Making Dragons Awesome Again

Dragons are cool but they suffer from the same problem as trolls, orcs, beholders, and every other iconic fantasy monster: everyone knows exactly how they work and has seen them at least a few times, so they've been completely drained of mystery and (both tactical and thematic) novelty.  The challenge in dealing with them now comes mostly from simply having high stats, rather than having to figure anything out or adapt to something new.

Dragons have long since ceased to engender any sense of awe or wonder.

The solution is twofold.  First, do away with fixed breeds of dragon (red, bronze, shadow, whatever) and instead give them randomized abilities, much like how I do trolls, or magic weapons for that matter. This means every dragon is unique and, by extension, the combat challenge is likely to be preceded by an investigation challenge as I describe in the troll article.

Second, treat ancient dragons– only the biggest and strongest of the bunch– as inverse swarms.  This makes them more complex and probably makes the fights last longer, so this is something you'll probably only want to do for the BBEG of a whole campaign arc.  Representing dragons as inverse swarms offers more meaningful tactical choices beyond "How to we reduce its hit points ASAP."

Again, the inverse swarm thing is for Smaug-level epic dragons, more like how dragons usually are in 5E.  OSR dragons are often tough but not epic, and totally beatable by a small, low-level party; those ones you should just give the randomized abilities on top of whatever statline dragons normally have in your system.

I'm going to separate the two since you won't always want to do the inverse swarm thing.  Do the first part for a unique but non-swarm dragon, do both in the order presented for an inverse swarm dragon.

Generating Your Dragon

Step 1: Hit Dice

Adult (not ancient, not inverse swarm) dragons have 2d6+3 hit dice.  Roll hit points normally; as per Swords and Wizardry, they should have treasure as if their HD were twice as high.  

Ancient dragons have 2d6+6 hit dice.  They save as a monster of that many HD, but don't roll hit points normally if you're treating them as inverse swarms.  Treasure as if their HD were 3 times as high, XP as if it were twice as high.  

Step 2: Breed

Not as in red vs blue or whatever.  Different cultures have different dragons, so why limit yourself to European ones?  Roll a d4.

1: Western dragon.  Reduce all damage by 2 for adults dragons.  For ancient dragons, reduce damage to the torso by 3, the wings by 1, and other body parts by 2.  

2: Eastern dragon.  Has prophetic powers; will know the players are coming and have a rough idea of party composition (though not their exact plans).  Reroll the first critical failure each day.  If it can talk, it might trade prophecy for protection with a local lord.  

3: Feathered serpent.  Looks fabulous.  Also, worshipped by a cult of 4d10 zealots.  1 HD each, poor training and equipment but very high morale.  

4: Leviathan.  Can breathe underwater and swim as fast as it flies.  Its lair will be near the water; it will escape into the water if it starts losing the battle, unless you cut of its escape route. 

If you really want to make this interesting, you could get into stuff like three-headed dragons, wingless Godzilla or Jormundgandr types, or shadow dragons or cyborg dragons.  I chose to keep this part (relatively) simple. 

Step 3: Can it talk?  

You may want to decide this by fiat, but otherwise the chance a dragon can talk is HDx5%. 

Step 4: Breath Weapon

Breath weapons come in 3 varieties:  a 5 foot line, a cone, or a circular cloud centered a few squares in front of the dragon.  You decide on the range based on what fits your system and your game.  Adult dragon breath weapons do 3d6 damage, or whatever they normally do in your system.  Ancient dragons do 4d6.  Some breath weapons don't do damage, and instead inflict status conditions

Roll a d20 for type of breath weapon:

1-4: Fire, cone

5: Ice, cone

6-7: Lightning, line

8-9: Acid, line

10: Poison, cloud

11: Paralysis gas, cloud

12: Sleep gas, cloud

13: Confusion gas, cloud

14: Slowing gas, cloud

15: Berserk gas (makes you attack indiscriminately, including allies), cloud

16: Charm gas, cloud

17: Scalding steam, cloud (obscures vision for one round)

18: Smoke, cloud (obscures vision for a minute, the dragon can see through it)

19: Fear gas, cloud 

20: Two breath weapons.  Re-roll on this table twice, re-rolling if you get this again.

