[3.5] Template challenge house cat to Night Fury

[Particle_Man]

For those that have seen "How to Train your Dragon" you will know about the Night Fury. It acts quite . . . cat like. I have a black house cat.

So, starting with the house cat (as outlined in the MM) can you "template" it up, by the book (using proper order for templates), and end up with something very close to the Night Fury? What does it stat up like in the end?

[Kuulvheysoon]

Welp, since I'm watching this movie with my neice as we speak, let's see what we can do here....


Night Fury (Titanic Dungeonbred half-Sapphire Dragon housecat Fighter 1)

Size/Type: Huge Dragon
Hit Dice: 26d10+234 (390 hp)
Initiative: -1
Speed: 40 ft, fly 100 ft (average manoeuvrability)(due to the wording on half-dragon and the feat improved flight, I believe you get doubled land speed as WELL as +20ft)
Armor Class: 33 (-2 size, -1 Dex, +20 Natural, +6 Dragonscale Husk), touch 13, flat-footed 34
Base Attack/Grapple: +34/+42
Attack: Claw +32 (3d6+15) or Trample ((2d8+22), Ref DC37 for half)
Full Attack: 2 claws +32 (3d6+15) and bite +27 (3d8+15)
Special Attacks: Area Attacks (Ex), Trample (Ex) (Large or smaller only), 30ft Cone of Sonic Energy (6d8, Ref 30 for half, 1/d4 rounds)
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, Scent, Easy Maintenance, Hardy, Dragonscale Husk ACF (DrM), Darkvision 60ft, immune to magical sleep effects, paralysis and electricity.
Saves: Fort +27, Ref +13, Will +15 (+2 against disease and poisons)
Abilities: Str 41, Dex 9, Con 28, Int 4, Wis 12, Cha 9
Feats: Stealthy, Weapon Finesse(B), Great Fortitude (B), Improved Natural Attack (claw) (B), Improved Natural Attack (Bite) (B), Endurance (B), Dragon Breath (at 6HD), Improved Speed, Flyby Attack, +4 more
Challenge Rating: 16
Advancement: None

Size was an issue here - Toothless the Night Fury has to be large enough to ride, but not TOO huge. Huge is the best I could figure out right now.

Speed is the other issue here - they're depicted as crazy-fast in the movie, but I could only (easily) get it up to 100ft fly speed. Oh well, I'm distracted.

[kulosle]

Well yeah that. Pretty much that. Awesome I'm going to use this.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Well yeah that. Pretty much that. Awesome I'm going to use this.

Let me know how it turns out - I just whipped this up.

No idea what it'll actually play like (althought the AC is awful low for a CR15.....)

[Flickerdart]

Give it a level of Fighter and take the Dragonscale Husk ACF, or just slap on some barding.

[Demonic_Spoon]

Use the dark/shadow template for some extra speed?

[kulosle]

Your right about the very low AC part. Maybe if its speed is high enough and it only uses flyby attacks then it won't be a problem. The worst viking in the town did manage to hit it with an over sized weapon he probably wasn't even proficient in. So low AC does seem right.

The night fury is corporeal so it can't be a shadow.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Shadow is a template from LoM that multiplies your speed by 1.5 and gives some nice abilities, like planeshift to the Shadow plane 1/day, Luck bonus to saves, evasion, etc. It doesn't make the dragon incorporeal as it isn't the Shadow (undead) template

[Kuulvheysoon]

Give it a level of Fighter and take the Dragonscale Husk ACF, or just slap on some barding.

This is probably the best option, even though it'd only be a +6 bonus to AC (I believe). Bonus feats are always tasty.

I'm reluctant to add any more templates onto this thing for the simple fact that they increase the CR more (and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if HTTYD is an E6 world) for little value (see the half-dragon template - +2CR for some added Str, self-awareness (okay, necessary), and a breath weapon. Oh, and an average +25 hit points.

Anybody else willing to template up a housecat and see what they can find?

[Flickerdart]

33-35 is pretty decent AC for a CR15 encounter, when your average Fighter might be chucking an attack bonus of 27 or so. They'll hit more often than not with their main attack, but this thing has enough HP to withstand a few hits.

[Kuulvheysoon]

33-35 is pretty decent AC for a CR15 encounter, when your average Fighter might be chucking an attack bonus of 27 or so. They'll hit more often than not with their main attack, but this thing has enough HP to withstand a few hits.

Huh... interesting.

It doesn't say what kind of bonus the Dragonscale Husk is (just a flat bonus) so it adds it's full value to regular AC, touch AC (a major weakness of the Nightfury) and flat-footed.

It mentions treating as medium armour for the purposes of class features, special abilities and speed. Since it makes no mention of what kind of armor bonus it is, RAW, it counts for all of them. Could be worse for a +1 in CR.

(build updated)

[herrhauptmann]

How about 'Dark' from Tome of Magic?

Before he shot down Toothless, I'm pretty sure that Toothless was barely more than a shadow against the moon.
Also a +1 CR, but doesn't seem to really add any abilities that toothless doesn't have (like plane shifting to plane of shadow)

[kulosle]

Dark sounds appropriate he was crazy fast. And yeah I do think we should try to keep this to an E6 world if we can. So how big would we say toothless is, Large probably? I'm trying to think of ways to increase an animals size. Making a creature dire seems to increase its size category. All though toothless doesn't really act like a dire cat. Just a cat.