Converting True Dragons

freyar said:

I can go along with this, with exemption for hardness 10 or above. Although I think I might prefer a Will save to avoid the curse, since it's not really a disease. I'm not sure about that point. We can use the same structure for the melting. Maybe we can switch saves for the two.

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Well it's disease-like and diseases usually use Fort saves.

For the melting, I'm thinking we could base the "melting time" on the hardness of the object.

All I need now is the energy to write a rough draft for the Jade breath...

Whenever you're ready...

freyar said:

Whenever you're ready...

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What if I'm not ready to be energetic?

Oh well, I don't have much else left to do today, so I can still do it in an unenergetic fashion...

Breath Weapon (Su): A Mystaran amber dragon has two breath weapons: a cone of jade-green and putrid-yellow corrosive gas (acid damage), or a cone of ruby-red flames (fire damage). Any creature or object within the area of effect can attempt Reflex saves to take half damage, but if they fail this save they must also attempt a Fortitude save or contract a supernatural curse carried by the breath weapon, as follows.

Jade Curse: Objects and creatures affected by this curse begin to rot away. The jade breath curse does not affect anything made of metal or targets with a hardness of [8 or 10?] or more. Creatures vulnerable to ability damage take [Y?] Constitution damage every [time period?], while other targets affected by the curse take [Z?] points of damage every [time period?]. [Targets with immunity to disease take half damage?] Damage caused by the jade curse cannot be repaired or healed until the curse is neutralized by any effect that cures disease, such as remove disease or heal.

Ruby Curse:

That's a good framework. Here are some suggestions for the red bits: hardness 8, 1d4 Con per hour, 1d8 hp per hour? I'd give immunity to disease full immunity to the curse.

freyar said:

That's a good framework. Here are some suggestions for the red bits: hardness 8, 1d4 Con per hour, 1d8 hp per hour? I'd give immunity to disease full immunity to the curse.

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I was wondering having the time period based on age category - e.g. a wyrmling does damage every 12 minutes, while a great wyrm does damage every minute.

Actually, scaling it to size would probably work better. Something like:

Medium (Wyrmling) = damage every 5X minutes
Large (Very Young to Juvenile) = damage ever 4X minutes
Huge (Young Adult to Mature Adult) = damage every 3X minutes
Gargantuan (Old to Ancient) = damage every 2X minutes
Colossal (Wyrm or Great Wyrm) = damage every X minutes

Oh, and I'd better start a Working Draft. I'll just copy over the Gold Dragon's numbers to start with. We can worry about the rest later.

Mystaran Amber Dragon Working Draft

Mystaran Amber Dragon
Dragon (Fire)
Environment: Warm plains
Organization: Wyrmling, very young, young, juvenile, and young adult: solitary or clutch (2-5); adult, mature adult, old, very old, ancient, wyrm, or great wyrm: solitary, pair, or family (1-2 and 2-5 offspring)
Challenge Ratings: Wyrmling 5; very young 7; young 9; juvenile 11; young adult 14; adult 16; mature adult 19; old 21; very old 22; ancient 24; wyrm 25; great wyrm 27
Treasure: Triple standard
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: Wyrmling 9–10 HD; very young 12–13 HD; young 15–16 HD; juvenile 18–19 HD; young adult 21–22 HD; adult 24–25 HD; mature adult 27–28 HD; old 30–31 HD; very old 33–34 HD; ancient 36–37 HD; wyrm 39–40 HD; great wyrm 42+ HD
Level Adjustment: Wyrmling +4; very young +5; young +6; others —

Mystaran Amber Dragons by Age Mystaran Amber Dragon Abilities by Age
*Can also cast cleric spells and those from the Chaos, Destruction, and Luck domains as arcane spells.


On hatching, a Mystaran amber dragon’s scales are dark brown with golden flecks.

The flecks get larger as the dragon matures until, at the young adult stage, the scales are completely golden. The scales rapidly darken to brown-black at the adult stage, then change back to golden when the dragon enters the old stage. Mystaran amber dragons’ faces are bewhiskered and sagacious; as they age, their pupils fade until the eyes resemble pools of molten gold.

A young adult or elderly Mystaran amber dragon (old and older) looks very much like a gold dragon, the main difference is their shimmering golden scales are slightly transparent, like amber. A DC 20 Spot or Knowledge (arcana) check is required to notice the difference.

Combat
Mystaran amber dragons usually parley before fighting. They use Bluff, Diplomacy and charm magic to mislead intelligent creatures towards the dragon's ends. In combat, they employ protection from law and their luck bonus; older dragons use their luck bonus at the start of each day. They make heavy use of spells in combat. Among their favorites are bestow curse, black tentacles, blade barrier, cloudkill, entropic shield, mass charm monster, slow and spell turning.

