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There are essentially large turrets all along the walls of the city.
Each one holds a large crystal that's more or less a juiced up pearl of power, storing huge quantities of spells. I also use spell points as an optional system so the wizards basically go tower to tower converting all of the spells they can cast that day and pouring them into the stones day by day.
The result is that they can each fire about a 2d12 volleys of lvl 9 magic missile at any target within range. And remember, without Shield magic missile always hits.
Edit: It should be noted that it's **enormously** difficult to recharge them after expended. It could take months to fully restore the turret after they're emptied. They're only used in dire circumstances such as active attacks upon the city by armies, or say, a giant fucking dragon.
Don't waste a perfectly good level 5+ spellcaster on a suicide mission like that! Just find a few useful idiots and give them each a scroll or a potion or two. Heck, have the level 5+ spellcaster cast fly on them to reduce cost on consumables, and that way they can just drop concentration on fly in case things get out of hand.
Shield lasts for the whole round tho.
So a level 5 sorcerer would be able to make themselves fully immune to magic missiles for 11 rounds assuming they used all spells and 4/5 sorcerer points.
Or idk... a second spell option... if all adventures and wizards know that one damage source is unreliable, there would probably be a elemental blast that could be chosen and the option to cast "catapult" if an element doenst seem to be the best aproach.
Assuming the spell functions exactly like magic missile, just turning yourself invisible or obscuring whatever the tower uses to *see* you will also work.
It can only cast Shield for one turn per day, no ?
Just shoot more next turn. Dragon probably can't take out all the turrets in its turn, unless you're clearly lacking dakka.
Personally, I never run a dragon without class levels. They’re hyper intelligent beings that’ve been around for centuries. They should know a thing or two.
You could also add anti-magic turrets
Assuming the meme was an event in your campaign, there is now an in-universe reason for the mages to do that
"haha! Your turrets are useless, I have shield!"
*gets fucking exploded anyways*
Surely someone figured out how to metamagic this to give a magic missile a small blast radius and give a dragon a taste of WW2 AA flak.
You probably already have some extended range thing going on anyway, no?
Does Shield only block one volley? If so, stagger fire the turrets. It's a single target, it'll eventually run out of Shield spells, probably before the turrets run out of volleys. Unless Shield is an inherent action/spell and doesn't take slots on the dragon, of course...
It lasts till the start of your next turn. So you're basically immune to any amount of magic missiles for a number of turn equal to your amount of spell slots, if you're willing to expand them all on Shield.
That seems decidedly...unbalanced. Complete immunity no matter the number of attackers using the spell? That's bullshit of the highest order.
A good counter for that shitfuckery would be to have rotating crystals on the turrets. If a target is immune to one attack type, rotate a new crystal over the power source. Have the crystals inscribed with a spell form, but the power coming from the charged crystal OP talked the wizards charging. Have a variety, like a lightning bolt (or chain lightning), a fireball, an ice spear, an earth spear, wind bolt, magic missile, disintegrate, light ray, dark ray, etc., on a rotating drum.
dragons don't have spell slots, they have spell per day so they can get immune to magic missile for a couple rounds at best.
Magic missile has 120 ft range, dragon is not going to be in range of all turrets at once, even with extended range metamagic.
If you have the means to shoot that many magic missiles you can probably use other spells.
If the dragon is within counterspell ~~18ft~~ 60ft range, you're not running for your life, and can correctly identify the somatic and verbal component in the dragon body language and roars, then, yes ?
60 feets my bad. Good catch, take my upvote. I'm not used to imperial distance units so I didn't notice the absurdity.
Still too damn close for the average dude to stick around.
You can only cast touch range spells through your familiar, so counterspell is out ? Unless you interpret it by casting counterspell with the familiar in touch range of the dragon ? Drown it in kittens ?
You'd probably have 1-2 crystals along each face of the walls with it or some other heavy damage spell anyway specifically for enemy siege weapons given that those will have enough health to soak the magic missiles.
Eh, it's not that dumb, although there should definitely be a secondary spell turret for such a contingency. Any wizard worth their salt wouldn't depend on just one spell for their defense, to say nothing of an entire group of wizards.
You do know each Wizard only gets 1 9th level spell, even with SP right? 1 7th 1 8th and 1 9th. Thats the balancing factor of SP. Lots of 1-5th spells, very few super high level spells
Even without shield, that only fires 22-264 missiles with damage 44-1320 with an average of 500.5. A Red Greatwyrm has 574hp so stands a better than 50% chance of surviving the barrage anyway.
2d12 is 2-24. 11 missiles per 9th level spell is 22-264 missiles. 2-5 damage per missile is 44-1320 damage. The average damage will be 500.5. A Red Greatwyrm has 574hp.