Step 5: Special Abilities

Roll a d12.  Roll twice if the dragon has 10 or more HD.

1: Casts spells as a magic user of level d4, +1 level per 5 HD.  Also can speak.  Must speak to cast spells, but doesn't need material components.

2: Can shape-shift into humans or common animals.

3: Telepathy and low-level telekinesis.  Can read surface thoughts.  

4: Can turn invisible.  Becomes visible if it attacks, and movement isn't silent.

5: Regenerates 3 hp/round, or for inverse swarm, 2 HP to the torso and 1 to each other part.

6: Fearful presence. Every enemy must save or be terrified once per encounter.

7: Cloud form.  Can turn into a cloud, move at walking speed, immune to most normal damage in this form.

8: Paralyzing gaze.

9: This dragon is undead, with all the upsides and downsides that implies.

10: True sight.

11: Magic resistance.

12: Has d3 children of d6 HD each.  As normal dragons of whatever type is closest to the parent.

Step 6: Lair Qualities

Roll a d12.  Roll twice if the dragon has 15 HD or more.

1- Traps all over the place.

2- The lair and its entrances are very well-hidden

3- The lair is at the top of a big, steep mountain

4- The lair lays a curse on all who enter unless they meet a very specific condition

5- Load-bearing boss.  The lair will collapse shortly after the dragon dies.  The treasure hoard should still be accessible afterward, somehow, if you survive.  Don't be a dick about this.

6- The lair is full of environmental hazards like lava or spikes.

7- The dragon can scry, at will, anywhere within a mile of the lair.

8- The dragon can control animals in the area.

9- The dragon can control plants in the area.

10- The lair is full of noxious fumes, which the dragon is immune to.

11- The dragon can control the weather in the area.

12- The lair can only be accessed by going through a sizable dungeon, or flying in through the ceiling.  The local dwarves might know a secret entrance...

Step 7: Color

Roll a d20:

1: Red

2: Blue

3: White

4: Green

5: Black

6: Gold

7: Silver

8: Copper/Bronze

9: Yellow

10: Purple

11: Changes with the dragon's mood like a mood ring

12: Shadowy 

13: Semi-transparent

14-19: The color you would expect based on the dragon's abilities and standard D&D dragon colors

20: A mix of colors, re-roll twice

Ancient Dragon Inverse Swarm Stats

We'll break the dragon down into five parts: The head/neck, torso, legs, wings and tail.  For simplicity's sake we'll treat all four legs as one part and both wings as one part.  

To give players a reason to engage the whole body rather than focusing all their attacks on one part at a time, the individual body parts become less capable as they lose HP.  The HP totals, and perhaps the damage of the dragon's attacks, may need to be adjusted depending on your system.

Ancient dragons are probably around 20-40 feet long, 15-25 feet wide, and 15-25 feet tall when standing on all fours.  When standing up, the legs, tail and torso are in normal melee range, the head (well, base of the neck, but that's the head for game purposes) can be reached by reach weapons like halberds, and the wings are totally out of melee range.  The head and wings can be brought lower by knocking out the legs first, which will be described under legs.

Head

Hit points: HD x 4

AC: As plate.  This is about half due to armored scales and half due to being able to dodge attacks. Reduced to as chain if the legs are reduced to 0 HP.  

Actions: One of the following each turn

Bite: d12 + grapple at enemies in front of or to the side of the dragon.  Grappled characters can try to escape on their turn.  If still grappled on the dragon's next turn, the dragon's next bite automatically hits them. 

Throw: Toss a grappled character up to 30 feet.

Breath weapon: Inflicts 4d6 damage, aimed in front or to the side.  Can be used up to 3 times a day, and only once every 3rd round.

Cast spells, if the dragon can do that.

Talk, if the dragon can do that.  It can utter a few free words as a free action.  Longer speeches take the head's action for that round.  

If damaged:

When reduced to half HP, the breath weapon does only 3d6 damage, the bite no longer grapples, and spells have a 2 in 6 chance of failure.  At zero HP, the dragon dies.

Torso

Hit points: HD x 8

AC: As plate.

Actions: None

If Damaged:

When reduced to half HP, all of the dragon's attacks do a die size lower.  

When reduced to one quarter HP, the dragon can no longer use its breath weapon, and all movement rates are reduced by 10 feet.  

