Dragon Starting Stats.

[Ranting Fool]

Been thinking of making a few dragons for my "Thousand Islands" part of my campaign world where the heroes are at the moment and been wondering.....

Do Dragon's all have the same stats? If not is there somewhere which shows their starting stats and how they progress.

E.g
An Adult Blue Dragon has

Str 27
Dex 10
Con 21
Int 16
Wis 17
Cha 16

[Urpriest]

Been thinking of making a few dragons for my "Thousand Islands" part of my campaign world where the heroes are at the moment and been wondering.....

Do Dragon's all have the same stats? If not is there somewhere which shows their starting stats and how they progress.

E.g
An Adult Blue Dragon has

Str 27
Dex 10
Con 21
Int 16
Wis 17
Cha 16

What do you mean by "starting stats"? The stats for Dragons are all right there in their entries. Do you mean something different?

[Shining Wrath]

SRD - Dragons (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm)
For example, a white dragon wyrmling has

Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
11 10 13 6 11 6

while a gold dragon great wyrm has

Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
47 10 33 32 33 32

[Ranting Fool]

Hey guys thanks for the reply but I'm sorry I don't think I was clear enough.

Say you are making a Goblin, you can use the Standard Array (which is the goblin in the book) or an Elite Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. recommended for monsters with Class levels) and you then chuck on the racial mods (–2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, –2 Charisma) and depending on how you used the array.

Example.

Elite Goblin 1
Str: 6
Con: 10
Dex: 14
Wis: 14
Int:15
Cha.:11

Elite Goblin 2
Str : 13
Con: 13
Dex: 16
Wis: 12
Int: 10
Cha: 6


So is there (in one of the few dragon related books I've not gone through yet) dragon stat progression as they level (i.e +2 str, +4 int +1 wis when they change from young to adult) or just the fixed stats listed

[Urpriest]

Hey guys thanks for the reply but I'm sorry I don't think I was clear enough.

Say you are making a Goblin, you can use the Standard Array (which is the goblin in the book) or an Elite Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. recommended for monsters with Class levels) and you then chuck on the racial mods (–2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, –2 Charisma) and depending on how you used the array.

Example.

Elite Goblin 1
Str: 6
Con: 10
Dex: 14
Wis: 14
Int:15
Cha.:11

Elite Goblin 2
Str : 13
Con: 13
Dex: 16
Wis: 12
Int: 10
Cha: 6


So is there (in one of the few dragon related books I've not gone through yet) dragon stat progression as they level (i.e +2 str, +4 int +1 wis when they change from young to adult) or just the fixed stats listed

All monsters in the monster manual (except a few humanoids that are explicitly listed as such) are assumed to use a flat stat array of 11s and 10s. Dragons are no different.

If you're not familiar with how to get stat bonuses out of monster statblocks in general, then you probably haven't read (or don't remember) the material in my Monster Handbook, link in sig.

[Talos]

ok I got this from the MM.3.5 Page 5-6 under abilities.

except where noted otherwise, each creature is assumed to have the standard array of ability scores before racial adjustments( all 11's and 10's). To determine any creatures racial ability adjustments, subtract 10 from any even numbered score and subtract 11 from any odd numbered score.


in your example above the young adult blue dragon would str +16, Dex 0, con +10, int +6, Wis +6 chr +6.
so when you make stats from scratch with this dragon role your 3d6 or 4d6 drop the lowest how ever you do it and add those bonus' to it.

[Ranting Fool]

ok I got this from the MM.3.5 Page 5-6 under abilities.

except where noted otherwise, each creature is assumed to have the standard array of ability scores before racial adjustments( all 11's and 10's). To determine any creatures racial ability adjustments, subtract 10 from any even numbered score and subtract 11 from any odd numbered score.


in your example above the young adult blue dragon would str +16, Dex 0, con +10, int +6, Wis +6 chr +6.
so when you make stats from scratch with this dragon role your 3d6 or 4d6 drop the lowest how ever you do it and add those bonus' to it.

Thanks for that, so I could make an "Elite" array dragon easy enough. and Just add the changes from the book.

[Urpriest]

Thanks for that, so I could make an "Elite" array dragon easy enough. and Just add the changes from the book.

Yup. Just replace the 10s and 11s with the elite array base stats, and add one to the CR (or nothing if you're also giving it class levels). You can do this with any monster.

[Vaz]

Firstly read UP's handbook.
Have a break.
Resd it again.
Make a dragon step by step
Have a break.
Read it again.
Compare and check off each step on your dragon.

Remember that adviancing class hd does not advance a Dragons Racial HD, from which they gain their size, breath weapons, spellcasting, and other abilities from.

That said; Sorcerer levels stack with a dragons racial spellcasting.

[Ranting Fool]

Firstly read UP's handbook.
Have a break.
Resd it again.
Make a dragon step by step
Have a break.
Read it again.
Compare and check off each step on your dragon.

Remember that adviancing class hd does not advance a Dragons Racial HD, from which they gain their size, breath weapons, spellcasting, and other abilities from.

That said; Sorcerer levels stack with a dragons racial spellcasting.

Thanks I had forgotten about this (which I bookmarked AGES ago)

[Ranting Fool]

Now if I were feeling like a right bastard I'd some of these Dragons the same point buy as our plucky heroes :smallbiggrin: *Evil*

But no a slight change in some stats for a bit of a challenge and a brake in player meta gaming knowledge (Dragon DC is X! Because I read it in the MM)

[Vaz]

This is where Breath Weapon subsitution or admixture comes in.

