1st time druid help - simple question

[Teambanzai]

Okay, So in my 35+ years of playing D&D I am finally getting around to playing a Druid. I have gotten to 4th level so far and am looking at what wild shapes I will be taking down the line. I noticed the feat "Dragon Wild Shape" which allows small and medium dragon sizes. If I had the mage cast Enlarge Monster on me to increase my size to Large, would this also increase the "age" category of the Dragon, basically taking a black dragon from Juvenile to Young Adult or Adult, or say a red from a wyrmling to young adult?

Also the feat says you get all the extraordinairy and supernatural abilities of the chosen dragon, would this include the DR of a young adult dragon?

Thanks in advance

 

[Celebrim]

Isn't that WAAAAAAYY down the line?

I mean, most campaigns will end long before you can take Dragon Wild Shape and right at the moment you are 4th level.

But yes, DR is generally an extraordinary ability so you'd get the DR.

On the other hand, Dragon Wild Shape says nothing about what sizes of dragons you are allowed to shape change into. It only says that the dragons have to be the same sizes as the animals you can wild shape into.

UPDATE: Sorry. You are looking at the non-Epic version printed in the Draconomicon. That explains it. Unlike the Epic version, the one you are looking at definitely restricts you to small and medium dragons. The rest of the response still applies.

So if you can Wild Shape into small and medium animals only, you can wild shape into small and medium dragons only. Nothing changes if you change your size.

If you are size large, you don't get to change into large size animals simply because you are now larger. The ability does not say, "You can shapechange into animals of your size category or smaller." or "You can shapechange into animals of your size category or one smaller." So in the same way being size large doesn't let you shapechange into large size dragons. Now, you could shapechange into a medium sized dragon, and then if Enlarge Monster was cast on you, then you'd get bigger. But 'Enlarge Monster' by the same token says nothing about dragon age category. It only says that the monster gets improved STR, CON, and so forth. So this would not work to make you into an older dragon either. You'd just be a big younger dragon.

When interpreting rules always interpret them as strictly doing what they say that they do, and not anything else.

 

[Teambanzai]

That's kinda what I was thinking, so thus by Enlarging the Dragon via spell, the size category would go up and the damage would go up due to increase size. Should this, in your opinion also affect the breath weapon?

And yes, this is indeed way down the line, but it is going to be a 16th-20th level adventure so I am just planning ahead a bit.

 

[Celebrim]

That's kinda what I was thinking, so thus by Enlarging the Dragon via spell, the size category would go up and the damage would go up due to increase size. Should this, in your opinion also affect the breath weapon?

"In your opinion" and "According to the rules" are not the same thing.

According to the rules, I'm fairly sure the breath weapon would not be impacted except to the extent the DC of the saving throw depended on CON.

In my opinion, in addition, the breath weapon of an enlarged creature should be similarly enlarged in area of effect and increase in damage in the same way (and to the same degree) as an enlarged weapon. So, in my opinion, a breath weapon dealing 4d4 damage should become 4d6 if the same creature is enlarged. But as far as I know, the rules don't say that, and it should also be noted that I frequently use a different scaling table to avoid the out of scale jump that happens when you go from 4.5 average damage (using d8s) to 7 (converted to 2d6). But that's just 'house rules' and any DM would be right to be skeptical of a player who simultaneously wants to gain some benefit and who also wants to argue for a ruling that would be greatly beneficial to them.

While we are on the subject of IMO, I'd never allow 'Dragon Wild Shape' as written precisely because the feat doesn't actually specify what it does. In my opinion, it's terrible design to write a rule whose actual benefit depends entirely on something not constrained by the rules, namely how powerful a small or medium sized monster with the dragon type should be. Writing a rule that way leaves it wholly ripe for abuse because at the time people imagine dragons as foes, they probably aren't thinking very much about a PC being able to shapechange into one, and conversely at the time the person designed the feat - they probably only glanced at what was available rather than exhaustively listing everything that was available or could be made available. For example, does the feat allow you to shape change into an ancient Fairy Dragon? Similarly, the medium sized blue dragon is vastly more potent than the medium sized red dragon, so the feat isn't even really balanced in and of itself because dragon designers never realized that they were operating under the constraint 'dragons of the same size class should be roughly balanced with each other'.

 

[Trebloc]

No, casting Enlarge person on you does not affect what you can wild shape into. A halfing druid and a Hill Giant druid both have the same options for wild shaping.

 

[Tinker]

According to the rules, dragon breath weapon area of effect depends on the size category of the dragon, so there's at least a case for an enlarged dragon having a bigger breath weapon as per the monster listing intro. YMMV depending on the rules you are using for enlarge monster - I can't find an official version of that spell just now. And of course the DM is always right so that's who you should check with.

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