[MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...

[Jeff Kesselman]

At 09:26 PM 6/18/97 PST8PDT, you wrote:
>For starters, the mere idea that a land creature of that size could actually
>exist is pretty preposterous.  Most of the D&D dragons clock in at a size
>that would dwarf just about every dinosaur to ever walk this earth, and
>we all know how well THEY did.  

Extremely well, actually.  Dinosaurs ruled the landscape for a number of
orders of magitude more time then human beings have existed.  The filled
every ecological niche occupied by some other creature today.  Thsi is why
the questio nof why they died out has always been such a mystery-- the
assumption is that a dramitic event caused a catastrophic change in the
environment.

Oh, and no AD&D Dragon I know of dwarfs that thign that they finally
figured out a brontosaurus really is (turns out the bronto was a mistake,
wrong head on the body.)

>There are lots of problems, the most
>signifigant being that the building blocks of the universe are all constant.
>Atomic bonds have a set strength (for our purposes, anyways) and gravity

Huh? What the hell does an atomic bond strength have to do with the
possability of very large lizards? Or for that matter, gravity?  Its less a
matter of gravity and mroe a matter of the square/cube law-- to wit, as an
obejct increases in size its surfgace increases by the square while its
mass increases by teh cube.  

Thsi has relevance when dealing with a foot's ability to hold up a body,as
we as, far more importantly, the surface area available to release heat
through or absorb it in through.  Large size proves a problem in heat
management, thsi is expecially true with creatures who depend on the
outside to regulate their body temerpatures, such as cold blooded
lizards... but most dragon biology attempts Ive ever seen make then warm
blodded and in fact, there is a deabte right now over wheterh or not some
of the dinosaurs were in fact warm blooded.

>> On top of this, they are meat-eaters.
>The T-Rex is probably the best direct comparsion on this, and it had problems
>at a mere 6 tons or so with keeping itself fed.  The massive amount of energy
>(== prey) which it takes to keep that sort of a body in motion is damn
>near impossible to maintain...

To quote a good point from a bad movie "life always finds a way".  The
Hummingbird has a far greater problem then your big creatures. In order to
sustain its mdoe of flight it needs a rediculously high metabolic rate.  If
the humingbird stops eating, it immediately starts starving.  To overcome
thsi and allow down times, humingbirds go into deep hibernation EVERY NIGHT
when they go to sleep.


>now imagine a creature four to ten times larger.
>(A T-Rex is roughly the size of what...a very, very small D&D dragon?)

Um, nope.  Ild say a T-rex is the size of a full adult dragon based on all
the illustratiosn I've seen and my own experiences standing under a T-rex
skelleton.

>The worst part is that D&D dragons usually have a 50 strength or so.
>This would seem to imply that a couple of good human warriors (18 str)

This is athe problem witha linear scale., Note however that NOWHERE in the
AD&D ruels doies it actually SAY strength is a linear scale.  COudl be its
not, in which case your math is fallacious.


>strength chart wasn't linear, but it just doesn't work this way.

Um.. show me where it says it linear.  Page number, book, and paragraph #
please.

>Any descently experienced character can expect to live at least one
>shot from a dragon.  

AD&D is balanced aroudn the cocnept of the myth of St. George and the
Dragon. ie one fulyl decked out high levle fighter with war horse, alnce
and luck can take a dragoin down.

There is a very good quote on thsi dichotomy in the literature in "The
Glass Harmoica" (also published as The Book Of Wierd) a totally UN ad&d
related encyclopedia of fasntasy cocnepts.  It defines a drago nas
"That most fiercesome, terrible, and pwoerful creature that, ocne actually
encountered, proves suprisingly easy to kill."

Part of your mistake ofcourse is that you are treatign AD&D characters as
normal peopel. Theya re not, at high levels they are epic heros.

>The part I just *cannot* stomach is the idea of two or three well
>equiped adventurers taking one out.  If we assume that dragons have the

Then design your own. Noone is stopping you.  Everything  in the monsert
manual is a sugegstion.


JK