Converting True Dragons

[Cleon]

Rahab the Grey Dragon Original Stats

Grey Dragon (Draco Nox Diabolus)
FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: -5 (-2)
MOVE: 15”/24”
HIT DICE: 12 (96 hit points)
% IN LAIR: 100%
TREASURE TYPE: H, S, T, U
NO. OF ATTACKS: 5
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-8/1-8/1-4/1-4/5-40
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Low
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil
SIZE: L (48′ long)
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
CHANCE OF:
Speaking: 25%
Magic Use: 75%
Sleeping: 10%

The grey dragon, Rahab, is hated by dragons as much as he is hated by all other creatures. The only living things around him are the men, dwarves, and goblins he has enslaved. He lives deep in a cavern in a remote mountain range and never ventures forth from it.

The grey dragon attacks with the usual claw/claw/bite routine but gets two additional swings with his claws because of his tremendous speed. The latter two claw attacks are at -1 “to hit” and do only 1-4 points of damage. Rahab’s breath weapon is a gas cloud that affects all victims with its boundaries (2″ + 2″ + 3″) as a super-powerful charm spell. Affected characters or creatures who fail their saving throw vs. breath weapon will never again attack Rahab or do him harm for as long as they live, or until the effect of the breath weapon is negated by a Remove Curse spell.

Those who enter the dragon’s cavern will find nothing but a large mound of blackness, for Rahab is hidden by a form of Continual Darkness. The spell is not affected by anything save Continual Light, which will act as a Light spell. In this darkness, Rahab has an armor class of -5. If the darkness is temporarily alleviated by the application of Continual Light, its armor class worsens to -2.

If adversaries come close enough to the dragon, or if Rahab advances toward his foes, the grey dragon may be able to envelop his opponents in this blackness, effectively blinding them. If he manages to do this Rahab receives a +5 bonus “to hit” on each character so affected. The dragon’s own vision is sufficient to see under the darkness. The edge of the area of darkness is approximately three feet away from the dragon and surrounds him totally.

The dragon can cast two magic-user spells per day, but can use no spell of higher than third level.

Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #62 (“Steel Dragon - Grey Dragon” by Pat Reinken, June 1982).

 

[Cleon]

The dragon can cast two magic-user spells per day, but can use no spell of higher than third level.

The above suggests to me that Rahab's conversion should have had sorcerer spellcasting or some other kind of spontaneous spellcasting, it just never happened.

The format of "two spells up to 3rd level" is a bit weird. Standard 1E dragons include lower-level ones in their repertoire (i.e. an ancient Blue has three 1st, three 2nd and two 3rd-level spells; while an old Red and a young adult Gold both have two 1st, two 2nd and two 3rd).

Anyhow, that leads me to think Rahab ought to have something like sorcerer casting 11th, like an old Red Dragon in 3E.

Still, it's a finished conversion now so should we change it? I guess we could add an optional subentry.

 

[Nookie]

The above suggests to me that Rahab's conversion should have had sorcerer spellcasting or some other kind of spontaneous spellcasting, it just never happened.

The format of "two spells up to 3rd level" is a bit weird. Standard 1E dragons include lower-level ones in their repertoire (i.e. an ancient Blue has three 1st, three 2nd and two 3rd-level spells; while an old Red and a young adult Gold both have two 1st, two 2nd and two 3rd).

Anyhow, that leads me to think Rahab ought to have something like sorcerer casting 11th, like an old Red Dragon in 3E.

Still, it's a finished conversion now so should we change it? I guess we could add an optional subentry.

It seems like at least 14 ish level seems to be were most cr 22 dragons tend to sit in spellcasting ability.

 

[Cleon]

It seems like at least 14 ish level seems to be were most cr 22 dragons tend to sit in spellcasting ability.

14th seems a little high. It's a substantially weaker caster than Ahi.

Anyhow, the question is currently academic since we haven't even decided whether we ought to modify a completed conversion like Rahab is.

Oh, and if we do give it a sorcerer CL I'd rather it be an odd number of caster levels since all the SRD true dragons use odd levels (1st, 3rd, 5th, et cetera…).

 

[Nookie]

14th seems a little high. It's a substantially weaker caster than Ahi.

Anyhow, the question is currently academic since we haven't even decided whether we ought to modify a completed conversion like Rahab is.

Oh, and if we do give it a sorcerer CL I'd rather it be an odd number of caster levels since all the SRD true dragons use odd levels (1st, 3rd, 5th, et cetera…).

So 13 for rhab and 15 for ahi?

 

[Cleon]

So 13 for rhab and 15 for ahi?

I was thinking 17th for Ahi and 11th for Rahab (assuming we give Rahab caster levels of course).

That matches the sorcerer casting of a Wyrm Gold Dragon and a Wyrm White Dragon, which seem a reasonable match to the casting levels of the original dragons.

 

[Nookie]

I was thinking 17th for Ahi and 11th for Rahab (assuming we give Rahab caster levels of course).

That matches the sorcerer casting of a Wyrm Gold Dragon and a Wyrm White Dragon, which seem a reasonable match to the casting levels of the original dragons.

so rhabs going to be a lower challenge rating?

 

[freyar]

I think the casting is enough of an oversight on Rahab that we should make the change. And I'll go with CL 11 with CL 17 for Ahi.

The CRs may end up similar since Ahi was intended to have weaker attacks, including Weak Jaws.

Anyway, are we ready to get back to Ahi's special abilities?

 

[Cleon]

I think the casting is enough of an oversight on Rahab that we should make the change. And I'll go with CL 11 with CL 17 for Ahi.

The CRs may end up similar since Ahi was intended to have weaker attacks, including Weak Jaws.

That's all fine by me. I'll add a red section to Rahab's stats in the Working Draft to remind us to do him as well when we get around to sorting out the spells for the dragon brothers.

EDIT: While we're at it we can fix Ahi and Rahab's tail slap damage, which should do 4d6+18 rather than 4d6+16.

EDITED EDIT: I'm still wondering whether we should give Rahab a lower Strength than Ahi since he's less of a "Combat Monster" than his sibling.

Maybe make him Strength 33? Then his 4d6+16 tail slap would actually match his Strength modifier!

The weakest Dragon I could find with a quick search through my files are the Arcane Dragons, who have Strength 17 at Huge and 25 at Gargantuan. That'd correspond to Strength 33 at Colossal, so we do have precedent for a dragon with that low a Str score.

It would still probably be better to either make Rahab stronger or shrink both of them to size Gargantuan, but we're kind of committed to Rahab's stats as a low-strength Colossal dragon.

Anyway, are we ready to get back to Ahi's special abilities?

Yup!

Shall we do them in order - which would put the Vaporous Appearance first - or is there a special ability you particularly want to sort out?

 

[freyar]

If we're open to changing Rahab, I'd probably change the Str. I have mixed feelings because we must have agreed on this with Shade, but I don't understand how we came up with such low ability scores. And it's a 2008 conversion, so we were here. I guess I'll need to dig through the thread to find him at some point.

Yes, let's go for the Vaporous Appearance. The precise mechanic isn't very 3.X, but I think a concealment miss chance would work nicely. Maybe 50% like total concealment/displacement?