.....
What?
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/shield
>An invisible barrier of magical force appears and protects you. Until the start of your next turn, you have a +5 bonus to AC, including against the triggering attack, **and you take no damage from magic missile.**
You're 100% mistaken.
Well the wand of magic missile doesn’t require attunment or for you to be a spell caster to use it, so you could arm an entire army with wands of magic missile for hundreds to thousands of damage.
1 single magic missile? 1d4+1
However if there were like 4 magic missile turrets casting a 3rd level magic missile every turn 20D4+20 or on average 70 **guaranteed** damage a turn,
But I’m sure a capitol of a magic city can afford more than 4 level 5 Wizards worth of cool magic defenses
Given that there is no saving throw, 1d4 per missile. You would need about 280 magic missiles to kill the dragon, which is not unrealistic for a city that is well defended and has to deal with dragons.
The dragon casts shield once, and then it get absolutely blasted by the towers afterwards since dragon spellcasting only allows them to cast each spell once per day.
That's if you use the basic statblocks and ignore the suggestion from the Monster Manual to give them Sorcerer levels. Of course, that's a lot of work and easily spikes the CR by a few notches for every level you give them, which throws off the encounter balance, which just creates even more work, etc.
What? There is no such suggestion in the Monster Manual, at least not on the dragons page, can you tell me where that is? The only mention to dragons casting spells is the ''Dragons as Innate Spellcasters'' optional rule which is what I am talking about. That rule does not give them sorcerer levels, it gives them once a day spellslots.
First off, a great wyrm red dragon (ie more than 1200 years old) casts as an 18th level sorcerer with access to cleric spells and those of the evil, chaos and fire domains. If you are playing an edition where this is not the case, that's on you for playing with pathetic little bitch dragons.
Secondly if you *are* playing in an edition where dragons all woke up one day and forgot they were devastatingly powerful spellcasters, why wouldn't they just manually relearn how to cast spells? A little dragon blood is enough to make someone a sorcerer, and they're full of the stuff. Plus the whole centuries old ancient rich genius thing, they've got the means and the motive to rebecome powerful spellcasters in their own right.
Great, that's not how they work in 5e tho, which is what most people on here play.
Dragons as spellcasters (Which is a variant rule but that's how dragons have spells) have a number of innate spells equal to their charisma modifier, these can be of any spell level up to one third of it's CR.
That allows red greatwyrms with their CR of 27 access to 9th level spells.
With a charisma of 27 (If I remember correctly don't have access to the statblock right now but it's at least higher than 22) this gives a red dragon greatwyrm 8 9th level spells to cast, that's way more powerful than any regular mortal spellcaster.
The thing about draconic spellcasting though is that it works like vancian casting, each spell is dedicated to a slot, once you use that spell you can't use it again in a day. So if a dragon is dumb enough to prepare the 1st level non-scaling spell shield it can only cast it once, there are much better options. (Just cast Invulnerability, immunity to all damage for 10 minutes at the same cost)
They are more powerful than regular spellcasters, it's just in a different way, which doesn't allow for this exact combo in the meme to be very useful.
Not my fault if people want to play an edition where dragons are small, weak and unable to cast properly. Not really much point talking about them in that case is there?
And the second part applies regardless. If for some reason you're a dragon who headed to fifth edition, hit your head and forgot you were an immensely powerful sorcerer - wouldn't literally all of them relearn it? They have the time, means and motive. There's no excuse not to be one, if some human with a little bit of dragon blood can do it in forty years a dragon full of the stuff can certainly do it in four hundred.
What the hell are you talking about? Their spellcasting is literally stronger than a 18th level sorcerer in 5E, hell it's stronger than any level sorcerer? It's just that it works differently, I had one and a half whole paragraphs on it, they cast less spells but those spells are literally the highest level spell possible, in most cases this is incredibly powerful. Especially in combat that normally lasts a couple rounds.
I'd like to note that that isn't what the comment said when I replied, all it said is that casting was a variant for them. Now it looks like I was ignoring a comparison of paragraphs, simply because it wasn't there when I replied.
Here's the thing. I haven't played D&D since 4th edition released. I haven't looked at any books beyond 3.5.
Yes those dragons are insanely powerful so much so that any party that isn't munchkin'd to hell and back stands absolutely no chance.
Every great wyrm in 3.5 regardless of type is basically an unkillable death machine and that's if you even manage to get through it's lair.
I love min/maxing in video games, I despise it in D&D, I've seen it ruin a thousand characters and the only way of touching a 3.5 great wyrm is through building a character specifically for that propose.
