Converting True Dragons

[Shade]

Most Material Plane true dragons have natural AC=HD-1 (brown is -3 due to its leathery scales), and the jacinth isn't different enough to vary from this.

Cool...that's good to know.

So Blinding Hide is at young? Sounds reasonable.

Great.

This is a general conversion question but I didn't ask this earlier. Do we limit ourselves to the PHB clerical domains, or can other domains in the SRD (like those from Deities & Demigods, as well as Mind from XPH) be used? If so, Charm is a good choice, otherwise... hmm, Magic, considering that it might turn our to gain fewer Sp and Su abilities than other dragons at great wyrm age.

Both Charm and Magic seem a good fit.

Hmm, isn't the black dragon 60 ft in 3.5e, like the white? Most of the smallest dragons have 60 ft (except for copper and mist at 40). But 40 ft is a better match for the jacinth.

You are correct on the black. We'll stick with 40 since it is indeed a better fit.

Yes, give it the brass dragon's SR! Then let's see how the two face off in a confrontation, with the jacinth's possible higher Cha scores tipping the balance.

Sounds like one for the Battle of All Alignments.

I haven't suggestions yet on the class skills and ability scores (save for Dex 10 throughout). For the latter, I can always experiment with calculations on the spreadsheet and come up with a matrix.

If you feel like going to that much effort. If not, we can just go with what I've got (and if it proves problematic, can always be corrected later).

 

[Shade]

Updated in Homebrews (in this new thread).

I'm about to go insane with formatting, but it is mostly legible at this point.

Note that the Con, Wis, and Cha scores are those of the white dragon. These are just placeholders until we decide on replacement ability scores.

I stuck with the DR progression of the white, but we can adjust that as we desire.

 

[Mortis]

I'm about to go insane with formatting, but it is mostly legible at this point.

Yeah the joys of formatting within a code tag

I had enough trouble with my Consolidated Creature Index on the Mystara board, and that didn't have half the columns this has.

The way I did it was to format it in notepad, copy it into the code tag, then alternating previewing it and then inserting any addition tabs until it looks right. But as you can't enter tabs using the tab key I had to copy and paste them.

Its also a pain that you can't change the width of a code box.

Regards
Mortis

 

[Shade]

Heh. That's exactly what I ended up doing!

 

[Shade]

Interesting...

Looking over the chromatic, metallic, and gem dragons, all but the crystal dragons have Charimsa scores equal to their Intelligence scores, and Wisdom scores 1 higher than both. Same goes for the mercury, mist, and steel dragons. I suppose we can follow those same guidelines for the jacinth.

On the other hand, the shadow dragon, another dragon that relies on Charisma-based skills, has equal Int and Wis, with Cha 1 higher.

I also just realized that this dragon is really tiny! At its largest, it only gets as big as some dragons get at juvenile age. Its even smaller than the mercury. The smallest 3E dragon I can find is the song dragon, which progresses T, S, S, M, M, L, L, H, H, H, H, G. Perhaps we should use the same for the jacinth?

Thoughts?

 

[RavinRay]

Well, the crystal dragon does specialize in Telepathy (=Enchantment), and it already has psionic charm (=charm person/monster) and psionic dominate (=dominate person/monster) and it enjoys talking with visitors so its higher Charisma scores shouldn't be surprising. Brass dragons are pretty loquacious too, and their Cha scores are just slightly lower. Jacinths should match or exceed crystals in Cha, I'd say. Whites have truly horrendous Cha.

Should it have an ability to summon/charm/befriend a desert animal or Small magical beast?

 

[Shade]

I'm thinking that since it was intended to be one of the strongest spellcasting dragons, we should probably give it Cha close to its Int. It's going to take a bit of a hit on the physical scores due to its smaller size, which should offset this.

Sure, we can add some sort of charm/summon animal/monster to its spell-like abilities. Maybe charm animal at juvenile, dominate animal at old, and charm monster at ancient?

I updated the sizes and ability scores in Homebrews. Let me know how it's looking now.

 

[RavinRay]

I noticed that while the breath weapon die is +1/age category, it starts off at 2 dice like the mist dragon. Nice touch.

Str: slightly higher than brass (should win grapple checks, slightly higher tail, bite, claw, wing damage)
Con: equal to brass
Int, Wis, Cha: no contest here. In a magical battle between these two desert-dwelling dragons, the jacinth wins hands down. It should also be a more charming (and more terrifying thanks to the stronger frightful presence) companion than the brass. Brass dragons have met their match! It actually stands a better chance against a blue than does a brass.

So far you've done a good job at making the jacinth distinct from other desert-dwelling dragons. Kudos!

 

[Shade]

Thanks!

What do you think of the propoesed spell-like abilities (charm animal at juvenile, dominate animal at old, and charm monster at ancient)?

 

[RavinRay]

That's a good progression, as it allows the dragon to control more powerful creatures as it ages (reminds me of how a crystal dragon's psionic charm and psionic dominate scale upward as it ages, and the concordant dragon's ability to summon more powerful rilmani).