At zero HP, the dragon is dead.  

Legs

Hit points: HD x 4

AC: As plate

Actions: One of the following each turn

2 claw attacks at 1d8 each at enemies in front of the dragon

Move up to 60 feet

Move up to 30 feet, plus 1 claw attack at 1d8

If damaged:

At half HP, can either make one claw attack or move 30 feet.  

At ten HP, can't walk or claw.

At zero HP, can't even stand.  The head is now within melee range, and the wings within reach weapon range, for human-sized characters.  Need a whole round to start flying without a jumping start.  

Tail

Hit points: HD x 2

AC: As chain

Actions: One of the following per turn

Tail whack: d8 damage plus push up to 10 feet against one enemy in a 120 degree arc behind the dragon.  

Tail sweep: Everyone in a 90 degree arc within 10 feet behind the dragon must save or take 1d6 damage and be pushed 15 feet (all in the same direction)

If damaged:

At half HP, reduce damage dize size for tail attacks by one, and tail attacks only push five feet.

At zero HP, no tail attacks, and the dragon has impaired balance.  Must make a DEX check to avoid staggering when it moves.

Wings

Hit points: HD x 2
AC: As leather

Actions: One of the following per turn

Fly: Up to 60 feet on the first round and 120 on subsequent rounds.

Wing beat: All characters immediately to the side of the dragon (8 to 10 and 2 to 4 o'clock) of the dragon must make a DEX save or save vs breath weapon or take 1d6 damage and be knocked down.

If damaged

At half HP, it takes an entire turn to start flying, i.e. can't move at all on the first turn spent flying.  Flight speed reduced to 90, wing beat damage reduced to 1d6 and no longer knocks down.  If legs are also at half HP or less, can't fly.

At zero HP, can't fly or wing beat.

How to Slay Dragons

A party facing an inverse swarm dragon has several distinct strategies they can follow to kill said dragon. 

1– Focus entirely on the torso.

2– Take out the legs, then the head.

3– Using ranged weapons or some clever tactic, go straight for the head without crippling the legs first.

4– Take out the wings and/or tail, then do one of the first three.  

Ideally none of these should be obviously superior to the others.  You may have already figured this out, but there's a potential monkey wrench here: damage-dealing spells. 

Any system that has high-damage spells like lightning bolt makes option 3, going straight for the head, too easy.  Giving the head more HP really screws archers over, so the best solution here is probably to give the head resistance to magical damage.  That is, it takes half damage from damaging spells, but disabling spells work as normal.

Speaking of spells, single-target spells like hold monster might have to target one particular body part, at the referee's discretion.  Mental enchantments have to target the head obviously, though controlling the dragon's mind does let you control the whole body.  

Another thing you may have noted is that between having attacks that "fire" at different angles and wanting to force the party to spread out its attacks, the dragon counterintuitively benefits from being surrounded.  To counteract this, you should give characters serious bonuses for flanking the dragon, maybe even advantage on attacks

If you implement all of this: the unique dragon abilities, inverse swarm rules, and lair qualities– taking down an ancient dragon should become a three or four-phase adventure.  First your players research the dragon by investigating the sites of previous attacks and interviewing survivors to learn the dragon's abilities.  Possibly they have to whittle down some allies of the dragon, if it has a following.  Then they scout out it's lair, maybe killing more followers in the process or just carefully clearing traps.  Then finally they fight the dragon. 

And when fighting the dragon, the fight becomes more than just whittling down a pool of hit points.  The party will be trying to systematically cripple body parts one by one while preventing the dragon's escape.  Or maybe letting it escape, it can't take the treasure with it after all.    

The dragon will be trying to corral the party so it can hit them with AoE attacks, prevent them from focusing on one body part at a time, and take advantage of environmental features by, say, flying or funneling you into a corridor and hitting you with a breath weapon, or knocking people off cliffs.  If it's losing, the dragon will probably try to escape.  

It takes a little extra work to pull this off, but done right, the combination of a really unique monster, a tactically interesting fight, and the whole thing having significant build-up can create the kind of session that produces years of fond memories and "Dude, how awesome was it when we fought that dragon" type discussions.

If you end up using this, please share your experience in the comments!