Converting Epic Level Creatures

[Shade]

Maybe a metallic dragon that turned to evil and darkness? Or a radiant dragon corrupted by demons?

We could also use all of the above, leaving the origins as rumors.

 

[freyar]

I like the rumor idea. And since he could really use a little jazzing up, we can use them as inspirations for abilities. Any of these would also work to explain why he's hated by other dragons.

So, then, Gargantuan or Colossal? He seems borderline, depending on how chunky he is. I guess C.

 

[demiurge1138]

I like the metallic/chromatic hybrid idea.

And this was pretty early Dragon Magazine. Besides which, most of the flavor and background went into the faerie dragon, introduced the same issue. There's a reason those keep advancing editions while this one has gone untouched.

 

[freyar]

I like the metallic/chromatic hybrid idea.

And this was pretty early Dragon Magazine. Besides which, most of the flavor and background went into the faerie dragon, introduced the same issue. There's a reason those keep advancing editions while this one has gone untouched.

Yeah, it's easy to see.

Ok, so far we have a haste kind of effect (extra claw attacks), a strong darkness aura, a charming breath weapon, and relatively weak magic use. Should we add some of the other usual dragon stuff, like tail slap & sweep, wing buffets, etc, just for starters?

 

[Shade]

Yeah, it's easy to see.

Ok, so far we have a haste kind of effect (extra claw attacks), a strong darkness aura, a charming breath weapon, and relatively weak magic use. Should we add some of the other usual dragon stuff, like tail slap & sweep, wing buffets, etc, just for starters?

Yeah, I think so.

Most Colossal dragons have way more than 20 HD. Do we want to boost his, or drop him to Gargantuan?

 

[freyar]

Hard choice. I think that the way he's presented, he makes more sense at G with 21HD, though C with more HD would probably be fun. I guess Gargantuan.

 

[Shade]

In that case, he probably compares favorably with a wyrm white dragon in terms of size and relative power level. It has...

Str 35, Dex 10, Con 25, Int 14, Wis 15, Cha 16

Rahab's Int is listed as Low (thus, 5-7). Do we want to keep him that unintelligent, or boost him like the example above?

 

[freyar]

Hmm, how smart (or dumb) were 1e white dragons? I'd probably be in favor of boosting his Int to keep him at least in line with a white. Honestly, he's unique, so I'd like him to at least be better than a white dragon at 21HD!

 

[Shade]

Average (low).

Note that I compared him to a wyrm white dragon, since that is the lowest HD Gargantuan dragon I could find and is close to what I'd imagine is the target CR (19-20). However, even that "lowly" dragon has 33 HD. So we might really want to consider boosting his HD.

 

[freyar]

Yeah, I've noticed that Huge and larger earlier edition monsters often don't have enough HD. Let's go with 35, maybe. That's an increase of 2/3 just to get him reasonable! I think we should seriously consider improving his spellcasting or else giving him some SLAs. If it's too much of a stretch, I guess we could just shrink him to Huge and keep his abilities as they are.