Converting True Dragons

[freyar]

Maybe put those on the low end of mid-range, but that sounds good. Should Wis then be 14?

 

[Shade]

Added to Homebrews.

How do we want to handle the caster level progression? For simplicity's sake, I'd recommend not giving each color a different progression and instead standardizing it.

Since breath weapon damage originally equaled hit points, how about 1d6/HD, since 6.5 is average hp per die for dragons?

 

[RavinRay]

I agree with the standard spell progression, so it's from 1st to 17th? 1d6/HD breath weapon damage sounds good to me.

 

[freyar]

Works for me, too.

Hehe, I can just imagine a mid-level party coming across a great wyrm faerie drake and thinking "oh, a tiny dragon, no problem." We need to make sure they get some great SLAs.

 

[RavinRay]

Well we gotta avoid Tasha's (Iggwilv's) Hideous Laughter and Otto's Irresistible Dance then because they're stereotypically associated with fey humor.

 

[Shade]

Should we be concerned that the spellcasting will grow far beyond their Hit Dice?

 

[RavinRay]

Good point there. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of the abeil queen from Monster Manual II, which doesn't have many hit dice but is a high-ranking druidic spellcaster.

 

[Shade]

Hmmm...as long as the gap between CR and caster level isn't too great, we may be OK.

Still, looking at other true dragons at 12 HD or less, the caster level is usually 1st. That's an enormous difference.

I think I'd be more comfortable if we either reduced the caster level progression, doubled the HD at each age category, or just stuck with a robust spell-like ability progression.

The more I think about it, I think I prefer the last option, as it is closest to the original flavor, and keeps them realistic at HD for their sizes.

 

[freyar]

That seems fine to me. Dial back the CL a little?

 

[RavinRay]

I borrowed a copy of the original articles, and it seems that these familiar drakes, while sharing age categories with true dragons, may not be such at all. Hence, it makes it more feasible to remove sorcerer levels from them; the only family of Material Plane dragons without sorcerer or analogous levels are the lung dragons.