Glass dragon (a dragon-hunting dragon)

This is a dragon I created after reading this dragon-hunting dragon. Originally I planned to use the name "glass dragon" for a false gem dragon, but decided to use it for this different dragon instead.

Glass Dragon
Dragon

Environment: Any land and underground
Organization: Wyrmling, very young, young, juvenile, and young adult: solitary or clutch (2-5); adult, mature adult, old, very old, ancient, wyrm, or great wyrm: solitary, pair, or family (1-2 and 2-5 offspring)
Challenge Rating: Wyrmling ; very young ; young ; juvenile ; young adult ; adult ; mature adult ; old ; very old ; ancient ; wyrm ; great wyrm (to be determined)
Treasure: Triple standard
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: Wyrmling 4-5 HD; very young 7-8 HD; young 10-11 HD; juvenile 13-14 HD; young adult 16-17 HD; adult 19-20 HD; mature adult 22-23 HD; old 25-26 HD; very old 28-29 HD; ancient 31-32 HD; wyrm 34-35 HD; great wyrm 37+ HD
Level Adjustment: Wyrmling ; very young ; young ; juvenile ; others (to be determined)

Glass dragons are an artificially bred species of dragon that have one purpose in life: to annihilate all true dragons. In ages past, the survivors of a human city ravaged by the incessant dragon wars being waged in the countryside, decided to destroys all dragons but lacked the means to do so. The mages and clerics in their ranks decided upon an ambitious plan: they captured one dragon each from the fifteen species of chromatic, metallic and gem dragons, and after years of magical experimentation and cross-breeding, they succeeded in creating the first glass dragons. Although glass dragons have 12 age categories, they are not true dragons (a characteristic they share with sea serpents).

A glass dragon has a sleek, colorless body that appears to be perfectly sculpted from molten glass; its scales are indiscernible. Its body outline appears transparent while the rest resembles frosted glass. A single row of vicious spikes runs from the back of its head to the tip of its tail, horns jut from its brows, and its cheeks and chins are adorned with spikes. Its teeth and slightly oversized claws are razor-sharp. A glass dragon gives off no smell.

Glass dragons dwell in any environment, and hate all true dragons. Without exception, they are all strongly neutral. They don’t merely tolerate true dragons of other alignments, they passionately believe that neutrality is the only alignment worth following. All true dragons, in turn, shun glass dragons, and not just for their commitment to neutrality; they consider glass dragons as mockeries of true dragonkind. Chromatic dragons hate them because their scales lack color. Metallic dragons distrust them because both varieties bodies’ appear shaped from molten material. Gem dragons loath them because of their physical similarity, yet their scales are not faceted like theirs. Glass dragons tolerate lesser dragons, and would like nothing more to dominate them once all true dragons have been eliminated. It is not uncommon for a glass dragon to have a small retinue of lesser dragons, particularly wyverns, whom they control through intimidation and fear. Older and more powerful glass dragons also command forces of dragonbone golems, and to a lesser extent skeletal dragons and zombie dragons, created from the bodies of true dragons they have personally slain, as a mark of their ultimate victory.

Combat
Glass dragons, although smaller than most true dragon species, are faster and more agile. They prefer to surprise their opponents with ambush and sneak attacks and use their superior physical abilities to harry dragons larger than themselves, darting about to avoid their attacks. Glass dragons follow the rules of combat for true dragons (including frightful presence), except as noted below.

Breath Weapon (Su): A glass dragon has one type of breath weapon, a cone of shards that deal bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

Water Breathing (Ex): A glass dragon can breathe underwater indefinitely and can freely use its breath weapon and other abilities while submerged.

Baneful damage (Ex): A glass dragon’s natural attacks are more effective against true dragons as if they have the bane (true dragons) special ability. They are considered magical weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Bonus Feat (Ex): A glass dragon gets a bonus feat at adult and ancient age. The dragon can only choose a combat, metabreath, or monstrous feat which has another feat of the same type as a prerequisite that it has already taken. For example, an adult dragon with the Power Attack feat can choose the Blowhard, Brutal Strike, or Cleave feats or any other combat feats that have Power Attack as a prerequisite, provided it has met the other prerequisites.

