I love the characters and endings and I'm glad I own The Dragon Expansion.  Still I find myself not using the core rules very often as they seem to eclipse the main game:

• The Dungeon become obsolete as a quick leveling plan.  Once a character is dungeon ready you are usually better of just drawing dragon cards.
• When players reach mid level they generally want dragon cards.  This means staying in the areas which have been the most traveled (they have more tokens on board).  Essentially this tends to keep players in the same region (usually the outer region) and we lose the variety that comes from having multiple regions.
• By end game it seems your dragon scales matter more than your character's objects and abilities.
• When the game is finished we have usually seen more dragon cards than other adventure cards.  A lot more.  This expansion adds more cards but has you playing with the same smaller card pool game after game.
• The Dragon expansion has its own ending(s), and outright clashes with the other alternative endings.

Overall my experience is that The Dragon expansion dominates play.  as it stands, my dragon cards, lords, tokens, and overlays mostly stay in the box for occasional play only (and too me it's worth having for that).  I might try Domain Of Dragons next time, it at least preserves the non drawing spaces.

What are other people's thoughts and experiences with this set?

 Yeah I agree with dragons. The game gets super complicated once you get going and some cards are just plain weird. It's fun with some if the combos, personally I thought it was more fun when dragon type abilities could not be able to be used in the dragon tower (well I say could not but it turns out that you could always anyway). Yep most of the time it's non-dragon play. It's also good because of the endings in normal play.

Absolutely, and positively our  favorite expansion for the game so far. Check out our houserules in the Homebrews  sub-forum, thread name Fighting the Dragon King. My last post lists all houserules, finalized and playtested.

No upkeep required when playing with them.

Playing with Dragons always happens, as well as all other expansions, though we tend to modify more with Dragons:

  Don't always use the inlay, but when we do, its never the tower, just the new realm.

Always use the scales and the cards, but

  My co player is way awed by the Dragons and will always avoid drawing from those decks when possible, or choosing to never land on a scaled-space when that color is the Dragon King.   So…

I get to draw those cards, which I explain over and over to the poor dear:  1) there are many cool objects and weapons that help with Dragons or even in other combats.    2) You can acquire scales that immunize you to Dragon Rage and give extra strength points. She's not buying it, though.

It is a good observation that you can tend to skip the Dungeon, because Dragon cards give you the same experience / trophy opportunities, but as per above

  I tend to go into the Dungeons and/or draw the Dragon cards. My co player stays out of the Dungeon, though she loves the Highlands.  When she wins, its mostly by a default; the game dragged on so long she did get her points up, more objects, spells or followers to help, etc.

I'm very glad to hear there are people who love this set best!  I'm sure it's a goldmine for those of us who enjoy house rules.

Also I imagine The Dragons is possibly the best expansion if you are only playing with one.  Having only the original 104 adventure cards, the dragon cards probably replace them in roughly the ideal frequency.

We've mostly houseruled the distribution of dragon scales and token drawing:

Game starts as per the rules of the Dragon Spawn variant

1)no drawing of dragon tokens each turn, but only upon defeating  one or more  Enemies from the adventure deck,

2)made Dragon Rage more dangerous by activating it each time a draconic lord is crowned, and having it affect all characters  regardless of their position (other than the Dragon Priestess, of course), and

3) imposed a carrying limit of dragon scales to a maximum of  3 of each color to avoid  overpowered characters.   Works like a charm

Today we played without the Dragon,  as we were testing the Sacred Pool expansion for the first time. Another excellent addition to the game. I like how it makes character  alignment more prominent. From what I've seen so far, the quality of cards is on par with the Reaper expansion. Very nice.And the quest rewards are a great boon.

Currently, we'll be playing with the Reaper+Sacred Pool+base game cards, swapping the Dragon expansion in and out.

We've separated Blood Moon for sessions where we'll be interested in playing with the Day/Night cycle, since most of the adventure cards in that expansion force that you play with it, and this mechanic can be rather distracting when playing with all the other expansions mixed in.

I'd have preferred it if they kept the tower aspect - with separate Tower cards - rather than Dragons. Dragons should have been a small expansion pack. Of the big box expansions I'd recommend Highlands and Dungeon first.

You  could houserule  drawing Dungeon cards in the Tower. I don't have Dungeon, but from what I've read. it's filled with powerful enemies.And since dragon scales can only be used against enemies in the dragon deck, you won't have the edge against them.

Jake yet again said:

I agree.

The Dragon Tower should have his own tower cards, filled with traps and other things.

I have no problems with the Dragon Expansion.

You must adventure a bit around the board, or go into a region board.

I encounter those scales sometimes, if i am strong enough.