Re: GURPS Dragons
 

That's much less difference, which is a sign of improvement. :)

Re: GURPS Dragons
 

Different GMs have different ideas as to what makes sense to them. The classic fire-breathing dragon of fantasy has never appealed to me, even in games such as D&D such an image is considered to be the norm. In most of my own games in which they appear, dragons are little more than large, semi-intelligent pterodactyloids possessed of the capability to spit paralytic venom and with an affinity for shiny objects.

Re: GURPS Dragons
 

Not really, The elephants BL is more than twice that of the dragon. THe problem is 3ed was the linear strength system.
30 st is a basic lift of 180
45 st is a basic lift of 405.

The elephant is still massively stronger than the dragon. But if that bothers you change it. Of course you will splat any human in one hit.

Re: GURPS Dragons
 

It's also pretty good for comparing 3rd ed. to 4th ed. in one book, especially if you are familiar with 3rd ed. already.

Re: GURPS Dragons
 

Note that the Fantasy dragons that are weaker than an elephant are also TINIER than an elephant. They're about the size of a big horse.

But yes, Dragons does have templates for big dragons.

Re: GURPS Dragons
 

Elephants ST 45; Weight 12,000+ lbs, SM +3 (10 Hexes).
Monstrous Dragon ST 30; Weight 3,000+ lbs, SM +5 (15+ Hexes). I assume some of this is wings, but still.

Re: GURPS Dragons
 

It sounds like MOST of that is neck and tail. Ignore the hexes, it's only 3000 lbs. (which, on retrospect, is big even for a clydesdale, but not terribly big)

Re: GURPS Dragons
 

And IMHO it was successful. Let me give thanks to you for that excellent and much needed work!


Hey, you are looking for a gygaxian Great Wyrm Red Dragon! ;-)

Thinking about this, Babylonic Tiamat definitely provided a strong inspiration for D&D dragons, and in line with that, 4e Fantasy provides a frigthening and awesome 350 ST example of Her (all hail Takhisis!), under Primordial Entities (p. 50).

Anyway, 3/4e Dragons is indeed a cool "GURPS Draconomicon ", being very useful and inspirational, too. I can't wait to combine part of it with Dungeon Fantasy inside a serious fantasy campaign.

A point to remark here is: really fantastic and awesome monsters, fall very well under the label of Primordial Entities.

Dungeons & Dragons rarely differenciated between regular dungeon crawling Fire Giants and Fire Giants of mythological scale being a menace to the gods and the cosmos. The same with cool dragons.

However, the last WoTC third edition Deities and Demigods shows "regular" Monster Manual's Nordic Giants tweaked for being a menace to the gods, and they are statted with some divine rank...

Re: GURPS Dragons
 

Yeah, and even a "Gygaxian" dragon in D&D isn't THAT much more powerful than a human, in the same scale as GURPS. 18 STR for a human, 30 STR for a dragon in D&D, that's pretty much not much different than a 20 ST human and a 35 ST dragon in GURPS. Even if you drop that to "averages" then your 10 STR or 10 ST still is on the same scale to the dragon in either game. Both games have a very similar stat averages and maximums.

EDIT: Also, if you compare D&D's writeup of Tiamat, the actual GODDESS of Dragons version, GURPS Fantasy's version would have the D&D version as an appetizer.

Re: GURPS Dragons
 

These days, elephants should be designed with Lifting Strength.