Wounding Attack (Ex): A glass dragon’s natural attacks deal 1 point of Constitution damage as if they have the wounding special ability.

Vorpal Bite (Ex): If a glass dragon’s bite succeeds at a critical hit, it severs the head of the creature it strikes.

Skills: Jump, Move Silently, and Swim are considered class skills for glass dragons. They receive a +2 bonus on Diplomacy and Intimidate checks on lesser dragons.
Glass Dragon Society
Glass dragons are unique among dragons in their role in society and nature in general. Because of their strong commitment to neutrality and hatred of true dragons, they ignore the latter’s concepts of territory and travel as they please with impunity. They do exercise caution when approaching a resident dragon’s lair, though. They consider it their duty to “liberate” the creatures living within the territory of a dragon from its dominance, whether the creatures welcome it or not.

Glass dragons have some respect for Chronepsis, the draconic deity of death, but they do not revere him. They regard lesser dragon dispassionate watchers of Chronepsis with disdain, but do not spare true dragon members. They scorn all other dragon gods, including neutral Astilabor and Io himself. The Ninefold Dragon with his concordant dragon attendants is content to leave them alone, but will intervene if their predations bring other dragon species’ abundance to dangerously low levels. Their actions often draw the attention of Lendys, who disapproves of their wanton killing of other dragons.

Although most glass dragons feel confident enough to confront another dragon on their own, they will not pass up on an opportunity to assist an adventurer fighting a dragon, regardless of the adventurer’s alignment. A glass dragon will gladly help a paladin defeat an evil dragon, but when they have vanquished their enemy the glass dragon will then try to “convince” its erstwhile partner to convert to neutrality. If he refuses and a melee ensues, the dragon will defend itself; it will not necessarily kill the adventurer, but will battle him to a standstill and then exhort him to reconsider before taking its leave. The same dragon who encounters the same adventurer later and finds that he remains unconverted may well take it upon itself to destroy him. Glass dragons may form long-term partnerships with rangers and druids (who are strongly neutral, of course) who share its hatred of true dragons, but it has to be careful to take pains to distinguish itself as a different species of dragon lest its partner eventually turn on it. A few glass dragons even take up the ranger or druid classes themselves, and a handful become dragonstalkers as well.

The cult that created the glass dragons remains unidentified. When the first glass dragons were created, they rebelled against their creators when they realized that they were artificially bred and were not true dragons in nature. The surviving members of the cult managed to convince the dragons of their common interests, and a formal alliance was sealed. The clerics and wizards of the cult are responsible for transforming slain enemy dragons into dragonbone golems, skeletal dragons, and zombie dragons. Cult members who accompany dragons are careful not to reveal their affiliation to adventurers they may encounter and team up with. Unbeknown to the cultists, however, the glass dragons desired more than simple elimination of dragons. They have already started a scheme to clandestinely take over the cult and rule the humans. So far, their efforts have gone undetected.

A couple problems I see, for a dragon-hunting dragon:

1) If they only have DR X/bludgeoning, that means their own natural weapons do NOT count as magic! That'll make it very hard for them to get through the real dragon's DR X/magic...

2) A bludgeoning/piercing/slashing breath weapon is not an energy weapon, and therefore susceptible to its opponents DR as well! Alternatively, how about making it a Force breath weapon?

3) +4Dex only gives a +2 Ref - not nearly enough to avoid other dragon's breath weapon. Adult Red: 12d10, DC26. Adult Glass: Ref +13...

4) their Will save vs Fear seems inadequate as well: Adult Red: Frightful Presence DC 24. Adult Glass: Will +11. They should probably be immune to other Dragons Frightful Presence.

5) Spell resistance is OK, but could be better. Adult Red: CL 7. Adult Glass: SR 18 -> 50% chance of success.

