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>Thread Question!
Dragons - intelligent or animalistic?
Bestial. While I do like the sapient D&D dragons, there's something horrifying about a monster that's more a force of nature than an animal or person.
I also prefer linnorms to big flying lizards. But, I can get behind the idea of a wizards shapeshifting into the classic D&D dragons (or transforming into something like them ala Dark Sun's Dragon Kings).
Hexcrawl seed question to follow up:
What is the dragon's lair like and why has he chosen to lair there?
I like both. High dragons who are intelligent (but mad or at least utterly alien in mindset) and debased dragons that come from them and might be dumb, childlike, animalistic.
One thing I like from 4e was the notion of catastrophe dragons: dragons who represent/bring horrible natural disasters when they rampage. So the path the dragon flies on is stricken by earthquakes or flood or plagues, etc.
That was an interesting concept.
Lair is in a cave near the borders of three nations. The position is out of the way enough neither nation sends troops there often but allows it to scan all three from on high to look out for the best things to loot.
In particular I think the volcanic dragon - the notion of this gigantic creature submerged in a pool of lava and then swimming/leaping out at one of the PCs and dragging them into it - 4e didn't make this instant death IIRC, but it's such a "you are FUCKED" moment in a higher lethality system.
I prefer fire breathing murder lizards
Considering adding flesh/grit to my homebrew.
Pro: more interesting damage opportunities (sneak attacks, poison, etc)
Con: an extra thing to track.
Anyone tried it at the table for any great length of time? Is it worth the extra effort?
both, most Dragons that people encounter are young and not intelligent yet, as a Dragon has to have both lived for at least 100 years and acquired a certain amount of loot in it's hoard(including at least one magical item) to attain human level awareness
notably Dragons actually have somewhat large broods if the resources allow it, but most of their offspring won't reach the requirements to attain sapience, as most die between 15 and 50 years, most often either from fighting another monster(or group of monsters), or from attacking civilized regions and getting slain by either a small army sent after them or by a party of Adventurers hired to slay it