# MM2 Excerpt: Adamantine Dragon



## Mentat55 (Apr 13, 2009)

The adamantine dragon excerpt is up:

Monster Manual 2 Excerpts: Adamantine Dragon


A couple of things jumped out:

1. Melee attacks vs. Reflex -- its attacks really do carve through armor!

2. Four claw attacks as a standard action, plus a bite against another target -- maybe they're trying to beef up dragons a bit?

3. Not a big fan of the adamantine dragon's head as illustrated -- kind of looks like a parrot (actually reminds me of Iago, from Aladdin).  But the tail is cool -- wonder why the adamantine dragon doesn't have a cool tail lash power.


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## Mircoles (Apr 13, 2009)

It does seem to be one tough customer.


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## Tequila Sunrise (Apr 13, 2009)

I think it's cute how designers are no longer allowed to write G/LG monsters. And yeah, it does look like Iago's third cousin twice removed on his half-draconic mother's side.


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## frankthedm (Apr 13, 2009)

Mentat55 said:


> 3. Not a big fan of the adamantine dragon's head as illustrated -- kind of looks like a parrot (actually reminds me of Iago, from Aladdin).  But the tail is cool -- wonder why the adamantine dragon doesn't have a cool tail lash power.



I don't like the beak look much either, but it makes a lot of sense since if your gums are adamant, you don't need enameled teeth. D&D dragons sometimes get odd looking tail weapons or other body parts the core rules don't represent. Did 4E black or blue dragons get to use their horns for attacking yet?

i like this illo better





Here is the mini for the Large size
http://www.ddmspoilers.com/atg_images/atg_young_adamantine_dragon.jpg



> _*Friday 04/17:* A look at a new star spawn!_



Uhm, while I'll hope for something cthulhiod, I'd suspect that blurb refers to more Spawn of Tiamat.


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## Inyssius (Apr 13, 2009)

frankthedm said:


> Uhm, while I'll hope for something cthulhiod, I'd suspect that blurb refers to more Spawn of Tiamat.




Starspawn? Dragonspawn? Where do you get *that* connection? [this spot reserved for a quizzical emoticon that doesn't ERIC'S GRANDMOTHER, unlike the one we have here]

And the Iago reference just sold me on the monster, even though I don't actually like it much otherwise (rabid 4e fanboy talking; please don't kill me, or--worse--take my comment to imply that THE DESIGN IS SO HORRIBLE THESE DAYS, SCREW YOU MEARLS AND BAKER AND WHOEVER ELSE IS BIG IN 4E NOW).


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## Jack99 (Apr 13, 2009)

It's ugly as sin, but omg, woe to he who stands in it's way.


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## Hellzon (Apr 13, 2009)

frankthedm said:


> i like this illo better




_Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters_, right? I'm not sure why, but I assumed that was an Iron Dragon. Maybe because it looks kind of brutish and the irons were described as the "stupid" metallic dragon. The tail certainly implies that it's the same as in the Adamantine excerpt, though.

Not a fan of the beak either, but I can deal. Those tiny pinprick eyes make it look outright sinister - not sure if that's good or bad.


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## Derulbaskul (Apr 13, 2009)

> Breath Weapon (standard; recharge 56) Thunder Close blast 5; +24 vs. Fortitude; 3d12 + 6 thunder damage, and the target is knocked prone. Miss: Half damage. *Effect: At the start of the elder adamantine dragon’s next turn, it gives a thunderous roar*: close burst 3; no attack roll; 15 thunder damage.




Would you all agree that the thunderous roar (which is probably a giant fart as the dragon seeks equilibrium after its thunder burp) is a free action in that it is described as an _effect_ and no mention is made of a required action?


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## Echohawk (Apr 13, 2009)

Derulbaskul said:


> Would you all agree that the thunderous roar (which is probably a giant fart as the dragon seeks equilibrium after its thunder burp) is a free action in that it is described as an _effect_ and no mention is made of a required action?



Yes, it sounds like a free action to me.


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## Jack99 (Apr 13, 2009)

Hellzon said:


> _Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters_, right? I'm not sure why, but I assumed that was an Iron Dragon.




Pretty sure we were told it was the Iron Dragon...


