The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: CthulhuOkay. So I have begun my campaign and my group has learned of a dragon that lives off in the mountains not far from the village they are at. Cliche-ness aside I need some help. In my campaign I decided that dragon's are not restricted to alignment by type, but then I thought, "Why should all dragons be from a specific species? Why can't all dragons just be dragons?" So I was wondering if anyone else has tried this and/or has any advice on how well it works. My main concern is that my players will find it to far-flung from previous D&D sessions.

You want to really change up what makes up your dragon's stats?

[size=36]Make It Immortal[/size]
no, seriously...make it unkillable.

Instead of having the players engage it in a hackfest of HP damage, spells and the like, make it killable only by using landscape. Meaning, they have to "position" the dragon under a dangerous precipice, so that the Wizard's Lightning Bolt can strike the rocks and cause them to fall on top of it.

Perhaps the dragon has no wings, but lives dangerously close to the edge of a cliff. What if the players were able to render it unconscious and drag it to the edge of the cliff, to die a perilous death upon impact atop the mountains below?

Maybe your dragon lives deep in a cave, riddled with ice stalagtites. Loud noises cause the stalagtites to shake, and every roar the dragon takes in pain(after being delt at least 35 damage in one hit) causes one of the pinnacles of ice to strike it, in order to pin it to the ground.

What if instead your dragon didn't have a breath weapon, but breathed shards of bone and blood that burned and boiled? Maybe it has a "critical" weakness, like ice? What if they forced the dragon into a lake and used Otiluke's Freezing Sphere to trap it like an icecube in the waters, only to later float downstream off of the edge of an endless waterfall into the very heart of the earth itself?

Perhaps the dragon has an Achille's Heel, that can only be found upon the very tip of it's prehensile tail. Only by striking this pinpoint, will it render the serpent unable to move or breath "insert breathweapon here". Maybe they can pin it to the ground, rendering the entire thing useless with a magical silver-tipped spear? It could then become an attraction for all to see from the countryside, about how they can torment the dragon by pelting it with rotten fruit and otherwise for eternity (which can lead to a dearth of adventured protecting the site, cohercing the thing into total submission, perhaps it decides to charm someone to find a legendarily-strong man to remove the spear?).

There is more than one way to skin a cat...err, dragon - that can make your game MUCH more interesting than "hack, slash, steal its loot". ;)

Cheers~

Oooo I love the idea of the Achilles Heel! That sounds like a great way to make Dragons powerful, awesome yet at the same time timid and vulnerable! I love it!