem: The last, most wicked dragon yet was so bad
that he bears little resemblence to a D&D dragon (from The
Dragon magazine #50, something called a "true dragon"). Truly
horrible in his hit points, invulnerable to weapons of +1 or
lessor enchantments, and with a whopping 90% magic resistance!!
The characters were in truly dire straits, having fought hordes
of unexpected monsters after being transported unexpectedly to
the elemental plane of fire (fortunately for them, they were
expecting firey breath, so they were somewhat protected against
fire). They finally meet the dragon, he easily overcomes them,
and pauses to toy with them while they helplessly flee! Then, at
the last second, he pauses and they unleash "emergency plan A".
As he breathes on the cleric, the magic users (now at 9th level)
turn and fire off two spells. The first casts a 'rock to mud' on
the ceiling of the cave right above the dragon. Poor old Draco
True realized that resisting this magic will only turn the
falling mud into falling rock, so he submits (for the moment).
In a matter of segments he is buried up to his eyeballs in thick
mud -- and then the second spell goes off: a dispel magic!
This, of course, turns the mud back into rock, and our hero (the
dragon) is trapped while the party toys with him (how
humiliating!).
So, yet another dragon bites the dust. Now, how in the heck do I
keep every cave dwelling dragon from being ambushed with the 'falling
mud' plan? I am reluctant to outfit all my dragons with rings
(or other items) which allow them to teleport, as I don't want
the party to get these things. How do I manage to keep any
dragons alive in the world? Look at it from the party's point of
view: dragons are big, have lots of treasure, usually have some
magic, and are (so far) easy to kill. This is a plea to all you
environmentalists out there! Help preserve this species from
extinction! Your defenses, traps, and ambushes could save this
now vanishing form of natural wildlife from being hearlessly
eliminated by greed-seeking heartless adventurers.
I gleefully await schemes to (fairly) destroy these upstart
adventures.
Jay Parks
{...,arizona,decvax,hao,ihnp4,sdcsvax,seismo,unc}!kpno!parksnazgul@apollo.UUCP (Kee Hinckley) (10/14/83)
1) It sounds like your dragons are a bit too timid. If I
were a dragon I wouldn't poke my nose out of the hole,
I'd come flying out at full speed!
2) The dragons natural habitat is the air. This fact is
deduced from the presence of two rather large objects
on his/her back that tend to flap when placed in open
spaces. This means several things:
a) Its harder to run.
b) It can attact suddenly leaving very little
time to respond.
c) It can fly away very suddenly if things get
a little too warm (cold?).
3) That's what you get for playing D&D. (Sorry, a little
personal bias there. I shouldn't flame on the subject
since I can't talk about the game I play since the
writer (read "procrastinator") hasn't gotten around to
copywriting it yet).
-nazgul