Game Theory – Dragons & Elements

For years I’ve been applying a house rule that most undead creatures would be immune to necrotic damage but take additional damage from radiant sources. Vulnerability (double damage) seemed to be excessive, but I picked up another house rule to apply +50% damage for vulnerability that seemed a better fit and still not that complex for the math. When I started running Tyranny of Dragons / Horde of the Dragon Queen, I applied something similar to the true dragons and to draconics to a lesser degree.

Poring over 3E and 4E gave me some inspirations to make each dragon something unique and terrifying, even for younger dragons and their kin. I had already set up an elemental opposition map for Princes of the Apocalypse and had played around with using it for slightly different elemental abilities.

For adult dragons, in additional to the RAW immunity to one elemental damage, I applied resistance to adjacent elemental damage and +50% vulnerability to the oppositional elemental damage. For example, an adult red dragon would be immune to fire, resistant to acid and lightning, and vulnerable to cold. For older dragons, I removed the vulnerability. It was tempting to add resistance to all those elemental damages outside the immunity and the oppositional but that just seemed a little too much for the game I was running. For younger dragons, I applied the +50% vulnerability to the opposition element only, sometimes a single adjacent resistance for the upper end of that age bracket.

It rewarded spell preparation that focused on specific vulnerabilities and added greater survivabiity to what should be a terrifying and nigh unstopable engine of destruction as the party went from fighting young dragons to taking on the adults. I also applied appropriate resistances to lesser draconics like wyverns and kobolds. Your experience will likely vary but it was something that has become part of other D&D games I’ve run.