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## Derren (Apr 13, 2009)

Hellzon said:


> _Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters_, right? I'm not sure why, but I assumed that was an Iron Dragon. Maybe because it looks kind of brutish and the irons were described as the "stupid" metallic dragon. The tail certainly implies that it's the same as in the Adamantine excerpt, though.
> 
> Not a fan of the beak either, but I can deal. Those tiny pinprick eyes make it look outright sinister - not sure if that's good or bad.




Its an adamantine dragon. Scott once made an adamantine dragon facebook or livejournal page for fun and he used that picture.

And I already said back than that the dragon is ugly, but its nothing compared to the new picture.

And I agree with Tequila Sunrise. Why can't obviously good creatures not have the good alignment? Just so that PCs can fight it without any moral problems?


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## Belphanior (Apr 13, 2009)

Derren said:


> Why can't obviously good creatures not have the good alignment? Just so that PCs can fight it without any moral problems?




What is it about the adamantine dragon that makes it "obviously good"?

They are described as:
_Haughty and imperious, adamantine dragons assume leadership of any creatures in their territory. They demand loyalty, tribute, and respect, and in return they take the responsibility of protecting their charges seriously._

Nothing about this makes it "obviously good". It removes the sovereignty of anything in its territory and makes them its subjects. The only thing keeping it from being evil is the fact that it's not a callous or devious tyrant, but it's not really far off.

Yes, metallic dragons used to have their goodness hardwired into their DNA. I think by now we should all have come to terms with the fact that 4e often breaks with tradition; a 4e monster's alignment should be based on its 4e-mindset, not what a book from several editions ago said.


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## Derren (Apr 13, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> Yes, metallic dragons used to have their goodness hardwired into their DNA. I think by now we should all have come to terms with the fact that 4e often breaks with tradition; a 4e monster's alignment should be based on its 4e-mindset, not what a book from several editions ago said.




Of course they only do this to good monsters (so that the PCs can fight them more often). Previously evil monsters are still evil.

While in older editions it was "Colour coded for your convenience" it is now "If it moves, kill it".


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## hong (Apr 13, 2009)

Derren said:


> Of course they only do this to good monsters (so that the PCs can fight them more often). Previously evil monsters are still evil.
> 
> While in older editions it was "Colour coded for your convenience" it is now "If it moves, kill it".



No, it is "if it's big, it's dangerous". Even if it's on your side.

This is another way in which 4E is more metal.


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## Belphanior (Apr 13, 2009)

Derren said:


> Of course they only do this to good monsters (so that the PCs can fight them more often). Previously evil monsters are still evil.
> 
> While in older editions it was "Colour coded for your convenience" it is now "If it moves, kill it".




Zombies and skeletons aren't evil in 4e any more. They were in 3.5

I'm not really focusing just on alignment here, just the overall purpose of a critter within the game.

Demons and devils got mixed up a bit to put the "monstrous engines of destruction" in one camp and the "thinking guys of corruption" in the other (globally speaking). Although they were evil, those definitely got shaken up.

But like I said, why are you focusing on what the older editions were like? 4th is its own thing and handles monsters in its own way. Demanding the metallic dragons be good for the sake of tradition strikes me as unwise, because that tradition itself was always a bit silly. The dragons took quite a lot of pages in the MM, but compared to the chromatics hardly ever got used.


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## Nebulous (Apr 13, 2009)

I like those TEN attacks it gets when it uses an AP with dragon frenzy.  That's sure to put a world of hurt on a party...


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## chaotix42 (Apr 13, 2009)

Ummmmm.

Wow. 

That seems nastier than any dragon in the MM1, or the Draconomicon for that matter. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the other dragons look like!


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## Andor (Apr 13, 2009)

It looks like a cross between a pangolin, an iguana, and a protoceratops.


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## LightPhoenix (Apr 13, 2009)

Derulbaskul said:


> Would you all agree that the thunderous roar (which is probably a giant fart as the dragon seeks equilibrium after its thunder burp) is a free action in that it is described as an _effect_ and no mention is made of a required action?




No.  It's not an action, it's an effect of using the power.  If for some reason the dragon can not take actions, it still occurs.  The cost with regards to economy of actions was already paid when the power was used.

So to paraphrase, it is indeed a giant fart, biologically incapable of being stopped.


