Buddha the DM
Explorer
I can't remember if there have ever been any guidelines or suggestions on creating new dragons beyond what was given in the monster manual & monster manual 2.
Anyone have anything?
Anyone have anything?
Dragon Creation
- Thread starter Buddha the DM
- Start date
Krishnath
First Post
Well, that depends on which type of dragon you would like to make, here is a small rundown of types:
'True' Dragons: 12 age categories, include among others the following: Red, Black, Gold, Brass, Brown, Shadow, Sapphire, Emerald, Celestial, Typhoon, Force and Prismatic Dragons.
Drakes: Small dragons similar to animals, different types vary in size from tiny to Huge, includes (Among others): Wyvern, Felldrakes
Linnorms: Large wingless dragons that are allways either chaotic or evil (Usually both), no lawful or good linnorms exist. They are thought to be almost extinct as no baby linnorms have been seen for hundreds of years. This type includes the Dread Linnorm and the Corpse Tearer
Wurms (I): Neutral (N, LN, CN, NG or NE) dragons aligned with nature, has four age categories.
Wurms (II): This group is comprised of primitive, legeless dragons, sometimes also called serpents.
Planar Dragons: Dragons from specific outer, inner or transitive planes (note that the shadow dragon is not a planar dragon), this group includes the Hellfire Wyrm.
Note that several of these groups of dragons have subgroups and subtypes.
Later,
'True' Dragons: 12 age categories, include among others the following: Red, Black, Gold, Brass, Brown, Shadow, Sapphire, Emerald, Celestial, Typhoon, Force and Prismatic Dragons.
Drakes: Small dragons similar to animals, different types vary in size from tiny to Huge, includes (Among others): Wyvern, Felldrakes
Linnorms: Large wingless dragons that are allways either chaotic or evil (Usually both), no lawful or good linnorms exist. They are thought to be almost extinct as no baby linnorms have been seen for hundreds of years. This type includes the Dread Linnorm and the Corpse Tearer
Wurms (I): Neutral (N, LN, CN, NG or NE) dragons aligned with nature, has four age categories.
Wurms (II): This group is comprised of primitive, legeless dragons, sometimes also called serpents.
Planar Dragons: Dragons from specific outer, inner or transitive planes (note that the shadow dragon is not a planar dragon), this group includes the Hellfire Wyrm.
Note that several of these groups of dragons have subgroups and subtypes.
Later,
Buddha the DM
Explorer
I'd prefer guidelines for creating True Dragons.
Krishnath
First Post
Buddah: I think that was what las meant.
But anyways... here is some help (and a template for the dragons by age tables).
True Dragons are divided into four categories, depending on power level, lesser dragons, ordinary dragons, greater dragons, and epic dragons. Making these dragons are quite simple when you know what you want to do, as the three first categories are pretty much the same, only differing in size, the epic dragons are very different from the other types, and due to the Epic Level Handbook not being OGL I cannot go into the creation of epic dragons...
Anyways, first things first.
The differences between lesser, ordinary and greater dragons are quite simple:
Lesser dragons start out as tiny wyrmlings and grow over time to the size of gargantuan as great wyrms.
Ordinary dragons grow from small to gargantuan.
and Greater dragons start out as either small, medium-size or large and grow to the respectable size of colossal.
(Epic dragons all start as huge and grow to colossal+ sizes.)
Racial Groupings: Some dragons belong to a 'family' of closely related species, these families include but are not limited to Gem Dragons, Metallic Dragons, Chromatic Dragons, and Deep Dragons. Note that the Deep Dragon family only contains two species: Shadow and Deep.
Here are some of their racial traits:
Metallic dragons: Metallic dragon species are all of good alignment and have scales the color of some precious or semi precious metal or alloy. All true metallic dragons have two breath weapons, one offensive (or regular) breathweapon and one defensive. For example the Gold dragon has a cone of fire (offensive and deadly.) and a cone of weakening gas (defensive and not so deadly.). The metallic dragon uses the defensive 'gas' breathweapon when it wants it's opponents to survive. Metallic dragons include. Brass, copper, gold and silver dragons among others.
