dragons

warhorse11h · 02-09-2019, 06:40 PM

Back in '83 or '84, I got involved with another game, one which did a much more detailed look at dragons than TFT. As a result the group I was playing with developed what we thought were some improvements to dragons.

Tail attack: we gave dragons one of four types of tail; plated, spiked, spade or whip and assigned a damage value for each. The tail swipe did damage to the first character hit, but still could knock anyone in the rear hexes down.

A 7 hex dragon could do the following damage with the tail. Plated- 1+2, Spiked 2-1, Spade 2-2, whip 1die.

Wing buffet: the dragon can knock anyone in his side hexes down by flaring his wings. It doesn't do damage.

A bite attack that did one to two points more than the claw attack. This would be an attack in lieu of using his breath weapon. A 7 hex could do a bite of 2+1.

A stooping dive attack that could result in the target taking damage from both the claw and bite attacks.

These were in addition to the other attacks available to a dragon. We found they made them a bit more dangerous.

hcobb · 02-09-2019, 08:31 PM

Tail thump: The dragon must be on the ground and not use its claw attack this turn, as all of the claws are digging into the ground for leverage. In this case the dragon can use its full ST against all figures on either (but not both) its left or right rear hexes that are adjacent to solid walls. Resolve as a tail lash, but instead of knocking down does the same damage as a humanoid bare handed attack at the dragon's ST to each target hit. If the walls are fragile will do no more damage than the walls themselves can take then throw the targets through the walls needing a 3/DX roll to regain their footing on the other side.

Skarg · 02-10-2019, 12:27 PM

Nice ideas.

SJ mentioned once that he felt a bite attack (if not breathing fire) made sense.

But the claw damages are just too low, even if you reason that dragon ST probably is for fatigue and damage not arm ST.

ST too even just for damage purposes is really low in terms of comparing the ST of other creatures.

Imagine you clip a dragon's wings and don't let it breathe fire or bite. Such a dragon at 4 hexes should still be probably more damaging with its claws than a 1-hex bear, lion, deer, horse, gargoyle, no? Instead its claws are a weaker attack, and the ST for taking damage isn't much more (same as a bear, and that's not taking into account how much a dragon may weaken itself by breathing fire).

hcobb · 02-10-2019, 12:43 PM

The listed stats are around the minimum for each size, but dragons do grow throughout their lives. A randomly encountered (but not summoned) dragon will have the following ST.

1-hex ST is 1d+9
2-hex ST is 1d+15
4-hex ST is 3d+27
7-hex ST is 6d+54
14-hex ST is 13d+87

The listed claw damages are a misprint. Instead add 1 to the bare handed damage of a human of that ST. (With an additional +1 in HTH). A dragon can claw two targets per turn at -4 DX to all attacks that turn. (A 1-hex dragon can claw the same one-hex target twice, but the larger dragons would have too much difficulty bringing their claws together like that for effective strikes.)

warhorse11h · 02-10-2019, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skarg

Nice ideas.

SJ mentioned once that he felt a bite attack (if not breathing fire) made sense.

But the claw damages are just too low, even if you reason that dragon ST probably is for fatigue and damage not arm ST.

ST too even just for damage purposes is really low in terms of comparing the ST of other creatures.

Imagine you clip a dragon's wings and don't let it breathe fire or bite. Such a dragon at 4 hexes should still be probably more damaging with its claws than a 1-hex bear, lion, deer, horse, gargoyle, no? Instead its claws are a weaker attack, and the ST for taking damage isn't much more (same as a bear, and that's not taking into account how much a dragon may weaken itself by breathing fire).

I did leave out that we had made modifiers as to the relative size of the dragon. A 4 hex dragon had a -1 damage to each attack if he was a puny specimen and a +1 to each attack if he were a huge one. At seven hexes, the penalty was -2 and the bonus for being a huge specimen was +2. I don't remember if we did one for the 14 hex one.

warhorse11h · 02-10-2019, 02:19 PM

I really like hcobb's suggestions for the breath weapons in the thread, "Dragon (line of) Fire".

As an alternative, I am looking at these possibilities

A dragon can:

a) make a normal breath attack against one target with thrown weapons DX and if it hits, the target takes the damage. No saving throw.

b) use its breath weapon to cover an area the shape of its body, starting at the head, and cover each character in that area in flame, but they get a 3D6 vs DX save to jump out of the way, taking only half damage if they save. If they fail, they burn. (Or using hcobb's suggestion of each target requiring a to hit roll to be damaged.)

c) make a flaming spittle attack at one target using missile weapon modifiers for range, but the victim does get a save on 3D6 vs DX to jump out of the way. If he fails, the target is hit by the spittle for full damage and the spit sticks to him and he takes damage each turn for the minute the spit continues to flame. For damage done, treat the spit as a fireball of ST equal to the breath weapon use on the first turn and 1-1 for each turn after. The fire is more intense than a fire hex. (Dragons jokingly refer to this as fast food).

warhorse11h · 02-10-2019, 02:42 PM

Other possibilities could include
A venomous bite
A venomous claw strike
A venomous tail attack
or occasionally, perhaps a different type of breath weapon besides fire. Or, in addition to fire.
or special abilities like a shock shield effect on anyone in adjacent hexes to the dragon due to its ability to store electrical static charges and release them.

hcobb · 02-10-2019, 02:59 PM

Gas bomb dragons: Replace the usual damage and to-hit of the dragon's breath with a gas bomb toss that takes effect over the same number of hexes as the dragon itself (Megahex for 7-hex, etc). Naturalists get a 4/IQ roll to determine the gas attack type of each dragon on sight. (Must already see the dragon to read the scale markings so Alertness doesn't help, but Expert Naturalist does.)

