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WhamBamSam
2014-01-01, 04:34 PM
Dragonwrought Kobolds can become Dracoliches or Vampiric Dragons*. I'm rather fond of pointing this out when presented with the subject of martial Liches or Vampire PCs.

Feel free to discuss cool tricks that might follow from this, but I'm most interested in a RAW issue that arises once one of these templates is applied.

Simply put, what type is the kobold?

If the template were applied to an everyday dragon, the type would change to undead, but Dragonwrought isn't a race. It's a feat. More to the point it's a feat which is still active (as you are still a kobold and hence still qualify for it), and which says it changes your type to dragon.

So does the type change stick, or does the feat change your type back to Dragon after the template changes it to Undead. The templates both include all the undead immunities and traits, so retaining the Dragon type would be more powerful because it leaves the usual Dragonwrought cheese options open. Obviously the RAI would be that the kobold now has the undead type, but I'm curious if anyone has any insight into how the RAW works.

*Before anyone says anything, this doesn't require them to be True Dragons. Dracolich requires "any evil dragon" and Vampiric Dragon requires a "dragon of at least adult age," so an Evil Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold is good to go for either one.

Ralcos
2014-01-01, 04:44 PM
I think you'll be fine.
Normal Kobolds are Reptiles and Dragonblood. Adding Dragonwrought makes it a Dragon (while removing the Dragonblood type).

EDIT: Also, I assume that Undead is a subtype in this case.

Ruethgar
2014-01-01, 05:00 PM
Savage Species has undead and construct overriding the dragon type, as vampiric and lichdom would occur after dragonwrought, I believe the dragon type would be removed by those templates, at the very most you would be an undead augmented dragon.

WhamBamSam
2014-01-01, 05:13 PM
Savage Species has undead and construct overriding the dragon type, as vampiric and lichdom would occur after dragonwrought, I believe the dragon type would be removed by those templates, at the very most you would be an undead augmented dragon.I've heard it said that the type pyramid doesn't apply after the 3.5 conversion because of how the primary source rules work and problems of specific trumping general.

The issue that makes me unsure is that you still have the feat after applying the template. That is, you have an (Ex) ability on your "undead" creature, that says its type is dragon. There wouldn't be any issue if I were making something a Half-Dragon and then a Dracolich, but there might be differences in this case where the dragon type is coming from a feat.