Building a *Weaker* Dragon

[Maleketh]

I'm building an adventure for my players that revolves around slaying a couple of dragons (juvenile greens, if it matters), then being hunted down by their vengeful mother. The mother needs to be adult or older, and I'd like her to be larger than her young (which works since adults greens are huge and juveniles are large). The thing is, I need the mother to be CR 12, but the standard adult green is CR 13. I also want to keep her a living dragon, so templates that make her undead or otherwise change her type would be out.

So my question is this: does anyone know of any templates, or even just a few modifications I could make, that would reduce an adult green dragon's CR by 1 without reducing her size or radically altering her physiology?

 

[szilard]

Say that it has abyssmally low Charisma, thus reducing its spellcasting ability and Frightful Presence DC.

-Stuart

 

[darthkilmor]

I'm building an adventure for my players that revolves around slaying a couple of dragons (juvenile greens, if it matters), then being hunted down by their vengeful mother. The mother needs to be adult or older, and I'd like her to be larger than her young (which works since adults greens are huge and juveniles are large). The thing is, I need the mother to be CR 12, but the standard adult green is CR 13. I also want to keep her a living dragon, so templates that make her undead or otherwise change her type would be out.

So my question is this: does anyone know of any templates, or even just a few modifications I could make, that would reduce an adult green dragon's CR by 1 without reducing her size or radically altering her physiology?

Don't run her as aggressively as she's capable? Substitute a good feat like Multiattack for something mostly worthless like Iron Will?

I don't think your players will notice a huge difference between CR 12 and CR 13 anyway.

 

[Shin Okada]

It will depend on why you want to make her weaker than the actual age category.

If that is just for adjusting encounter level, I suggest you not to change her stats but instead modify the environment of the encounter so that the PCs can have slight advantage. I mean, you don't need to make her CR 12 if alll you want is an EL 12 encounter.

For example, if that vengeful mother follows the PCs to a temple protected by a Hallow spell with some nice attached spell (say, remove fear to all non-evil creatures). Or somewhere no good for a huge dragon (a dungeon with a lot of pillars and huge dragons must squeeze into), it will lower EL without changing her stats. Or, giving PCs temporal boon (by gods or something) for the final fight may also adjust EL

If you really want her to be weaker for her age, there are several ways to do that. If I were you, I will just start from the stats of Young Adult Green Dragon (CR11) and just give her huge size (CR+1).

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

If you ignore the Dragonfear and extend the time between uses of the breath weapon to say 6 rounds instead of the usual <4 that should be sufficient.

 

[Herobizkit]

Use the Wyvern, add the Green Dragon's BW, and you got a winner. Sometimes, the simplest answers are the best.

 

[Slaved]

Give it a negative level. There could even be a good reason why it has it at the time when the player characters are fighting the mother.

The negative level reduces the dragons hit points by 5, imposes a -1 penalty to its caster level, removes one of its highest level spells and a spell slot, and gives a -1 penalty to every rolls all over the place.

That should make the dragon just as scary in most ways and yet still be just a little bit worse off to account for the lower challenge rating. As an added bonus if the mother dragon gets away you have an excuse for why it is tougher later without having to be metagamey!

 

[Lord Zardoz]

If your only concerned about the raw CR rating, do not be. Adding or removing 1 CR is not likely to be the difference maker. What will be the big difference makers are the Spell Resistance and possibly the Damage Reduction. Dropping one or both will make the dragon somewhat more vulnerable.

Consider it another way. What is it about the CR 13 dragon that has you worried? I do not think an extra 2d6 on the breath weapon is that big a difference maker. I do know that some age category changes have a much bigger effect than others. Taking a Black Dragon from Juvenile to Young Adult adds a whole lot more power than I expected (Damage Reduction, Spell Resistance, the Tail Slap attack, 1st level Sorcerer casting, New Size category which ends up increasing the damage of all attacks).

END COMMUNICATION

 

[frankthedm]

Knock off

2HD, 1 natural armor, 2 Str, 1 breath weapon die, 1 SR, 1 spellcaster level.

and that should be about 1 CR point

 

[mvincent]

I need the mother to be CR 12, but the standard adult green is CR 13

As mentioned, leaving her at CR13 just seems much easier but...

A dragon increases 1 CR per 2 HD, so giving her two negative levels (i.e. Energy Drained) should be a quick/easy way to bring down by a CR.