Converting True Dragons

[Cleon]

So, did you want to cut the die size or number of dice for the poison breath, or both?

How's this? I'm leaning toward 1d4 rounds for the blinding, since that's close to the original's 2 rounds, but it does feel possibly weak.

Breath Weapon (Su): Ahi has three breath weapons: a cone of poison, a cone of scalding vapor, and a cone vaporizing breath.

The poison breath does 10d8 acid damage (DC X Ref save for half damage) and exposes any creature damaged to Ahi's poison.

The scalding breath does 20d8 fire damage (DC X Ref save for half damage), and any creature damaged must make a DC X Fort save or be blinded for 1d4 rounds.

The vaporizing breath does 10d8 nonlethal damage (DC X Ref save for half damage). If a creature is damaged by this breath, it must make a DC X Fort save, or it and any objects it carries turn into vapor as if they were affected by the gaseous form spell. This vaporous condition lasts for X minutes. Normally, the vaporous creature or object returns to solid form at the end of this duration, but if the vaporizing breath weapon did enough damage to destroy the creature or object it will dissipate into gas and a few puffs of dust when the duration expires. The traces of dust are enough to restore a dissipated victim with a resurrection spell. The vaporization effect can be neutralized by a dispel magic, remove curse, or break enchantment effect that succeeds at a caster level check against a DC equal to the Ahi's spell resistance. A vaporized victim can also be restored by any effect that can transform a gaseous object into a solid one, such as the polymorph any object spell or a vampire's gaseous form ability.

The save DCs are Constitution-based.

Poison (Ex): injury, Fort DC X, primary damage 2d6 Con, secondary damage 2d6 Con and unconsciousness. The Fort DC is Constitution-based.

That looks basically fine to me.

If you think the blinding duration is too short I have no objection to making it longer, although it might not make much practical difference considering how few melee round a typical high-level 3E combat lasts. Maybe 2d4 rounds?

The only other number we need to decide on is the duration of the gaseous form. The original was 5 to 10 melee rounds, or 1d6+4 minutes. I'd be fine with using that.

 

[freyar]

It's not a big deal to me, but I think I do like 2d4 rounds blinding a bit better. I mean, this is a big unique dragon after all! 1d6+4 minutes works for me on the gaseous form duration, too. That gives us

Breath Weapon (Su): Ahi has three breath weapons: a cone of poison, a cone of scalding vapor, and a cone vaporizing breath.

The poison breath does 10d8 acid damage (DC 34 Ref save for half damage) and exposes any creature damaged to Ahi's poison.

The scalding breath does 20d8 fire damage (DC 34 Ref save for half damage), and any creature damaged must make a DC 34 Fort save or be blinded for 2d4 rounds.

The vaporizing breath does 10d8 nonlethal damage (DC 34 Ref save for half damage). If a creature is damaged by this breath, it must make a DC 34 Fort save, or it and any objects it carries turn into vapor as if they were affected by the gaseous form spell. This vaporous condition lasts for 1d6+4 minutes. Normally, the vaporous creature or object returns to solid form at the end of this duration, but if the vaporizing breath weapon did enough damage to destroy the creature or object it will dissipate into gas and a few puffs of dust when the duration expires. The traces of dust are enough to restore a dissipated victim with a resurrection spell. The vaporization effect can be neutralized by a dispel magic, remove curse, or break enchantment effect that succeeds at a caster level check against a DC equal to the Ahi's spell resistance. A vaporized victim can also be restored by any effect that can transform a gaseous object into a solid one, such as the polymorph any object spell or a vampire's gaseous form ability.

The save DCs are Constitution-based.

Poison (Ex): injury, Fort DC 34, primary damage 2d6 Con, secondary damage 2d6 Con and unconsciousness. The Fort DC is Constitution-based.

 

[Cleon]

It's not a big deal to me, but I think I do like 2d4 rounds blinding a bit better. I mean, this is a big unique dragon after all! 1d6+4 minutes works for me on the gaseous form duration, too. That gives us

Breath Weapon (Su): Ahi has three breath weapons: a cone of poison, a cone of scalding vapor, and a cone vaporizing breath.

