So... did I miss it, or are there No Dragons on the palette?

lordomedon · May 2013

I've been planning for months to build some epic dragon lair dungeon crawls.

Imagine my surprise when I hit 15th level, take the shortest route I can find to see the monster palette, and see nothing but rank and file, mostly humanoid and animal monster types.

No real "boss" monsters, and most importantly, no dragons.

Are they tucked away somewhere I didn't see, or are they not in the current build of the foundry? If not, has ANYTHING been mentioned at any time about expanding the palette?

Yes, I know, dragons on the palette could be abusable... but so could any aspect of the foundry.

wuhsin · May 2013

lordomedon wrote: »

I've been planning for months to build some epic dragon lair dungeon crawls.

Imagine my surprise when I hit 15th level, take the shortest route I can find to see the monster palette, and see nothing but rank and file, mostly humanoid and animal monster types.

No real "boss" monsters, and most importantly, no dragons.

Are they tucked away somewhere I didn't see, or are they not in the current build of the foundry? If not, has ANYTHING been mentioned at any time about expanding the palette?

Yes, I know, dragons on the palette could be abusable... but so could any aspect of the foundry.

We can make dungeons, but no dragons. Therefor, until they release dragons as bosses in the Foundry, this is NOT Dungeons & Dragons.

lordomedon · May 2013

wuhsin wrote: »

We can make dungeons, but no dragons. Therefor, until they release dragons as bosses in the Foundry, this is NOT Dungeons & Dragons.

Exactly! I agree 100%!

wuhsin · May 2013

lordomedon wrote: »

Exactly! I agree 100%!

We need both Chromatic and Metallic Dragons ASAP.

talrune · May 2013

Yes I was hoping to even see the faerie dragons as I was going to work on a campaign from moonshae but alas none of those as well.

boydzinj · May 2013

There are dragonlings. You use a hard encounter and switch thecosemetic appearance of fire giants to dragonlings. However, they are not the bringer of pain as you can imagine.

wuhsin · May 2013

boydzinj wrote: »

There are dragonlings. You use a hard encounter and switch thecosemetic appearance of fire giants to dragonlings. However, they are not the bringer of pain as you can imagine.

We need full-fledged dragons with solo encounter hit points and breath weapons of different kinds.

n33k0 · May 2013

No Epic way (only Parangonic), no dragons. That's all

talrune · May 2013

not yet im sure they will come as more content is opened up and game grows.

kamaliicious · May 2013

No, there are no dragons (or any boss monsters in general actually). Additionally, a number of other monsters also exist in the game but not the Foundry.

lordomedon · May 2013

kamaliicious wrote: »

a number of other monsters also exist in the game but not the Foundry.

Honestly, that is the biggest disappointment, and I can't think of any good reason to limit the imaginations of the foundry community in this way. If it can be seen in the game, it should be usable in the foundry. Who cares that it scales to be soloable? The best stories come from the best monsters! Not to mention VARIETY is so important!

A starting foundation of a LARGE number of monsters prevents the situation that will actually happen:

-Hungry foundry community taps itself out on limited monster roster.
-New monsters get released
-Hungry foundry community BLITZES out adventures around those new monsters. Soon it's all "Oh geez ANOTHER wave battle of Tarrasques?"
-Rinse and repeat.

You either give us the epic up front, or the epic you dole out will get focused and "epic'ed out" as the expansions to the monster palette emerge.

I'm just so disappointed. I prepared so many plans based on what I saw in trailers and gameplay footage.

-Dragon's lair romps: shot down
-Baatezu "blood war" plot: shot down

Now it's back to the drawing board with... illithids and kobolds.

Sure, a good storyteller can tell a good story with illithids and kobolds... but I was hoping for more.

*sigh* Don't mind the butthurt former NWN persistant world Dm over here :P

shorlong · May 2013

I was under the impression that Illithids were not in the foundry at present time as well?

My main plot in my campaign involves dragons, but I think I have found a way around that. It also allowed me to expand my story and my villain a little more.

