Special Conversion Thread: Dragonets!
Shade
Monster Junkie
Well that wraps up those from #272. There are a few other dragonets scattered about. Here's one...
Dragonet
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Temperate or arctic mountains and hills
FREQUENCY: Rare
ORGANIZATION: Solitary
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Any
DIET: Carnivore
INTELLIGENCE: Average (10)
TREASURE: E
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
NO. APPEARING: 1-2
ARMOR CLASS: 3
MOVEMENT: 12, Fly 20 (B)
HIT DICE: 5
THAC0: 15
NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 or 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6/1-4/1-4 or 2-8
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Fiery breath, rake with rear claws for 1-4/1-4
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Poison blood, resistant to fire
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: L (12' long)
MORALE: Champion (15)
XP VALUE: 1,400
The dragonet looks like a small dragon built for agility rather than power. It appears in varying shades of blue.
Combat: The dragonet attacks with a bite/claw/claw routine causing 1-6/1-4/1-4 hp damage. Alternatively, it can attack with its tail to cause 2-8 hp constriction damage. If it climbs on top of a fallen foe (on an attack roll of 12+), it can also inflict 1-4 hp clawing damage with each of its hind feet. Finally, it has a cone-shaped breath weapon of fire, one foot wide at the base, extending to a maximum width of 10 feet at a range of 20 feet. This tongue of flame inflicts 1-12 hp damage, or half if a saving throw vs. breath weapon is made. In return, the dragonet suffers only half damage from all fire-based attacks, or none at all if it makes its own saving throw.
The dragonet's bite is not venomous, but it has poison in its blood. Each time a PC actually inflicts damage on the dragonet in melee combat, the PC must save vs poison (Class N). The PCs saves at +2 if wearing full armor, including gauntlets and a great helm, the latter counting only if the visor is down.
Habitat/Society: Dragonets are solitary most of the time, but a mated pair live together in the same den during the breeding season to defend the young during the 4 months (late spring and summer) it takes them to reach maturity, Dragonets have 14 young at a time, and these are driven out as soon as they reach full maturity Dragonets are born with 1 HD and gain an additional HD each month until they mature at 5 HD.
Ecology: When their larger brethren are absent, dragonets are often top predators in the ecology of hilly or mountainous regions in the arctic and temperate regions of the world. Dragonet blood is often used as an ingredient for the ink used in writing a scroll with the priest spell poison (the reverse of neutralize poison), while a leg bone might fashion the handle of a dagger of venom. More conventional alchemists use the blood in various cures for poison; the idea is to give the victim a tiny taste of the venom, one which he can resist, and then enhance this resistance with the other ingredients. (A healing or herbalism proficiency is required to work this feat.) Dragonet eggs and young are worth 1,000 gp each, as these creatures make excellent guard beasts if trained while still young.
Those who plan to purchase guardian monsters should know that the dragonet is often employed in a scam used by wizards on those who are generally ignorant of the effects of spells. When the con artist mage presents his intended mark with a dragonet, he doesn't say it's a dragonet. Instead, he offers a long spiel about how he recently discovered a way to extend the effects of the spell polymorph other indefinitely, though it is still subject to the dweomer-breaking effects of dispel magic, offering the "blue dragon" to the customer as the result. There'll be a lot of talk about economy, about how this formerly-massive creature will now eat no more than an ordinary creature of its size. But, whenever an enemy penetrates
the owner's last line of defense, all the owner must do is cast dispel magic on the beast, or touch it with a rod of cancellation or the beam from a wand of negation, and he will get a full-sized blue dragon of at least adult rank to tackle the invaders. Of course, this trick will only work once, so the owner should only employ it as a last resort (which keeps the fraud from being exposed for a good long time). If the swindler is so powerful that he's thinking of attacking and looting his customer's stronghold sometime in the future, he might willingly sell him a guard dragonet via this scam in the interest of keeping him from buying a far more powerful beast elsewhere.
From Dragon Magazine #248 (1998).
Dragonet
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Temperate or arctic mountains and hills
FREQUENCY: Rare
ORGANIZATION: Solitary
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Any
DIET: Carnivore
INTELLIGENCE: Average (10)
TREASURE: E
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
NO. APPEARING: 1-2
ARMOR CLASS: 3
MOVEMENT: 12, Fly 20 (B)
HIT DICE: 5
THAC0: 15
NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 or 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6/1-4/1-4 or 2-8
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Fiery breath, rake with rear claws for 1-4/1-4
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Poison blood, resistant to fire
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: L (12' long)
MORALE: Champion (15)
XP VALUE: 1,400
The dragonet looks like a small dragon built for agility rather than power. It appears in varying shades of blue.
