Converting True Dragons

[freyar]

Reflecting scales looks good, though do light-sensitive creatures really need to get hammered on the save as well? I'd suggest no penalty or maybe a -2 on the save. The original text seems to only penalize light-sensitives on the damage.

I like Shade's suggestions on the breath weapons. I'd leave off sonic and make it vulnerable to sonic, as "opposed" to light. Seems a little more flavorful.

The SLAs sound good.

 

[RavinRay]

HD progression - as gold dragon
AC progression - as gold dragon
Size progression - as red dragon
Speed - as red dragon
Ability scores - as red dragon (we can modify as we wish)

...I'm alright with leaning more heavily towards that statement, though, and giving it a bit of a boost, maybe on par with the red, but not exceeding it.

The purple is actually superior to the red (just about equaling the gold), though of course it's not your typical chromatic. The rainbow could, just could, match the purple, so having HD and AC match the gold dragon's does it for me.

We've got several votes for the universal energy resistance suggestion. Anyone disagree? If we use it, should we leave off sonic, so it keeps a vulnerability? Do we want to set the resistance equal to age category (1 for wyrmling, 12 for great wyrm) or have it go up in increments of 5 like DR?

I'd leave off sonic and make it vulnerable to sonic, as "opposed" to light.

Definitely no sonic immunity, as none of the five original chromatic dragons (or the brown and "missing" chromatics for that matter) have sonic immunity, and it is meant to combine bits of each of the five. Even the aspects of Tiamat don't have sonic immunity. As for resistance, prefer it progresses like DR (+5).

Should the blinding effect be limited to darkness, or also shadowy illumination?

I'd say blindness in total darkness and dazzled in shadowy illumination.

Spellcasting: From young 1st-level to great wyrm 19th-level, with access to cleric spells and cleric domains. Too bad the rainbow domain from the Plane of Radiance article in Dragon isn't OGC. But we can put a sidebar that if you do have that issue, you can add the rainbow domain.

 

[Shade]

Posted in Homebrews.

Should we give it multiple subtypes, or just go with Light like the prismatic?

What damage progression should we follow for the breath weapon?

I toned down the spellcasting progression a notch so it wouldn't eclipse the gold.

 

[JiCi]

Go with light, it would be a bit too much to give it too much subtypes.

 

[RavinRay]

Yep, light subtype works best, and it also doesn't have any energy immunity derived from an elemental subtype, just energy resistance.

 

[freyar]

Let's go with the light subtype, then. I'd suggest either 2d10 per age category (red/gold) or 2d8 per age category (blue/silver) for the breath weapons. Or maybe the cone weapon should act as color spray with some progressively more and more insane save DC as the age category advances?

 

[Mortis]

I'd suggest either 2d10 per age category (red/gold) or 2d8 per age category (blue/silver) for the breath weapons.

This brings up a question regarding the secondary breath weapon. Going up 2d8 or 2d10 for each energy type (acid, cold, electricity, and fire) may be a bit powerful.

Would 1d8 or 1d10 be OK or should we reduce it further to 1d4 or 1d6.

Personally I think that 1d6 per age category is perhaps the way to go. Which would mean a wyrmling would be doing 1d6 acid, 1d6 cold, 1d6 electricity and 1d6 fire up to the Great Wyrm doing 12d6 of each.

Regards
Mortis

 

[Shade]

This brings up a question regarding the secondary breath weapon. Going up 2d8 or 2d10 for each energy type (acid, cold, electricity, and fire) may be a bit powerful.

Would 1d8 or 1d10 be OK or should we reduce it further to 1d4 or 1d6.

Personally I think that 1d6 per age category is perhaps the way to go. Which would mean a wyrmling would be doing 1d6 acid, 1d6 cold, 1d6 electricity and 1d6 fire up to the Great Wyrm doing 12d6 of each.

I was thinking more along the lines of "breath weapon deals 4d6 damage at this age category, divided by four (dropping remainder) to determine the amount of each type of energy dealt". Does that work?

I'll go with the Light subtype as you all suggested.

 

[Mortis]

I was thinking more along the lines of "breath weapon deals 4d6 damage at this age category, divided by four (dropping remainder) to determine the amount of each type of energy dealt". Does that work?

It works - but I prefer the individual dice which would give varying amounts of damage for each type of energy.

If it was LE I would vote for your suggestion.
It it was CE I would vote for mine.
As its NE (at least in 1st ed), well...

Regards
Mortis

 

[Shade]

It's definitely possible to do it either way. I'm more for the "roll 'em all and divide" simply because that's how similar monsters do it (pyroclastic dragon and hellfire wyrm, for example). Not that rolling separate color-coded dice for different energy types isn't fun.

What do the rest of you think?