5E: Converting Monsters from White Dwarf Magazine for Fifth Edition

Cleon said:

I'm not that hung up on that distinction. Even "mindless" creatures have an Intelligence score in 5E, there is no such thing as an INT 0, INT — or "Intelligence: Non-" monster like there was in previous editions.

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Cleon said:

Okay, I've finished a first draft of the Dragon Warriors Table.

I think rather than the Languages Common, Draconic of the generic Dragon Warrior I posted it makes more sense that it can understand those tongues (since they're the standard languages known by a 5E dragon) but be unable to speak them. That's similar to the language ability of the Giant Owl and Skeleton mentioned above.

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Cleon said:

I've run some numbers through the CR Calculator and if we give it two or three attacks per round with a Longsword it was pretty easy to fit the Metallic Dragon Warriors into a Challenge Rating 3 to 5 spread with a 1-point AC graduation between each "adjacent rank" of dragon like is used in AD&D.

1st Edition
Brass AC 2, HD 6-8
Copper AC 1, HD 7-9
Bronze AC 0, HD 8-10
Silver AC -1, HD 9-11
Gold AC -2, HD 10-12

The power progression of Metallics is the same in 5E. A Brass Ancient Dragon is Challenge 20 and each rank of metal is one CR higher, so Brass/Copper/Bronze/Silver/Gold are CR 20/21/22/23/24, and their AC also progresses in a similar fashion at first with Brass/Copper/Bronze having AC 20/21/22 but then it caps out with the Silver and Gold also having AC 22:

Brass Ancient AC 20, 297 hp (17d20+119)[CON 25], Challenge 20
Copper Ancient AC 21, 350 hp (20d20+140)[CON 25], Challenge 21
Bronze Ancient AC 22, 444 hp (24d20+192)[CON 27], Challenge 22
Silver Ancient AC 22, 487 hp (25d20+225)[CON 29], Challenge 23
Gold Ancient AC 22, 546 hp (28d20+252)[CON 29], Challenge 24

However, I'm having a bit of a problem fitting the Chromatic Dragon Warriors into such a neat progression.

In 1E AD&D the Chromatic Dragons have a similar AC progression as Metallics but go half as fast, taking two "ranks" for a 1-point AC increase, but then the Red Dragon jumps three points of AC:

White AC 3, HD 5-7
Black AC 3, HD 6-8
Green AC 2, HD 7-9
Blue AC 2, HD 8-10
Red AC -1, HD 9-11

However, in 5E the Chromatics advance slightly differently, as follows:

White Ancient AC 20, 333 hp (18d20+144)[CON 26], Challenge 20
Black Ancient AC 22, 367 hp (21d20+147)[CON 25], Challenge 21
Green Ancient AC 21, 385 hp (22d20+154)[CON 25], Challenge 22
Blue Ancient AC 22, 481 hp (26d20+208)[CON 27], Challenge 23
Red Ancient AC 22, 546 hp (28d20+252)[CON 29], Challenge 24

Note the AC order goes White/Green/Black-Blue-Red with the 5E Black Dragon having as good an AC as a Red despite being second lowest on the pecking order?

So do I have the Chromatic Dragon Warriors ACs zig-zag around like the above, should I use the slow progression with a BIG jump at Red like in 1E, or follow the more even AC progression of the 2E and 3E Chromatic Dragons? If I was to go, say:

White Warrior AC 16
Black Warrior AC 18
Green Warrior AC 17
Blue Warrior AC 19
Red Warrior AC 20

That sort-of follows the 5E progression but seems a bit… unsatisfactory. I also would probably have to have the hit points fluctuate oddly if I want to follow the Challenge 3/3/4/4/5 in the table.

If we want the Chromatic Warriors to have inferior AC to the Metallics, it could be something like this:

White Warrior AC 16
Black Warrior AC 16
Green Warrior AC 17
Blue Warrior AC 17
Red Warrior AC 19

That's pretty close to the 1E progression.

We'd need to give the Chromatic Warriors a bit more HP than the Metallics OR slightly higher damage output, but that matches up with the Chromatic Wyrmlings having more HD and higher Challenge than the Metallic Wyrmlings.

I'm leaning towards using that approach.

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Cleon said:

Another question.