The poison breath does 10d8 acid damage (DC 34 Ref save for half damage) and exposes any creature damaged to Ahi's poison.

The scalding breath does 20d8 fire damage (DC 34 Ref save for half damage), and any creature damaged must make a DC 34 Fort save or be blinded for 2d4 rounds.

The vaporizing breath does 10d8 nonlethal damage (DC 34 Ref save for half damage). If a creature is damaged by this breath, it must make a DC 34 Fort save, or it and any objects it carries turn into vapor as if they were affected by the gaseous form spell. This vaporous condition lasts for 1d6+4 minutes. Normally, the vaporous creature or object returns to solid form at the end of this duration, but if the vaporizing breath weapon did enough damage to destroy the creature or object it will dissipate into gas and a few puffs of dust when the duration expires. The traces of dust are enough to restore a dissipated victim with a resurrection spell. The vaporization effect can be neutralized by a dispel magic, remove curse, or break enchantment effect that succeeds at a caster level check against a DC equal to the Ahi's spell resistance. A vaporized victim can also be restored by any effect that can transform a gaseous object into a solid one, such as the polymorph any object spell or a vampire's gaseous form ability.

The save DCs are Constitution-based.

Poison (Ex): injury, Fort DC 34, primary damage 2d6 Con, secondary damage 2d6 Con and unconsciousness. The Fort DC is Constitution-based.

The vaporizing breath now does nonlethal damage it is unable to kill creatures or destroy objects so I'll remove "Normally, the vaporous creature or object returns to solid form at the end of this duration, but if the vaporizing breath weapon did enough damage to destroy the creature or object it will dissipate into gas and a few puffs of dust when the duration expires. The traces of dust are enough to restore a dissipated victim with a resurrection spell."

There are also a few minor typos that need correcting.

I'll update the Ahi the Steel Dragon Working Draft with:

Breath Weapon (Su): Ahi has three breath weapons: a cone of poison, a cone of scalding vapor, and a cone of vaporizing breath.

The poison breath does 10d8 acid damage (DC 34 Ref save for half damage) and exposes any creature damaged to Ahi's poison.

The scalding breath does 20d8 fire damage (DC 34 Ref save for half damage), and any creature damaged must make a DC 34 Fort save or be blinded for 2d4 rounds.

The vaporizing breath does 10d8 nonlethal damage (DC 34 Ref save for half damage). If a creature is damaged by this breath, it must make a DC 34 Fort save, or it and any objects it carries turn into vapor as if they were affected by the gaseous form spell. This vaporous condition lasts for 1d6+4 minutes. The vaporous creature or object returns to solid form at the end of this duration. The vaporization effect can be neutralized by a dispel magic, remove curse, or break enchantment effect that succeeds at a caster level check against a DC equal to Ahi's spell resistance. A vaporized victim can also be restored by any effect that can transform a gaseous object into a solid one, such as the polymorph any object spell or a vampire's gaseous form ability.

The save DCs are Constitution-based.

Poison (Ex): injury, Fort DC 34, primary damage 2d6 Con, secondary damage 2d6 Con and unconsciousness. The Fort DC is Constitution-based.

 

[Cleon]

I'll update the Ahi the Steel Dragon Working Draft with:

Spell-Like Abilities next I suppose.

 

[freyar]

Good catch on the vaporizing breath! Too much copy-paste for me there.

Yes to SLAs next. One should be gaseous form, since the original monster says he can take on a gaseous form. I don't have much opinion on the rest of them, though maybe some kind of variant on Rahab's would make sense. I guess I'd keep greater dispel and probably suggestion. I'm not quite sure what to substitute for the shadow spells, though.

 

[Cleon]

Good catch on the vaporizing breath! Too much copy-paste for me there.