Gem dragons: Gem dragons as a group are allways neutral in regards to good and evil and have crystalline scales making them look as though they where carved from enormous boulders of pure gemstones. All true gem dragons are psionic creatures. Gem dragons include but are not limited to the following species: Crystal, emerald, and sapphire.
Chromatic dragons: Chromatic dragons are allways evil and have colored metallic scales in one of the colors of the spectrum. Chromatic dragons only have one breathweapon and are a selfish lot. Chromatics include the red, green and black dragons. Please note that the Brown dragon is not a chromatic dragon, as it lacks wings.
Other dragon families exist but are best left to the individual Dm to disclose.
Dragon special abilities: all dragons are immune to sleep and paralysis, this means that Hold Monster and similar spells will allways fail against a dragon! Aditionally all true dragons have a breathweapon, blindsight, darkvision, low-light vision (to a range four times that of a human in daylight), and scent. Many dragons have other senses in addition to this (such as tremor sense.) this makes it impossible to sneak up on a dragon.
All dragons have one or more immunities in addition to these abilities, these immunities range from the mundane (Charm immunity anyone) to the damn right nasty (cold and acid or any other two combinations you can think of.) My personal favourite that I have used is Negative Energy immunity.
All true dragons have an energy subtype, try to match the dragons breathweapon with this subtype. (A fire dragon will not have a cone of cold breath weapon. But an air or water might.) This subtype need not be an element or energy type (although those are the most common). Some dragons have the Shadow subtype, while others have alignment subtypes. Dragons with alignment subtypes are allways extraplanar. Also, the dragon subtype must make sense. (Sorry no 'cheese' dragons.)
SR: All 'true' dragons have spell resistance, how to calculate the SR varies from person to person. If you dig around here you can topic dedicated to the topic, here is the one I use:
Lesser dragons: 9+CR
Ordinary dragons: 10+CR
Greater dragons: 12+CR
This is not perfect, but it works.
Dragons and spellcasting: Dragons cast spells as sorcerers, some also cast spells from the cleric list and/or domain spells as arcane spells. There have been much discussion on different boards on what this means, but I read it as 'this dragon may chose cleric spells when choosing what spells to learn. The domain spells are bonus spells.' This again is not perfect, but it works for my games without becoming unbalanced. Dragons gain their spellcasting abilities at different ages, the gold for example casts spells as a first level sorcerer when it reaches to Young age category. Once a dragon has started to learn the ways of magic, it's caster level increases by 2 for every age category it gains.
Spell-like abilities: All dragons have spell-like abilities, these range in power from the mundane (detect magic) to the down right fantastic (earthquake, meteor swarm, energy drain). When the dragon gets the spell-like abilities vary, but most get one or two minor spell-like abilities as a wyrmling.
AC: almost all dragon species have a natural armor bonus equal to it's HD-1 (the shadow dragon has a natural armor bonus equal to it's HD+3!)
Now, how to make a dragon:
step 1): Have a good solid idea.
step 2): Download the dragon tables doc file.
step 3): Decide on a subtype (usually an elemental subtype such as air or water)
step 4): Decide on a starting HD (something between 1 and 9 is good.)
step 5): Use the 'how to create a monster' PDF alternatly the first chapter of the MM2 to fill in the blanks.
Happy gaming!
Later,
But anyways... here is some help (and a template for the dragons by age tables).
True Dragons are divided into four categories, depending on power level, lesser dragons, ordinary dragons, greater dragons, and epic dragons. Making these dragons are quite simple when you know what you want to do, as the three first categories are pretty much the same, only differing in size, the epic dragons are very different from the other types, and due to the Epic Level Handbook not being OGL I cannot go into the creation of epic dragons...
Anyways, first things first.
The differences between lesser, ordinary and greater dragons are quite simple:
Lesser dragons start out as tiny wyrmlings and grow over time to the size of gargantuan as great wyrms.
Ordinary dragons grow from small to gargantuan.
and Greater dragons start out as either small, medium-size or large and grow to the respectable size of colossal.
(Epic dragons all start as huge and grow to colossal+ sizes.)
Racial Groupings: Some dragons belong to a 'family' of closely related species, these families include but are not limited to Gem Dragons, Metallic Dragons, Chromatic Dragons, and Deep Dragons. Note that the Deep Dragon family only contains two species: Shadow and Deep.