A Mystaran amber dragon's breath weapons and disintegrate power are likely to destroy any treasure an opponent is carrying, so the dragon may avoid using these attacks if it believes it will win using other methods.

Breath Weapon (Su): A Mystaran amber dragon has two breath weapons: a cone of jade-green and putrid-yellow corrosive gas (acid damage), or a cone of ruby-red flames (fire damage). Any creature or object within the area of effect can attempt Reflex saves to take half damage, but if they fail this save they must also attempt a Fortitude save or contract a supernatural curse carried by the breath weapon, as follows.

Jade Curse: Objects and creatures affected by this curse begin to rot away. The jade breath curse does not affect anything made of metal or targets with a hardness of 10 or more. Anything affected by the curse takes damage every minute as indicated in the Amber Dragon Breath Weapon table. Creatures vulnerable to ability damage take the Constitution damage, while targets immune to ability damage take the typeless damage instead. Targets with immunity to disease take half damage. Damage caused by the jade curse cannot be repaired or healed until the curse is neutralized by any effect that cures disease, such as remove disease or heal.

Ruby Curse: This curse is harmless to creatures, but objects affected by it begin to melt away. Anything affected by the curse takes damage every round as indicated in the Amber Dragon Breath Weapon table. The damage is half fire and half typeless.

Alternate Form (Su): A Mystaran amber dragon can assume any animal or humanoid form of Medium size or smaller as a standard action three times per day. The dragon can remain in its animal or humanoid form until it chooses to assume a new one or return to its natural form.

Water Breathing (Ex): A Mystaran amber dragon can breathe underwater indefinitely and can freely use its breath weapon, spells, and other abilities while submerged (the cone of fire becomes a cone of superheated steam underwater).

Luck Bonus (Sp): Once per day an adult or older Mystaran amber dragon can touch a gem, usually one embedded in the dragon’s hide, and enspell it to bring good luck. As long as the dragon carries the gem, it and every chaotic creature in a 10-foot radius per age category of the dragon receives a +1 luck bonus on all saving throws and similar rolls, as for a stone of good luck. If the dragon gives an enspelled gem to another creature, only that bearer gets the bonus. The effect lasts 1d3 hours plus 3 hours per age category of the dragon but ends if the gem is destroyed. This ability is the equivalent of a 2nd-level spell.

Detect Gems (Sp): An old or older Mystaran amber dragon can use this ability three times per day. This is a divination effect similar to a detect magic spell, except that it finds only gems. The dragon can scan a 60-degree arc each round: By concentrating for 1 round it knows if there are any gems within the arc; 2 rounds of concentration reveal the exact number of gems; and 3 rounds reveal their exact location, type, and value. This ability is the equivalent of a 2nd-level spell.

Other Spell-Like Abilities: 3/day—protection from law (juvenile or older); 1/day—disintegrate (old or older), mass charm monster (ancient or older), foresight (great wyrm).

Skills: Appraise, Disguise, and Swim are considered class skills for Mystaran amber dragons.

Originally appeared in the D&D Master Set (1985) as the Brown Gemstone Dragon.

Hmmm. I like scaling the curse damage with the size or age category, but I think I'd prefer to keep the frequency the same and change the amount of damage (1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8 or similar). What do you think?

freyar said:

Hmmm. I like scaling the curse damage with the size or age category, but I think I'd prefer to keep the frequency the same and change the amount of damage (1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8 or similar). What do you think?

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It pretty much comes out the same in the end, so I'm fine using variable damage.

Size-based damage seems more manageable than age based, because we only need 5 grades instead of 12 there's less problem avoiding the top and bottom damage being extravagantly high and/or low.

Is the proposed progression ok, then? I was just increasing one step per size category, like a natural attack, but we could modify that.

freyar said:

Is the proposed progression ok, then? I was just increasing one step per size category, like a natural attack, but we could modify that.

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Hmm, that progression seems unlikely to do much at the larger sizes. Curing disease and ability damage is trivial at those kinds of CRs, so unless the damage is high enough to present a serious risk of death or incapacitation it'll be little more than a speedbump. 1d8 or 1d6 Con damage will take three or four time periods to slay a PC. If those time periods are hours (or even minutes) a high level party will have killed the dragon, removed the disease and cured all the ability damage in way less time it takes for an infected person to take even one lot of damage.

Having it closer to the Jade Dragon's damage put in fewer steps would seem better.

Jade Dragon

That'd suggest something like

Mystaran Amber Dragon
Medium: 1 or 1d2
Large: 1d3 or 1d4
Huge: 1d6 or 1d8
Gargantuan: 1d10 or 2d6
Colossal: 2d8 or 3d6