No Love for the Dragon Turtle?

[Kaodi]

You infect them with Ooze, and witness their transformation into an unholy amalgam of dragon, pirate, ninja and teenage antics and angst. They will be the most terrible foes in the Seven Seas, the Teenage Mutant Ninja-Pirate Dragon Turtles.

I still remember the illustration of the 1e Dragon Turtle, where they were more like dragons with a shell than turtles with funky draconic features.

Hmmm... allow them to use a supernatural ability similar to Fog Cloud in addition to their breath weapon as a caster equal to their HD. Give them frightful presence, and as was mentioned, swallow whole. Rewrite Capsize to be counterable with a profession (sailor) check with a modifier based on the ship size. Claws should be slam attacks, if you ask me. And if you want go back to turtle dragon, as opposed to dragon turtle, give 'em 20 ft reach with their bite. Or somethin'.

 

[Nlogue]

The dragon turtle gets some awesome love in a certain super installment of the Savage Tide Adventure Path.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I had one in one of my homebrew campaigns set in a world of the 1940s, only with magic instead of science. It had been manipulated by the Nazis, both magically and by them getting it p*ssed off, and sent to go attack London. The party had to try to stop it, and it was a lot of fun.

That's really cool.

 

[Korgoth]

I dig the Dragon Turtle.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I like turtles, especially if their big, and being draconic doesn't hurt, either.

You could also go for the lies-in-wait-as-a-fake-island style Dragon Turtle: it looks like an island, good for a stopping point on a long voyage. Then, Rarrr! (do turtles actually make any noise?) Chomp-chomp-chomp.

If they were bigger, they could pose as safe haven for elephants and large discs of land and water...

 

[Aeolius]

One could always draw inspiration from the Zaratan (Arms & Equipment Guide):

Or the OA Dragons:

 

[Kaodi]

Hmmm... Colossal dragon turtle...

We could always redesign them from the ground up... But that would be a thread for House Rules, I think. We could even design them as quasi-true dragons, that make use of the Colossal+ size at the top end. Their four age categories would simply correspond to their size, but I think I would play around with their intelligence scores. Have it go up at Gargantuan, but back down at Colossal and Colossal+, and hit them in their Dex scores too. One of the things I really hate about 3e RAW dragons is they all tend to have a 10 Dex that never ever goes up or down.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I've always thought dragon turtles were cool, but, as mentioned above, they seem hard to use. Also, I've always pictured them much larger and more physically imposing than they are listed as in the 3e MM. "Huge" doesn't cut it when you're talking about passing for an island while at rest, nor when you want something that's a credible threat to a massive sailing vessel.

Also, krakens 'work' as aquatic monsters largely because the D&D version is a mastermind as well as being physically dangerous. A kraken can orchestrate a scheme that has ramifications on land and FORCES the PCs to take to the sea and confront it, even at high levels. A dragon turtle... not so much.

 

[Kaodi]

Also, I like the turtle in Aeo's second picture more than I like the one in the MM I think. The dragon turtle in the MM seems like all of his limbs are too big and too long, and that his shell is puny in comparison. If you can't withdraw into your shell, you aren't a turtle.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I love dragon turtles. In the 80's there was a module in Dragon mag called, "Can Seapoint Be Saved?" In addition to the excellent cartography, the module featured a dragon turtle. It had been charmed by a wizard and was used to intercept shipping. It was a fun module. After getting cooked by the dragon turtle's steam breath, I and my PCs had a new found respect for it.

Agreed, and I've had equal success with the critters. But they do tend to be seagoing-campaign-specific.