Converting True Dragons

[Shade]

Hit Dice, damage, and breath weapon damage match a blue dragon.
Size is fairly comparable to a red dragon (although a bit smaller on the body length).
AC matches a bronze dragon.
Spell resistance follows the silver dragon's progression.
Spellcasting matches none of the dragons I could find, although it's priest casting (the better of the two) follows the sapphire's progression.

 

[freyar]

Leaving aside the casting for a moment, I'm happy just to use those progressions. As for casting, maybe we should just use sapphire -- or should we find one a little faster to account for both types of casting in the old version?

For the breath weapon, I propose a normal fire breath but that anyone who fails the first save must save again or catch on fire along with gear.

 

[Shade]

The sapphire actually has faster wizard casting progression. But I'm fine just following its progression, and using cleric spells and domains, of course, to emphasize the divine focus.

The breath weapon concept appeals.

 

[RavinRay]

That breath weapon could work. We can also adapt the burn ability of the magma drake and magma paraelemental.

Int same as blue.

Speed same as red.

The ruby dragon has a similar attitutde towards dwarves as does the iron dragon, as both covet mined treasure (gems and iron respectively).

 

[Shade]

Added to Homebrews.

Great suggestion with the magmin.

It sounds like we shouldn't give them the Fire subtype, since they are actually resistant to cold. Perhaps the Earth subtype, due to their ties to mountains, magma, and gems?

Per the original Mystaran dragons article, ruby dragons are 15% lawful good, 80% lawful neutral, and 5% lawful evil.

Red dragons can also cast cleric spells and those from the Chaos, Evil, and Fire domains as arcane spells. For ruby dragons, perhaps Fire, Law, and one of the following: Earth, Nobility, or Weather?

Appraise, Bluff, and Jump are considered class skills for red dragons. Appraise and Jump still seem a good fit, and maybe Swim (for "swimming" through magma) or Spellcraft?

RavinRay - what does Dragon Magic list as the alternate SLAs for red dragons?

 

[RavinRay]

For a red dragon they'd be detect thoughts (juvenile), mass suggestion (ancient), and mass charm monster (great wyrm). They don't seem to fit thematically to the ruby for me at least unless the dragon uses suggestion and charm to make dwarves give it gems. The ruby seems to share the red's greed for treasure, though not in an avaricious way.

 

[freyar]

It's looking pretty good.

I agree that those SLAs don't seem to fit. Maybe fire-themed ones, like pyrotechnics and such? Or is that an overdose of fire energy? Earth-themed, especially if fire is involved, might work.

 

[Shade]

Unfortunately, most magma or lava themed spells fall outside of the SRD.

Stone shape and/or move earth could come in handy for redirecting magma floes.

Maybe a unique SLA that blends wall of stone and wall of fire?

 

[RavinRay]

We can modify transmute rock to mud into transmute rock to lava. It's one of the spells for my homebrew Magma paraelemental domain but never got into the details. We can use the effects of lava exposure as a guide for the amount of damage dealt. This does the copper dragon one better.

 

[Shade]

I'd considered that, but it would have to be at great wyrm, though, since transmute rock to lava (at least the Spell Compendium version) is a 9th-level spell.