From:	Patrick Goodman remo@***.net
Subject:	BIG! Critters
Date:	Fri, 16 Jun 2000 23:19:54 -0500

From: Ahrain
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2000 10:01 PM

> > Nope. Dragons are feared for a reason, especially in my
> > games.
>
> I tend not to use dragons that much, I like them too much.

I love dragons, and I use them, but that doesn't mean that they show up that
often. Just say the words "Great Dragon" to any of my players, though, and
watch their reaction. (I'm reminded of a Jeff Foxworthy routine: "SHIT! I
haven't had coffee yet! Don't ever do that again!")

> > So far, I fail to see a problem here. Maybe it's just me, but
> > I *like* my dragons to be unstoppable.
>
> I like that a little too much myself. When I used to run AD&D (1st
> ed.) I boosted my dragons stats at least 3 fold. Irritated the hell
> out of my players who were used to "Dragon Hunts" at 3rd level. : )

"Be vewwy quiet! I'm hunting dwagons!"

They've clearly never heard the expression "Do not meddle in the affairs of
dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

> But, I do agree, even though my players don't. Personally I like
> the idea of having to call out the Bradley's (note plural) if a
> dragon shows up.

Oh, yeah, like that'll work....

> BTW, Patrick, you seem to like the weight/height thing. Any
> ideas on doing something for the critters?

I've actually considered it a time or two, but haven't found the proper
amount of unstructured free time to do anything with it.

Once upon a time -- call it 12 or 13 years ago, I think it was -- I wrote an
article on lengths and weights for dragons in AD&D and sent it in to DRAGON
Magazine. Got rejected (and probably rightly so) because they had a similar
article already in the pipeline. I don't think I have an electronic copy of
it anymore, but I might still have the hard copy. If I do, I'll OCR the
thing in and see what I can do about making it available on the web.

> My opinion is, is if a dragon lands on you...you're
> squished.

Oh, yeah, easily, especially when you consider that a dragon is going to
weigh many, many tons. Yeah, definitely going to have to look through my
stuff and try to find that article.

> But with your friends lifting formula, how many giants would it
> take to life a dragon (provided it would let them)?

Assuming a western dragon was in the same weight class as, say,
brachiosaurus (I've seen weight estimates of up to 45 tons for a big one of
those), we're looking at...hmmm, let's just call it 35 tons, or 31,750 kg
(actually, it's slightly more, but let's keep it at round numbers for
purposes of this demonstration.

A troll with a Strength and Body both of 10 can lift/throw 400 kg; deadlift,
it's 800 kg. Dividing the 800 into the 31,750 gives us just a shade under
40 trolls. Assuming, of course, they all live long enough to approach the
dragon.

These weight figures are coming out of thin air; I'll have to do some
research when I find my old article.

--
Patrick E. Goodman
remo@***.net
"I'm going to tell you something cool." -- Gene Wolfe