Converting True Dragons

Con does seem the most thematically-appropriate. We'll also need to tackle the rot effect on equipment.

I like Con damage, but I like this better as a curse than a disease the more I think about it, especially with rotting equipment. With a disease, even with fast incubation, you have to wait a day for the second effect.

freyar said:

I like Con damage, but I like this better as a curse than a disease the more I think about it, especially with rotting equipment. With a disease, even with fast incubation, you have to wait a day for the second effect.

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Definitely. It's more akin to Mummy Rot or Mummy Scourge than a mundane disease.

Hmm, we could call the condition something like "Jade Scourge" and have it do 1d6 Con and 1d6 Cha every hour or so, plus damage to any organic materials the victim is in contact with (clothes, food et cetera).

Well, even mummy rot is a disease -- a cursed one, but still a disease -- and I think this just operates too quickly to be a disease per 3.5 rules (Pathfinder fixes that, though!). I think your suggestion is pretty good, though I might reduce the Cha damage a bit since it's already quite potent.

Can be cured by remove disease or remove curse or either?

Rather than dealing damage to equipment, we can just have it immediately rot to ruin, following this precedent...

Breath Weapon (Su): A rust dragon has two breath weapons, a line of acid or a cone of reddish-brown liquid that instantly corrodes and destroys any metal it touches. Attended and magical metals receive Reflex saves to avoid this effect, but any metal is susceptible: copper, iron, steel, silver, gold, even mithral, and adamantine.

So how's this?

Breath Weapon (Su): A jade dragon has two breath weapons, a cone of corrosive (acid) gas or a cone of putrid swirling brown and yellow and green gas that spreads a rotting disease to living creatures that instantly rots and destroys any nonorganic matter it touches. Attended and magical organic items receive Reflex saves to avoid this effect. Living creatures are exposed to jade scourge.

Jade Scourge: Supernatural disease—breath weapon, Fortitude negates, incubation period 1 minute; damage 1 Con and 1 Cha per age category. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Unlike normal diseases, jade scourge continues until the victim reaches Constitution 0 (and dies) or is cured as described below.

Jade scourge is a powerful curse, not a natural disease. A character attempting to cast any conjuration (healing) spell on a creature afflicted with jade scourge must succeed on a caster level check (DC equals 10 + age category), or the spell has no effect on the afflicted character.

To eliminate jade scourge, the curse must first be broken with break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a caster level check equal to 10 + dragon's age category for either spell), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to cast healing spells on the victim, and the jade scourge can be magically cured as any normal disease.

An afflicted creature who dies of jade scourge collapses into a mass of putrefying flesh.

I'm happy enough with that, I guess. I think I'd prefer more damage, since it only takes effect once per day. Maybe 1d2 or 1d3 Con per age category? I'm not so worried about Cha.

freyar said:

I'm happy enough with that, I guess. I think I'd prefer more damage, since it only takes effect once per day. Maybe 1d2 or 1d3 Con per age category? I'm not so worried about Cha.

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Up to 12d3 Con damage! That's a bit more than I was thinking of.

I'd prefer something a lot milder that scales with size - Say 1d4 Con & Cha for Small (Wyrmlings), 1d6 for Medium (Very Small & Young), 1d8 for Large (Juvenile & Young Adult), 1d10 or 2d6 for Huge (Adult to Old) and 2d6 for Gargantuan (Ancient+), but which does the damage once per hour - so the victim of even a wyrmling's rot breath is unlikely to last a day.

Shade said:

So how's this?

Breath Weapon (Su): A jade dragon has two breath weapons, a cone of corrosive (acid) gas or a cone of putrid swirling brown and yellow and green gas that spreads a rotting disease to living creatures that instantly rots and destroys any nonorganic matter it touches. Attended and magical organic items receive Reflex saves to avoid this effect. Living creatures are exposed to jade scourge.

Jade Scourge: Supernatural disease—breath weapon, Fortitude negates, incubation period 1 minute; damage 1 Con and 1 Cha per age category. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Unlike normal diseases, jade scourge continues until the victim reaches Constitution 0 (and dies) or is cured as described below.

Jade scourge is a powerful curse, not a natural disease. A character attempting to cast any conjuration (healing) spell on a creature afflicted with jade scourge must succeed on a caster level check (DC equals 10 + age category), or the spell has no effect on the afflicted character.

To eliminate jade scourge, the curse must first be broken with break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a caster level check equal to 10 + dragon's age category for either spell), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to cast healing spells on the victim, and the jade scourge can be magically cured as any normal disease.

An afflicted creature who dies of jade scourge collapses into a mass of putrefying flesh.

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That looks fine to me except, as I said earlier, I'd prefer the damage tweaked to a dice range (either set to size or age category) and applied per hour.

If we're doing it by age, maybe something like:
Wyrmling - 1d4 Con & Cha
Very Young - 1d6 Con & Cha
Young - 1d6 Con & Cha
Juvenile - 1d8 Con & Cha
Young Adult - 2d4 Con & Cha
Adult - 2d4 Con & Cha
Mature Adult - 2d4 Con & Cha
Old - 2d6 Con & Cha
Very Old - 2d6 Con & Cha
Ancient - 3d4 Con & Cha
Wyrm - 2d8 Con & Cha
Great Wyrm - 3d6 Con & Cha

I kind of like tying the damage to size category.

The thing is, unless we ditch the idea that it's a disease, the damage is only ever going to be applied once per day. That's why I'd prefer it be a curse instead.

freyar said:

I kind of like tying the damage to size category.

The thing is, unless we ditch the idea that it's a disease, the damage is only ever going to be applied once per day. That's why I'd prefer it be a curse instead.

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I'm fine with calling it a Curse rather than a Disease in order to accelerate the damage.