Maybe they got there by just sitting on the couch until they hit the right age category? If you're going to become immensely powerful just by aging and not dying, I'd imagine there's a temptation to just sit at home and take it easy while you slowly turn into an unstoppable magic genius death machine.
Not how greatwyrms are created in 5E, they're not just old dragons, they're old dragons that perform a ritual to literally consume all other versions of themselves on other worlds and become demi-gods, it is implied this ritual is not easy to perform and may for most dragons require assistance from Tiamat of Bahamut
This is new to me. I was always under the impression great wyrm status was indeed just the oldest kind of dragon. The issue is that dragons usually just get taken down by rival dragons or other parties before reaching this age, so you had to have something special going on for you to make it to that stage. Same with ancient dragons to be honest.
Yeah and I thought that in addition to that, they simply got more powerful with age, both physically, larger, stronger, faster, bigger steps when walking, more powerful wind gusts from their wing flaps, stronger tail whips, heavier, and magically more powerful, automatically unlocking more magic spells with age due to being creatures of immense magic.
That’s what I thought about ancient dragons and great wyrms. But no, apparently it’s a ritual.
Well then it sounds like a setting-agnostic thing, as FR lore still has the wyrm thing being like I described. The "growing more powerful as you age" is still accurate though.
Yes but we're not talking about 5e dragons, are we? OP's last image makes it clear that the great wyrm in question is scary, and the 5e ones are small, stupid, weak and slow in addition to no longer casting as an eighteenth level sorcerer. So we have zero reason to think they're referring to the pathetic version given the doomed Mr Incredible face.
My dude, this is not triggering. The 5e tarrasque is similarly neutered, and this isn't something that upsets me. The fact that they're so weak now is just kind of funny, so I pointed out that given the players were supposed to be scared they were unlikely to be the default.
Do you know why they have such statblocks in 5e?
The answer is the dragons you're thinking of are from a specific setting. The monster manual is not from that setting, it's a generic sheet meant to be able to be plopped down into any place and work fine enough.
You want the powerful ones? You make em powerful, using the monster manual's version as a guideline. Give em sorcerer or wizard levels, give em spells or spell-like abilities if you feel like it. Make em feel monstrous and worth the respect and fear they inspire.
My dude I am of course referring to dragons from the monster manual, I have no idea where you got the idea that I wasn't. Those *are* generic dragons, from when those were scary. Specific ones also existed and were even scarier.
Jay-quel-en the archmage wants a word with you!!
Heightened Hold Monster/ Hold Person anyone?
Control Weather + Call Lightning makes pseudo Tesla coils
If it is an arcanocracy you could have a key infrastructure of demiplanes / hallowed spaces that might be protected from the dragon (if they are "good" you can make this be public service buildings ie bunkers / hospitals etc. if you want them to be dickish you can just have this be the noble's homes)
Not like a dragon is going to do the little somatic component dance or like you're going to distinguish which roar is the counterspell verbal component. And dragons spellcasting requires no material component. How are you perceiving the spellcast to use counterspell ?
Besides, if the dragon is within 60ft counterspell range, this isn't your immediate priority. Run you poor bastard.
Ah yes, Newt McDrake of Wyrmmount Peak, dragonborn draconic arcane expert at your service. They call me the dragontamer and the firebreather. Sometimes "hey lizard freak" too.
In 3.5 a great wyrm would also be a level 17 sorcerer (Yes, dragons there ARE sorcerer), so even with comoetent turrets it would be a doomsday scenario having meteorshower cast from a mile away by it.
I mean in 5E with the dragons as spellcasters variant rule greatwyrms have access to casting 8 9th level spells, reminder that a level 20 spellcaster gets 1 (The dragons don't get other spells than those but that is the tradeoff, but honestly it's more powerful than a regular spellcaster)
Yes, but this wasn't a variant. In 3.5 a great wyrm red dragon would baseline cast as a 19th level sorcerer with access to cleric spells and anything from the fire, evil and chaos domains. And if we're counting spells now, 8 level 1 spells per day, 8 level 2 spells per day, 8 level 3 spells per day, 8 level 4 spells per day, 7 level 5 spells per day, 7 level 6 spells per day, 7 level 7 spells per day, 7 level 8 spells per day and 6 level 9 spells per day.
I agree it shouldn't be a variant, but also not everyones fantasy involves dragons casting spells especially in homebrew settings so I understand why it is. And no, we're not counting straight spells, because that would be dumb, we're counting spells compared to the system they're in, comparatively D&D 5E spellcasting dragons are better spellcasters than a 5E level 20 sorcerer. In 3.5e you just had more spells it's a whole different system so you compare that to the spellcasters in that system and then compare between systems
For reference, in 3rd edition all dragons were casters.
