Special Conversion Thread: Lycanthropes and their ilk

[freyar]

Spelling with a "k" looks good.
Let's save the cyanthrope until later.

I clearly didn't follow what was going on with those tables. But I still think we can be simpler, if I'm understanding you now. You seem to be scaling the HD from the wyrmling true dragon depending on the size of the base creature. I'd propose using the idea of the standard lycanthrope but treating the wyrmling (or maybe the very young) true dragon similarly to the base animal, at least for physical characteristics. That is, add HD and BAB, NA+2, use base dragon's physical ability modifiers in appropriate form.

Are you ok with that?

 

[Cleon]

Let's save the cyanthrope until later.

Updating Weredragon Drakanthrope Working Draft with the new name.

Let's save the cyanthrope until later.

Fine by me!

I clearly didn't follow what was going on with those tables. But I still think we can be simpler, if I'm understanding you now. You seem to be scaling the HD from the wyrmling true dragon depending on the size of the base creature. I'd propose using the idea of the standard lycanthrope but treating the wyrmling (or maybe the very young) true dragon similarly to the base animal, at least for physical characteristics. That is, add HD and BAB, NA+2, use base dragon's physical ability modifiers in appropriate form.

Are you ok with that?

So are you suggesting we just use base Wyrmling Lycanthrope-template style adjustments for ALL sizes of true dragon based Drakanthrope?

I tried that, but it makes particularly big or small Drakanthropes have Hit Dice that seemed unbalanced compared to regular monster dragons.

Lets say we have an ordinary Huge Giant such as a Cloud Giant. The standard Wyrmling True Dragons range from 3 HD (White Dragon) to 8 HD (Gold Dragon), so if we use Wyrmling-only HD a Cloud Giant Drakanthrope has Hit Dice 17d8+3d12 to 17d8+8d12 if it's one of the SRD True Dragons.

So from 20 HD to 25 HD, which is actually within the Hit Dice for a Huge SRD True Dragon, which can range from 19d12 (Young Adult Red) to 32d12 (Ancient Copper).

The problem is we're allowing non-true dragon Drakanthropes such as a Cloud Giant Dragon Turtle Drakanthrope which would have Hit Dice 17d8+12d8, considerably more than a Cloud Giant Gold Weredragon. As in 4 dragon HD more. Plus there are regular dragons of Huge size with way more HD than a Dragon Turtle (the SRD Dragon Turtle is a tad underpowered, which is why I did a Cleon Special). A Cloud Giant Hellfire Werewyrm for example (3E MMII's Hellfire Wire) would have Hit Dice 17d8+23d12. Turning to the CC for an example, a Cloud Giant Swamp Wyrm Drakanthrope would have Hit Dice 17d8+18d12.

I'd like the True Dragon drakanthropes to have HD comparable to or better than the ordinary monster drakanthropes. True Dragons are supposed to be among the toughest creatures alive, so having their less noteworthy kin make tougher pseudo-lycanthropes sits poorly with me.

Unfortunately the Lycanthrope template's approach of "just add the Hit Dice together" inescapably ends up with creatures with excessive HD when a high-HD giant is combined with a high-HD base "beast". Standard lycanthropes can be extremely meaty such as wereelephants and some Dire Animal Lycanthropes (a dire werehippo giant can have ridiculous HD ). Giving them Dragon Hit Dice instead obviously just makes it more extreme. Imagine how many Hit Dice and Hit Points a Mountain Giant Drakanthrope could have!

The smaller sizes seem unlikely to be an issue, since I don't think any official Humanoid type creatures less than Small size. The Tibbit is a Tiny Humanoid when in its house cat alternative form, but that doesn't seem germane since their "default shape" is Small.

As a thought experiment, imagine if a Grig was a Humanoid instead of a Fey: A Grig Drakanthrope with all of the Wyrmling's HD would have Hit Dice ½d6+3d12 at a minimum (for a White Dragon Grig Weredragon) up to ½d6+7d12 for a Silver Weredragon. Contrariwise a Pseudodragon Grig Weredragon would have Hit Dice ½d6+2d12.

The "Half Wyrmling's Hit Dice" scheme for Tiny Drakanthropes would give a Grig "True" Weredragon Hit Dice of ½d6+1d12 to ½d6+4d12 which is more on par with a standard monster dragon of that size such as the aforementioned Pseudodragon.

