Dragons
Dragons is the third in a line of "thematic" d20 System books by Alderac Entertainment Group (the first two being Dungeons and Evil). As the name implies, Dragons is a d20 sourcebook including campaign ideas and new rules material regarding one of the most powerful creatures in the fantasy genre.
A First Look
Dragons is a 208-page, perfect-bound, softcover book. The cover is color. The background is a greenish grey with light grey "marble" motif lines across it, similar to Evil. A color picture of a dragon amid a conflagration adorns the front cover.
The interior is black-and-white. The interior art is of good quality and primarily serves a decorative as opposed illustrative purpose, in that little of the art seems to depict directly concepts described in the text. The layout is fairly simple, using two columns of text and highlighting Open Game Content material where appropriate.
The book has thin margins. As with the prior two books in the series, however, the typeface used is relatively large, both in comparison to other d20 publishers and AEG's other recent products. For example, both the new d20 Rokugan book and the 7th Sea accessory The Montaigne Revolution use a much more compact font, giving them better overall text density. AEG would do well to extend this sort of content density to their non-L5R d20 products.
The book is relatively large for a softback, and as is often the case with larger books, gives you more pages per dollar than smaller books. Yet at $26.95 it is priced similar to hardbounds of the same size, so AEG is not sparing you any money by going with a perfect-bound format.
A Deeper Look
Dragons is organized into four sections: From Whence Legends Come (which is mostly legends, and possibilities for playing during a primordial time when dragons warred), To Touch the Sky (mostly PC oriented rules material), What Lies Beyond (more GM oriented rules material), and From Bone To Sinew (which is mostly exposition on the nature of dragons).
Section One: From Whence Legends Come
The first section concentrates on the legends of and about dragons. The chapter starts with a well written short story about a dragon tired of his lot in the world. The first part of the section, entitled "The Past," offers a history of the dragons as it might have been in a typical D&D-style campaign world. This version of events is a nice alternative to the one that exists in D&D canon, which may be a nice jumping-off point for your own version of dragon legends.
This version of draconic lore includes four draconic patron deities, one for each major alignment outlined for the major dragon types of the game (LG, CG, LE, CE). The ideas around them are interesting, and it makes a nice alternative to the Bahamut/Tiamat duo from D&D canon.
After the legends of the Dragon Wars are outlined, some brief rules are presented for playing a campaign during this era.
Next, a subsection entitled "Draconic Legends" details the legends and lore regarding some prominent dragons. The statistics for these dragons are in Section Four.
A subsection entitled "From the Heavens" details more draconic deities, the cosmology of draconic lore, and notes on draconic priests, including a new ice clerical domain. This subsection, however, is somewhat confusing in that apparently it was written by a different author than "The Past," and no attempts were made to reconcile the different views of draconic deities mentioned or present them as different options.
The final subsection, entitled "Dragon Cults," discusses the possibility of cults of lesser beings centered around a legendary dragon, and presents an example of such a cult, the Obsidian Brotherhood. The Obsidian Brotherhood is a cult centered around a black dragon. The cult example includes a history, a description of the region that it inhabits, and some key NPCs in the cult.
Section Two: To Touch the Sky
This section is the first mainly rules-oriented section and includes many "crunchy bits" that are primarily aimed at standard (i.e., non-dragon) characters.
The first part of this section discusses new uses for old skills, much in the same vein as the 3e D&D classbooks, providing ideas for creative implementation of skills in the game, especially a game involving dragons. New uses include using Alchemy to know which parts of a dragon might have magical properties, using Bluff to flatter NPCs, and using Decipher Script to create ciphers. Also, a new Craft sub-skill is introduced: Dragonsmithing. This skill assists a character attempting to use dragon parts to craft items. Some of these uses may seem obvious, but they may provide the GM with food for thought and some simple ideas on how to realize these uses per the game.
The section also introduces several new feats. Most of them are interesting, useful, and balanced. For example, Dragon Friend provides a bonus to Diplomacy rolls when dealing with dragons or to saves against dragon fear. Dragonsmith allows you to reduce the cost of item creation when using dragon parts . . . but woe betide you if the local dragon populace discovers that your character has this feat. Invincible gives you bonuses when reduced below half of your full HP. Contortionist provides a bonus to Escape Artist rolls when attempting to escape a grapple.