Known types observed:

Corrosive Poison: But the damage done to each target is the same as the usual dragon breath damage for that size.

Sleeping Potion: normal effect.

Fear Potion: normal effect.

Molotail: The 14-hex version puts the center megahex on fire with splash damage to all adjacent hexes.

02-09-2019, 06:40 PM	#1
warhorse11h Join Date: Aug 2018	dragons Back in '83 or '84, I got involved with another game, one which did a much more detailed look at dragons than TFT. As a result the group I was playing with developed what we thought were some improvements to dragons. Tail attack: we gave dragons one of four types of tail; plated, spiked, spade or whip and assigned a damage value for each. The tail swipe did damage to the first character hit, but still could knock anyone in the rear hexes down. A 7 hex dragon could do the following damage with the tail. Plated- 1+2, Spiked 2-1, Spade 2-2, whip 1die. Wing buffet: the dragon can knock anyone in his side hexes down by flaring his wings. It doesn't do damage. A bite attack that did one to two points more than the claw attack. This would be an attack in lieu of using his breath weapon. A 7 hex could do a bite of 2+1. A stooping dive attack that could result in the target taking damage from both the claw and bite attacks. These were in addition to the other attacks available to a dragon. We found they made them a bit more dangerous. Last edited by warhorse11h; 02-09-2019 at 06:45 PM.

02-09-2019, 08:31 PM	#2
hcobb Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Pacheco, California	Re: dragons Tail thump: The dragon must be on the ground and not use its claw attack this turn, as all of the claws are digging into the ground for leverage. In this case the dragon can use its full ST against all figures on either (but not both) its left or right rear hexes that are adjacent to solid walls. Resolve as a tail lash, but instead of knocking down does the same damage as a humanoid bare handed attack at the dragon's ST to each target hit. If the walls are fragile will do no more damage than the walls themselves can take then throw the targets through the walls needing a 3/DX roll to regain their footing on the other side. __________________ -HJC

02-10-2019, 12:27 PM	#3
Skarg Join Date: May 2015	Re: dragons Nice ideas. SJ mentioned once that he felt a bite attack (if not breathing fire) made sense. But the claw damages are just too low, even if you reason that dragon ST probably is for fatigue and damage not arm ST. ST too even just for damage purposes is really low in terms of comparing the ST of other creatures. Imagine you clip a dragon's wings and don't let it breathe fire or bite. Such a dragon at 4 hexes should still be probably more damaging with its claws than a 1-hex bear, lion, deer, horse, gargoyle, no? Instead its claws are a weaker attack, and the ST for taking damage isn't much more (same as a bear, and that's not taking into account how much a dragon may weaken itself by breathing fire).

02-10-2019, 12:43 PM	#4
hcobb Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Pacheco, California	Re: dragons The listed stats are around the minimum for each size, but dragons do grow throughout their lives. A randomly encountered (but not summoned) dragon will have the following ST. 1-hex ST is 1d+9 2-hex ST is 1d+15 4-hex ST is 3d+27 7-hex ST is 6d+54 14-hex ST is 13d+87 The listed claw damages are a misprint. Instead add 1 to the bare handed damage of a human of that ST. (With an additional +1 in HTH). A dragon can claw two targets per turn at -4 DX to all attacks that turn. (A 1-hex dragon can claw the same one-hex target twice, but the larger dragons would have too much difficulty bringing their claws together like that for effective strikes.) __________________ -HJC

02-10-2019, 02:19 PM	#6
warhorse11h Join Date: Aug 2018	Re: dragons I really like hcobb's suggestions for the breath weapons in the thread, "Dragon (line of) Fire". As an alternative, I am looking at these possibilities A dragon can: a) make a normal breath attack against one target with thrown weapons DX and if it hits, the target takes the damage. No saving throw. b) use its breath weapon to cover an area the shape of its body, starting at the head, and cover each character in that area in flame, but they get a 3D6 vs DX save to jump out of the way, taking only half damage if they save. If they fail, they burn. (Or using hcobb's suggestion of each target requiring a to hit roll to be damaged.) c) make a flaming spittle attack at one target using missile weapon modifiers for range, but the victim does get a save on 3D6 vs DX to jump out of the way. If he fails, the target is hit by the spittle for full damage and the spit sticks to him and he takes damage each turn for the minute the spit continues to flame. For damage done, treat the spit as a fireball of ST equal to the breath weapon use on the first turn and 1-1 for each turn after. The fire is more intense than a fire hex. (Dragons jokingly refer to this as fast food).

02-10-2019, 02:42 PM	#7
warhorse11h Join Date: Aug 2018	Re: dragons Other possibilities could include A venomous bite A venomous claw strike A venomous tail attack or occasionally, perhaps a different type of breath weapon besides fire. Or, in addition to fire. or special abilities like a shock shield effect on anyone in adjacent hexes to the dragon due to its ability to store electrical static charges and release them.

02-10-2019, 02:59 PM	#8
hcobb Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Pacheco, California	Re: dragons Gas bomb dragons: Replace the usual damage and to-hit of the dragon's breath with a gas bomb toss that takes effect over the same number of hexes as the dragon itself (Megahex for 7-hex, etc). Naturalists get a 4/IQ roll to determine the gas attack type of each dragon on sight. (Must already see the dragon to read the scale markings so Alertness doesn't help, but Expert Naturalist does.) Known types observed: Corrosive Poison: But the damage done to each target is the same as the usual dragon breath damage for that size. Sleeping Potion: normal effect. Fear Potion: normal effect. Molotail: The 14-hex version puts the center megahex on fire with splash damage to all adjacent hexes. __________________ -HJC