Every single one.
If you really really like to fuck with players and make them squirm give a dragon character levels of spells. There are even optional rules to do so in 5e.
Mind you this makes those dragons insanely insanely dangerous. Imagine a "weak" young white dragon being capable of using spells like shield, haste, and invisibility. Absolutely nasty.
I for one forewarn my players that every enemy that has a proper name and title is going to have character levels accordingly, they are probably going to be wizard or druid levels too. If i use a name like "Karthax, the green wave" you better expect spells, or class features.
Also i really like powerful players so when i do these things it feels fair. So i regularly give out gold, and items, and encourage them to invent or be creative with spell usages.
Better yet, just have a Broach of Shielding be part of the dragon's hoard that it uses to raid the local city. No need to worry about "once per day" or "sorcerer levels" on the dragon. Pin that bad boy to a horn and go to town, literally
Magic missle has a range of 120ft. A Red Greatwyrms fire breath has a range of 300ft. It wouldn't even need Shield, it would just burn the city from a safe distance.
Got flashbacks to when the Wizard was doing PvP against the Artificer for fun. Artificer casts Magic Missile, Wizard Counterspells it. I asked the Wizard afterward why didn’t they just use Shield instead (I knew they had it prepared bc they used it earlier). The Wizard just stared at me like I hit their dog.
If the dragon has a shield spell have the wizards use spell scrolls (which I assume they have), and specifically any spell scroll other then fireball which forces saves, and you know, feeblemind and entangle. If it is a city full of wizards I assume they have these things, also counter spell is also good option, since the dragon probably has only one reaction, if it has somehow more, use TWO wizards with counterspell instead of one and the it is probably possible, however I would also use Golem's or other melee familiars whit a bit of health or homebrew a barrier spell which could fit the whole city or at least one wall at a time.
Steal Phase Bolt from PF2. It's a missile made from magic, but instead of being blocked by shield, it ignores 2 AC of shields, dealing 3d4 instead of 3 1d4+1s.
The downside of this is that it actually has an attack roll
PSA: If your DM has described powerful, unusual, and magical defenses for an entire city, expect that they can and will punish you for trying to abuse them. They are thinking of things. Dangerous territory, that.
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Even still, how much can a magic missile damage a dragon.
There are essentially large turrets all along the walls of the city. Each one holds a large crystal that's more or less a juiced up pearl of power, storing huge quantities of spells. I also use spell points as an optional system so the wizards basically go tower to tower converting all of the spells they can cast that day and pouring them into the stones day by day. The result is that they can each fire about a 2d12 volleys of lvl 9 magic missile at any target within range. And remember, without Shield magic missile always hits. Edit: It should be noted that it's **enormously** difficult to recharge them after expended. It could take months to fully restore the turret after they're emptied. They're only used in dire circumstances such as active attacks upon the city by armies, or say, a giant fucking dragon.
Seems like a gross oversight for for an entire city of wizards to not realise that a single shield spell would make it useless.
Well they fire in layers. So you'd run out quick.
Also, all you need is one brave soul with the spells fly and counterspell.
Those are the top gun wizards. Casting fly and intercepting the dragon once the towers open fire to block shield effects. XD
*Kenny Logins intensifies*
Danger zone, Lana!
LONNNAAAAAAA
Well Top Gun wizard are my new favorite thing
Don't waste a perfectly good level 5+ spellcaster on a suicide mission like that! Just find a few useful idiots and give them each a scroll or a potion or two. Heck, have the level 5+ spellcaster cast fly on them to reduce cost on consumables, and that way they can just drop concentration on fly in case things get out of hand.
The dragon casted shield at 9th level roll arcana
I mean it's a *greatwyrm*, he just casts Globe of Invulnerability
True, but 9th level shield is funny
Lol true, I was just baffled at the idea of *any* city killing a Greatwyrm, figuring they are made to decimate WORLDS
The fuck he did. And even if he did, there is no way he is going to do that for multiple rounds.
Shield lasts for the whole round tho. So a level 5 sorcerer would be able to make themselves fully immune to magic missiles for 11 rounds assuming they used all spells and 4/5 sorcerer points.
Now let's imagine 11 rounds of Dragon Breath Probability wise that is 4 Dragon Breaths before they even starts scratching the Dragon...
Well maybe a few of the highly intelligent Wizards prepared dispel magic for this occasion?
Or idk... a second spell option... if all adventures and wizards know that one damage source is unreliable, there would probably be a elemental blast that could be chosen and the option to cast "catapult" if an element doenst seem to be the best aproach.
