Dragon Magic & the Dragonfire Adept base class

[Ambrus]

Very nice illustration. Here's the Drakkensteed image if you're curious to compare:

 

[Ambrus]

Though the Dragonnel introduced back in the Draconomicon is designed to fulfill the same dragon steed niche and looks more like your dragon-horse concept; though I think yours looks far better.

 

[Klaus]

I made up the dragonsteed because of how much I disliked the dragonnel. I mean, it doesn´t even have a breath weapon! And there was a precedence for getting templated mounts (instead of 5th level, a paladin can get a celestial horse at 6th, matching the celestial template's +1 LA). So I allowed a paladin of a draconic deity to get a dragonsteed at 8th level (accounting for the half-dragon +3 LA), or even get it earlier and use the Savage Progressions (from the WotC site) to give the mount the template abilities over three levels.

But the drakkensteed looks mighty cool, and a little reminiscent of Bahamut himself. Can you give more details on it?

 

[Voadam]

The funny thing is, many outsiders have immunity to acid and/or electricity, but few have fire immunity. Electricity can be annoying to work with in that respect.

Devils, ravid, and anything with fire subtype (azer, efreeti, rast, salamander) are immune to fire.

Demons, Bralani, Archons, avoral, ghaele, leonal, are immune to electricity.

Angels and tojanida are immune to acid and cold.

Arrowhawks, acid, electricity.

Formians, cold.

Djinni, acid.

Night hags and xorn fire and cold.

Balor electricity and fire.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I guess what they say is true: great minds do think alike.

When I was working on Dragon Magic, one of the things I wanted to do was present animals (as in, the animal type) that had some draconic heritage in them. They needed to be nonmagical and suitable for use as familiars, mounts, etc. Basically, I sat back and thought "OK, the premise of the book is that dragons are heavily involved in the world. How does this affect not only the people and civilizations of the world, but also the ecology?" And thus the drakken were born (though credit Owen Stephens with the name).

So when it came time to figure out what drakken I wanted to create, I said, "What is a player going to get the most use out of?" Well, familiars, mounts, and animal companions came to mind immediately, so that's the direction I wanted to go in. The big reason I wanted to create these creatures is because I wanted them to be non-magical animals; these are the kinds of things that evolve in your world naturally as a result of draconic influence in the world. Mechanically speaking, in the PHB all the default familiars and animal companions are just mundane animals, so I wanted the drakken to be just as compatible with the core mechanics as the default options. Sure, other books had presented options for draconic familiars, etc. but none that I had seen were animals, and none were as easy to plug in as I wanted.

I really, really like the concept of fantastic animals, and the drakken are what I came up with for this book.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think everyone pretty much agrees the dragonnel was a swing and a miss.

I'd love to see one or more of the mounts from the article, Klaus.

 

[Ambrus]

But the drakkensteed looks mighty cool, and a little reminiscent of Bahamut himself. Can you give more details on it?

It is a nice picture, and if it was Bahamut then it'd probably be the best illustration of him I've ever seen. For some reason Tiamat gets these beautiful full-sized portraits of her in her full chromatic glory. I've yet to see a single image of the platinum dragon I've really liked. Why no love for the Behemoth?

Let's see... 4 HD, Base speed 50 ft, Fly 60 ft (poor), 1 bite attack, trample special ability, 23 Str, 19 Con. No breath weapon. That's the gist of it I think.

 

[Klaus]

I guess what they say is true: great minds do think alike.

When I was working on Dragon Magic, one of the things I wanted to do was present animals (as in, the animal type) that had some draconic heritage in them. They needed to be nonmagical and suitable for use as familiars, mounts, etc. Basically, I sat back and thought "OK, the premise of the book is that dragons are heavily involved in the world. How does this affect not only the people and civilizations of the world, but also the ecology?" And thus the drakken were born (though credit Owen Stephens with the name).

So when it came time to figure out what drakken I wanted to create, I said, "What is a player going to get the most use out of?" Well, familiars, mounts, and animal companions came to mind immediately, so that's the direction I wanted to go in. The big reason I wanted to create these creatures is because I wanted them to be non-magical animals; these are the kinds of things that evolve in your world naturally as a result of draconic influence in the world. Mechanically speaking, in the PHB all the default familiars and animal companions are just mundane animals, so I wanted the drakken to be just as compatible with the core mechanics as the default options. Sure, other books had presented options for draconic familiars, etc. but none that I had seen were animals, and none were as easy to plug in as I wanted.

I really, really like the concept of fantastic animals, and the drakken are what I came up with for this book.

I totally agree! Magical Beasts get tons of love, but there´s precious few fantastic Animals (although I got to illustrate lots of them for the counter collection tie-ins to the Monster Geographica line).

Whizband Dustyboots -> There´s really no mystery to it, they are dragons that have the general shape of a heavy warhorse. Stat-wise, they´re Half-Dragon (bronze, gold or silver) Heavy Warhorses. A paladin that reveres a draconic deity (or one that has a draconic aspect, a la Dragonlance or Eberron) can summon one at 8th level as a special mount. The paladin´s level is treated as being 3 lower for special mount power purposes. The article was about applying new fluff to templates. I also mention a Half-Fiend Elder Fire Elemental as a way to recreate the Balrog from the FotR movie.

Ambrus -> I´m sold. My next painting will be a portrait of Bahamut in his platinum glory.