If you are playing AD&D, and your character isn't a dual-classed 18th level/50th level fighter/magic-user with an 18 in all stats (except for Strength, which is 18/00) who is decked out in magic items you raided from Deities and Demigods, you are Doing It Wrong.
There were some examples of that in the book, too. Silver dragons, the paladins of dragonkind, are more likely to "tarnish" (turn evil) than other metallics due to how much awful stuff they see. While a group of greens (the mad scientists) and bronzes (the bookworms... bookwyrms?) have put aside their differences to cooperate on scientific research.
Interesting in my book there's also a bit on how bronze and greendragons usually will start research shit flinging while in the same party and how it's usually the bronze dragons who apologise and who move on. Green dragons are too proud to actually admit they are wrong.
Racial alignments (other than Outsiders) are cultural tendencies, not 100% things. With Dragons that's particularly true in the Dragon-heavy settings like Council of Wyrms and Dragonlance. Literally the 2nd Red Dragon you encounter in Dragonlance lore and mods is best known for sacrificing her life for a bunch of human children. In Faerun we had the ancient red "Mist" who died carrying a paladin into battle against a primordial god of decay and entropy. Etc….
Familiar with council of wyrms myself and the only thing I really know about Dragonlance are the draconians who I consider a A or S tier race because of the lore and abilities. But it's nice to know that there are flips in dragon trends even in the main faerun setting.
Yeah white dragons are feral, not stupid, wyrmlings are arguably dumb but only about a orc level or something, still having some feral cunning and intelligence to be weary of. Although I do consider grey/gray dragons more interesting with the upcoming battle dragons like hunt dragons also being more interesting then white dragons. Although I do like the fact that crystal dragons will sometimes raise white dragon eggs to be better and kinder since Crystal dragons are so friendly and gregarious.
Where did it explicitly reference 5E? I did read the post, but I must have missed that.
I might have mistaken it for ancient, don't have a monster manual handy since I'm abroad but searching online you are correct. I'm just a bit of a dumbass.
"To explain this for people not deep into 5e monster lore; D&D dragons are sapient beings, and known for their instincts and tendencies, and whenever you meet an big evil dragon that's really old it's usually this ancient creature of terrible intellect Smaug-ing it up all over the place.
As I've said. Go back to their original sizes and relative power. A hundred meter kaiju with literally a thousand years of knowledge and combat experience. Breath that should have a chance of one-shotting the highest HP member of a level 20 party, both wizard and cleric spells, able to attack all party members physically in the same round even when attacked from all sides, with multiple "save or lose a turn" effects like stun and knockdown mixed in as automatic side effects of the attacks. That's how a great Wyrm fight should be.
I agree with this, great wyrm fights should be incredibly hectic and tense since no matter what, a dragon who reached great wyrm status should be incredibly smart, magically and physically powerful with a breath weapon that is a diet nuke. I do like some bits and pieces presented on them in the treasury but making them just a incredibly rare age category at all dragons could achieve would have been better like in old editions.
Selecting a fighting style advantageous to the character is something that would make sense from the character's point of view. They'd say "hey, this isn't working out well for me in combat, I should try something else". Conversely, "more HP" isn't a thing the character knows about and therefore decisions based on it are metagaming.
Yeah I actually do like face-biter Mike, funny idea to throw at the party.
Plus you can have him on a "Council of Wyrms" and he's somehow the only evergreen member of it.
Although that was because she was senile and thought the children were her own wyrmlings.
"I have had more close calls than I can count, I'm tired of having stick-limbs and breathing hard when I run, I need to get in shape so a falling branch or something stupid like that doesn't end me for good."
It would be neat to see a D&D setting set in the era where musketeers became a thing, maybe with magic keeping plate viable but very expensive. Or any setting that's firmly grounded in a specific era like Eberron sort of is.