In Fifth Edition the Chromatic Dragons add a bit of special damage to their bites (i.e. a Green Dragon does piercing plus poison, a Red Dragon piercing plus fire, and so on) while Metallic Dragons only do piercing with their fangs.

So should we add some energy damage to their Longsword attacks, effectively treating them as a flaming/venomous/icy/whatever weapon.

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Cleon said:

I'm also wondering about having the Chromatics do a bit more damage but have fewer attacks (i.e. two sword attacks at CR 4 and 5 instead of the three sword attacks I'm giving the Metallics.)

If a Red Dragon Warrior did, say 1d10+7 slashing plus 1d6 fire with its Longsword and could attack twice with Multiattack then it'd still be CR 5 like a Gold Warrior and be a bit more distinctive, substituting increased damage per attack for a greater number of attacks.

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Cleon said:

EDIT: IIRC Ilgatto mainly runs 2E, in which the core dragons are:

Chromatics
White AC 1 (base), HD 11 (base)
Black AC 1 (base), HD 12 (base)
Green AC 0 (base), HD 13 (base)
Blue AC 0 (base), HD 14 (base)
Red AC –3 (base), HD 15 (base)

Metallics
Brass AC 0 (base), HD 12 (base)
Copper AC 1 (base), HD 13 (base)
Bronze AC –2 (base), HD 14 (base)
Silver AC –3 (base), HD 15 (base)
Gold AC –4 (base), HD 16 (base)

Notice they have the 1E one HD difference between ranks but the HD are higher, also the Armour progression of the Chromatics is similar, with White & Black having the same AC, one lower than Blue & Green, and Reds are three higher than them.

However, the Metallics have one oddity in 2E. The Copper Dragon has the worst AC among them, not the Brass Dragon like in other editions. Since all the 2E standard Dragons apart from the Copper have base Armour Classes two points better than the AC of their 1E counterparts, I can't help wondering if they just forgot to put a minus sign there and 2E Coppers were meant to have base AC –1 instead of 1. That'd follow the precedent set by 1E.

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Cleon said:

Oh, the base Hit Dice of these 2E Dragons is five more than the average HD of their First Edition version. e.g. Black Dragons are 6-8 HD in 1E, for 7 HD for an average sized specimen; add 5 HD and you get the HD 12 (base) of a 2E Black.

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Cleon said:

Well the official 5E rules for Challenge Rating calculation don't distinguish between ranged and melee attacks unless the creature can fly and is low-to-mid CR, so it's usually just the "to hit" and "damage per round" numbers that matter.

That isn't actually how CR plays out of course. Even a landbound creature with superior ground speed to its opponent and an effective ranged attack is more dangerous than an enemy who does similar damage but has to enter melee to inflict it.

For that matter, a dozen goblins with shortbows are way more dangerous than a dozen goblins with shortsword because they can focus fire at range and knock out a few low-level adventurers relatively safely.

Admittedly it'd be hard to make CR rules that cover such circumstances without being horribly convoluted.

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Cleon said:

Okay, updated the Dragon Warriors Table with all the numbers figured out.

I tried using Brute for the Red Warrior which just squeezed into Challenge 5, but felt it had too high a slashing to fire damage ratio and increasing the fire damage pushed it into Challenge 6.

Brute (Red Dragon Warrior Only). A melee weapon deals one extra die of its damage when the red dragon warrior hits with it (included in the attack).​

​

Longsword (Chromatic Red Dragon Warrior). Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d8 + 4) slashing damage plus 3 (1d6) fire damage, or 15 (2d10 + 4) slashing damage plus 3 (1d6) fire damage if used with two hands.​

Another quirk is I had to give the Silver Dragon Warrior lower Hit Points than the Bronze to avoid nudging into Challenge 5.

I'm wondering about making the Silver Challenge 5 by increasing its Hit Points to 10d8+30 and increasing the Gold Dragon Warrior to Challenge 6 (2,300 XP)? We could do that by increasing its Hit Points to 90 (12d8 + 36) and boosting its damage a bit. Maybe:

Draconscale Weapon Master (Gold Dragon Warrior Only). A dragonscale weapon deals 3 (1d6) extra damage when the dragon warrior hits with it (included in the attack).​

​

Longsword (Metallic Gold Dragon Warrior). Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (1d8 + 1d6 + 4) slashing damage, or 13 (1d10 + 1d6 + 4) slashing damage if used with two hands.​

Come to think of it, that's a better solution than Brute or a Greatsword for the Red Dragon Warrior and could be repurposed for other Dragon Warriors by modifying the size of the "mastery dice".