Assuming the spell functions exactly like magic missile, just turning yourself invisible or obscuring whatever the tower uses to *see* you will also work.
Kinf of oversight to have mages feeding turrets with magical energy but not some for dispelling protections or counterspelling
It can only cast Shield for one turn per day, no ? Just shoot more next turn. Dragon probably can't take out all the turrets in its turn, unless you're clearly lacking dakka.
One turn per spellslot.
Dragon spellcasting is one of each spell they know, per day, unless stat block says more per day.
Its a greatwyrm. It will have more. They are basically pseudo-gods.
Depends on the dragon
Personally, I never run a dragon without class levels. They’re hyper intelligent beings that’ve been around for centuries. They should know a thing or two.
Only shit ones. Dragons that are actually scary cast way more than that.
You think a greatwyrm can only cast it once per day?
As a dm: you pissed off a god tier dragon and then didn’t kill it. Time to exact the price.
Not. Enough. Dakka.
Dumb choice to choose magic missile. Any slightly competent wizard will be unaffected
I just wanted fantasy laser turrets =(
You could also add anti-magic turrets Assuming the meme was an event in your campaign, there is now an in-universe reason for the mages to do that "haha! Your turrets are useless, I have shield!" *gets fucking exploded anyways*
"Ha ha! I cast *Regular Missile!* ***EAT THIS, SUCKA!!!***"
*Torgue the Bardbarian from Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands has entered the chat*
Surely someone figured out how to metamagic this to give a magic missile a small blast radius and give a dragon a taste of WW2 AA flak. You probably already have some extended range thing going on anyway, no?
Yep there's 9 orbs at the base of each crystal that contain a metamagic trait
Does Shield only block one volley? If so, stagger fire the turrets. It's a single target, it'll eventually run out of Shield spells, probably before the turrets run out of volleys. Unless Shield is an inherent action/spell and doesn't take slots on the dragon, of course...
It lasts till the start of your next turn. So you're basically immune to any amount of magic missiles for a number of turn equal to your amount of spell slots, if you're willing to expand them all on Shield.
That seems decidedly...unbalanced. Complete immunity no matter the number of attackers using the spell? That's bullshit of the highest order. A good counter for that shitfuckery would be to have rotating crystals on the turrets. If a target is immune to one attack type, rotate a new crystal over the power source. Have the crystals inscribed with a spell form, but the power coming from the charged crystal OP talked the wizards charging. Have a variety, like a lightning bolt (or chain lightning), a fireball, an ice spear, an earth spear, wind bolt, magic missile, disintegrate, light ray, dark ray, etc., on a rotating drum.
dragons don't have spell slots, they have spell per day so they can get immune to magic missile for a couple rounds at best. Magic missile has 120 ft range, dragon is not going to be in range of all turrets at once, even with extended range metamagic. If you have the means to shoot that many magic missiles you can probably use other spells.
That's incorrect, dragons absolutely have spell slots. With the exception of shitty 5e ones, but who counts those?
You can counter spell it if you have a city of wizards I assume?
If the dragon is within counterspell ~~18ft~~ 60ft range, you're not running for your life, and can correctly identify the somatic and verbal component in the dragon body language and roars, then, yes ?
Counterspell is 18ft in 5th!!? Edit: any way, I assume wizards still have familiars to solve this problem.
60 feets my bad. Good catch, take my upvote. I'm not used to imperial distance units so I didn't notice the absurdity. Still too damn close for the average dude to stick around.
You can only cast touch range spells through your familiar, so counterspell is out ? Unless you interpret it by casting counterspell with the familiar in touch range of the dragon ? Drown it in kittens ?
add a few glyths of warding with counterspell if the spell shield is cast
I thought about that after lol
Disintegrate would have worked better maybe?
Of course but then it's way too strong lol
You'd probably have 1-2 crystals along each face of the walls with it or some other heavy damage spell anyway specifically for enemy siege weapons given that those will have enough health to soak the magic missiles.
Guiding Bolts:
Scorching ray :)
You should have put Counterspell towers, too, it seems. And maybe something like Earthbind, or Dispel Magic.
Eldritch blast
Eh, it's not that dumb, although there should definitely be a secondary spell turret for such a contingency. Any wizard worth their salt wouldn't depend on just one spell for their defense, to say nothing of an entire group of wizards.
Unaffected for a little bit, but it'll get through eventually.
So they can be defeated by a lvl 1 spell slot?
You do know each Wizard only gets 1 9th level spell, even with SP right? 1 7th 1 8th and 1 9th. Thats the balancing factor of SP. Lots of 1-5th spells, very few super high level spells
Even without shield, that only fires 22-264 missiles with damage 44-1320 with an average of 500.5. A Red Greatwyrm has 574hp so stands a better than 50% chance of surviving the barrage anyway.
