Talk:Lindwurm

I wonder if the fire breath is actually a spell or a breath weapon?

The distinction is blurry and not very meaningful. Some monsters (including lindwurms and fire dragons) have their breath weapons implemented as a special, non-spell ability, while others (such as iron and golden dragons) have their breath weapons implemented as non-silenceable, "fake" spells. Antimagic doesn't affect either type: it doesn't affect non-spell abilities, and the "fake spells" tag on casters specifically prevents them from being affected by antimagic. Honestly it's one of those distinctions that seems like a relic of earlier times; there are a few other such non-spell abilities, like crimson imps' blink and Snorg's berserk. Personally I wonder why they haven't just been made into spells.

Oh, and you can tell if a monster's breath weapon or what have you is implemented as a spell or not by looking at the wiki page. If it has the spell template, it's a spell; otherwise, it's an ability. The bot that compiles monster spells doesn't catch abilities. -Ion frigate (talk) 21:35, 28 March 2014 (CET)