This fourth Dungeon Fantasy Monsters book deals with the traditional
Ultimate Fantasy Foe.
This is not a revision of GURPS Dragons; that book already
exists. That book talks about dragons in myths from various cultures,
and how to work them into a campaign, overtly or secretly; this one is
about big lizards with breath weapons, that a well-equipped party of
psychopaths can reasonably hope to be able to kill.
The variability means it's sensible to break them down into types
rather than give the same stat block repeatedly, so the first chapter
gives the basics, four sizes of dragon and ways of constructing the
numbers for larger ones. The second deals with the breath weapons,
breaking them down broadly into things that produce clouds (relatively
little damage in a large area) and those that produce narrow cones
(more damage to each of fewer targets). Boxed notes deal with scaling
damage up or down, cones that affect more targets, and cones of
vermin.
The third chapter looks at things that can be added to the basic
lizard plus breath weapon template to make dragons unusual rather than
just another monster. This deals both with the things that all dragons
are expected to have (like keen senses and lots of damage resistance)
and with things that can be used to customise the individual beast,
not always keeping a clear distinction between what's expected to be
standard and what's explicitly optional.
The final chapter gives tactics for dragons, which in general come
down to "fight smart", but there's some more detail too: how to use
size to advantage, when to fly, and how to arrange the terrain where
the fight will happen.
An appendix gives stats, and suggestions, for four specific dragons,
in each case making them more interesting than a sack of treasure
guarded by a spiky sack of hit points.
Obviously, given the sort of game I tend to run, I've had more use out
of GURPS Dragons than I'll have out of this book, but in a more
conventional fantasy beat-em-up this should do a decent job of making
dragons a suitably terrifying foe. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 4:
Dragons is available from
Warehouse 23.
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