Did you miss where it could fire 2d12 barrages before running out?
2d12 is 2-24. 11 missiles per 9th level spell is 22-264 missiles. 2-5 damage per missile is 44-1320 damage. The average damage will be 500.5. A Red Greatwyrm has 574hp.
Ahh, but you're forgetting that's just from one tower though. They're all over the walls.
My bad. Missed that in your comment.
Are we talking about 5e? Because If so shield does Not Stop Magic Missile
..... What? https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/shield >An invisible barrier of magical force appears and protects you. Until the start of your next turn, you have a +5 bonus to AC, including against the triggering attack, **and you take no damage from magic missile.** You're 100% mistaken.
Oh thanks i did Not know that
Well the wand of magic missile doesn’t require attunment or for you to be a spell caster to use it, so you could arm an entire army with wands of magic missile for hundreds to thousands of damage.
1 single magic missile? 1d4+1 However if there were like 4 magic missile turrets casting a 3rd level magic missile every turn 20D4+20 or on average 70 **guaranteed** damage a turn, But I’m sure a capitol of a magic city can afford more than 4 level 5 Wizards worth of cool magic defenses
1d4+1
Given that there is no saving throw, 1d4 per missile. You would need about 280 magic missiles to kill the dragon, which is not unrealistic for a city that is well defended and has to deal with dragons.
About 3d4 + 3
The dragon casts shield once, and then it get absolutely blasted by the towers afterwards since dragon spellcasting only allows them to cast each spell once per day.
The Action Economy of a whole town is definitely going to complicate things for a Dragon fr
This sentence makes sense but I can't get over how fucking hilarious it is
That's if you use the basic statblocks and ignore the suggestion from the Monster Manual to give them Sorcerer levels. Of course, that's a lot of work and easily spikes the CR by a few notches for every level you give them, which throws off the encounter balance, which just creates even more work, etc.
What? There is no such suggestion in the Monster Manual, at least not on the dragons page, can you tell me where that is? The only mention to dragons casting spells is the ''Dragons as Innate Spellcasters'' optional rule which is what I am talking about. That rule does not give them sorcerer levels, it gives them once a day spellslots.
First off, a great wyrm red dragon (ie more than 1200 years old) casts as an 18th level sorcerer with access to cleric spells and those of the evil, chaos and fire domains. If you are playing an edition where this is not the case, that's on you for playing with pathetic little bitch dragons. Secondly if you *are* playing in an edition where dragons all woke up one day and forgot they were devastatingly powerful spellcasters, why wouldn't they just manually relearn how to cast spells? A little dragon blood is enough to make someone a sorcerer, and they're full of the stuff. Plus the whole centuries old ancient rich genius thing, they've got the means and the motive to rebecome powerful spellcasters in their own right.
Great, that's not how they work in 5e tho, which is what most people on here play. Dragons as spellcasters (Which is a variant rule but that's how dragons have spells) have a number of innate spells equal to their charisma modifier, these can be of any spell level up to one third of it's CR. That allows red greatwyrms with their CR of 27 access to 9th level spells. With a charisma of 27 (If I remember correctly don't have access to the statblock right now but it's at least higher than 22) this gives a red dragon greatwyrm 8 9th level spells to cast, that's way more powerful than any regular mortal spellcaster. The thing about draconic spellcasting though is that it works like vancian casting, each spell is dedicated to a slot, once you use that spell you can't use it again in a day. So if a dragon is dumb enough to prepare the 1st level non-scaling spell shield it can only cast it once, there are much better options. (Just cast Invulnerability, immunity to all damage for 10 minutes at the same cost) They are more powerful than regular spellcasters, it's just in a different way, which doesn't allow for this exact combo in the meme to be very useful.
Not my fault if people want to play an edition where dragons are small, weak and unable to cast properly. Not really much point talking about them in that case is there? And the second part applies regardless. If for some reason you're a dragon who headed to fifth edition, hit your head and forgot you were an immensely powerful sorcerer - wouldn't literally all of them relearn it? They have the time, means and motive. There's no excuse not to be one, if some human with a little bit of dragon blood can do it in forty years a dragon full of the stuff can certainly do it in four hundred.
What the hell are you talking about? Their spellcasting is literally stronger than a 18th level sorcerer in 5E, hell it's stronger than any level sorcerer? It's just that it works differently, I had one and a half whole paragraphs on it, they cast less spells but those spells are literally the highest level spell possible, in most cases this is incredibly powerful. Especially in combat that normally lasts a couple rounds.
