Need Ideas For My Recurring Villain (3.5)

[Kyouhen]

If you're one of my players go away and don't read this. Not even this sentence. You just read this sentence didn't you? :smallannoyed:

ANYWAY!

In the next game I host my players (level 1) will be fighting a Wyrmling Black Dragon. Don't worry, they'll be able to win and the dragon's going to escape. What I want to do later though is when it hits the Very Young age (which won't take too long) I want the dragon to become a recurring villain. The idea behind it will be that she'll have decided that since they stole her horde, she's going to have them rebuild it for her. I want her to stalk them and pop up at inconvenient times to take whatever she can from them, hopefully without them realizing that she's there at all.

What I need are ideas on how to get the dragon the ability to track them effectively. Scrying, hiding, being able to move to the ethereal plane without having a time limit on how long she can stay there, that type of thing. Any ideas?

[Olo Demonsbane]

Oh this reminds me of the time when I realized that I could make a high level Wyrmling Dragon...

*looking up*

Ok, found it.

Marlys
Wyrmling Black Dragon Fighter 1/Monk 1/Rouge 1/Spelltheif 1/Assasin 1/Sorcerer 1 :smallbiggrin: What can I say, I like multiclassing.

Back to the original question...

It sounds like you need her to gain a lot of wizard levels suddenly. However, a simpler way to do this is:
A) Get the Track feat
B) Max UMD
C) Max Hide/Move Silently
D) Buy wand of invisibility
E) Max Sleight of Hand

With this combo, the dragon can run up, steal something from the characters and run back to its hiding spot without taking a penalty on its high Hide check.

Hope this helps slightly.

[Kyouhen]

:smalleek: That dragon makes small children cry...

Actually, come to think of it I could probably do without the Track feat if I have her get her hands on a crystal ball instead... And to help with the Hide and Move Silently I think I might give her an item that will give her the chameleon template. There's going to be a few months (in-game) before she shows up again, so I have time to let her run around and track down a few handy items before she goes back for her revenge. :smalltongue:


EDIT:
Wait a minute, what am I thinking? A Chameleon Black Dragon? Why not do away with the messy middle and just make a Chameleon dragon! Quick! I need ideas for abilities up to Young Adult! What type of breath attack and immunities would a Chameleon Dragon have?

[Kol Korran]

a chameleon dragon? oh jeez... some possible ideas for powers and such:

- a serious bonus to hide, climb (have you seen these animals climb?), sense motive (an expert at detedcting falsehoods), disguise (for obvious reasons) and spot (the revolving eyes). also the eyes mean it can't be flanked (it looks forward and backward at the same time. weird i know).

- camouflage: a move or standard action. it can either resemble it's surroundings (and thus gain the hefty hide bonus) or it can resemble one of the other dragons (chromatic or metallic). when it does so it gains some of their abilities, such as...

- breath weapon: when mimicking another dragon's color, the dragon can mimic it's breath weapon, only it causes half damage on a failed save or no damage on a succesfull save. the dragon gains versatility instead of potency. it also has the option of breathing for full damage but then the interval between breats is also doubled.

- energy resistence: the mimickry also add a certain degree of resistence (not immunity like the real dragon). when it's blue, it gets lightning 10, when black, acid 10 (the amount increases when it gains levels)

- in it's natural form it has a tounge attack, which can reach up to 30 ft. it's a touch attack, that if hits immediatly draws it's victim to the mouth of the chameleon, when a snatch begin (a feat that the beasy gets for free). the chameleon must abide by all the normal snatch rules. the snatch could also be used to grasp an item (such as a shiny maguc hat from the hoard?) by the normal rules for such attempts (the tounge gets a serious bonus here as well)

- as to spells and spell like powers: anything to do with illusions, especially concealement is good. some sort of a personal silence spell is also a must. as to spells, i'd suggest to allow the chameleon access to the "shaodw conjuration/evocation" and so on line of spells as a special ability, limited by the level of spells the dragon knows. this will enable it to mimic many spells, but to a lesser effect (the dragon is a deciever first and formost)

- other spell like powers: ESP is importent, while the dragon study it's mark (usually another dragon), and at some point some ability to take alternate shapes, such as humaoinds.

just another idea: have the players meet other dragons, some of them will actually be this one, in disguise. would throw them off completly.

hope this helped, let us know what you've settled for,
Kol.

[Kyouhen]

Hmmm... Those are some good ideas... The original plan I had settled on was to use a Green Dragon, stick the Chameleon creature template on it (comes with a lovely boost to Hide and Move Silently, a climb speed and a tongue attack), add a breath attack that Dazzles the opponent and switch most of it's spell-like abilities for ones that change what it looks like. I think I like your ideas better. :smalltongue:

[Kol Korran]

glad to have been of help. i myself am a little uncomfortable about making a chameleon-dragon (i try to minimize the monsters species in my world, and as such i try to avoid hybrids of most kinds). but you go and knock yourself out. have you considered just adding beguiler/rogue levels to the dragon? or perhaps aligning it with some stealthy and sneaky allies such as kenku, pixies, or the like? might be worth to act through "minions" (sort to speak) instead of acting on itself. that way you can even avoid all the "dragon getting sneaky" hassle, which is not very respectable or awe inspiring...

[Kyouhen]

glad to have been of help. i myself am a little uncomfortable about making a chameleon-dragon (i try to minimize the monsters species in my world, and as such i try to avoid hybrids of most kinds). but you go and knock yourself out. have you considered just adding beguiler/rogue levels to the dragon? or perhaps aligning it with some stealthy and sneaky allies such as kenku, pixies, or the like? might be worth to act through "minions" (sort to speak) instead of acting on itself. that way you can even avoid all the "dragon getting sneaky" hassle, which is not very respectable or awe inspiring...

Actually the way the scenario's set up (Scourge of the Howling Horde), the dragon's already acting through minions. All people know are that Goblins are attacking anyone who comes near the area, they don't know about the dragon. The PCs kind of go in there and slaughter all of the dragon's minions. :smalltongue:

And actually, that's the funny thing about the idea of the Chameleon Dragon. It doesn't have to be awe inspiring, it just pretends to be something that is. Disguise itself as a Red Wyrm and people probably won't question how it got it's hoard. :smalltongue: