Dragons
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Dragons are legendary and mystical reptilian creatures that, in time, can become some of the most powerful creatures in the realm. A full grown dragon stands taller than most races, is covered with protective scales, has large leathery wings, a powerful tail, long sharp claws, and the ability to utilize a distinctive breath weapon against their opponents. Dragons are both physically powerful and adept at magic. They tend to excel at every endeavour, but while they may be strong, they really progress in power quite slowly. Dragons are only available through the remort command.
- Abbreviation: Drg.
- Racial(s): Armorancient, Breath, Claw, Fly, Infravision, Tail.
- Racial Size: very large.
- Racial TNL: 10000 XP.
- Well-Suited to Be: berserkers, bodyguards, black circle initiates, mages, mindbenders, monks, psionicists, rangers, shadowfists, sorcerers, warriors, wizards.
Comments
There are not a lot of things where dragons do not excel at, so listing these first:
Stabbing as a rogue or assassin is a no-go for dragons. They are large and not very stealthy, and will fail 20% of the time due to stealth failures alone. Also, they have a negative archery modifier so roles like archers or druids are not recommended.
As spellcasters, dragons are fantastic. Huge mana pools that easily surpass elves, and then twice that much and more in hp (hps that easily surpass other people's warriors), combined with armorancient, means there is nothing in the game a dragon mage should fear. Mages at hero 999 should have about 10k/6k and wizards about 8k/8k, which is twice as much as an elf mage would have. Dragons get a 10% spell cost reduction that is typical among "smart" races, as well as a 5.56% (exactly 85/90) reduction in psionic spell costs on top of that. Naturally, they are no-fail at 95%.
As brutes, their incredible mana pools make them effective paladins, but even as berserkers their armor and racial damage bonus will easily make them beloved groupmates.
When tanking, they are very hardy monks and even bladedancers (rogue related classes) should work well as long as you do not depend on stealth.
Overall, there is much to be said about the dragon's awesomeness - good gains, excellent regeneration speed, etc, but there is also the singular downside that matters - a whooping 10k TNL.
While apparently not as bad as an Ent's 20k, dragons do not have the benefit of racial-earthembrace, and a Qxl worshiper dying at low tnl can easily lose 14-15k xp in a single stroke. As a result the dragons level very slowly, and carefully. If you desire to do a double remort, always leave the dragon (racial) remort for last since lording a dragon may well be a yearly enterprise, should you focus on that character alone.