NA+2, use base dragon's physical ability modifiers in appropriate form.

I think the natural armour and ability modifiers can be discussed separately, to prevent this thread getting even more elaborate.

 

[Cleon]

Unfortunately the Lycanthrope template's approach of "just add the Hit Dice together" inescapably ends up with creatures with excessive HD when a high-HD giant is combined with a high-HD base "beast". Standard lycanthropes can be extremely meaty such as wereelephants and some Dire Animal Lycanthropes (a dire werehippo giant can have ridiculous HD ). Giving them Dragon Hit Dice instead obviously just makes it more extreme. Imagine how many Hit Dice and Hit Points a Mountain Giant Drakanthrope could have!

I guess we should consider the base question as to whether a Weredragon should have higher Hit Dice than a True Dragon of equivalent size?

While a person supernaturally bonded to an animal might be a lot tougher than the base animal à la the SRD Lycanthrope Template, it doesn't mean a Humanoid (or a Giant) merged with a Dragon need be nastier than the base dragon.

Hmm, the original Weredragons were 8 HD man-dragon hybrids, and the text says the hybrid forms are "are halfway between the human and animal sizes". Taking that literally and assuming a "6' base" for a typical humanoid, that suggests a White Dragon (24' base length) version of a Weredragon is about fifteen feet long (24+6 divided by 2). Comparing all ten standard dragons, the Weredragons are all roughly the size of a "Very Young" 2E AD&D Dragon, which have Hit Dice four less than the base HD.

The breakdown is as follows:

White (24' base) => 15' long weredragon, 7 HD very young dragon
Black (30' base) => 18' long weredragon, 8 HD very young dragon
Green (36' base) => 21' long weredragon, 9 HD very young dragon
Blue (42' base) => 24' long weredragon, 10 HD very young dragon
Red (48' base) => 27' long weredragon, 11 HD very young dragon
Copper (30' base) => 18' long weredragon, 8 HD very young dragon
Brass (36' base) => 21' long weredragon, 9 HD very young dragon
Bronze (42' base) => 24' long weredragon, 10 HD very young dragon
Silver (48' base) => 27' long weredragon, 11 HD very young dragon
Gold (54' base) => 30' long weredragon, 12 HD very young dragon

Very Young is the second age category in 2E as it is in 3E. The smallest is "hatchling" that has 2 fewer Hit Dice (so between 5 Hit Dice for a White Hatchling and 10 Hit Dice for a Gold), which means the 8 HD of the Weredragon is closest to the 7½ average HD of the 2E Hatchlings.

Overall I think that supports using the Wyrmling age category as the baseline for our Drakanthropes, at least the human-sized versions.

After some reflection, I'm thinking we should consider making the Were-versions of the dragon significantly weaker than the genuine article rather than significantly stronger like lycanthropes are. The original has lower Hit Dice and less damaging physical attacks (i.e. 1d6 for claws and bite, while even a Hatchling 2E dragon does 1d6+1 to 1d10+1 with its claws and 2d8+1 to 6d6+1 with its bite). Plus they don't have the spell use or % magic resistance of the true dragons.

That'd be hard to combine with a generic template that includes standard monster dragons though.

 

[Cleon]

That'd be hard to combine with a generic template that includes standard monster dragons though.

Of course, the answer's obvious.

Advancement!

The original FR7 Weredragons were a recent phenomenon, so if they have age categories past very young they wouldn't be old enough to display them.

We can have the template apply the Wyrmling age category Hit Dice for all true dragon based Drakanthropes and then have an "Advanced Drakanthropes" subsection which says the beasties can advance by Dragon Hit Dice as well as character levels, and its hybrid and dragon forms get bigger with corresponding increases to NA and physical abilities once its Hit Dice increase to higher age categories (if the base dragon is a normal monster which uses standard advancement it's just unlucky).

That allows for the inclusion of the Gargantuan Wyrm Giant Weredragons with ridiculously high HD while keeping the standard version at low Wyrmling-level additional Hit Dice - maybe few Drakanthropes last longer than their normal humanoid kin so rarely reach the 50+ years a true dragon needs to start maturing.

 

[freyar]

Hmm, I actually meant really to treat the wyrmling true dragon like a base animal for a lycanthrope, so the base creature has to be within a size category. And we could do the same for other dragons without age categories. Or, frankly, if we want really big giant true dragon drakanthropes, we could use older age categories as the base dragon.