Draconscale Weapon Master (Gold or Red Dragon Warriors Only). A dragonscale weapon deals 3 (1d6) extra damage when the dragon warrior hits with it (included in the attack).​

​

Longsword (Chromatic Red Dragon Warrior). Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (1d8 + 1d6 + 4) slashing damage plus 5 (2d4) fire damage, or 13 (1d10 + 1d6 + 4) slashing damage plus 5 (2d4) fire damage if used with two hands.​

Updating the Dragon Warriors Table.

I also tweaked the Red DW up so its numbers matched the Silver DW as Reds and Silvers have nigh-identical stats in AD&D.

I'm considering whether to boost the Blue up to 10d8+30 to match the Bronze, of maybe making the Red CR 6 and the Blue CR 5 so it parallels the Gold and Silver like it does in 5E rather than ranking a bit lower like AD&D were roughly Red = Silver and Blue = Bronze or Copper.

Anyhow, it's way past my bedtime so I'm calling it a night.

It's a night!

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Cleon said:

Let's forget about the "Spit Weapon" idea and approach them as Gladiator-type melee combatants, as that seems to be closer to the original concept.

For a start, it means we won't have to worry about whether the Metallics would have some version of the source dragon's nonlethal Breath Weapon, which if my back-of-an-envelope guesstimate is correct could easily bump them up a Challenge Rating and throw off all my calculations!

Javelins? It's a possibility, or we just leave them melee only like the original.

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Cleon said:

Or they're secretly Dragon Ninja Warriors and throw their scales as shuriken…

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ilgatto said:

That is an interesting find. I'm gonna have to check some tables and (I think) Dragon #146 to see if I can find where this comes from.
Thought: Maybe someone decided copper was a "softer" metal than brass?

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Cleon said:

EDIT: IIRC Ilgatto mainly runs 2E, in which the core dragons are:

Chromatics
White AC 1 (base), HD 11 (base)
Black AC 1 (base), HD 12 (base)
Green AC 0 (base), HD 13 (base)
Blue AC 0 (base), HD 14 (base)
Red AC –3 (base), HD 15 (base)

Metallics
Brass AC 0 (base), HD 12 (base)
Copper AC 1 (base), HD 13 (base)
Bronze AC –2 (base), HD 14 (base)
Silver AC –3 (base), HD 15 (base)
Gold AC –4 (base), HD 16 (base)

Notice they have the 1E one HD difference between ranks but the HD are higher, also the Armour progression of the Chromatics is similar, with White & Black having the same AC, one lower than Blue & Green, and Reds are three higher than them.

However, the Metallics have one oddity in 2E. The Copper Dragon has the worst AC among them, not the Brass Dragon like in other editions. Since all the 2E standard Dragons apart from the Copper have base Armour Classes two points better than the AC of their 1E counterparts, I can't help wondering if they just forgot to put a minus sign there and 2E Coppers were meant to have base AC –1 instead of 1. That'd follow the precedent set by 1E.

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ilgatto said:

If pressed, I'd be in favor of sticking to WD21 as close as possible, so that each DW would have the AC of its dragon type parent - i.e., one AC per DW as opposed to increasing as per 2E. Technically speaking, that would mean that the white DW would have the 5E AC of the (preferred age) white dragon. If this would lead to 5E DWs having weird ACs compared to their 1E equivalents I'd say so be it. It's 5E after all.

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ilgatto said:

The MC1 copper dragon has "AC 1" in the stat block but "AC -1" after "Age 4" in the table. This means that "AC 1" in the stat block must be "AC -1", for two reasons:

1) The AC of 1E MM dragons became the AC of "Age 2" 2E dragons.
2) All other MC1 dragons have the same AC in their stat block and after "Age 4" in the table.

View attachment 270740

So I guess someone did forget the minus sign in case of the copper dragon.

P.S.: There's more to Treasure Types than evident from the table above.

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Cleon said:

I'll transcribe the Dragon Warriors Table to the master Dragon Warrior post with the "AD&D ordering" of INT and WIS given above and the undesirable green bits cut out.

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