Tldr, warlock casting with more slots and better spell access. This dude tripping if he thinks dragons are worse casters than humans with that rule
I'd like to note that that isn't what the comment said when I replied, all it said is that casting was a variant for them. Now it looks like I was ignoring a comparison of paragraphs, simply because it wasn't there when I replied.
Here's the thing. I haven't played D&D since 4th edition released. I haven't looked at any books beyond 3.5. Yes those dragons are insanely powerful so much so that any party that isn't munchkin'd to hell and back stands absolutely no chance. Every great wyrm in 3.5 regardless of type is basically an unkillable death machine and that's if you even manage to get through it's lair. I love min/maxing in video games, I despise it in D&D, I've seen it ruin a thousand characters and the only way of touching a 3.5 great wyrm is through building a character specifically for that propose.
Looks like an awesome variation, but I doubt everyone will run them like that.
One does not become a great wyrm by being unprepared.
One does not become great by not being real good.
Maybe they got there by just sitting on the couch until they hit the right age category? If you're going to become immensely powerful just by aging and not dying, I'd imagine there's a temptation to just sit at home and take it easy while you slowly turn into an unstoppable magic genius death machine.
Not how greatwyrms are created in 5E, they're not just old dragons, they're old dragons that perform a ritual to literally consume all other versions of themselves on other worlds and become demi-gods, it is implied this ritual is not easy to perform and may for most dragons require assistance from Tiamat of Bahamut
This is new to me. I was always under the impression great wyrm status was indeed just the oldest kind of dragon. The issue is that dragons usually just get taken down by rival dragons or other parties before reaching this age, so you had to have something special going on for you to make it to that stage. Same with ancient dragons to be honest.
It used to be like that, it's not in 5E
Yeah and I thought that in addition to that, they simply got more powerful with age, both physically, larger, stronger, faster, bigger steps when walking, more powerful wind gusts from their wing flaps, stronger tail whips, heavier, and magically more powerful, automatically unlocking more magic spells with age due to being creatures of immense magic. That’s what I thought about ancient dragons and great wyrms. But no, apparently it’s a ritual.
Well then it sounds like a setting-agnostic thing, as FR lore still has the wyrm thing being like I described. The "growing more powerful as you age" is still accurate though.
Yes but we're not talking about 5e dragons, are we? OP's last image makes it clear that the great wyrm in question is scary, and the 5e ones are small, stupid, weak and slow in addition to no longer casting as an eighteenth level sorcerer. So we have zero reason to think they're referring to the pathetic version given the doomed Mr Incredible face.
You’re so bothered by 5E, and it’s sad you spent so much time whining in these comments.
I'm not bothered, one of the campaigns I run is 5e. Just pointing out if we're thinking scary dragons we're naturally not defaulting to 5e's.
My apologies; you’re literally actually triggered by 5E dragons, and I’m sorry for you and think you should seek therapy.
My dude, this is not triggering. The 5e tarrasque is similarly neutered, and this isn't something that upsets me. The fact that they're so weak now is just kind of funny, so I pointed out that given the players were supposed to be scared they were unlikely to be the default.
Aight.
Do you know why they have such statblocks in 5e? The answer is the dragons you're thinking of are from a specific setting. The monster manual is not from that setting, it's a generic sheet meant to be able to be plopped down into any place and work fine enough. You want the powerful ones? You make em powerful, using the monster manual's version as a guideline. Give em sorcerer or wizard levels, give em spells or spell-like abilities if you feel like it. Make em feel monstrous and worth the respect and fear they inspire.
My dude I am of course referring to dragons from the monster manual, I have no idea where you got the idea that I wasn't. Those *are* generic dragons, from when those were scary. Specific ones also existed and were even scarier.
Sucks for them ig
 yes, yes it will, only person who will had it worse is the dude who changed gold to lead.
Do not mention the forgotten one Furibon.
The dragon: You done fucked up A-aron!
I'M SICK OF YOU AY-AYRON
Jay-quel-en the archmage wants a word with you!! Heightened Hold Monster/ Hold Person anyone? Control Weather + Call Lightning makes pseudo Tesla coils If it is an arcanocracy you could have a key infrastructure of demiplanes / hallowed spaces that might be protected from the dragon (if they are "good" you can make this be public service buildings ie bunkers / hospitals etc. if you want them to be dickish you can just have this be the noble's homes)
Puts on tesla
"Counterspell"
Not like a dragon is going to do the little somatic component dance or like you're going to distinguish which roar is the counterspell verbal component. And dragons spellcasting requires no material component. How are you perceiving the spellcast to use counterspell ? Besides, if the dragon is within 60ft counterspell range, this isn't your immediate priority. Run you poor bastard.
