Converting True Dragons

[RavinRay]

So we're gonna make this psionic; it has a hide that reflects certain effects that's vaguely reminiscent of the prismasaurus; and gems have weird effect on it. Flavor is strongly psionic for me.

 

[Shade]

I'd say your assessment hits the target.

 

[freyar]

Agreed. Boy, but we're getting into weird critters now. Anyway we can simplify the reflective spell immunity a little?

 

[Cleon]

Agreed. Boy, but we're getting into weird critters now. Anyway we can simplify the reflective spell immunity a little?

Good grief, this looks like it will be another long conversion job. Twelve age categories and weird special abilities.

As for their reflective spell immunity, how about just say they're immune to light-based spells (colour spray, prismatic sphere, light et cetera) and such spells cause it to flash brightly on impact, causing blindness to all within 20 feet who fail to save against the spell's DC, said blindness lasting 1 round per spell level?

I'd drop the reflecting magic missiles bit, since I don't see why it should work on force effects.

They should probably be immune to supernatural and spell-based blindness, too.

 

[freyar]

Well, the age categories aren't worse than other dragons, at least. And we've already worked out the manifester level progression upthread.

That's an idea about the reflection, Cleon, though I want to think more about it.

Let's start with the simple stuff. Rather than a breath weapon, the original text says they spit acid 4/day. Switch to a line of acid?

Speaking of breath weapons, I just noticed that the demon drake always has a 15ft cone, even though its size advances from T to S. Is that what we wanted to do?

 

[RavinRay]

Didn't notice that about the demon drake. 15-20 ft then?

Not all the familiar drakes have to have breath weapons, if we want them to stand out a crystal drake can have spit instead like the ankheg.

 

[Cleon]

Didn't notice that about the demon drake. 15-20 ft then?

Not all the familiar drakes have to have breath weapons, if we want them to stand out a crystal drake can have spit instead like the ankheg.

Eh? An ankheg spits acid as a 30 ft line attack, so it just seems to be quibbling about a name. Besides, the Crystal Drake's AD&D stats have "Minor breath weapon" right there in SPECIAL ATTACKS, so I think we should just call a spade a spade and make it a breath weapon.

15 foot line works fine for me. We may up it to 20 foot for the larger ones.

Which leads us to the question of how big they are. Going by the lengths age categories 1-3 or 1-4 are Tiny (length 1' to 1'9" or 2'), but the bigger ones may be Small, since they're over 2 foot long.

So, shall we say Very Young to Young Adult are Tiny, Adult to Ancient are Small?

 

[freyar]

Yeah, I think the breath weapon sizes should be as usual for true dragons.

So, are we agreed that the crystal drakes have a line of acid regular breath weapon?

For the demon drake, the last few age categories bumped up to Small (I haven't gone back and checked the faerie drake), so we can do that here, too.

 

[Shade]

Yeah, I think the breath weapon sizes should be as usual for true dragons.

So, are we agreed that the crystal drakes have a line of acid regular breath weapon?

For the demon drake, the last few age categories bumped up to Small (I haven't gone back and checked the faerie drake), so we can do that here, too.

Agreed to all that. An advantage of keeping the acid as a "breath weapon" is that it allows the drake to take some of the cool feats in the Draconomicon.

I need to dig through the thread and find where we determined the manifester level and if we determined ability score progression.

 

[Shade]

I forgot to close this thread, as we're well over the 1,000 limit.

I'll start a new thread, repost the crystal drake's stats, and summarize our notes thus far.