Dragon SR

[Nellisir]

Has anyone puzzled this out? It looks "unsolved" according to the stickied "monster creation notes" thread.

I took a brief crack at it today, and came up with the following (I am NOT a math whiz; this is probably all known stuff...)

--greens, blacks, whites, bronzes, crystal, and emerald dragons all gain 11 points over 8 age categories, or 11/8.
--blues, brasses, coppers, silvers, golds, amethysts, sapphires, and topazes gain 12 points over 8 age categories, or 12/8 (aka 3 in 2).
--reds are the only core dragon to gain 13/8. Chiang lun, lung wang, pan lung, t'ien lung, and tun mi lung do also.
--li lung, shen lung, shadow dragons, and battle dragons (from the draconomicon) gain 14/8 (shadow dragons actually gain 21/12).
--Fang dragons rock, gaining 15/8.

Most core dragons (not all) fall fairly neatly somewhere on the following progression:
+8,+8,+9,+9,+9,+9,+9,+9,+9,+9,+10,+10,+10,+10,+10,+10,+10,+10,+11,+11,+11,+11,+11,+11,+11,+11,+12,+12,+12,+12,+12,+12

--"Best" progression is +11,+11,+12,+12,+12,+12,+12,+12 (copper, silver, gold, sapphire, topaz)
--"Good" progression is +11,+11,+11,+11,+11,+11,+11,+11 (bronze, green, emerald)
--"Average" progression is +10,+10,+11,+11,+11,+11,+11,+11 (brass)
--"Fair" progression is +10,+10,+10,+10,+10,+10,+11,+11 (amethyst, blue)
--"Poor" progression is (hypothetically) +9,+9,+9,+9,+10,+10,+10,+10 (none)
--"Very Poor" progression is (hypothetically) +8,+8,+9,+9,+9,+9,+9,+9 (white?, black?)

red's don't fit in at all; crystals are shifted one point up on the "Good" progression (which gives them a +12 at great wyrm age).

These are all + 1/2HD rounded up: red, whites, blues, brasses, bronzes, golds, amethysts, and emeralds
These are all + 1/2HD rounded down: greens, copper, silvers, crystals, sapphires, and topazes round down. Blacks are pretty messed up; whites a little less so.

"Very Poor" overlaps "Poor" by two points, "Poor" overlaps "Fair" by two points; "Fair" overlaps "Good"by two points; "Good" overlaps "Best" by two points. "Average" straddles "Fair" by 4 points and "Good" by 6 points, thus messing things up again.

I have not puzzled out the lung dragons to see if they fit into that progression, and I have not looked at any planar dragons besides the battle dragon (briefly).

In sum? 1/2 HD rounded up, plus the best, good, fair, poor, or very poor progression seems the simplest and most consistent way to go.

 

[Shade]

Nope, we never really figured it out.

What you've posited looks pretty good!

 

[Nellisir]

Nope, we never really figured it out.

What you've posited looks pretty good!

Thanks. I had heard, at one point, that dragon SR was linked to CR, but that didn't fall into place very well (though if I can find my note on it, I'll take another look.)

I'm not a numbers guy, so I'm curious if someone can figure out a shorter way to express some of that stuff, or find connections I didn't.

 

[Knight Otu]

Thanks. I had heard, at one point, that dragon SR was linked to CR, but that didn't fall into place very well (though if I can find my note on it, I'll take another look.)

I believe that applies only to certain types of dragon. I know it doesn't work for the core dragons. It might work for gem and planar dragons, though, I don't quite recall.

 

[BOZ]

Scott did have a lot of dragon formulas figured out from reverse engineering for 3.0 - i imagine most of them have stayed the same going into 3.5

 

[Nellisir]

I believe that applies only to certain types of dragon. I know it doesn't work for the core dragons. It might work for gem and planar dragons, though, I don't quite recall.

I found what I was thinking of: I don't know where I copied it from, but it's just the difference between SR and CR for the core dragons, which is only useful in that none diverge more than 9 points (at YA age) or generally less than 7 (somewhere around Old) (a few diverge by 6 for one aberrant category).

Which means...what? Dragons have low SR for their CR?

 

[Shade]

Which means...what? Dragons have low SR for their CR?

Yep. Their spell resistance and damage reduction are about their only abilities that aren't very impressive.

 

[GrayLinnorm]

Yep. Their spell resistance and damage reduction are about their only abilities that aren't very impressive.

Yeah. They should have kept DR x/+2, +/3, etc. for older dragons.

 

[BOZ]

3.5 dragon DR is simply pathetic. who doesn't own a magic weapon by the time you get above 3rd level?

 

[Gothenem]

On the other hand, it gets better when mixed. I've found that DR 10/lawful and silver is VERY hard to bypass

But, yeah, x/magic is pathetically easy to bypass. I have characters who use Greater Magic Weapon to make all their weapons +1 just for the purpose of beating DR x/magic with anything they use.

Blech.

Yeah, very few self-respecting 3rd+ level characters can't beat DR x/magic. Heck, Magic Weapon is a 1st-level spell.