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Fouredged Sword
2013-02-11, 12:15 PM
Ok, not about the game "Breath of Dragons", but rather about cool ideas for dragon breath weapons. I am playing a game with heavy homebrew and I am using custom dragons so each is unique in some way (or at least have many variations. So here is a place to post my ideas and see if anyone else has cool ideas.

Here is what the basis is.

Dragons are elemental, so four varieties: earth, air, fire, water.
Dragons are basically all based of a stripped down green dragon. They all use that for stats, age categories, and breath weapon advancement, and movement speed. I went with green because they start small and grow quickly with HD, so a large dragon isn't an unreasonable threat for a 8th level party.

I started the idea in another thread, but decided I wanted to see what would happen if I did more and really made this interesting.

Then the element gets applied as a template, followed by a breath weapon template.

This is a work in progress, so bear with me.

Earth dragon template

Str +2
Dex-2
Con+2
Natural armor +1 per age category
DR 1/adimantium per age category
Claw and bite attacks damage die are determined as if the dragon was one size category bigger that it actually is.

Loose wing buffet attacks
Loose fly speed
Gain Burrow speed 5ft, through rock or dirt. Can leave a tunnel if desired.

Special powers / qualities

Perfect footing: Earth dragons can move along any surface of stone or dirt as if under the spider climb spell as an EX ability. They ignore difficult terrain caused by slopes or rough terrain along rock or dirt surfaces.

King of the Earth: This dragon has the granted power of the earth domain, and may turn or destroy air creatures and rebuke or control earth creatures. All earth elementals start with a helpful disposition to an earth dragon. Air elementals start unfriendly.

True Stonecunning: This ability grants the dragon a +2 per age catagory racial bonus on Search checks to notice unusual stonework, such as sliding walls, stonework traps, new construction (even when built to match the old), unsafe stone surfaces, shaky stone ceilings, and the like. Something that isn’t stone but that is disguised as stone also counts as unusual stonework. A earth dragon who merely comes within 10 feet of unusual stonework can make a Search check as if he were actively searching, and an earth dragon can use the Search skill to find stonework traps as a rogue can. An earth dragon can also intuit depth, sensing his approximate depth underground as naturally as a human can sense which way is up. This also grants a +2 per age category racial bonus on all craft checks having to do with stone or earth.

Earth Mastery: The dragon gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls if both it and its foe are touching the ground. If an opponent is airborne or waterborne, the dragon takes a -4 penalty on attack and damage rolls. (These modifiers are not included in the statistics block.)

Vulnerability to electrical damage: An earth dragon takes 1.5x the normal damage from any electrical damage

Immune to Acid damage

darkvision: 240ft,

Dragon traits and immunites

Spelllike/psilike abilities
Adult - Expansion 3/day
Old - spike stones 3/day
ancient - Wall of stone 3/day
Great Wyrm - Rock to mud/mud to rock 1/day

associated elements / types / concepts - Acid, Bludgeoning, darkness, sonic.


Does this seem like a net zero change to CR from a standard green dragon? Assume a breath weapon like a cone of acid or such.

Water Dragons

Dex +2
Con +2
Str -2

Land speed +5ft per age category
Swim speed = to land speed
+1 dodge bonus to AC per 2 age categories, round up.
Water Breathing
Water dragons loose their bite attack
Water dragons gain a gore attack with the reach and damage of the bite lost, but deals double damage on a charge as if it was a lance used from a charging mount.

King of the Water: This dragon has the granted power of the water domain, and may turn or destroy fire creatures and rebuke or control water creatures. All water elementals start with a helpful disposition to an water dragon. fire elementals start unfriendly.

Endless craw of the sea: a water dragon can use create water as a spell like ability at will. The dragon spews water from it's mouth creating 2 gallons/HD.

Water Mastery (Ex)
A water dragon gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls if both it and its opponent are touching water. If the opponent or the dragon is touching the ground, the elemental takes a -4 penalty on attack and damage rolls. (These modifiers are not included in the statistics block.)

Immunity to cold
Vulnerability to Fire (takes 1.5x damage)

Spell like abilities
Adult - Chill metal 3/day
Old - Sleet storm 3/day
Ancient - Wall of Ice 3/day
Great Wyrm - Control Water 1/day


More later....

Frathe
2013-02-11, 02:47 PM
Some of these special qualities seem over the top--I mean, I've never seen infinite range Darkvision, and I'm not sure if there's a reason to invent it. I'd also more expect them to be neutral or resistant to electrical damage, not vulnerable, unless they're actually meant to be metal dragons. I'd save vulnerability for the water dragon.

Earth Mastery still has a reference to "the elemental".