Yes to SLAs next. One should be gaseous form, since the original monster says he can take on a gaseous form. I don't have much opinion on the rest of them, though maybe some kind of variant on Rahab's would make sense. I guess I'd keep greater dispel and probably suggestion. I'm not quite sure what to substitute for the shadow spells, though.

Surely it'd make more sense to make it a supernatural ability à la the SRD vampire:

Gaseous Form (Su): As a standard action, a vampire can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability.

I'd be inclined to have the dragon keep its Fly speed. Like this:

Gaseous Form #1 (Su): As a standard action, Ahi can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 25th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 300 feet with perfect maneuverability.

Hmm… why does the Vampire and Belker's gaseous form write-up have a caster level? It's a (Su) ability so can't be dispelled. The SRD default gaseous form doesn't mention caster level.

Upon reflection, I'd prefer the following:

Gaseous Form #2 (Su): As a standard action Ahi can assume gaseous form at will, but he can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 300 feet with perfect maneuverability.

 

[freyar]

Making the gaseous form ability Su is fine by me; I thought since we didn't have it already, we must be planning to stick it in the SLAs. I'd go with version #2 of the Su versions.

That leaves us more "room" in the SLAs. So keep greater dispel and suggestion. Let's start by dropping the shadow spells; I kind of like them but don't want Ahi and Rahab to be too similar. How about changing power word stun to power word blind and moving it to 3/day? Also at 3/day, I'd suggest whirlwind and then storm of vengeance at 1/day. I'd certainly be open to ideas for another 1/day SLA and a couple 5/day SLAs.

 

[Cleon]

Making the gaseous form ability Su is fine by me; I thought since we didn't have it already, we must be planning to stick it in the SLAs. I'd go with version #2 of the Su versions.

Updating the Ahi the Steel Dragon Working Draft.

I changed the wording to "Ahi can assume gaseous form at will as a standard action, but he can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 300 feet with perfect maneuverability." since I think it flows better.

That leaves us more "room" in the SLAs. So keep greater dispel and suggestion. Let's start by dropping the shadow spells; I kind of like them but don't want Ahi and Rahab to be too similar. How about changing power word stun to power word blind and moving it to 3/day? Also at 3/day, I'd suggest whirlwind and then storm of vengeance at 1/day. I'd certainly be open to ideas for another 1/day SLA and a couple 5/day SLAs.

We should definitely swap the shadow SLAs for something else. Shadow powers was Rahab's schtick, not Ahi's.

I'm tempted to give him 3/day limited wish as a substitute for one of the higher-level shadow spells (greater shadow evocation or shades).

Your suggestions seem too heavy on attack and lacking in utility or defense spells. How about wind walk so he can quickly transport allies? Maybe control winds and/or control weather?

While whirlwind is fine, storm of vengeance seems a bit inappropriate. Ahi doesn't have any association with electricity or cold in the original, so why add an SLA that produces lightning and hail. Maybe substitute elemental swarm (air only)?

 

[freyar]

That gaseous form is ok.

Those are good ideas. How about this for the SLAs?
Spell-Like Abilities: At will—greater dispel magic; 5/day—control winds, suggestion; 3/day—limited wish, power word blind, whirlwind, wind walk; 1/day—elemental swarm (air only)

 

[Cleon]

That gaseous form is ok.

Those are good ideas. How about this for the SLAs?
Spell-Like Abilities: At will—greater dispel magic; 5/day—control winds, suggestion; 3/day—limited wish, power word blind, whirlwind, wind walk; 1/day—elemental swarm (air only)

I'd add in control weather and tweak the order as follows:

Spell-Like Abilities: At will—control winds; 5/day—greater dispel magic, suggestion; 3/day—control weather, limited wish, wind walk; 1/day—elemental swarm (air only), power word blind, whirlwind. Caster level 20th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.

That puts all of his out-and-out attack SLAs as 1/day which means he won't be spamming power word blind and whirlwind SLAs multiple times.

I tweaked the greater dispel magic to 5/day just to have another difference from Rahab, but if you prefer it At-will I'd be happy moving it back.