As well, this section introduces five new prestige classes intended for standard PC types. They include:
- Air Lord - A class focussed on the art of riding a flying mount. The one feature that may not work too well is the fact that the air lord gets a variety of different mounts as they go up levels. I can sort of understand why AEG did this - it allows the character to have access to more impressive mounts at higher levels. In some campaigns, though, this will not fit with the concept of some riders of flying creatures, who are frequently associated with a specific creature.
- Dragon Slayer - You knew this one was coming, right? The dragon slayer is the archetypal slayer of dragons, with combat moves and resistances that are of optimum use against dragons. The only class ability I question is the improved power attack ability, which doubles the bonus damage from the power attack feat. It seems like this may be too powerful and of much more use against creatures other than dragons, since dragons have a very high AC.
- Student of the Dragon - This is a monk/martial artist variant whose style was derived from those of a shape-shifting dragon. It is similar to a monk, but receives dragon-themed class abilities instead of the monk class abilities.
- Wyrmfoe - An interesting concept, a wyrmfoe is a spellcaster that ingests the blood of dragons to gain great magical power. The class falls for one of the most common prestige class pratfalls: it has full spellcasting advancement combined with an impressive array of abilities. If you knock a few levels out of its spellcasting advancement, this would make a fine prestige class.
- Wyrm Spawn - A decent concept, this character class represents the awakening of draconic abilities in a character who has the blood of dragons. The major flaw of this class is that it does not give the character any BAB advancement, with the excuse that "this is not actually a class." Well, if it was not actually a class, it would be a template. If it is written up as a class, it should be treated as a class (and are not dragons known for their ferocity in combat, anyways?). If you are warm to the concept, I recommend you go with the dragon disciple in Tome & Blood instead.
The section introduces a number of new standard items that may assist the players against dragons, especially if they are in the unfortunate circumstance of having to face these mighty beasts without the aid of magic, such as in a low magic campaign. A wingripper arrow causes a target dragon to lose part of its movement flying rate on a critical hit instead of dealing improved damage. Kanegor's bitter pill is an alchemical combination that can make even a dragon nauseous.
A few pages are spent discussing dragons as allies, familiars, and mounts. Some thought is given to the implications on game balance of such allies, and to advice and ideas on handling such boons. The one thing that bothered me is that it sort of implied that wizards and sorcerers can select a psuedodragon as a familiar, something that is beyond the scope of what familiars are allowable under the core d20 rules.
The meatiest subsection is entitled "Dragon Alchemy." It goes through the various body parts of a dragon and theorizes on the magic powers they may possess. Tables for each body part list what standard d20 System magic item or enchantment each dragon race corresponds to. A simple system is offered for providing a bonus to magic items created using these components, but I think you would be better off ignoring these rules and using the power component rules in the DMG.
This is followed by a menagerie of new magic items. Some are concerned with or derived from dragonkind; with others, the reason for inclusion in this book is not quite so clear. The items include the cloak of the wyrm (provides an armor bonus, energy resistance as the associated dragon's energy type, and one other special ability), the dragon tooth choker (a necklace that gives the wearer dragon breath), and weapons of accord (a weapon enchantment that makes any promise made while holding the sword as binding as a geas). At the upper end are artifacts such as the crown of the ivory emperor, which is a helm sized for a very large dragon and can give a user command over dragons, but weak characters may be torn apart by its magic.
The "Dragon Magic" subsection introduces a variety of spells that concern dragons. Become dragon is a special purpose shapechange that allows a user to gain not only the shape of a dragon but some of its magical abilities. Some spells, such as blessing of the ages (allows a dragon to sacrifice ability points as a boon for lesser beings), are great campaign elements. Death curse provides a potent final retribution. Magical husbandry is a spell that allows the engineering of new races and can be used to explain the presence of half dragons in a campaign. Retain natural armor and retain supernatural powers allow polymorphed dragons to retain their powers.
The spells are fairly interesting and useful. A few I find questionable, though. One spell (a spell that provides protection from dragon breath with multiple variations) has an "instantaneous" casting time; a free-action casting time or a spell that is cast and then goes off when attacked by a breath weapon would have been more in keeping with the system. The most questionable spell is smother magic, which is a 5th-level spell that has no saving throw or spell resistance and that suppresses the target's ability to use magic.
The chapter ends with a few pages on the topic of aerial combat. The rules are brief and well considered additions to the existing system, and include such elements as facing (considering that a creature's turning is limited while flying, one cannot simply ignore facing) and abstract movement.
