Draconaraei

[Aleolus]

Ok, a friend of mine told me about this that he had written up for a Palladium game/systen, and I thought it sounded really good. So, I got his permission, converted it to 3.5, and now I'm posting it here for you all to critique and evaluate! It's the Draconaraei, a type of dragon. He originally had it as a class Dragons could take apparently, but I thought it would work better as a template.


Draconaraei
This template can be applied to any true dragon of adult age or older.
Hit Dice: Unchanged
Size and type: Unchanged
Attacks: Same as base creature
Full attack: Same as base creature
Special Attacks: Dragonsap
Special Qualities: Dragonfoe; immortality; DR 10/-; Power Up
Abilities: Str +2, Con +2, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +2
Alignment: Any evil
Advancement: Same as base creature

Dragonsap (Ex): Whenever a Draconaraei succeeds on a bite attack against an adult or older dragon, the target must make a Fortitude save (DC 10+the Draconaraei's Con modifier+1/2 the Draconaraei's HD) or gain a negative HD. This reduces their HP total, saving throws, and BAB as though they were one HD lower than they actually are. If a dragon with class levels fails this saving throw, he gains a negative level.
Immortality: A Draconaraei does not age, and will not die from old age, regardless of how long they live. They can still be killed by being dealt hit point damage, and continue to acquire hit die as normal.
Dragonfoe: Dragons revile and despise Draconaraei with a passion. Any dragon who sees a draconaraei, regardless of the form the draconaraei is in at the time, automatically recognizes it for what it is. By the same token, a Draconaraei who sees a dragon, regardless of the form the dragon is in, automatically recognizes it as a dragon.
Power up (Ex): Draconaraei do not just gain power in the usual way, as most dragons do. They also can drain the power out of their foes and put it to their own use. Whenever a Draconaraei kills a dragon, be it from his bite attack, or from bestowing negative levels, the Draconaraei gains all supernatural and spell-like abilities of that dragon, as well as the ability to utilize its breath weapon, in addition to their native one. They also gain the killed dragon's energy immunity, but not it's vulnerability, if it had one.

Draconaraei are akin to vampires, in that they feed off of other living creatures, namely, dragons. However, while a vampire feeds by drinking the blood of its victim, Draconaraei actually feed off of their victims life force itself, absorbing it into themselves. Because of this, only the most vile and evil of dragons ever become Draconaraei, and those who do are hunted for the entirety of their existence. Draconaraei are very powerful, but also very hated. All dragons, regardless of color, revile Draconaraei. If rumor comes to a dragon of the existence of a Draconaraei somewhere nearby, they will gather together all of their dragon-kin, regardless of color, hunt it down, and kill it. This is the only thing that can get metallic and chromatic dragons to willingly work together, is the presence of a Draconaraei.
However, dragons are also very unforgiving when it comes to false reports of Draconaraei. If a dragon hears a rumor about a Draconaraei being around, and they turn out not to be true, they will hunt down the person or being responsible for starting that rumor, and quite literally torture him, body and soul, until their is nothing left to torture. This is due entirely to the fact that all dragons are of the irrevocable opinion that anyone who would spread tales of Draconaraei, and in so doing tempt vile dragons into becoming one, are to tainted to even be considered food, and should be destroyed before they risk increasing their foes ranks any further.

 

[Cbas_10]

It's not bad. Except the "Power Up" ability. That's a bit much.

Maybe this template would allow the dragon to take a feat that allows them to substitute thier breath weapon so many times per day....or a feat that allows them to take an additional spell-like ability that another dragon has (had).

Also, maybe instead of a specific set of ability score bonuses, the dragon gains a point each time it kills another dragon.

 

[Aleolus]

Well, as I said, this was originally made for a Palladium system, but he told me that the way he had it set up, a Draconaraei that killed a dragon, which had to be adult or older, absorbed all of that dragons powers, gaining all it's spell-like abilities, any supernatural abilities it has, and the ability to switch it's breath weapon to the type of the killed dragon, in addition to it's original type.

 

[jaker2003]

Cbas_10 has a point, the 'power up' as written is an ability too powerful to be quantified in the current system.
A similar ability that you can use is the Barghest's (MMI) Feed ability. If you want to nock it down to 1 slain dragon instead of 3 humanoids, that sounds like it would fit.
As for gaining more dragon abilities, I think Races of the Dragon and Draconomicon can offer you some options. If you want to preserve the concept, you could always bring the creator in on it to help you with the choices.

