I want to talk about "Here There Be Dragons" for a bit. We paused on this last year to give my son time to concentrate on his school work. Over the summer things were just way too busy and then I needed to finish the Witch.
Be we are back. One of the things we want to do is come up with a good dragon statblock that covers the Old School feel we wanted but also includes all the information we want to get out about dragons. I also want to retain as much good information from the SRD as we can.
In the 1st Advanced Era dragons had 8 age categories. In the 3rd Edition/SRD era there are 12.
The age categories are also significantly different. In earlier editions of the game the differences were not great. In the newer versions there is quite a bit of difference between a Wyrmling and a Great Wyrm.
This can be seen in the SRD here for Blue Dragons.
There are plenty of good and open under the OGL stat blocks for dragons. OSRIC has one, Labyrinth Lord Advanced Companion is another and slightly different. The stat blocks in Castles & Crusades are also open and try to merge the best of 1.x and 3.x in their own way as well. In fact they even fit 12 age categories into 8 rather well.
Additionally Dragons should have more spells as the age, have more treasure and be more powerful, not just harder to hit or kill.
So here is a rough draft of a dragon stat block for a Blue Dragon.
Blue Dragon
Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 1d4
Size: See below
Move: 90' fly 240' (AA: level II)
Hit Dice: typically 8 to 10
Armor Class: typically 2
Attacks: 1 bite, 2 claws or magic
Damage: 1d6 / 1d6 / 3d8
Special Attacks: Breath Weapon, Dragon Fear, Magic Use
Special Defenses:
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Very
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Treasure: ????
Chance of:
- Speaking: 40% + 5%/Age
- Magic-use: 20% + 5%/Age
- Sleeping: 10% + 5%/Age
- In Lair: 20% + 5%/Age
Level/XP: See Below
Breath Weapon: Lighting Bolt, 100' long, 5' wide, line
Spells: As Wizard of level equal to HD
|
Age
|
Size (length)
|
HD (hp)
|
AC
|
Breath Damage
|
Breath Range
|
Level/XP
|
|
1
|
4'
|
4 (18)
|
5 (15)
|
4d8
|
40'
|
4/
|
|
2
|
8'
|
6 (27)
|
4 (16)
|
6d8
|
60'
|
6/
|
|
3
|
12'
|
8 (36)
|
3 (17)
|
8d8
|
80'
|
8/
|
|
4
|
20'
|
10 (45)
|
2 (18)
|
10d8
|
100'
|
10/
|
|
5
|
25'
|
12 (54)
|
1 (19)
|
12d8
|
120'
|
12/
|
|
6
|
32'
|
14 (63)
|
0 (20)
|
14d8
|
140'
|
14/
|
|
7
|
48'
|
16 (72)
|
-1 (21)
|
16d8
|
160'
|
16/
|
|
8
|
60'
|
18 (81)
|
-2 (22)
|
18d8
|
180'
|
18/
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Age Category
|
|
Age Years
|
|
1
|
Wyrmling
|
0-10
|
|
2
|
Young
|
11-25
|
|
3
|
Juvenile
|
26-50
|
|
4
|
Young Adult
|
51-100
|
|
5
|
Adult
|
101-250
|
|
6
|
Old
|
251-500
|
|
7
|
Very Old
|
501-1,000
|
|
8
|
Ancient
|
1,000+
|
These tables will be tweaked as we go along.
Not sure if this is the final version, it is though a working one.
I put in the the average hp on a d8 per HD since I also had the idea that HD could stay the same (say 10) and a dragon gets it's age category in hp. So Wyrmling would have had 10 hp and an Ancient dragon 80 hp. It works for the Blue here, not sure about the rest; I think it might.
Did not calculate the XP yet.
Still have no idea how I want to do treasure. Should I use LL Hoard Classes or list out like in OSRIC?
Credit where credit is due.
Section 15 of the OGL.
System Reference Document copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
OSRIC copyright 2006-08 by Stuart Marshall, adapting material prepared by Matthew J. Finch, based on the System Reference Document, inspired by the works of E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and many others.
Advanced Edition Companion, Copyright 2009-2010, Daniel Proctor. Author Daniel Proctor.
Hypertext SRD, 2005 Jans Carton.
Castles & Crusades: Monsters & Treasure, Copyright 2005, Troll Lord Games; Authors Robert Doyel and Stephen Chenault.
Blue Dragon: Here There Be Dragons, Copyright 2012, Liam and Timothy Brannan.
All material is open under the OGL.
