Two questions regarding dragons

[Tonguez]

Just to add - the perfect flunkies for Reds are Iron Golems. They do what they're told and every breath from the dragon heals the golems.

I like the idea of Trolls though - Half-Dragon trolls that are immune to fire damage!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I like the idea of Trolls though - Half-Dragon trolls that are immune to fire damage!

They are only used by Half-Troll DM's (though they are almost OK, as long as we won't put acit immunity in there somewhere)

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think a Disguise Self or Alter self should be able to change the other stuff as well?

Of course; I was just picking up on the "just a simple colour change to white" line that Wippit used. Any dragon that would use that spell to change his appearance would have no difficulty in changing it to look just like another type of dragon, whether by illusion or transmutation, although I'd DM dragons that are too proud of their own noble power to choose to look like a lesser (to their mind) breed.

Cheers

 

[Wippit Guud]

although I'd DM dragons that are too proud of their own noble power to choose to look like a lesser (to their mind) breed.

Well... a red might not do it... a black would, conniving little lizard that he is...

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Of course; I was just picking up on the "just a simple colour change to white" line that Wippit used. Any dragon that would use that spell to change his appearance would have no difficulty in changing it to look just like another type of dragon, whether by illusion or transmutation, although I'd DM dragons that are too proud of their own noble power to choose to look like a lesser (to their mind) breed.

Cheers

To really spook the dragon-knowers, he could assume the shape of a black dragon - with blue scales! Or something like that. At best, they'll know that they have no idea what sort of dragon it really is. At worst, they'll prepare to deal with black and blue, thinking that the "stupid dragon" intends to fool them by either chanign his color and forgetting about the shape or vice-versa.

 

[Coredump]

Heck, at that point, the dragon might as well try lots of different colors. Make it seem like a regular dragon convention is going on.

It might attract too much attention, but it might keep people away...

.

 

[Conaill]

As for how many flunkies a dragon should have, I can see roughly three approaches to this:

1) Pick whatever you think would be cool. Just remember to include them in the encounter level to make sure the encounter is balanced for your party.

2) A Young adult red dragon would have (I believe) 7 feats to play with. Just pick Leadership as one of them! There's a little snag here, because Leadership score is calculated based on level. If you based it on ECL, you can easily wind up with a cohort that has a much higher CR than the dragon itself. If you base it on class levels (i.e. zero for a standard dragon), you would proibably wind up with a 1st or 2nd level cohort. Basing Leadership score on CR seems much more reasonable, since it preserves the assumption that cohort and followers are included in the leader's CR. For a young adult red dragon (CR 13, Cha mod +2) you'd get a 10th level cohort, one 2nd level and 20 1st level followers. Sounds about right...

3) For any creature, you can add flunkies totaling up to it's CR minus 2 without changing the Encounter Level. So the CR 13 young adult red dragon could have one CR 11 flunkie, or 2 CR 9 flunkies, or 4 CR 7 flunkies, etc... and the EL would still be only 13 (a bit over 13, actually, but less than 14). This seems to agree failry well with method 2).

 

[Epametheus]

Leadership for monsters is probably based off hit dice, though basing it on CR might not be a bad idea..

Regardless, a red dragon should be able to attain flunkies simply by being a red dragon -- it's probably the strongest thing in the region, and so the locals are either going to serve it, or they're going to have fled the area in order to get away from it.

Which means you could actually have, say, a entire human settlement that serves the dragon out of fear of annihilation, should they displease it.

 

[shilsen]

The Silver Horde, of course.

Damn! Now I want to go stat those guys out. What's the cost for Hamish's masterwork spiked wheelchair?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Damn! Now I want to go stat those guys out. What's the cost for Hamish's masterwork spiked wheelchair?

I think the price of a cart plus 10 masterwork weapons.

BTW: Can I call you "Teach"?