6) AC seems low as well. Adult Red: Attack +31. Adult Glass: AC 26!


I would crank up their Dex to, say, 20 or more. That will give them a better chance to avoid breath weapons (Ref +18, if you add in Lightning Reflexes), and increase the AC (still useless against a Red, but and Adult White, for example, only has an attack of +23).

Thanks for the input. I've noticed a few errors myself already. It doesn't explicitly say so, but a wyrmling dragon's natural attacks should already be considered magical because of the bane special ability. (The table needs to be corrected on that point.) I made its Strength scores higher than average for its size. Charisma remained average, and (again) I did not explicitly give them immunity to true dragons' frightful presence (though it's supposed to be covered in the "follows the rules for combat of true dragons..."

I really avoided giving it any Su or Sp abilities as it ages, to focus on physical attacks. I'm open to upping Dex, AC, and the breath weapon.

Again, thanks.

Made some incremental changes:

Dex is now 18 throughout, matched the mercury dragon's highest Dex score. Natural AC is now HD+2 like the axial dragon, so other AC values are adjusted as well.

Breath weapon increase is now by 2HD.

I'm thinking of giving it a benefit of its translucent body. In daylight, its glittering body makes opponents difficult to precisely aim their attacks. I wonder whether this should be expressed as a percentage of miss chance, and/or an increase in the DC to make a successful critical hit against it.

RavinRay said:

It doesn't explicitly say so, but a wyrmling dragon's natural attacks should already be considered magical because of the bane special ability.

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Note that that should make the Baneful Damage at the very least a (Su) special ability. I still think it would be easier to just give them DR X/Magic, like other dragons. (Note that their breath weapon would still be subject to dragon's DR, unless you explicitly plan to make that magical as well...)


Here's another angle for a dragon hunter... why not a pack of smaller creatures? Sure, it's an entirely different concept, but it strikes me that dragons are so well-rounded that it's hard to "tailor" an opponent to them, without that critter becoming about just as powerful as the original dragon. Kinda like breeding lions to hunt bears...

I missed that (Su) part about baneful damage.

Hmm, I could change their organization at younger ages to form packs against larger dragons. I'll mull over it during my next creative phase, whenever that may be.

Yeah the glass dragon would have been more appropriate for a false gem dragon the whole glass =dragon hunting dragon does not float for me.

Of course the alighnment coding for your convinence I discard in my games out of hand.

everything else I would say has been covered, though, it still seems to read that the breath weapon is still subject to damage reduction.


nit picking: there is no bane true dragon its just dragons

Vorpal Bite (Ex): If a glass dragon’s bite succeeds at a critical hit, it severs the head of the creature it strikes.

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This is a matter of personal taste I prefer the mechanic of the epic critical feat chain that allows for a save (Fort DC 10+1/2 hd+ str modifer), at least it gives the player a fealing of having a chance of a save, not just the dm rolling lucky behind the screen.

True dragon bane: I just made that up, to focus exclusively on true dragons. Glass dragons don't normally hunt lesser dragons.

If I could re-haul this project, I'd make a false gem dragon (glass dragon), false metallic dragon (Krisnath's pyrite dragon), and a false chromatic dragon (gray? pale? or that April Fool's pink dragon?). As for dragon-hunting dragons, I thought about lions and hyenas where it's shown on Nat Geo that they kill one another as rivals. Plus, some bigger eagles have been known to hunt smaller owls.

Thinking of adding fast healing and a magic effect to the breath weapon.

Hmm, I was working on the Ultimate Homebrew Monster Index (stickied at the top of this forum) and I came across these.

Thoughts on the CRs?

RavinRay said:

I'm thinking of giving it a benefit of its translucent body. In daylight, its glittering body makes opponents difficult to precisely aim their attacks. I wonder whether this should be expressed as a percentage of miss chance, and/or an increase in the DC to make a successful critical hit against it.

Click to expand...

You could consider it as a natural Blur effect, a 20% miss chance.