Were hordes of PCs wiped out during playtests of the new monsters and combat scenarios?
Andy: The characters in my campaign went up against a tundra landwyrm, and were quite surprised when it snatched one of them up in its claw and started drinking his blood. From that point on, they referred to it as the “vampire dragon,” and were quite eager to bargain with the monster instead of facing it in a fight. Skip: Our online playtesters worked with most of the new rules in the book. There weren’t piles and piles of casualties unless we’d guessed wrong on something (such as a monster CR). Any dragon can be bad news, but a dragon’s the worst when it’s free to fly around, and doubly so when it doesn’t have anything to defend. (Thanks to its speed, spells, and that awesome breath weapon, a dragon is the master of the hit and run.) When a dragon catches you in the open, be prepared to negotiate or run for cover, because it’s a sure bet you’ll have to do one or the other. Wizards: What’s the one dragon in the book you’d most like to avoid in a face-off? James: Um . . . I’d avoid the
