BX Monsters A to Z: Dragon (part 1)

They're half the game's name, and there's a whole lot to unpack in their entry in the monsters chapter of the Basic Rules, so let's dive right into dragons!

Everybody knows dragons, even those who have never read a fantasy story or played an RPG. "Dragons are a very old race of huge winged lizards." The opening sentence of the dragon entry in the Basic Rules is almost entirely unnecessary, except that they had to say something to get the ball rolling. Immediately after that, we get into the specifics of dragons as D&D conceives them, which may differ from any given incarnation of the monsters from folklore and literature. We're told they prefer to live far from human habitations, they're carnivores, egg-layers, have breath weapons, love treasure, and are willing to do almost anything to save their lives, including surrender. They are also Color Coded For Your Convenience, with the color of a dragon's hide indicating its alignment, habitat, breath weapon, and roughly, its level of strength and power. 

Dragons are far and away the toughest creatures in the Basic Rules (and hold their own against most of the Expert Rules monsters, too). Their Armor Class and Hit Dice improve by one point each for each successive dragon type, staring with AC 3  and HD 6 for the white dragon, all the way up to AC -2 and HD 11 for the mighty gold dragon. It's also explicitly stated that dragons may range from 3 HD smaller to 3 HD larger, depending on age; thus white dragons could be anywhere from a 3 HD baby to a 9 HD elder, and gold dragons run anywhere from 8 to 14 HD. That provides a substantial range of challenges for adventurers of varying levels. 

If we correlate Hit Dice to size, that means dragons could range from around the size of a large wolf or wild boar (3 HD) to nearly the size of a mastodon (14 HD) with elephant-size (9 HD) being around the average.

Dragons' physical attacks are also pretty impressive. Below are maximum damage potential and average damage for a full attack sequence (assuming all three attacks succeed).

White Dragon: Max 24 points; Average 14                       Black Dragon: Max 30 points; Average 18

Green Dragon: Max 36 points; Average 20.5                    Blue Dragon: Max 44 points; Average  25.5

Red Dragon: Max 48 points; Average 27                          Gold Dragon: Max 52 points; Average 31

The scariest thing about dragons, of course, is their breath weapons, because those big Hit Dice mentioned earlier translate into big damage. So far as I know, the formula of tying breath weapon damage directly to the dragon's hp is unique to the Classic D&D line of games and AD&D 1e; it seems to have been abandoned for dice ranges based on age in 2e. The hp-based breath damage allows a dragon to automatically wipe out a whole crowd of creatures who individually have half its hit points or fewer, and potentially destroy creatures with up to the dragon's full hp if they fail their saving throws for half damage. Another feature is that striking first against a dragon can be decisive, either by surprise or by winning initiative; every point of damage inflicted reduces the dragon's breath weapon damage. Per the rules, a dragon's first attack will always be with its breath weapon (might as well get as close to full value as possible!) and each round thereafter, it will use its breath weapon 50% of the time (4-6 on 1d6); otherwise it will use its claws and bite, at least until its three breath weapon uses per day are exhausted.

One thing about D&D dragons, which might surprise those uninitiated in the game (it surprised me when I first read the rulebook) is that not all dragons are fire-breathers. Each dragon type spews a different deadly energy or substance, and in a different shape and size. White dragons emit a cone of cold, black dragons spray a line of acid, green dragons puff out a cloud of chlorine gas, blue dragons spout lines of lightning, red dragons are the classic fire-breathers, blasting forth a cone of flame. Gold dragons may breathe either a cone of fire or a cloud of chlorine gas. 

 Dealing with breath weapons is a tricky business. A wily party might try to trick a dragon into wasting a breath, but it's very unlikely to succeed at such a ploy a second time. Getting the jump on the dragon to whittle down its hit points, and thus breath damage, is essential for any party without a ton of hp of their own. Spells and magic items that confer resistance to the breath weapon are also tremendously valuable, though only resistance to fire and cold are to be found in the rules as written, a curious oversight indeed.

The rules state that dragons are always unaffected by "normal or smaller" versions of their breath weapon, though it isn't clear if this includes the actual breath weapon itself. They automatically save against (and thus take half damage from) large or magical versions of their breath attacks. A red dragon would take half damage from a fireball spell, for instance, and depending on the DM's ruling, either half or no damage from the breath of another red dragon. It seems easier just to make this zero damage across the board for all attacks using the same form as the dragon's breath, but that's not how the author chose to write it. 

The only dragons this is likely to affect in play are blue (lightning bolt), red (fireball and wall of fire), gold (fireball and wall of fire), and white (wall of ice). No spells in the B/X rules as written produce damage from acid or poison gas.

Breath shapes are frankly a rather odd addition to the game. There's fairly little practical difference between cone and cloud breaths (cloud would cover a little more area right next to the dragon). Line breaths are vastly inferior to either; unless used against a party marching single-file down a dungeon corridor, the dragon is unlikely to be able to catch more than one or two targets in the area of effect. 

Dragons' other most relevant stats are their movement rates of 90'(30') on the ground and 240(80') flying, and their morale scores ranging from a fairly courageous 8 for the smaller dragons to a nearly fearless 10 for the largest ones. Parties hoping to escape from a dragon would be well-advised to take shelter in places where flying is difficult or impossible, such as dense forest or dungeon labyrinths.

 That's all for this entry, but dragon lovers rejoice; there's a lot more material to cover, especially dragon habits and psychology, in the next post.