Here are some of their racial traits:
Metallic dragons: Metallic dragon species are all of good alignment and have scales the color of some precious or semi precious metal or alloy. All true metallic dragons have two breath weapons, one offensive (or regular) breathweapon and one defensive. For example the Gold dragon has a cone of fire (offensive and deadly.) and a cone of weakening gas (defensive and not so deadly.). The metallic dragon uses the defensive 'gas' breathweapon when it wants it's opponents to survive. Metallic dragons include. Brass, copper, gold and silver dragons among others.
Gem dragons: Gem dragons as a group are allways neutral in regards to good and evil and have crystalline scales making them look as though they where carved from enormous boulders of pure gemstones. All true gem dragons are psionic creatures. Gem dragons include but are not limited to the following species: Crystal, emerald, and sapphire.
Chromatic dragons: Chromatic dragons are allways evil and have colored metallic scales in one of the colors of the spectrum. Chromatic dragons only have one breathweapon and are a selfish lot. Chromatics include the red, green and black dragons. Please note that the Brown dragon is not a chromatic dragon, as it lacks wings.
Other dragon families exist but are best left to the individual Dm to disclose.
Dragon special abilities: all dragons are immune to sleep and paralysis, this means that Hold Monster and similar spells will allways fail against a dragon! Aditionally all true dragons have a breathweapon, blindsight, darkvision, low-light vision (to a range four times that of a human in daylight), and scent. Many dragons have other senses in addition to this (such as tremor sense.) this makes it impossible to sneak up on a dragon.
All dragons have one or more immunities in addition to these abilities, these immunities range from the mundane (Charm immunity anyone) to the damn right nasty (cold and acid or any other two combinations you can think of.) My personal favourite that I have used is Negative Energy immunity.
All true dragons have an energy subtype, try to match the dragons breathweapon with this subtype. (A fire dragon will not have a cone of cold breath weapon. But an air or water might.) This subtype need not be an element or energy type (although those are the most common). Some dragons have the Shadow subtype, while others have alignment subtypes. Dragons with alignment subtypes are allways extraplanar. Also, the dragon subtype must make sense. (Sorry no 'cheese' dragons.
)SR: All 'true' dragons have spell resistance, how to calculate the SR varies from person to person. If you dig around here you can topic dedicated to the topic, here is the one I use:
Lesser dragons: 9+CR
Ordinary dragons: 10+CR
Greater dragons: 12+CR
This is not perfect, but it works.
Dragons and spellcasting: Dragons cast spells as sorcerers, some also cast spells from the cleric list and/or domain spells as arcane spells. There have been much discussion on different boards on what this means, but I read it as 'this dragon may chose cleric spells when choosing what spells to learn. The domain spells are bonus spells.' This again is not perfect, but it works for my games without becoming unbalanced. Dragons gain their spellcasting abilities at different ages, the gold for example casts spells as a first level sorcerer when it reaches to Young age category. Once a dragon has started to learn the ways of magic, it's caster level increases by 2 for every age category it gains.
Spell-like abilities: All dragons have spell-like abilities, these range in power from the mundane (detect magic) to the down right fantastic (earthquake, meteor swarm, energy drain). When the dragon gets the spell-like abilities vary, but most get one or two minor spell-like abilities as a wyrmling.
AC: almost all dragon species have a natural armor bonus equal to it's HD-1 (the shadow dragon has a natural armor bonus equal to it's HD+3!)
Now, how to make a dragon:
step 1): Have a good solid idea.
step 2): Download the dragon tables doc file.
step 3): Decide on a subtype (usually an elemental subtype such as air or water)
step 4): Decide on a starting HD (something between 1 and 9 is good.)
step 5): Use the 'how to create a monster' PDF alternatly the first chapter of the MM2 to fill in the blanks.
Happy gaming!
Later,
Magus Darkholme
First Post
Not bad advice Krish. I can make most other types of monsters with no problems whatsoever, but I always have trouble with dragons.
SR was one of the problems; and you've cleared that up rather nicely .
But what about figuring out the DC for the dragon's natural fear aura?
One more thing: How about drake age catagories?
SR was one of the problems; and you've cleared that up rather nicely
. But what about figuring out the DC for the dragon's natural fear aura?
One more thing: How about drake age catagories?
Last edited:
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