Zombie Dragons and casting

[Illven]

Under the Zombie dragon template, it mentions that you only lose Supernatural and spell like special attacks, as well as any special attack that works off of charisma. So if I can make spells work off of not charisma, I should keep the spells.

My question, is if the base dragon had arcane disciple, is that enough to keep spells?

If not, how do I change the casting stat (If possible)

[rweird]

Some sovereign archetypes can switch sorcerer casting to cleric or wizard (Dragons of Eberron). I think some third party book has the feat "Lost Traditions" which allows you to switch your ability score for casting with any other. Giving it class levels I think would work too (though with Int being a non-ability, you should probably get wisdom based casting anyways).

[Deophaun]

Zombies have no intelligence. They aren't going to be getting any feats, so no Arcane Disciple. And they aren't going to be able to speak, so no verbal components. And as its mindless, I have no idea how it would even know to use somatic or material components.

[Illven]

awaken undead for the intelligence.

Also which archetype is it?

[WhamBamSam]

None of the Sovereign Archetypes do that. He's thinking of the Spellhoarding Dragon Psychosis from Dragon 313. There's also the Riddled Psychosis (also Dragon 313, natch), which makes the Sorc casting key off Int instead of Cha.

[Illven]

None of the Sovereign Archetypes do that. He's thinking of the Spellhoarding Dragon Psychosis from Dragon 313. There's also the Riddled Psychosis (also Dragon 313, natch), which makes the Sorc casting key off Int instead of Cha.

What are those exactly?

[WhamBamSam]

Dragon Psychoses are various forms of insanity that dragons can contract, which give them superpowers in the form of templates.

Reading through the article again, it seems like it might be difficult to make a dragon contract them if this is a necromancy pet project your mad wizard is engaging in as opposed to something you're doing as a DM. A dragon becomes Riddled by being consumed by its fascination with puzzles, and it becomes Spellhoarding by being really, really, just all about arcane magic.

[Illven]

Hmmm. Riddled doesn't work, because it's ability to switch to intelligence is supernatural which the dragon would lose upon transformation into Dragon zombie. (At least depending on what order templates give their bonuses. If it's the first lines first, then riddled could work.)

Spellhording however does work.