Then we can use your advancement idea on top of that. It would limit what types of dragons (true or not) are available for different humanoids or giants, even though they could eventually advance quite high in age catetory.

How does that sound?

 

[Cleon]

Hmm, I actually meant really to treat the wyrmling true dragon like a base animal for a lycanthrope, so the base creature has to be within a size category. And we could do the same for other dragons without age categories. Or, frankly, if we want really big giant true dragon drakanthropes, we could use older age categories as the base dragon.

Then we can use your advancement idea on top of that. It would limit what types of dragons (true or not) are available for different humanoids or giants, even though they could eventually advance quite high in age catetory.

How does that sound?

So you'd have a standard lycanthrope size rule that uses Tiny base animals for "Little" Dragons (Black, Brass, Copper, White) meaning they couldn't use Medium sized humanoids as the base creature? And larger size base creatures would have to use older age category true dragons to meet the size categories?

I don't care for that.

If the Little Dragon "base animal" has to be an older age category for a Medium Humanoid to become a Weredragon, then they'll have higher Hit Dice than Weredragons based on species higher up the dragon pecking order. Small size (Very Young age category) dragons of the "Little Dragons" have minimum Hit Dice of 8 HD (Copper), 7 HD (Black or Brass) and 6 HD (White) and at Medium size (Young age category) they're three HD higher for 11, 10 and 9 HD.

That means the weakest Human Copper Weredragon (+8d12) would have more Hit Dice than a basic Weredragon of any other type except Gold (which have 8d12 HD Wyrmlings) who have the same Hit Dice.

That's not even getting into the other attributes like natural armour, ability scores and so forth.

As previously mentioned, I'm not fond of only using the True Dragon age category size/HD for Large and bigger individuals as it gives them excessive total Hit Dice.

For example, a Cloud Giant plus a Mature Adult Brass Dragon (the youngest age that species becomes Huge) would have 17d8+22d12 Hit Dice, I'd rather that be an exception rather than the standard and have a typical Brass Cloud Giant Weredragon specimen use a Wyrmling as the base dragon for 17d8+4d12 HD, with Very Young (17d8+7d12) or Young (17d8+10d12) being the usual advanced specimens.

 

[Cleon]

So you'd have a standard lycanthrope size rule that uses Tiny base animals for "Little" Dragons (Black, Brass, Copper, White) meaning they couldn't use Medium sized humanoids as the base creature? And larger size base creatures would have to use older age category true dragons to meet the size categories?

'Course I might be misreading your intent. Perhaps if you roughed out a Working Draft for how you'd like the sizes/age categories to work.

 

[freyar]

Well, I did mean that at the time. So then black, white, brass, and copper would only work up to Small humanoid/giant base creatures. Not every base creature needs to be able to become every type of drakanthrope.

That said, I think I prefer just using wyrmling HD (and other modifiers) for any base creature, like you suggest, and working out advancement rules if we want higher age categories for the base dragon. We might want to make different templates for "true drakanthropes" vs those from other dragon critters.

 

[Cleon]

Well, I did mean that at the time. So then black, white, brass, and copper would only work up to Small humanoid/giant base creatures. Not every base creature needs to be able to become every type of drakanthrope.

The original version allowed for standard (i.e. human) Weredragons of any type, which would be impossible if we forbade the "little" true dragons such as Blacks from being the base dragon for a Medium-sized Weredragon.

Also, that would restrict Giants to only being "big" Weredragons like Red or Gold. Do we really want to live in a world that doesn't allow Frostie the Giant White Weredragon?

That said, I think I prefer just using wyrmling HD (and other modifiers) for any base creature, like you suggest, and working out advancement rules if we want higher age categories for the base dragon. We might want to make different templates for "true drakanthropes" vs those from other dragon critters.

Works for me.

I would prefer using a different name for the non true-dragon weredragons. Maybe Weredrake or Vulgar Drakanthrope?

For the proper deal we can call them a Weredragon or True Drakanthrope.

I don't mind which we use as the default name, but am now leaning towards those starting with "Were".

 

[Cleon]

I'll start a separate Weredrake Working Draft as a placeholder.

Will just copy the Weredragon Working Draft to start with. We'll need to rework some of the True Dragon hangovers once we get around to doing the vulgar drakanthrope template.