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## Elric (Apr 13, 2009)

chaotix42 said:


> Ummmmm.
> 
> Wow.
> 
> That seems nastier than any dragon in the MM1, or the Draconomicon for that matter. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the other dragons look like!




Compared to the level 22 Red Dragon solo soldier in the MM, it looks significantly better offensively.  However, it's also weaker defensively; 2 lower AC for its level and just over 2 lower average FRW for its level.  It also has 250 fewer HP despite being only one level down.  So the designers may have decided to redesign solos for greater offense and less defense, or this might be a function of it being a soldier in particular (since soldiers are already the highest AC monsters, elite and solo soldiers with AC=18+level can lead to players missing quite often).


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## Jack99 (Apr 13, 2009)

Elric said:


> Compared to the level 22 Red Dragon solo soldier in the MM, it looks significantly better offensively.  However, it's also weaker defensively; 2 lower AC for its level and just over 2 lower average FRW for its level.  It also has 250 fewer HP despite being only one level down.  So the designers may have decided to redesign solos for greater offense and less defense, or this might be a function of it being a soldier in particular (since soldiers are already the highest AC monsters, elite and solo soldiers with AC=18+level can lead to players missing quite often).




796 HP = ((level + 1)*8 + constitution score)*4

So either it was a mistake or they plan to remove the change to solos' hit points, which go from *4 to *5 when they are paragon level or higher.


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## chaotix42 (Apr 13, 2009)

Elric said:


> Compared to the level 22 Red Dragon solo soldier in the MM, it looks significantly better offensively.  However, it's also weaker defensively; 2 lower AC for its level and just over 2 lower average FRW for its level.  It also has 250 fewer HP despite being only one level down.  So the designers may have decided to redesign solos for greater offense and less defense, or this might be a function of it being a soldier in particular (since soldiers are already the highest AC monsters, elite and solo soldiers with AC=18+level can lead to players missing quite often).




Yeah, I noticed the hit point thing. The 17th lvl white dragon I ran had like 850 hp! Granted, it's a brute, but those 4 levels should have made up the difference. 

Jack99's right. We'll have to see some other MM2 solos to be sure, I think.

I do remember someone from WotC posting that metallics were going to be a bit different than chromatics. Perhaps in this way they're not only different from chromatics but all solos? If so it's a good direction, I think.


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## hailstop (Apr 13, 2009)

Mentat55 said:


> The adamantine dragon excerpt is up:
> 
> 
> 
> 2. Four claw attacks as a standard action, plus a bite against another target -- maybe they're trying to beef up dragons a bit?




This.  They seem to have realized that Solos need to be much more dangerous offensively.

I'm stealing this for every dragon I use.


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## OchreJelly (Apr 13, 2009)

Inyssius said:


> Starspawn? Dragonspawn? Where do you get *that* connection? [this spot reserved for a quizzical emoticon that doesn't ERIC'S GRANDMOTHER, unlike the one we have here]





Star-Spawn of Cthulhu was the first thing I thought of as well.  He was probably referring to this.


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## Badwe (Apr 13, 2009)

I’ll have to peruse the MM/DMG vs. this stat block when I get home, but I suspect there would be merit to coming up with a somewhat consistent way to make the dragons in the MM closer to this guy.  More to come.


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## Shroomy (Apr 13, 2009)

Wasn't the starspawn in the 3.5e _Lords of Madness_; I believe it was a template.  I'm guessing a Cthulhoid horror, more monstrous than the humanoid foulspawn.

Personally, I don't mind the adamantine dragon's alignment.  I prefer good creatures to be relatively rare, so the majority of them being unaligned, evil, or chaotic evil is fine by me.


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## frankthedm (Apr 14, 2009)

Shroomy said:


> Wasn't the starspawn in the 3.5e _Lords of Madness_; I believe it was a template.  I'm guessing a Cthulhoid horror, more monstrous than the humanoid foulspawn.



The LoM template was named Half Farspawn. If the name of the template is now 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





"Starspawn", that would be awsome and actually fitting given the true nature of the warlock Starpact, in addition to the obvious Star Spawn of Cthulhu reference 







Shroomy said:


> Personally, I don't mind the adamantine dragon's alignment.  I prefer good creatures to be relatively rare, so the majority of them being unaligned, evil, or chaotic evil is fine by me.



The majority of dragons should be monstrous, not majestic.


