dragons and spell-casting

[geoffrey]

I understand that some talking dragons can use spells of up to such-and-so level. I understand nothing else.

For example, how many spells and of which levels could a very large sub-adult blue dragon cast? All I know is that it couldn't cast spells of higher than 2nd-level.

No wonder Holmes washed his hands of the whole affair. ;D

[talysman]

In the original rules, size and age are irrelevant to magic use, so a blue dragon casts 1st and 2nd level spells, period. How many? The rules don't say, so you have your choice:

• 1 spell of each available level;
  
• the same number of spells as a magic-user able to use spells of those levels;
  
• as many spells as desired, for each level.
  

I lean towards the second, especially if allowing players to play dragons.

I seem to remember that AD&D gave the dragons two spells of each level.

[geoffrey]

Sept 24, 2011 14:03:47 GMT -6 talysman said:

In the original rules, size and age are irrelevant to magic use, so a blue dragon casts 1st and 2nd level spells, period. How many? The rules don't say, so you have your choice:

• 1 spell of each available level;
  
• the same number of spells as a magic-user able to use spells of those levels;
  
• as many spells as desired, for each level.
  

I lean towards the second, especially if allowing players to play dragons.

Of those options, I, too, prefer the second.

But consider golden dragons: "They can employ spells up to the 6th level, gaining one level for each of their stages of maturity, having one spell for each Hit Die they have."

This statement shows that the age and size of golden dragons is directly related to the number and level of spells they can cast. So why not also for black, green, blue, and red dragons?

[talysman]

Gold Dragons are different in a couple ways, so that's no surprise. However, a quick fix, if you want other dragons to work the same, you can just use the golden dragon progression with a spell level cap for other dragons, maybe with an additional cap on the number of spells (1 spell for every two hit dice, maybe?) to make sure the goldens still stand out.

Thus: small blue dragons cast 4 1st levels spells if very young, plus 4 2nd level spells if older. The large variety casts 5 spells per spell level.

[foxroe]

Here's my interpretation:

Gold dragons can cast spells up to a spell level equal to their HD (so a 1HD dragon can cast only 1st level spells, a 6HD dragon can cast up to 6th level spells, etc.). They know one spell per HD. So, they should have one spell of each spell level (they could have more of any particular level, but they would have to sacrifice a spell of another level to do so).

Sooooo... WRT to other dragons, I would say if a dragon only knows 1st and 2nd level spells, then it only knows one of each (assuming the dragon is 2 or more HD).

[talysman]

It should be one spell level per level of maturity, rather than per hit die, so very young gold dragons only have 1st level spells. However, you have a point about the "1 spell per hit die" could be interpreted as total spells, rather than spells per spell level. Thus, a small very young gold dragon would have 10 1st level spells, a large very old gold dragon has 12 spells divided among all six spell levels -- two per spell level, or skip some to have more of another level.

I like that approach better, because it keeps dragons from becoming ridiculously powerful.

[aldarron]

Great question, great answers!

The (Arnesonian) secret is.....

Roll for it.

Magic ability (ala magic swords) was meant to be a random range determined by a die roll. How many 1st and 2nd level spells and exactly which ones any given dragon knows is up to the pips.

Have a look at dragons in AiF for comparison fun.