[3.5] Non-spellcasting dragons?

[Savannah]

I swear I've read a variant somewhere for removing spellcasting from true dragons, but I can't seem to find it after skimming Draconomicon and I'm not sure where else it would be. Does anyone know where this is or am I misremembering?

I'm asking because I'm working on a campaign world where dragons are essentially animals (okay, big, dangerous, perpetually hungry animals, but the upshot is I'm looking at Int 1-2 here), so having spellcasting just doesn't seem appropriate. I had debated giving them maneuvers from ToB instead, but that still requires more intelligence than I'd like (although it'd be easier to re-fluff to something not requiring intelligence, and I'm planning on taking out a lot of the fluff from ToB in the campaign anyway). Any other suggestions are welcome, too.

[LOTRfan]

I believe its a template in one of the Monster Manuals.

[Tavar]

There's one in a monster Manual somewhere, but why not just use the Drakes? They fit that role pretty well, from what I remember.

[Jarian]

In Dragons of Eberron, there's a Sovereign Archetype that allows a dragon to trade some of its spellcasting for Tiger Claw maneuvers. It's not a big stretch to expand that to all spellcasting and X number of maneuvers from certain schools.

Edit: I mention it because Tiger Claw is a pretty primal school and it doesn't take much intelligence to pounce on something and rip it apart.

[LOTRfan]

Dragons of the Great Game, Monster Manual V.

[TurtleKing]

Monster Manual V has the Xorvintaal Dragons template. Basically put they engage in a very convoluted game of chess with their power/hoards/ and territory spanning centuries. By being a Xorvintaal Dragon they lose spellcasting but gain several spell-like abilities. Playing the Great Game turns a dragon into a political player of the area if not outright world.

[Savannah]

There's one in a monster Manual somewhere, but why not just use the Drakes? They fit that role pretty well, from what I remember.

I like the scaling with age of the true dragons, allowing the players to have to deal with bigger and nastier dragons the further they go into the wilderness. But I will look into what the drakes get compared to dragons to see if there's anything I want to adapt.


In Dragons of Eberron, there's a Sovereign Archetype that allows a dragon to trade some of its spellcasting for Tiger Claw maneuvers. It's not a big stretch to expand that to all spellcasting and X number of maneuvers from certain schools.

Edit: I mention it because Tiger Claw is a pretty primal school and it doesn't take much intelligence to pounce on something and rip it apart.

I unfortunately don't have that book (or anyone to borrow it from), but it at least indicates that my idea is reasonable. And that's what I was thinking; pick schools that would be more 'rip stuff apart in creative ways'. Maybe see about something with metabreath feats, too....


Dragons of the Great Game, Monster Manual V.

Hmm....Looks like most of their abilities center around the Great Game, which definitely requires more intelligence than I'm going for. And I don't think that was the variant I'm remembering seeing :smallconfused:

And thanks for the (really, really fast) replies :smallbiggrin: