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

[ilgatto]

Okay, back to the grindstone…

Description​

​

At first glance, a dragon warrior appears to be a human, orc or other sturdy humanoid completely coated in dragon scale armor so exceptionally crafted it fits them like a second skin. A close inspection reveals the creature inside is no normal humanoid, but some sort of reptilian or draconic creature whose finely scaled skin is the hue of its armor. The warrior is normally armed with a broad-bladed longsword made from the same material as its armor.​

 Organic Armory. An intimate inspection reveals a dragon warrior's scale mail is, quite literally, a second skin; a partially shed hide whose living scales have thickened into a suit of armor. Its longsword is similarly formed from the dragon warrior's body: a single massive scale, or perhaps an enormous fang, that has assumed the shape of a blade.​

 Draconic Scions. Dragon warriors come in ten varieties matching the five chromatic dragons (black, blue, green, red, white) and the five metallic dragons (brass, bronze, copper, gold, silver). A dragon warrior's scales match the corresponding dragon in color and texture and it often has minor features reminiscent of it, such as vestigial horns or crests. While metallic dragons are renowned for their benevolence and chromatic dragons are notoriously malign, dragon warriors rarely follow the true dragon's morality. While there may be a faint tendency towards their corresponding dragon's alignment (a red dragon warrior is slightly more likely to be evil or chaotic than a bronze one, for example), most dragon warriors are strictly neutral. The dragon warriors do have some other draconic traits though, such as being immune to the damage type of their dragon's breath weapon.​

​

 Children of the Dragon's Teeth. The common dragon warrior encountered by adventurers is an artificial being produced by a dragon tooth, an item that becomes a dragon warrior to serve the tooth's user; the transformed tooth is a temporary creatures that exist only briefly before crumbling into dust.​

 These dragon teeth imitate ancient myth, which says the first dragon warriors were born by planting the teeth of a slain legendary dragon in ploughed earth. Called Spartoi (literally "the Sown"), these warriors sprouted from these strange seeds armed for battle, growing to adulthood in moments. Some myths say the handful of Spartoi who survived their initial battlefield went on to found lineages of true dragon warriors. The legendary Spartoi and their dragon warrior descendants are living creatures, rumored to have incredibly long lifespans like a true dragon. True dragon warriors are fantastically rare creatures, and how they reproduce is unknown (or even if they can reproduce). The tales say dragon warriors, or at least the original Spartoi, would marry into human tribes, but the union of a Spartolos and Human normally resulted in humanoid offspring, not dragon warriors. A few modern sages claim dragon warriors can mate with dragons or reptilian humanoids as well as each other to produce newborn dragon warriors or eggs, but that is pure speculation.​

I think that'll do, so it's just the dragon tooth item to do.

Smooth.

"the transformed tooth is a temporary creatures that exist only briefly before crumbling into dust."
creatures that exist > creature that exists?

"but the union of a Spartolos and Human normally resulted in humanoid offspring, not dragon warriors"
Human > human?

You've probably checked, but are you sure about "Spartolos" being the singular of "Spartoi"?

EDIT: Sorry, didn't read the next post about "Spartolos". I'll do some checking.

 

[ilgatto]

Incidentally (a) Enworld's spellcheck refuses to recognize the UK spelling of ploughed but is happy with the alternative of plowed. Might use that just to save headaches.

Also, I'm not 100% sure that Spartolos is the proper singular of Spartoi. All the sources I could find online that used it appear to be derived from a Pathfinder Monster of that name, said Spartolos (plural Spartoi) being an undead warrior that sprouts from magic spartoi seeds that resemble teeth, obviously inspired by the myth.

Should I decide that the provenance of Spartolos is uncertain and will use the more US-approved plowed spelling, I'd change the quoted paragraph to:

 These dragon teeth imitate ancient myth, which says the first dragon warriors were born by planting the teeth of a slain legendary dragon in plowed earth. Called Spartoi (literally "the Sown"), these warriors sprouted from these strange seeds armed for battle, growing to adulthood in moments. Some myths say the handful of Spartoi who survived their initial battlefield went on to found lineages of true dragon warriors. The legendary Spartoi and their dragon warrior descendants are living creatures, rumored to have incredibly long lifespans like a true dragon. True dragon warriors are fantastically rare creatures, and how they reproduce is unknown (or even if they can reproduce). The tales say dragon warriors, or at least the original Spartoi, would marry into human tribes, but the resulting offspring were humanoid, not dragon warriors. A few modern sages claim dragon warriors can mate with dragons or reptilian humanoids as well as each other to produce newborn dragon warriors or eggs, but that is pure speculation.​

I'm leaning towards keeping Spartolos and just changing ploughed to plowed though.

So "Spartoi" comes from the (non-modern) Greek "Speiro", which means "to sow", "to disperse seed(s)" (yup, also in that sense of the word). Taking its meaning as "sown (men)", the singular would be "Spartos" or "sown (man)". However, since I don't feel much for reading everything Apollonius wrote about them in Greek to see whether he uses the singular somewhere, perhaps you should go for the version that doesn't require the singular, as above.

In any case, "Spartolos" isn't a Greek word, although it does seem to be a man's name.

 

[Cleon]

Smooth.

"the transformed tooth is a temporary creatures that exist only briefly before crumbling into dust."
creatures that exist > creature that exists?

Kept on switching between plural teeth and singular tooth before settling on tooth for that line, but some creatures must have been left behind.

"but the union of a Spartolos and Human normally resulted in humanoid offspring, not dragon warriors"

Well going by standard 5E formatting, both should be lowercase. It'd look a little odd to have one capitalised and the other not though.

In any case, "Spartolos" isn't a Greek word, although it does seem to be a man's name.

Actually it is a Greek Word, being the name of an ancient Greek city.

 

[Cleon]

perhaps you should go for the version that doesn't require the singular, as above.

Yeah, might as well use that and move on.

Updating the Dragon Warriors.

 

[ilgatto]

Actually it is a Greek Word, being the name of an ancient Greek city.

I should have looked that up, shouldn't I?

 

[Cleon]

I should have looked that up, shouldn't I?

Yup. They conceal this information in Wikipedia, the fiends.

 

[ilgatto]

Dragon Warriors
Medium monstrosity, neutral
Armor Class [see below](natural armor)

Space between "...below](natural..."?

Dragonscale Equipment. (...) (see Dust to Dust),

"Dust)," or "Dust)," since:

Dragonscale Weapon Master (Gold or Red Dragon Warrior Only). (...)

Dust to Dust. If the dragon warrior dies, its body and dragonscale equipment immediately crumbles to dust.

Crumbles > crumble?

​

1 a green dragon warrior is also immune to the poisoned condition.

Capital "A"?

Reactions

Counterstrike. (...) In addition to the attack's normal effects, if the dragon warrior's melee attack roll is higher than its opponent's melee attack roll or a critical hit, the opponent's attack misses and does no damage.

Doesn't "or a critical hit" following "if the dragon warrior's melee attack roll is higher than its opponent's melee attack roll" suggest that the DW's melee attack can also be higher than a critical hit? Ergo: Maybe better "if the dragon warrior's melee attack roll is a critical hit or higher than its opponent's melee attack roll"?

 If the dragon warrior counterstrikes with an action that makes more than one attack, such as Multiattack, the action's first melee attack occurs on its reaction when it ripostes, and the warrior's remaining melee attacks occur on its next turn.

makes > allows for? Or is "an action that makes more than one attack" 5E jargon?

I thinks that's all I can find.

 

[Cleon]

Space between "...below](natural..."?

A space is unnecessary.

"Dust)," or "Dust)," since:

The plain ) is correct. In general, both parentheses in a pair should have the same formatting and it usually follows the lead of the first parenthesis.

The "Dragonscale Weapon Master (Gold or Red Dragon Warrior Only)." uses italics on both sides because the entire sentence is italic (and bold in this case), so the text both before and after the parentheses is italic. Not that you can tell in the case of the full stop.

By contrast, in "If the dragon warrior's dragonscale armor or dragonscale longsword are lost or destroyed (see Dust to Dust)," the sentence is non-italic plain text apart from the emphasized Dust to Dust, so the parentheses should be straight.

Capital "A"?

My first draft tried A but it just looked ugly, so I switched it to a.

