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[alfie275]

Dragon scale platemail with dragon leather under padding. Also dragons can't breathe fire in all directions so just surround him, and poke his eyes out so he can't see.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Ofcourse, they can fly, which would make surrounding him all the more challenging.

They might also use their tails, claws, wings, and sheer bulk itself, to good effect against the surrounding dwarfs.

[Fieari]

I would propose that the trick to fighting dragons would be:

1) Seige weapons.  I can think of some fantasy novels as well as a couple of fantasy movies that suggests that this is the way to go.  This would not always kill it, however, but might either injure the wings (the largest target) forcing it to the ground, or sending it back to its lair.

2) Once on the ground, surround it.  Barrage it with arrows.  Aim for the eyes, throat, or any other weak patch.  Get someone on its back preferably, and stab at the base of the neck.

3) If it flees home, chase it down.  In closed quarters, it may be possible to get behind the monster, in which case you can follow #2.  Also, rocks and such can be used for cover while you do so.  Solo dragonslaying would be inadvisable.

4) Make use of dragon-resistant armor.  Either dragonscale armor of your own, perhaps obtained by nest stealing (in which case you're going to NEED that armor soon...)... or Adamantine would work.  Gold armor would also work, as gold is highly acid resistant.  The trick with gold is that it's not resistant against just about anything EXCEPT acid.  Layering armor would be key here.

[Drake1500]

Yeah, some great tricks, EXCEPT:

1) Seige can't aim. It just shoots.

2) Archers/Crossbowdwarves can't aim... Okay, they aim, but not for specific parts.

3) The dragon probably wouldn't retreat until VERY heavily wounded, but even if it does, you've won. You CAN'T chase it after it leaves the map.

4a) You can't "nest steal." In order to get dragonscale armour, you would have to either: i) Kill a dragon (which is a bad presupposition) or ii) trade for it (and how reliable would that be?)
4b) Gold currently can't be forged into armour. And even if it could, you can't layer gold over OR under steel. Besides, think. Gold is... how heavy? Try wearing a full plate suit made of gold. You will not be going anywhere, I guarantee it.

[sonerohi]

Which is why something needs to exist as a counteractive. Fire imp leather clothing has been seen to negate the freeze damage caused to dwarves who stay on a tundra too long. Perhaps yeti leather or similair that would be rare, but effective at soaking up the heat?

[SirHoneyBadger]

I thought about gold, too, so I think it would be fun to be able to set up a gold-smelting operation that could be used to dip plate armour, metal shields, possibly weapons...specifically for fighting dragons, with the additional industry of gold-plating items to increase their value.

Personally, if it were me modding it it, I'd require 3 gold bars per item to be gold-plated, since the way I mod in metals, it takes 3 units of refined metal (the stuff you initially get from ore) to produce 1 unit of pure metal.

[ArkDelgato]

It would be awesome playing an adventure party from your fort going to a dragon cave and stealing some eggs.

and eating hatchlings when you return to the mountain home.

[LegoLord]

I personally think that with the physics-oriented direction DF is going in, a lot of things from The Flight of Dragons would fit in perfectly, as the book was intended to provide a feasible explanation for how dragons would have worked.  This did include why and how they would breath fire and fly.  As it turns out, breathing acid would be less realistic, as the dragon would need acid-resistant lungs and esophagus.  Fire, on the other hand, could be powered by a get of hydrogen gas being ignited only after going a sufficient length into the mouth to not blow the head off.  Then it would simply need pressure resistant mouth tissue, which is much more easily doable than acid resistance.  Heat would be dealt with simply by the high heat capacity of water that composes so much of so many creature's bodies.

This being a fantasy game, there can of course be magic to patch up there major weak points - not eliminating them, but making dragons in DF less wimpy than real ones would be.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I loved the 'Flight of Dragons' movie. The whole movie was good, and I especially liked the way ogres were portrayed. Very unique and scary.

Infact, that's why the ogres in my mod have three eyes and are resistant to heat/cold. They're not as big, though, since I decided I wanted cyclopes (enormous, distant cousins of ogres, modwise) to be real badasses.

[sonerohi]

I'm extremely dissapointed with Flight of the Dragons. Mainly because I own three copies because each one jumps around so much that I had to buy three before I could piece things together from the coherent fragments of each one.

I believe though that the only breathed fire to descend, correct? They should have some sort of bladder that allows them to breathe out a denser gas so that their elevation wouldn't change when they interspered the gases. That way we would still be able to have draconic fly by's.

[inaluct]

Personally, I'd like to see dragonfire be hotter than ordinary fire from about 100 squares away, with a maximum range of 1000 squares. If it can light a massive swath of everything on fire at will and can fly, it'll actually be threatening.

[Skid]

You mean an actual reason to build a fortress that's built like a fortress?

[LegoLord]

I believe though that the only breathed fire to descend, correct? They should have some sort of bladder that allows them to breathe out a denser gas so that their elevation wouldn't change when they interspered the gases. That way we would still be able to have draconic fly by's.

But that's not how fish's swim bladders work.  Those work by contracting, increasing the creature's overall density until it sinks.  Same basic principle with flight bladders.  The fire breathing being for dealing with the excess hydrogen without the hydrogen spreading out and then going boom.

[Pilsu]

Dragonfire probably wouldn't be overly hot considering it comes from an organic creature

Reading Toady's ideas on how dragons would behave, I don't think they need to melt metal with their breath anyway

[LegoLord]

Well, with hydrogen, it would be hot (but it would be directed away from the dragon).  Hydrogen reacts violently.