How many HD is Smaug?

[Finarvyn]

I was just re-watching the DVD of Hobbit II and it got me thinking about Smaug.

Now, I know that OD&D was never intended to replicate Middle-earth, but clearly there are a lot of M-e elements in the game. (Balrogs, Nazgul, and so on.) And, of course, the Hobbit II movie is almost more of a cartoon than a live-action movie so a lot of the "realism" has to be ignored.

However ... that doesn't stop me from wondering about how many Hit Dice would represent the mighty dragon Smaug. I look at Monsters & Treasures and notice that dragons are listed as 5-12 HD, which would assume a maximum of 60 hit points. That seems really low for a party of a dozen dwarven warriors, even if you assume that only Thorin Oakenshield is of "hero" status.

What do you think?

[waysoftheearth]

But remember that Dragons are done "funny" in OD&D.

Yes a large, ancient red dragon is "only" 11 HD, but it has a average of 66 hit points.

By the normal measure of HD you get an average of 3.5 hp per HD. 66/3.5 = 18.86, so a large, ancient red dragon has hit points equivalent to a 19 HD monster. Plus it has a bunch of special abilities on top of that.

There are not too many other 19 HD monsters in OD&D.

[geoffrey]

In the 1974 D&D rules, dwarves can attain only 6th level. That yields the following hit points:
average 6th-level dwarf: 21 hp
average 6th-level dwarf with 15+ constitution: 27 hp
6th-level dwarf with max hp: 36 hp
6th-level dwarf with with 15+ constitution and max hp: 42 hp

Because of his age, Smaug certainly has 6 points per hit die, thus giving him 54, 60, or 66 hp (depending on size).

If you use the GREYHAWK supplement, then we can have up to 8th-level dwarves:
average 8th-level dwarf: 36 hp
average 8th-level dwarf with 18 constitution: 60 hp
8th-level dwarf with max hp: 64 hp
8th-level dwart with 19 constitution and max hp: 88 hp

With GREYHAWK, Smaug would have 72, 80, or 88 hp.

When you contemplate the above numbers, it is clear that Smaug's breath weapon would kill most dwarves, whether or not they made their saving throws. In fact, with a failed saving throw, ANY dwarf would be killed by Smaug's fiery breath (unless you use GREYHAWK and you assume that Smaug was not of the largest size).

[Porphyre]

Since the dwarves were easilly subdued by goblins, spolied all their arrows firing at a stag without scoring a single hit and were put to sleep by the elves' spells, i assume that they all are below level 4 (apart from Balin, who could be a "sage", the other ones might just be men-at-arms as per the page 23 of U&WA).

The attack on Lacville , in the other hand, was clearly handled by the DM using the CHAIMAIL fantasy supplement rules.

[cadriel]

Smaug has at most 7 hit points. He's slain by a single magic arrow, which per OD&D rules does a maximum of 7 HP. The logical deduction is that he's somehow a 1 HD dragon with maximum 6 hit points, but his AC is -4 (which would require a 21 from a Hero to hit). Or that OD&D doesn't model a single-shot kill very well.

[derv]

May 24, 2014 6:47:49 GMT -6 cadriel said:

Smaug has at most 7 hit points. He's slain by a single magic arrow, which per OD&D rules does a maximum of 7 HP. The logical deduction is that he's somehow a 1 HD dragon with maximum 6 hit points, but his AC is -4 (which would require a 21 from a Hero to hit). Or that OD&D doesn't model a single-shot kill very well.

Yes, OD&D does not model a single shot kill very well......unless you use the Air-to-Ground/Ground-to-Air rules of UW&A where there is a "Critical Hit Table" that is applicable. It is then possible to kill a Smaug, especially when you account for "Crash" damage. This would also fall in well with Chainmail, that allowed a Hero to shoot a flying dragon out of the sky on a 10+ on 2d6.

I personally think Smaug is a very old 11-12HD dragon.

[geoffrey]

May 24, 2014 6:47:49 GMT -6 cadriel said:

Smaug has at most 7 hit points. He's slain by a single magic arrow, which per OD&D rules does a maximum of 7 HP. The logical deduction is that he's somehow a 1 HD dragon with maximum 6 hit points, but his AC is -4 (which would require a 21 from a Hero to hit). Or that OD&D doesn't model a single-shot kill very well.

Arrow of Slaying Flying Monsters (GREYHAWK, p. 47)

Or, we can observe that archers fired scores of arrows at Smaug. Many of these undoubtedly did hit point damage since some of those guys had to have rolled 20s on their attacks. Given the abstract nature of hit points, we can assume that the 80ish hp Smaug was down to his last 6 hp when Bard got him.

Or, like you said, OD&D doesn't model single-shot kills very well.

[waysoftheearth]

May 24, 2014 8:12:26 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

we can observe that archers fired scores of arrows at Smaug. Many of these undoubtedly did hit point damage since some of those guys had to have rolled 20s on their attacks. Given the abstract nature of hit points, we can assume that the 80ish hp Smaug was down to his last 6 hp when Bard got him.

Except that OD&D dragons are immune to normal missiles (M&T p5 + CM p35).

May 24, 2014 8:12:26 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Or, like you said, OD&D doesn't model single-shot kills very well.

As derv already mentioned, the aerial missile fire rules (U&WA p27) cover one shot kills.