Combat: The dragonet attacks with a bite/claw/claw routine causing 1-6/1-4/1-4 hp damage. Alternatively, it can attack with its tail to cause 2-8 hp constriction damage. If it climbs on top of a fallen foe (on an attack roll of 12+), it can also inflict 1-4 hp clawing damage with each of its hind feet. Finally, it has a cone-shaped breath weapon of fire, one foot wide at the base, extending to a maximum width of 10 feet at a range of 20 feet. This tongue of flame inflicts 1-12 hp damage, or half if a saving throw vs. breath weapon is made. In return, the dragonet suffers only half damage from all fire-based attacks, or none at all if it makes its own saving throw.
The dragonet's bite is not venomous, but it has poison in its blood. Each time a PC actually inflicts damage on the dragonet in melee combat, the PC must save vs poison (Class N). The PCs saves at +2 if wearing full armor, including gauntlets and a great helm, the latter counting only if the visor is down.
Habitat/Society: Dragonets are solitary most of the time, but a mated pair live together in the same den during the breeding season to defend the young during the 4 months (late spring and summer) it takes them to reach maturity, Dragonets have 14 young at a time, and these are driven out as soon as they reach full maturity Dragonets are born with 1 HD and gain an additional HD each month until they mature at 5 HD.
Ecology: When their larger brethren are absent, dragonets are often top predators in the ecology of hilly or mountainous regions in the arctic and temperate regions of the world. Dragonet blood is often used as an ingredient for the ink used in writing a scroll with the priest spell poison (the reverse of neutralize poison), while a leg bone might fashion the handle of a dagger of venom. More conventional alchemists use the blood in various cures for poison; the idea is to give the victim a tiny taste of the venom, one which he can resist, and then enhance this resistance with the other ingredients. (A healing or herbalism proficiency is required to work this feat.) Dragonet eggs and young are worth 1,000 gp each, as these creatures make excellent guard beasts if trained while still young.
Those who plan to purchase guardian monsters should know that the dragonet is often employed in a scam used by wizards on those who are generally ignorant of the effects of spells. When the con artist mage presents his intended mark with a dragonet, he doesn't say it's a dragonet. Instead, he offers a long spiel about how he recently discovered a way to extend the effects of the spell polymorph other indefinitely, though it is still subject to the dweomer-breaking effects of dispel magic, offering the "blue dragon" to the customer as the result. There'll be a lot of talk about economy, about how this formerly-massive creature will now eat no more than an ordinary creature of its size. But, whenever an enemy penetrates
the owner's last line of defense, all the owner must do is cast dispel magic on the beast, or touch it with a rod of cancellation or the beam from a wand of negation, and he will get a full-sized blue dragon of at least adult rank to tackle the invaders. Of course, this trick will only work once, so the owner should only employ it as a last resort (which keeps the fraud from being exposed for a good long time). If the swindler is so powerful that he's thinking of attacking and looting his customer's stronghold sometime in the future, he might willingly sell him a guard dragonet via this scam in the interest of keeping him from buying a far more powerful beast elsewhere.
From Dragon Magazine #248 (1998).
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freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
The bit about the scamming is kind of amusing, but I wonder how well the dragonet likes it. 
I guess pretty straightforward. Stats? Str 17, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 13? For physical stats, I went on the low end (just below for Str) for large true dragons.
I guess pretty straightforward. Stats? Str 17, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 13? For physical stats, I went on the low end (just below for Str) for large true dragons.
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
Blue dragnet is good!
Breath Weapon (Su): 20 ft cone of fire, 1d12damage? Doesn't sound like much for a large dragon, but they don't have so many HD, so maybe it's ok.
Rather than fire resistance, I think it sounds like they have evasion vs fire effects. What do you think?
Breath Weapon (Su): 20 ft cone of fire, 1d12damage? Doesn't sound like much for a large dragon, but they don't have so many HD, so maybe it's ok.
Rather than fire resistance, I think it sounds like they have evasion vs fire effects. What do you think?
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
This sounds a lot like a similar ability from the geyser dragon. Rewriting...
Poison Blood (Ex): A blue dragonet’s blood is poisonous. A creature that makes a successful attack with a slashing or piercing weapon (including natural weapons) against a blue dragonet must succeed on a DC X Reflex save or be exposed to poison from the dragonet's splashing blood. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Poison (Ex): Contact, Fort Save DC X, primary damage 1d4 Con, secondary damage 1d4 Con ?
Type N poison is probably a little worse, but the CR on this isn't going to be very high. We could bump the Con damage if you want, though. (Also don't remember if I got the formatting right...)
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