'Lets go fight the Red Dragon in his Volcanic lair' suddenly turns from 'ah warm and toasty' into 'aah acid is burning my face offblublublublub'.

People are surprised when having read the Monster Manual for metsgaming/cheating that a Dragon no longer has Lightning Reflexes, and instead has a similar sort of optimization ceiling that the PC's are based on, and have prepared their base with Illusionary floors over acid pools.

Other ways of changing them include giving them different casting; for example Gem dragons with Psionic 'casting'.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Now if I were feeling like a right bastard I'd some of these Dragons the same point buy as our plucky heroes :smallbiggrin: *Evil*

But no a slight change in some stats for a bit of a challenge and a brake in player meta gaming knowledge (Dragon DC is X! Because I read it in the MM)

Customizing feats also helps with this. Ability Focus can increase the save DC. Take it twice, apply one to the breath weapon and another to the frightful presence. Check sources like Dragon Magic and Dragonomicon for dragon related feats.

[Coidzor]

Do Dragon's all have the same stats? If not is there somewhere which shows their starting stats and how they progress.

Only if you don't give them anything other than the standard array. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#abilityScoreArrays) If you generate ability scores for them, then they just all have the same racial modifers to their ability scores


Monsters are assumed to have completely average (or standard) ability scores—a 10 or an 11 in each ability, as modified by their racial bonuses.


E.g
An Adult Blue Dragon has

Str 27
Dex 10
Con 21
Int 16
Wis 17
Cha 16

If you wanted to just go with it having the standard array of 10, 10, 10, 11, 11, 11, that's what you'd go with. If you wanted to give this Adult Blue Dragon the nonelite array or elite array or point buy or roll for its stats, you'd distribute those scores and then add +16 to Str, +0 to Dex, +10 to Con, +6 to Int, +6 to Wis, and +6 to Cha. Giving it better base ability scores before its racial modifiers will generally result in a CR increase if I recall the guidelines correctly.

Like any other creature in the monster manual, you can reverse engineer their stats by subtracting 10 from their even stats and 11 from their odd stats. Though you also have to remember how the +1 to an ability score for every 4 HD was distributed, generally best to assume it went to the highest ability score. Base Adult Blue Dragon has 21 HD. So that's 5 points to its ability scores. Which make the ability scores a bit weird because there are 3 odd ability scores, but adding 5 to one of them would have made it even and adding 5 to one of the even scores would have made it odd, so the dragon should have either 2 or 4 odd ability scores given that.

So you can either assume A. they forgot to add in the increases to ability scores from HD or B. one of the other ability scores should be odd and strength is even and received the +5 and so it's actually a 22 strength without that and thus a +12 racial modifier to Strength. (Ok, some of that is going to be size (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#sizeIncreases), actually, and there's definitely a racial bonus to dexterity to counteract the size penalty to dexterity for going from Medium to Large if they have a Medium sized life stage as well as for going from Large to Huge.)

Just remember, the more you customize and improve the tactics or base abilities of a creature, the more of a challenge it becomes along the CR and EL system.


Other ways of changing them include giving them different casting; for example Gem dragons with Psionic 'casting'.

We prefer manifesting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm). :smalltongue:


Firstly read UP's handbook.
Have a break.
Resd it again.
Make a dragon step by step
Have a break.
Read it again.
Compare and check off each step on your dragon.

Remember that adviancing class hd does not advance a Dragons Racial HD, from which they gain their size, breath weapons, spellcasting, and other abilities from.

That said; Sorcerer levels stack with a dragons racial spellcasting.

Also, bone up on Sovereign Archetypes and Dragon Psychoses for extra fun. This Dragon Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303204-The-Truest-of-the-True-A-Handbook-to-non-Kobold-Dragons-%28WIP%29) is geared primarily towards players but should also be useful.

And they can qualify for certain Prestige Classes out of the box without having to take any levels in base classes.

[Urpriest]

Like any other creature in the monster manual, you can reverse engineer their stats by subtracting 10 from their even stats and 11 from their odd stats. Though you also have to remember how the +1 to an ability score for every 4 HD was distributed, generally best to assume it went to the highest ability score. Base Adult Blue Dragon has 21 HD. So that's 5 points to its ability scores. Which make the ability scores a bit weird because there are 3 odd ability scores, but adding 5 to one of them would have made it even and adding 5 to one of the even scores would have made it odd, so the dragon should have either 2 or 4 odd ability scores given that.

So you can either assume A. they forgot to add in the increases to ability scores from HD or B. one of the other ability scores should be odd and strength is even and received the +5 and so it's actually a 22 strength without that and thus a +12 racial modifier to Strength. (Ok, some of that is going to be size (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#sizeIncreases), actually, and there's definitely a racial bonus to dexterity to counteract the size penalty to dexterity for going from Medium to Large if they have a Medium sized life stage as well as for going from Large to Huge.)

In general, you aren't supposed to apply the ability score increases gained during RHD. There's a sense in which they're factored in to the racial ability bonuses, but since the base array doesn't have a varying number of 10s and 11s this is only approximate. Really, you just ignore the "past bonuses", and start giving them when the dragon hits the next multiple of 4HD.