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## SlyFlourish (Apr 14, 2009)

I'd sure like to see an Errata for the chromatics. It would be some pretty big changes, though.

I'm noticing that the greens in the compendium and the greens in the MM are still different with no errata or explanation other than "typo".

I want beefier dragons.


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## Badwe (Apr 14, 2009)

Ok, so a quick rundown of the basics:

*DMG Math recommends the following for a level 22 soldier (thanks to Asmor):
HP: 1055; Bloodied: 527
AC: 38 Fortitude: 35 Reflex: 34 Will: 34
Increase 3 of the 4 defenses (including AC) by +2 each.
--Stats for an elder red dragon, level 22 solo from MM:
HP 1050; Bloodied 525
AC 40; Fortitude 40, Reflex 37, Will 34

only a small diff in HP, defenses a bit higher except for AC which could theoretically be spot on.


*Level 21:
HP: 1010; Bloodied: 505
AC: 37 Fortitude: 34 Reflex: 33 Will: 33
Increase 3 of the 4 defenses (including AC) by +2 each.
--Adamantine dragon from newest preview
HP 796; Bloodied 398
AC 37; Fortitude 36, Reflex 33, Will 32

HP is _definitely_ low, only fortitude seems to be within the recommended math. for reference, HP*4 would have been even 808, so this creature falls low even on that HP scale. Now let's look at damage

*Red:
+Level 21 recomends: 
Damage	Low	    |   Medium  |	High
At-will	2d6+8    |	3d6+8    |	4d6+8
+Claw (Standard, at-will)
Reach 3; +29 vs Armor Class; 2d10+9 damage.
+can do 2 claw attacks
+total is roughly 4d10+18, well above a single High damage point, but well below 5 times that.

*Adamantine:
Damage	Low	    |   Medium  |	High
At-will	2d6+7    |	3d6+8    |	3d8+7
+Claw (standard; at-will)
Reach 2; +26 vs. Reflex; 1d12 + 8 damage.
+Bite (standard; at-will)
Reach 2; +26 vs. Reflex; 2d8 + 8 damage, and ongoing 10 damage (save ends).
+Can do 4 claw attacks, plus 1 bite
+total of 4d12 + 2d8 + 40, 5 times the low, med, and high would be 10d6+35, 15d6+40, and 15d8+35 respectively, if 1d12 is comparable to 2d6, we could estimate this at will attack being somewhere above 5 times the low end.

while it's unrelated to damage, the reach on these is only 2 for an elder (normally is 3).  Red has a difference of +3 to hit for only 1 level difference, but as others have pointed out, attacks AC rather than reflex.  There are plenty of posts to point out that the difference between AC and reflex is often much more than 3 for anyone with a decent ref.

The dragons appear to have comparably sized breath weapons, both recharging on a 5 or 6. both doing 3d12 + some coefficient.  Of course, the adamantine dragon also gets a rider effect of 15 thunder damage on the next turn.  Besides the raw damage output, this is an interesting way to make the breath weapon change the way a turn unfolds over more than 1 turn.

Both dragons appear to have comparable"Frightful presence" moves as well.

All told it definitely appears to reflect a change in methodology of solos.  The main nagging issue is that the difference between reach 2 and reach 3 DOES appear to be at least partly responsible for the damage descrepency.  In all fairness, having extra range SHOULD equate to the red dragon doing less damage. How much though, i couldn't say.  The fact that the red's basic at-will is barely beating out the high damage for a SINGLE creature at that level suggests he'd need a bit more, even being a soldier. obviously bringing all that damage to bear on a single player in a single round is part of the reason they can't have a flat x5 multiplier, but things like the adamantine's requirement of the bite hitting someone else seem to hint at some design space that could ameliorate this.  

For now I'd say the general indication is that you could safely trade 1/5th a MM or Draconomicon dragon's HP for an extra claw attack and some kind of rider, damage or maybe an AC penalty, to the breath weapon and come out with something similar to this new style of dragon.  There is a saying in design for Magic: the gathering that dragons are allowed to be strictly better for their casting cost simply because they're dragons and are iconic.  It's ok for dragons to be ahead of the curve for a given level range because you expect dragons to be powerful.  Of course, you also expect to be able to BEAT the dragon, so tread lightly.


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