Smaug

[Finarvyn]

Specifically, the Smaug of the movie Desolation of Smaug[/u]. I'm home sick and thought that re-watching DoS would be a lot of fun, and I've just reached the scenes where Bilbo is running around inside the Lonely Mountain and Smaug is conversing with him. Dang, but Smaug is huge. And that got me thinking about dragons in D&D (or any edition, really) and how they pale compared to the Smaug from this movie.

(1) Perhaps we're seeing Smaug from a hobbit's perspective, and so Smaug looks that much bigger because hobbits are so small.

(2) Perhaps we're seeing Peter Jackson run amok with CGI.

(3) Perhaps Smaug is just that darned awesome.

Well, in OD&D the largest dragon listed is 12 HD, and the oldest one gets 6's on each hit die, so this would seem to put Smaug at around 72 hit points. But Smaug looks like the size of a 747 aircraft, so does that do him justice? Assuming a typical sword thrust did 3.5 hit points per contact, 72 hit points translates to Smaug taking roughly 20 or 21 hits before he dies.

In AD&D a red dragon could be up to around 11 HD, of d8 type if memory serves, so maybe 8 hp per die or 88 total. With AD&D swords doing d8's of damage (at an average of 4.5 per contact) that comes down to around 19-20 sword hits before death.

I guess the question is: do the RPGs get Smaug right?

[Mushgnome]

My main problem with Peter Jackson's super-sized Smaug is the ridiculous Rube Goldberg weapon that Bard shoots him with. I prefer the book version of events, where Black Arrow is an ordinary-sized arrow, and Bard succeeds only because Bilbo spies Smaug's weak spot and uses the thrush as a messenger. Bard is the "sniper" but Bilbo is the "spotter" and is the real hero of the story for discovering Smaug's vulnerability.

In terms of game mechanics, I think the Chanmail Fantasy Combat Table works better than D&D combat as a "Tolkien simulator." In Chainmail combat, dragons are vulnerable in the air, and a hero with a magic arrow can "one shot" them out of the sky on a lucky roll.

(The one minor glitch in our simulation is that Chainmail dragons can see invisible, which contradicts Bilbo using the Ring to hide from Smaug.)

[Finarvyn]

Sept 13, 2022 15:01:20 GMT -6 Mushgnome said:

My main problem with Peter Jackson's super-sized Smaug is the ridiculous Rube Goldberg weapon that Bard shoots him with.

You beat me to it. Just got to the part in Battle of the Five Armies where Smaug goes down and scurried back to the computer to add to my earlier thought. I had forgotten that the "black arrow" is a freakin' harpoon. Wonder what JRRT had in mind? I agree that when I read the books I always imagined Bard as a dude with a quiver of arrows, one of which was black and his "lucky arrow" or something like that. Now I need to go back and re-read that part to see how it is described by the Professor... after I finish my viewing of the movie, that is.

[Mushgnome]

If your campaign uses Greyhawk Supplement rules, then you could say that Black Arrow is an Arrow of Slaying. The nice thing about the Arrow of Slaying explanation is that you can hand-wave the question of "how many hit points does Smaug have?" since these arrows are specifically enchanted to kill with a single hit.

I think it's strongly implied in the books that Black Arrow was forged by the dwarves of old, under Lonely Mountain. It takes a dwarvish arrow, shot by a human hand, guided by the eye of hobbit to finally destroy Smaug.

[tkdco2]

Isn't there a rule in Chainmail where a hero or superhero can shoot down a dragon instantly if he successfully hits?

[jamesmishler]

Sept 13, 2022 15:01:20 GMT -6 Mushgnome said:

(The one minor glitch in our simulation is that Chainmail dragons can see invisible, which contradicts Bilbo using the Ring to hide from Smaug.)

The One Ring is an artifact, ergo, more powerful than mere dragon sight.

Re, the Black Arrow, in D&D terms, a dragon slaying arrow. Magical, destroyed only if used for its purpose.

AD&D red dragons have an AC of -1. That means 0-level men at arms and 1st and 2nd level fighters only hit on a Natural 20. A fighter of 13th level has a slightly better than even chance of hitting a red dragon (not including Strength or magic weapons). An average 10th level fighter has 44 hit points. If he's hit by Smaug's first, uninjured breath attack, at 88 HP, he's dead, whether he makes his save or not...

[hamurai]

Sept 13, 2022 17:15:00 GMT -6 tkdco2 said:

Isn't there a rule in Chainmail where a hero or superhero can shoot down a dragon instantly if he successfully hits?

There is indeed:

Chainmail p.30 said:

A Hero-type, armed with a bow, shoots a dragon passing within range overhead
out of the air and kills it on a two dice roll of 10 or better, with 2 plus 1
on the dice firing an enchanted arrow.

Sept 13, 2022 14:22:39 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Well, in OD&D the largest dragon listed is 12 HD, and the oldest one gets 6's on each hit die, so this would seem to put Smaug at around 72 hit points. But Smaug looks like the size of a 747 aircraft, so does that do him justice? Assuming a typical sword thrust did 3.5 hit points per contact, 72 hit points translates to Smaug taking roughly 20 or 21 hits before he dies.

Since HP are also supposed to represent luck/fate, maybe dragons are not beloved by fate or the gods and they get less HP compared to their size. HP are also supposed to represent the ability to dodge, and a dragon will probably not dodge a blow easily, they rely on their armour (class) more.

[Deleted]

Smaug is said to be the last of the great Fire Drakes and "the chiefest calamity of the age" so he should be large and powerfully built.

However, I think perhaps this movie, being an adaptation of the tall-tales Bilbo wrote in his Red Book, exaggerates even more than old Bilbo.

[rredmond]

This thread reminded me of this graphic, which always was of interest to me showing how dragons got smaller (?) I think as the ages wore on:

[Deleted]

Ancalagon was an outlier. Glaurung was the first true Dragon. Morgoth had been experimenting for a long time before he got the basic design right with Glaurung.

There's actually many lesser dragons still alive during and after Smaug's reign, for that matter. He's the last of the GREAT fire-drakes. There are still great cold drakes and lesser fire drakes. Tolkien had all these distinct qualifiers for his dragons.