[Red Baron]

May 24, 2014 6:47:49 GMT -6 cadriel said:

Smaug has at most 7 hit points. He's slain by a single magic arrow, which per OD&D rules does a maximum of 7 HP. The logical deduction is that he's somehow a 1 HD dragon with maximum 6 hit points, but his AC is -4 (which would require a 21 from a Hero to hit). Or that OD&D doesn't model a single-shot kill very well.

I have no problem with a 2-3 HD smaug.

 

Going by this picture, I'd guess he's about 8-10 hobbit lengths, or ~30 feet. Thats two crocodiles long for ~ 2000 lbs ~ 1 hippopotamus of weight. Thats still pretty big, I'd never want to go toe-to-toe with a hippo, but he's not the behemoth of the peter jackson movies.

I guess we could also take a look at how much gold was stored up in the lonely mountain, and figure out how much of a biggun' he was based on that.

Regardless, the scary part about dragons isn't their size. Its that they're smart buggers who fly around in the air (where your magic sword can't reach them) while burn you to a crisp form above. On top of that, they have spells and are almost impossible to hit. So I'm actually very much in favor of small, low HD dragons. 

A 2-3 HD dragon is still scarier than just about any other monster in the book.

[geoffrey]

May 24, 2014 8:34:21 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

As derv already mentioned, the aerial missile fire rules (U&WA p27) cover one shot kills.

How did I miss that? If it was a rattlesnake, it would have bitten me. Thanks to both of you!

[Porphyre]

May 24, 2014 7:23:36 GMT -6 derv said:

That's what I was talking about.

[Falconer]

I don’t think Smaug is ancient (Ancalagon could have been much bigger), but neither do I think he is puny. That piece of Tolkien art is generally how I envision dragons. Or the icon of St. George in which the dragon is invariably smaller than the horse. I don’t like the 4e/5e art covers with dragons so gigantic that a warrior is barely the size of one of its nostrils. What’s up with that? What kind of combat is that?

[llenlleawg]

May 25, 2014 21:28:42 GMT -6 Falconer said:

I don’t think Smaug is ancient (Ancalagon could have been much bigger), but neither do I think he is puny. That piece of Tolkien art is generally how I envision dragons. Or the icon of St. George in which the dragon is invariably smaller than the horse. I don’t like the 4e/5e art covers with dragons so gigantic that a warrior is barely the size of one of its nostrils. What’s up with that? What kind of combat is that?

Although not big enough to have six-foot nostrils, the dragon in Beowulf is noted to be fifty feet long, which is certainly larger than a horse. This also, perhaps not so curiously, happens to be the length of a red dragon in the AD&D Monster Manual (where there are noted to be 48' long). I'm not saying Gygax had Beowulf on his desk when he penned the MM, but is probably shows the continuing influence of the idea of a dragon as something quite large.

We also have to be careful with Medieval art and using it to judge size and scale. The size of things in Medieval art, iconic or secular, has generally more to do with the importance of the subject and less to do with actual or relative size. So, the smallness of the dragon in depictions of St. George has rather more to do with the prominence and power of St. George than it does the size of the dragon. In the Legenda Aurea, the story of George notes that the dragon's poisonous breath threatened the people of the city, which would indicate a beast of some size, although he is satisfied with two sheep every day (or, when they start running low on sheep, one sheep and one human being!), so it can't be too big!

[geoffrey]

If a dragon can't wander through 10' x 10' corridors, I'm not interested.

[Stormcrow]

Prior to the middle ages, dragons were always considered to be serpentine. In the middle ages it became common to add legs to them, and since then their bodies have become more lacertilian as well. By the time TSR's artists got their hands on them, they were practically dinosauric.

Smaug was serpentine—Bilbo calls him a worm. All of Tolkien's dragons were serpents. Fifty feet of serpent is a lot less outrageous than fifty feet of dinosaur.

[Falconer]

Well put.

[llenlleawg]

Stormcrow, serpentine, perhaps, but not serpents. Consider the description of the dragon in Beowulf:

Over ten ells in length it measured, from the proud head to the poisoned tail-tip, and its vast body was covered with scales of brass as big as plates and thicker, each, than three fingers. Its forefeet were armed with six-inch claws of razor edge, and helped support a head so large and terrible that Beowulf marveled for a moment at the size. Its eyes were of green fire, its wide nostrils belched red flame and steam, and the immense jaws dripped livid ooze as they snapped in hideous savagery.

Of course, earlier in the poem it is said to have "writhed" its way home. Generally, I think the notion of the exact appearance of a dragon is about as easy to pin down in Medieval (and pre-Medieval) literature as, e.g. the height of giants, which is itself notorious for shifting from one description to the next. Just as giants are always "big", so dragons are always, at one and the same time, reptilian/serpentine.

Re: size of dragons, note that here the dragon is quite large, and it notes that earlier to took down twenty stout trees with a lash of its tail!

[Deleted]

IMC if you roll a natural 20, you roll again and on a second natural 20 you have a kill, so even an 80 hit point dragon can be killed this way with one shot. On the other hand, if a goblin rolls a natural 20 followed by a second natural 20 your 8th level fighter with a magic sword and magic armor is dead. For my part, Smaug as portrayed in the movie is around 120 to 140 hit points.