For me, at least, this would be easier to compare to Green Dragons if more of the powers were utility powers like Water Breathing, instead of granting bonuses to rolls or being non-offensive powers useful only in certain specific circumstances. I'd lean towards there being adjustment, but it's hard to compare with all the circumstantial bonuses/nonoffensive powers, compared to the SRD dragon spell-like abilities (sure to be usable, but unlike yours, received only with scaling age). That's not a bad thing, but it's not quite like the SRD dragons and it makes it difficult for me to compare.

CinuzIta
2013-02-11, 03:01 PM
I agree with Frathe's critics, still I like the idea so please go on with these, I'd like to see more!:)

Fouredged Sword
2013-02-12, 07:38 AM
Breath weapon templates.

Breath weapons all share a set of characteristics that are mostly true across the board.

Intensity
They increase in strength based on the age category of the dragon. Most effects gain 2 dice of damage per age category, but the rule is that the effect gets more intense as the dragon ages.

Distance
The effect gain in reach per size category. The base reach of a dragons breath weapon is as follows.
Tiny 30 ft
Small 40 ft
Medium 60 ft
Large 80 ft
Huge 100 ft
Gargantuan 120 ft
Colossal 140 ft
For clarity this range is refereed to as X
Line effects are X long. Cone effects are X*.5 long. Burst effects area a x/6 radius burst centered out to X distance from the dragon. Point or targeted effects have range of X*2

There are exceptions to these guidelines. For every added twist that makes the area harder to avoid, the range decreases one step, from 2X, to X, to .5X to .25X. An effect that penetrates cover would be one step smaller, so would an effect that lingers.


Use delay and activation time

These abilities are not intended to be used every round of combat. Most abilities require the dragon to wait 1d4 rounds between uses. This should be a fairly hard rule, and if it is bypassed, should be replaced with a stiff penalty that restricts the use.

The use of an ability should be a standard action, unless the ability is not offensive.


Saves/avoidance
No ability should be without some way to avoid it. All effects should allow a save to negate (or reflex for half) or require an attack roll. The exceptions are defensive abilities that effect the dragon itself.

Abilities should be powerful enough that the dragon is smart to consider the ability every time it refreshes.

Here are some sample abilities.

Base energy damage

Many dragons have a simple damaging breath weapon.
The base energy types and their bonuses effects are as follows

Fire - Fire - 1d8 damage die
Water - Cold - Fort for half rather than reflex for half
Earth - Acid - Ignores hardness of objects
Air - Lightning - -2 to saves of those in metal armor, or +2 to attack rolls vs those targets

The range is ether a line, a cone, a burst, or a targeted shot.

This ability can be used once every 1d4 rounds and the save is 0 + ½ dragon’s HD + dragon’s Con modifier.


More breath weapons to be posted into this post later....

Sonic Spike

Dragon Types - Earth
Base Damage - Xd6, 2 die per age category, sonic damage
range - Line X/2
A sonic spike is a short lance of pure sound that passes through all in it's path. A sonic spike ignores hardness and cover of all kinds, passing through everything but force effects such as a wall of force.

After using the sonic spike the dragon must wait 1d4 rounds before using it again.

Earth dragons with this breath fill their caves with walls and pillars that they can duck behind and blast through.

Though rare, this ability sometimes manifests as a cone, in which case the rage is as follows
range - cone x/4


Telekinetic Slam

Dragon Types - Any
Damage - one 2d6+int attack per age category
Range - reach up to x/2
A telekinetic dragon may, as a standard action, make one telekinetic slam attack per age category. Each slam is counted as a melee attack (NOT a touch attack), and can be used with any feat that can be applied to melee attacks, such as power attack. The attack bonus of the telekinetic slam is the base attack bonus of the dragon + any int modifier it may have. The damage is 2d6+int per attack. The attacks may be used to preform combat maneuvers such as trips, bull rushes, disarms, or other forms of special attack actions. After using telekinetic slams the dragon must wait 1d4 rounds before using them again. They must be used as a standard action, and may not be used in a full attack action.
Kicker - Dragons who have telekinetic slams have -2 natural armor, but gain a extra fly speed of 20(perfect) regardless of their type or age

Fouredged Sword
2013-02-12, 11:46 AM
Added water dragons. They are nasty creatures who fight using ambush and charges. The first and last part of it you see is likely the massive horn that grows on the bridge of it's nose.

Frathe
2013-02-12, 02:29 PM
These are pretty nice! One small question: isn't vulnerability 1.5x (+50% damage)?

Fouredged Sword
2013-02-12, 03:16 PM
You are correct. I will fix it later.

Also the idea of earth dragons is that electrical charge passes through them much the same way metal objects are vulnerable to electrical attacks. Air dragons are weak vs acid in turn. There are opposed dichotomies set up in Dnd, rather than circular rock paper scissor arrangements, and I see no reason to fight it.

Fouredged Sword
2013-02-12, 06:24 PM
Some breath weapons to much on.