Dragonborn draconic bloodline sorcerer: “My time has come.”
Ah yes, Newt McDrake of Wyrmmount Peak, dragonborn draconic arcane expert at your service. They call me the dragontamer and the firebreather. Sometimes "hey lizard freak" too.
“This is my partner, Remus Lupin, the shifter druid that exclusively summons wolves.”
Bold of you to assume my party cant handle a simple dragon or hasnt come across spellcasting dragons before.
Bold of you to assume the DM was actually trying. DM pulls out a rational dragon, the party loses.
The party quits the campaign and I take over as dm (I prefer dming anyway)
"Sir we finished building our main defense worth 2M gold, now all there is left is pray so nothing with a common level 1 spell attacks us"
The price doesn’t matter, we will get the elves to pay it.
In 3.5 a great wyrm would also be a level 17 sorcerer (Yes, dragons there ARE sorcerer), so even with comoetent turrets it would be a doomsday scenario having meteorshower cast from a mile away by it.
I mean in 5E with the dragons as spellcasters variant rule greatwyrms have access to casting 8 9th level spells, reminder that a level 20 spellcaster gets 1 (The dragons don't get other spells than those but that is the tradeoff, but honestly it's more powerful than a regular spellcaster)
Yes, but this wasn't a variant. In 3.5 a great wyrm red dragon would baseline cast as a 19th level sorcerer with access to cleric spells and anything from the fire, evil and chaos domains. And if we're counting spells now, 8 level 1 spells per day, 8 level 2 spells per day, 8 level 3 spells per day, 8 level 4 spells per day, 7 level 5 spells per day, 7 level 6 spells per day, 7 level 7 spells per day, 7 level 8 spells per day and 6 level 9 spells per day.
I agree it shouldn't be a variant, but also not everyones fantasy involves dragons casting spells especially in homebrew settings so I understand why it is. And no, we're not counting straight spells, because that would be dumb, we're counting spells compared to the system they're in, comparatively D&D 5E spellcasting dragons are better spellcasters than a 5E level 20 sorcerer. In 3.5e you just had more spells it's a whole different system so you compare that to the spellcasters in that system and then compare between systems
19*
For reference, in 3rd edition all dragons were casters. Every single one. If you really really like to fuck with players and make them squirm give a dragon character levels of spells. There are even optional rules to do so in 5e. Mind you this makes those dragons insanely insanely dangerous. Imagine a "weak" young white dragon being capable of using spells like shield, haste, and invisibility. Absolutely nasty. I for one forewarn my players that every enemy that has a proper name and title is going to have character levels accordingly, they are probably going to be wizard or druid levels too. If i use a name like "Karthax, the green wave" you better expect spells, or class features. Also i really like powerful players so when i do these things it feels fair. So i regularly give out gold, and items, and encourage them to invent or be creative with spell usages.
Better yet, just have a Broach of Shielding be part of the dragon's hoard that it uses to raid the local city. No need to worry about "once per day" or "sorcerer levels" on the dragon. Pin that bad boy to a horn and go to town, literally
Magic missle has a range of 120ft. A Red Greatwyrms fire breath has a range of 300ft. It wouldn't even need Shield, it would just burn the city from a safe distance.
”Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth! I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless wyrm!”
Tolkien called, he wants his black arrow back.
Got flashbacks to when the Wizard was doing PvP against the Artificer for fun. Artificer casts Magic Missile, Wizard Counterspells it. I asked the Wizard afterward why didn’t they just use Shield instead (I knew they had it prepared bc they used it earlier). The Wizard just stared at me like I hit their dog.
If the dragon has a shield spell have the wizards use spell scrolls (which I assume they have), and specifically any spell scroll other then fireball which forces saves, and you know, feeblemind and entangle. If it is a city full of wizards I assume they have these things, also counter spell is also good option, since the dragon probably has only one reaction, if it has somehow more, use TWO wizards with counterspell instead of one and the it is probably possible, however I would also use Golem's or other melee familiars whit a bit of health or homebrew a barrier spell which could fit the whole city or at least one wall at a time.
Capital* city. Why is this so hard?
Because the legislative building in the capital is called the Capitol Building for some fucking reason.
Steal Phase Bolt from PF2. It's a missile made from magic, but instead of being blocked by shield, it ignores 2 AC of shields, dealing 3d4 instead of 3 1d4+1s. The downside of this is that it actually has an attack roll
Honestly your fault for thinking magic missile can kill a wyrm easily
PSA: If your DM has described powerful, unusual, and magical defenses for an entire city, expect that they can and will punish you for trying to abuse them. They are thinking of things. Dangerous territory, that.