Section Three: What Lies Beyond
The third section is a selection of new game material more oriented toward the GM. The section leads off by introducing a number of new creatures. The first creatures so introduced are the elemental dragons. Elemental dragons do not have an age category as material dragons do, being formed of primal elements. They are all approximately equivalent to old dragons and are treated as elementals with regard to resistances and immunities.
A variety of undead dragons are introduced, including skeletal, ghoul, ghost, vampire, and mummified dragons. Most of these are treated much as templates, except for skeletons (which have statistics that depend on the size of the original dragon) and mummified dragons (which for some reason always used dragons of a similar size and have a single standard statistic block describing them). In addition to this, there is a dragon golem, which is a draconic version of a flesh golem, but uses a template approach.
Some new dragon species are introduced in this section. One of these species is a race of powerful benevolent planar dragons called the dragons of benevolent wisdom. They do not have age categories and are universally powerful. The other three new species are the carrion dragon, the dragon of whispers, and the dragon of misrule. The descriptions of these creatures imply that they have different age levels as standard dragons do, but there are no tables for abilities by age. An AEG representative I conversed with implied that these creatures were supposed to be used in much the same fashion as a template would, in that you could use the existing dragon statistics as a baseline. Considering that they had CRs and hit dice ranges defined for them, it did not seem like that would sufficiently fill out these creatures' abilities.
Part of the section is devoted to dragon tactics. Most of this subsection is commentary on how dragons would use many spells, spell-like abilities, or magic items. I found this section to be of little value, as many of the tactics presented seem like fairly obvious uses of the spell or item.
The section also contains a treatise on dragon lairs. Though some of the points are commonsense, there are some good ideas and stylistic considerations contained therein. The subsection includes some ideas for exotic locations for dragon lairs and a complete statted-out lair in an iceberg.
There is a short second section that introduces four new non-draconic monsters: the coin creature (a monster that appears as treasure and can strike a bargain with the owner of a hoard to guard it), the draconic stalker (a creature of legend with a taste for dragon blood and the ability to take it), the hoard beetle (a creature used by dragons to keep their hoards clean and safe), and the hoard sentinel (a plant that can warn a dragon of intruders). None of these are particularly gripping, but sound like they could make good elements in dragon related adventures.
Part of the section is devoted to the concept of dragon characters, particularly dragon player characters. Some level headed advice is presented for dealing with such a campaign; however, the end of this section is rather weak. A number of "draconic prestige classes" are introduced, but each is merely a more powerful version of one of the core classes. This struck me as both uninspiring and out of keeping with the nature of the prestige class mechanic.
The last part of the chapter is entitled "A World Lit Only By Dragon Fire." It describes some ideas behind a campaign in which the chromatic dragons actually unite under a charismatic dictator and do what they probably should have done some time ago - take over the world. The evil dragons totally deconstruct magic as it exists in most games and make it so that no arcane spellcaster can use her spells without the consent of a dragon, as all magic flows from dragons. Only a few bastions of the standard PC races remain, and they only exist through the grace of the good metallic dragons. This campaign is actually one of the more interesting ideas in the book.
Section Four: From Bone to Sinew
The last section is more homogeneous than any of the prior sections. It outlines the ecology, physiology, and mind set of the dragons. The section begins with a general overview and then delves into details of each of the ten basic d20 System dragon types.
This section is long on exposition and short on rules material. Save for the stat blocks of some legendary dragons described earlier, the section is entirely descriptive. Though long, if you find yourself in need of some ideas for adventures involving or personalities of dragons, there are some very good ideas to be had.
Conclusion
As with the prior books in the series, this one is a mixed bag. Some very good stuff is mixed in with some disappointing material. For the most part, the rules material is fairly well done, except for the strange adversity to providing all the required statistics that you would expect for a dragon.
Though the book is not as poorly organized as Evil was, it could definitely have been better organized and presented. The book would have come off much stronger if all of the authors worked on consolidating their visions, or at the very least the designer had made an effort to point them out as different options and presented them in a consistent format. For example, the campaign ideas might have benefitted if they were presented in a single section as "dragon campaign ideas."
As with the prior two books, the typeface of this book is entirely too large and gives the book a padded feel. Some of the weaker material here (the dragon tactics and the dragon prestige classes come immediately to mind) could have been edited out and a denser presentation used, which would have resulted in a less expensive and more worthwhile product.
Still, this is not a bad book. Many good ideas are to be had, though they may come at a bit of a high price for my liking.
-Alan D. Kohler
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