I am re-reading the section on Dragons (partially in the light of creating my Feathered Serpent Drummer), and I came across a couple of things for which I couldn't find any actual answers. Shock!

Anyway, first ...



My question: Other than the hint under Feathered Serpents in regards to Venom, how does one decide which dragon has which Powers? How many is appropriate? Too much?

The text under Great Dragons has this to say ...



But which Individual Powers belong to which species? Or do Great Dragons just have all the Powers? That isn't really the way it seems to read, but it would solve the 'species' question by having every dragon capable of having every Power. Not necessarily something I would want in my games, and I don't really think that was the original intent of the authors, so ... back to the original question. Which Individual Powers belong to which Dragon species?

And second ...

Can a Shapechanged Adult (non-Great) Dragon speak normally, or would he still have to rely on Dragonspeach?

Individual powers could be assigned through some weird dragon initiation mechanism. Or just wing it. And I'D say GD have all the powers, since the are Grrrrreat!

And fluff hints at dragons being able to speak normaly in shapechange. Like Damian, Perianwyr and the like passed as human. Would be hard to manage if you don't speak.

I vaguely remember something about dragons finding it insulting to actually speak human.

I know Laddie or whatever it was Haezlich went by in human form in the enter the shadows short story book and the first Charette book spoke in human form, granted he was not a great.

ah, yes, Haesslich(Hässlich) . . german for UGLY by the way . . dumbest name i've ever heard for something like a dragon to be honest O.o
he was in into the shadows in one of the short stories at the end and in the powers trilogie too

Just dropping in to report another problem for you Feathered Serpent Drummer
The "draconic tradition", as per the PDF, lacks attribute descriptions for drain resistance.

The answer to this entire thread is: The tidbits that were posted are exactly that: tidbits. Not complete, not final in any way. Its there because they want to give you time to get excited about the containing book, so that when it does come out, youll buy it on impulse.

No idea about the powers. Regarding speech, I'd say they can, but of course their native language is dragonspeech, so they'll need to spend language points.

The text in SR4 and the Preview seems to support that Powers are not based on breed, but on individual choices. I would suspect that there is a table somewhere that gives a BP/karma cost to purchase individual powers.

(edit: Fortune--Read the small paragraph at the very top of p. 296 SR4 for the note about Individual Powers)

I'm suprised that they didn't mention Regeneration, I believe they mention dragons having that in fluff(can't remember off hand in what novel or Book.). I know that dragons in EarthDawn have regeneration. I would also like to see purchasable upgrades to draconic abilities like earthdawn has. Such as abilities that can be utilized through DragonSpeech and BreathWeapon(for the love of me I don't have a book nearby and can't remember what 4th Editon calls it lol)

Rhonabwy had Regeneration, but that's about it. I guess that's one of those powers that did not translate well into SR. 4th Edition Regeneration might work better in this regard, but it's not really neccessary.

Yeah, I noticed that. I was just planning on picking his best stat to use in the interim.



You mean ...


But that still doesn't help me decide which, or how many Powers any one given Dragon has.

As many as you feel comfortable with. Unless it's a PC Dragon, in which case I suggest to learn them like Metamagic (via Initiation or bought with Karma). Also, any Dragon can learn any power from that list, it's totally up to you.

It's not a perfect system, but it lets you know that each dragon is different. The missing table of costs etc would probably be what enables you to decide which/how many powers you have.

Don't know about powers. But I seem to recall that according to LRG's Dragons book, they can indeed speak in dragon form, they just choose not to for some reason. It's been a long time since I read that book, however; I could be remembering incorrectly.

No, I'm pretty sure Dragons actually lack the physical ability to speak in dragon form. They could easily cast an illusion spell to make their speech audible though. In Metahuman form (which, btw ED books claim is actually a magic spell (Which they got the idea for from a dwarf or something?) and NOT an innate ability, but whatever ) they have vocal cords and therefor can speak human languages. I don't think there has been enough time (even in 2070, though I could be wrong =\) for a Dragon to reach Adulthood since the Awakening, as such, most if not all Adult dragons (definitely all greats though) are from the 4th age. Therefore they can know whatever languages they want and shouldn't have to pay for them. (If anyone wants to say that that Free languages would be unbalancing, first remember that we're already talking about playing a Dragon ) Anyway, I can't really help on the Individual Powers thing. However, I dislike the idea of attaining them. I don't think a dragon is gonna suddenly grow venom glands, ya know? by the time they're Adults, they know how to use all of their innate powers as far as I'm concerned, other than possibly getting more when they become "Great" or whatever.

On an unrelated note, no PC should ever be allowed to play a dragon

I personally think the idea of dragons being able to take metahuman form, and still having to speak their creepy dragon language is pretty cool, if you're into eery things like that.

I have to believe dragons are an Intuition based tradition. Aren't dragons described as having an innate, instinctive understanding of how magic works as a fundamental part of their being?

I have been thinking about that, and a decent argument can be made for any of the three non-Willpower Attributes.

In Dot6W their tradition was charisma based, I believe.

Dot6W is SR3 and all magic has the same drain attributes. Willpower for spells, charisma for conjuring. Glancing through the dragon magic section, I find no exception to the standard magic attribute usage rules. A few fun exceptions to other general maic trends, but not drain attributes.

And just to throw it in, I'll suggest strength for the draconic drain attribute.

Works for me!

Bah! Like I remember how exactly magic worked in SR3. I guess my train of thought got a little derailed somewhere.
I rephrase my statement. Dragonic tradition was described as similar to shamanistic tradition, so I guess that's where my charisma idea came from.

But heck, charisma was useful for something in SR3 (for shamans I mean), I just cannot recall for what. Getting old.

1) invoking.
2) it still determined whether you took physical or stun drain when conjuring IIRC.

SR3 magic refresher:
Magic attribute determines stun or physical drain
Willpower resists spell drain
Charisma resists conjuring drain (including the extra drain for invoking) and determines the damage code of a conjuration

Since spirit types were linked to traditions, this meant that charisma was less useful for hermetics than other mage types, but of value to anyone who wanted to conjure or banish.

One of the fun bits of dragon magic was that you could skip the materials costs for elemental conjuring and ritual sorcery.

maybe i'm remembering wrong, but didn't charisma also effect how many spirits you could have at any one time? which made it useful for hermetics also?

As for dragon magic attribute stuff, I would guess, through extrapolation from flavour text, that you use Willpower and Intuition, since they describe dragons as intuitively able to use magic.

A valid point, but a charisma of 3 could let a hermetic have three of the four types of elemental waiting on call as well as a little swarm of 3 watchers to throw at astral things that aren't worth wasting services or personal effort on.

In contrast, a shaman with a charisma of 3 would have a serious drain code when trying to conjure a force 4 or 5 spirit on the run, and wound penalties were very inconvenient when they messed with TNs. As I think about it, the domain rules and conjuring duration were such that loa and thought forms were the best choices for inexpensive conjuration with some prep time before the run. Those types were limited in other ways.