See for yourself:

Dragon Warriors Combat Table

Type​	Element​	Saves & Skills²​	Hit​	Damage (with Longsword)​
Silver	cold​	DEX +4, CON +6, WIS +5, CHA +4​	+7​	12 (1d10+1d4+4 slashing)​

1 a green dragon warrior is also immune to the poisoned condition.
2 DEX (Stealth) and WIS (Perception) skills are equal to the Saving Throws.

vs:

Dragon Warriors Combat Table

Type​	Element​	Saves & Skills²​	Hit​	Damage (with Longsword)​
Silver	cold​	DEX +4, CON +6, WIS +5, CHA +4​	+7​	12 (1d10+1d4+4 slashing)​

1 A green dragon warrior is also immune to the poisoned condition.
2 DEX (Stealth) and WIS (Perception) skills are equal to the Saving Throws.

Doesn't "or a critical hit" following "if the dragon warrior's melee attack roll is higher than its opponent's melee attack roll" suggest that the DW's melee attack can also be higher than a critical hit? Ergo: Maybe better "if the dragon warrior's melee attack roll is a critical hit or higher than its opponent's melee attack roll"?

What the blazes?

I was sure "if the dragon warrior's melee attack roll is a critical hit or higher than its opponent's melee attack roll" was what it said. Remember having the clunky wording in a first draft and promptly changing it.

Never mind, it's an easy fix.

makes > allows for? Or is "an action that makes more than one attack" 5E jargon?

The normal 5E wording for Multiattack is along the lines "The aboleth makes three tentacle attacks" so I chose to use makes to follow that precedence.

 

[Cleon]

I thinks that's all I can find.

Found one!

The Challenge line was missing "XP" a couple of times.

Just changed "CR 6 (2,300) if gold; CR 5 (1,800) if red or silver;" to "CR 6 (2,300 XP) if gold; CR 5 (1,800 XP) if red or silver;" in Dragon Warriors.

 

[Cleon]

My first draft tried A but it just looked ugly, so I switched it to a.

See for yourself:

Dragon Warriors Combat Table

Type​	Element​	Saves & Skills²​	Hit​	Damage (with Longsword)​
Silver	cold​	DEX +4, CON +6, WIS +5, CHA +4​	+7​	12 (1d10+1d4+4 slashing)​

1 a green dragon warrior is also immune to the poisoned condition.
2 DEX (Stealth) and WIS (Perception) skills are equal to the Saving Throws.

vs:

Dragon Warriors Combat Table

Type​	Element​	Saves & Skills²​	Hit​	Damage (with Longsword)​
Silver	cold​	DEX +4, CON +6, WIS +5, CHA +4​	+7​	12 (1d10+1d4+4 slashing)​

1 A green dragon warrior is also immune to the poisoned condition.
2 DEX (Stealth) and WIS (Perception) skills are equal to the Saving Throws.

It'd be OK with a capital A if the sentence was split with punctuation:

Dragon Warriors Combat Table

Type​	Element​	Saves & Skills²​	Hit​	Damage (with Longsword)​
Silver	cold​	DEX +4, CON +6, WIS +5, CHA +4​	+7​	12 (1d10+1d4+4 slashing)​

1. A green dragon warrior is also immune to the poisoned condition.
2. DEX (Stealth) and WIS (Perception) skills are equal to the Saving Throws.

That reminds me, I was never that happy about the construction of note 2.

Hmm, let's try a few more alternatives…

2. A dragon warriors' Stealth skill equals its DEX saving throw, its Perception skill equals its WIS saving throw.​

2. A dragon warriors' Stealth skill equals its DEX saving throw, Perception skill equals its WIS save.​

2. A dragon warriors' Stealth skill equals its DEX save, Perception equals its WIS save.​

2. A dragon warriors' Stealth equals its DEX save, its Perception equals its WIS save.​

2. The warriors' Stealth equals its DEX save, its Perception equals its WIS save.​

Okay, I'm liking the following the best.

Dragon Warriors Combat Table

Type​	Element​	Saves & Skills²​	Hit​	Damage (with Longsword)​
Silver	cold​	DEX +4, CON +6, WIS +5, CHA +4​	+7​	12 (1d10+1d4+4 slashing)​

1. A green dragon warrior is also immune to the poisoned condition.
2. A dragon warriors' Stealth equals its DEX save, Perception equals its WIS save.

Updating the Dragon Warriors.