 

[Claudius Gaius]

Its a bit poorly defined to start with: for example, is the 1d4 rounds delay between reath weapons use per absorbed breath weapon or is it a overall limitation? Secondarily, it's absurdly overpowerful. For example, the elemental immunities are (Ex) abilities, which means that such a creature will shortly be impervious to pretty much all the elements - making it immune to draconic breath weapons and most offensive spells as well as always being able to select a breath attack that an opponent is vulnerable to. That willl make it very very easy to kill other dragons, so we can presume that it will shortly have all the dragon abilities since its evil and will gladly kill to increase its power. So:

• 
  1) (Ex) Immune to all (major) elements (Hmm... Call it +10 ECL)
  2) (Su) Free choice of high-powered breath weapons: +6 ECL, +10 ECL if this also negates the 1d4 rounds between uses restriction.
  3) (Ex) The best of Spell Resistance, Crush, Tail Sweep, and Frightful Presence from among all dragons. At this point, who cares?
  4) A very large selection of spell-like and minor supernatural abilities, call it +6 ECL.
  5) (Unspecified, probably Ex) Can easily detect its targets. With this kind of power, being detected back is no limitation. +1 ECL.
  6) Limited Energy drain and a +2 on all attributes. Call it +3 ECL.
  7) Immortality. Presumably this means "does not age", it might also mean "immune to disease", but with this kind of power level, who cares? Call it +2 ECL, since it means limitless time to plot and build up power.

That makes it a +28 or +32 ECL template on top of the level adjustment for playing a dragon. Maybe for a really high-level Epic game, I'd say that that would probably work out if the average campaign level was 120 or so.

Of course, as soon as word got out that such a creature was on the loose, every dragon in the world that wants to live - or who isn't already enslaved by one of these things thats already eaten an equally, or more powerful, dragon of the same type - would hire adventurers and form a coalition to get rid of it before it became near-invincible. The problem might be self-correcting.

Edit: This only includes the base dragons from the first Monster Manuel. It's not worth the time to check on any other abilities this creature might be able to get from additional kinds of dragons, since there's no way of knowing if they exist in any specific campaign.

 

[Aleolus]

Its a bit poorly defined to start with: for example, is the 1d4 rounds delay between reath weapons use per absorbed breath weapon or is it a overall limitation?

Overall. No matter how many breath weapons it acquires, it still has to wait 1d4 rounds after using one before it can use another one.

• 
  1) (Ex) Immune to all (major) elements (Hmm... Call it +10 ECL)
  2) (Su) Free choice of high-powered breath weapons: +6 ECL, +10 ECL if this also negates the 1d4 rounds between uses restriction.
  3) (Ex) The best of Spell Resistance, Crush, Tail Sweep, and Frightful Presence from among all dragons. At this point, who cares?
  4) A very large selection of spell-like and minor supernatural abilities, call it +6 ECL.
  5) (Unspecified, probably Ex) Can easily detect its targets. With this kind of power, being detected back is no limitation. +1 ECL.
  6) Limited Energy drain and a +2 on all attributes. Call it +3 ECL.
  7) Immortality. Presumably this means "does not age", it might also mean "immune to disease", but with this kind of power level, who cares? Call it +2 ECL, since it means limitless time to plot and build up power.

Mostly right, but a couple mistakes. First off, it does not gain the Ex abilities of the killed dragon, unless specifically stated to do so, such as with the energy immunities. It does gain the SR, but still only has access to the base creatures Crush, Tail Sweep and Frightful Presence, assuming it had all three to begin with.
Also, they don't get +2 to all attributes, they get +2 to Str, Con, Int, Wis and Cha. They get no bonuses to Dex. Then again, most dragons have no dex to begin with, so this really doesn't make a lot of difference.

 

[Claudius Gaius]

Oops, right on the Dex (I scanned too quickly I guess) - but the "power Up" is quite specific:

"Power up (Ex): Draconaraei do not just gain power in the usual way, as most dragons do. They also can drain the power out of their foes and put it to their own use. Whenever a Draconaraei kills a dragon, be it from his bite attack, or from bestowing negative levels, the Draconaraei gains all supernatural, extraordinary and spell-like abilities of that dragon, as well as the ability to utilize its breath weapon, in addition to their native one."

-and the Crush, Tail Sweep and Frightful Presence are all listed as (Ex).

I presume that that isn't what its supposed to say?

Still, even without a +2 Dex (I wasn't counting the boosts to Crush, Tail Sweep, and Frightful Presence anyway, since they're a standard part of all the base dragons), I suspect that they're still a bit overpowered for most games.

 

[Aleolus]

I'm not debating that fact. They are overpowered, and since they gain powers by killing dragons, dragons do NOT like them. Whenever a dragon finds out about one, as I said, they do everything in their power to get rid of them. Even Gold, Copper, Red and Black dragons are all willing to work together to find and take down Draconaraei.