Converting True Dragons

[freyar]

Agreed with Cleon here.

 

[Shade]

It looks like all gem dragons have an elemental subtype: 2 have Earth, 2 Air, 1 Fire, and 1 Water. It appears those that hang around on the Plane of Earth (like our crystal drakes) have the Earth subtype, so let's go with that.

Updated.

We'll need to figure out this...
A crystal drake manifests powers as if it were a psion with x as its primary discipline.

 

[freyar]

Their culture is nomadic, which suggests psychoportation. But they tend towards either illusion or divine spells in the original version, which feels kind of like psychometabolism or metacreativity. I guess I could go for any of those, but psychoportation maybe is a little better. Not sure, what does everyone else think?

 

[Cleon]

Their culture is nomadic, which suggests psychoportation. But they tend towards either illusion or divine spells in the original version, which feels kind of like psychometabolism or metacreativity. I guess I could go for any of those, but psychoportation maybe is a little better. Not sure, what does everyone else think?

You know, looking at the powers they get from gems I'm wondering whether Psychic Warrior may not be a better match than Psion/Wilder for their psionic powers. There are a lot of personal enhancement abilities there.

Failing that, I guess I'll go for Egoist.

Also, the original can use spells of 4 different casters - Cleric, Druid, Illusionist and Wizard, so are we going to translate that by having them cast spells as a sorcerer, with the ability to cast some divine spells as arcane spells, like some true dragons can?

Something like:

Spells (Sp): A crystal drake knows and casts arcane spells as a sorcerer of the level indicated in its age category, gaining bonus spells for a high Charisma score. It can cast spells from the cleric or druid lists as arcane spells.​

 

[RavinRay]

Amethyst and sapphire dragons have the Earth subtype.

Planar Travel at ancient then. If they can freely go to the Plane of Fire they must have an adaptation like the Fire Resistance 15 of gem dragons.

 

[freyar]

I believe that we're going for pure manifestation rather than any casting. Egoist is ok by me.

RavinRay, does it say somewhere they travel to the plane of fire? If so, I missed it. They do travel to Earth, but I don't think we need fire resistance.

 

[RavinRay]

I believe Steve Winter added the Fire Resistance 30 (later reduced to 15) in Monster Manual II to enable all gem dragons of any variety to travel to Fire, even topaz. If we restrict the crystal drake to just Earth then it wouldn't need the resistance.

 

[Shade]

Let's stick with psion over psychic warrior, to better fit with the other gem dragons.

If we do make a non-psionic alternative, I think Cleon's spellcasting suggestions should work.

Based on RavinRay's explanation, I think we can drop the fire resistance.

 

[freyar]

I can agree to all that. Everyone agreed with egoist?

 

[Cleon]

Let's stick with psion over psychic warrior, to better fit with the other gem dragons.

If we do make a non-psionic alternative, I think Cleon's spellcasting suggestions should work.

Based on RavinRay's explanation, I think we can drop the fire resistance

OK, I'll leave the details of the Psion powers up to you lot, I don't use psionics much in my games.

I see no reason to give them Fire Resistance.