That being said, I do wish there was more we could do in terms of customizing the costumes. Being able to use, say, a pit fiend for an encounter and change it's scale color or take a fire giant (as someone said) and skin it as a black pit fiend...that would be cool....but alas...

boydzinj · May 2013

The foundry is all about the art of subterfuge. There maybe no dragons - but reskin a "Hard" encounter of fire elementals into dragonlings and call them "Dragons." Who are we not to say they are not really dragons? I played a foundry mission fighting fire sludge. They were really not fire sludges, but encounters that were re-skinned as something that looked like fire sludges adn called fire sludge. I made a foundry quest where I wanted a drow control wizard. There was no drow control wizard encounter. As a result, I found an encounter which simulated a CC aspect of a control wizard and re-skinned it as a drow that had wizard clothing.

You want to talk to a NPC and then have that NPC attack you? You can not technically do that. However, using a sleight of hand and some subterfuge you can make the player believe that is what is happening. How do you do that... you set (in the story tab) a dialogue option to talk to this NPC and after it is completed you have the NPC disappear while at another time you have an encounter appear when the same dialogue has been completed. This encounter is skinned and nammed as the exact same thing as the NPC that the player just talked to.

To the player it seemed that they were able to talk to a NPC and then that same NPC (after they talked) attacked them. In reality they talked to 1 NPC and it despawned (disappeared) and a new one spawned as an encounter. Does it matter exactly? As long as the player believes the story and the events - then ... that is what really matters. Yes, the foundry needs more features - i would love to put cutscenes and the ability to tweak it more. However, we work with what we have.

shorlong · May 2013

boydzinj wrote: »

The foundry is all about the art of subterfuge. There maybe no dragons - but reskin a "Hard" encounter of fire elementals into dragonlings and call them "Dragons." Who are we not to say they are not really dragons? I played a foundry mission fighting fire sludge. They were really not fire sludges, but encounters that were re-skinned as something that looked like fire sludges adn called fire sludge. I made a foundry quest where I wanted a drow control wizard. There was no drow control wizard encounter. As a result, I found an encounter which simulated a CC aspect of a control wizard and re-skinned it as a drow that had wizard clothing.

You want to talk to a NPC and then have that NPC attack you? You can not technically do that. However, using a sleight of hand and some subterfuge you can make the player believe that is what is happening. How do you do that... you set (in the story tab) a dialogue option to talk to this NPC and after it is completed you have the NPC disappear while at another time you have an encounter appear when the same dialogue has been completed. This encounter is skinned and nammed as the exact same thing as the NPC that the player just talked to.

To the player it seemed that they were able to talk to a NPC and then that same NPC (after they talked) attacked them. In reality they talked to 1 NPC and it despawned (disappeared) and a new one spawned as an encounter. Does it matter exactly? As long as the player believes the story and the events - then ... that is what really matters. Yes, the foundry needs more features - i would love to put cutscenes and the ability to tweak it more. However, we work with what we have.

But how BIG are the dragonlings?

boydzinj · May 2013

shorlong wrote: »

But how BIG are the dragonlings?

Not as big as you will want them. There is one way to find out, though. The foundry provides that answer....

shorlong · May 2013

boydzinj wrote: »

Not as big as you will want them. There is one way to find out, though. The foundry provides that answer....

I'm aware of that, I'm trying to get leveled to get there

boydzinj · May 2013

wuhsin wrote: »

We need full-fledged dragons with solo encounter hit points and breath weapons of different kinds.

try a looking at a "hard" fire encounter and then change the cosmetic appear to a dragonling.. The fire archon, flamespiker will probably be what you want.

sabo630 · May 2013

did you check all the skins? You can use NPC skins for the mobs. Just take a random mob, and give it a different look. I know they have some sick looking spiders I ddint look to see if there was anything dragon like. But this is beta, give them some time... But I highly doubt they will ever have a full dragon, maybe something dragon like.

zerorsw1 · May 2013

sabo630 wrote: »

*snip* But this is beta, give them some time... But I highly doubt they will ever have a full dragon, maybe something dragon like.

Beta with cashshop already in, and no character wipes. So tantamount to released if you ask me. Which makes the lack of certain things in the foundry all the more frustrating for some people I think.

tilt42 · May 2013

The devs have said that they want to add boss encounters to the Foundry, and I assume this also includes dragons. They've also said that this is much harder for them to do than it sounds, and that it might come with restrictions. I'm planning for a dragon encounter too in my campaign, so I'm as eager as the rest of you about this feature, but I'll still patiently wait for Cryptic to do it right.

cyadra · May 2013

Without a variety of mobs to put into the game the foundry is HAMSTER. Utter HAMSTER.

So... did I miss it, or are there No Dragons on the palette?

Comments