Lowering Dragon CR

[PelicanOfDeath]

Alright, so this is a follow-up to my previous thread on obtaining dragons as animal companions, familiars, and other critters allied with you (the post is called "How to obtain dragons?").

So, I can take creatures as followers of CR 1, 2, and 3 with leadership. I want these creatures to be wyrmling dragons, which have a natural CR of, on average, 3. The scale for dragons with leadership is CR+8. I need to lower a dragon's CR by at least 8. How can I do this?

[magicalmagicman]

CR is not ECL. I'm afraid your entire plan is out the window.

ECL = effective character level = hit die + level adjustment

Weakest is a white dragon wyrmling, which is 3hd and +2 level adjustment, so you need to leadership score of at least 7 to get one.

Leadership score is your level + charisma modifier.

Dragon Cohort from Draconomicon lets you treat the dragon as -3 ECL, but you need to be level 9 to take it.

[PelicanOfDeath]

Then are there any methods to lower level adjustment through some other means?

[magicalmagicman]

I'm not an expert on leadership and such so I can't really help you there.

Oh and I also forgot to add that no matter what your leadership level is, you can only have a cohort whose ECL is 2 levels lower than yours. So you must be level 7 to have the weakest dragon cohort in the game.

[Bohandas]

Does it have to be a true dragon? I think pseudodragons, dragonets, and draconic creatures dip lower in CR than true dragons

[Eloel]

CR is not ECL. I'm afraid your entire plan is out the window.

In Pathfinder, they are one and the same. OP should probably specify system.

[ATHATH]

The only, and I mean ONLY (not even in an obscure Dragon or Dungeon article), non-third party ways to reduce LA are LA Buyoff and the Incarnate Construct template.

Does anything with the Dragon type count? If so, a Dragonwrought Kobold could work (give it some draconic heritage feats and levels in Dragonfire Adept to make it more "Dragon-ey").

[WhamBamSam]

The Dragon Cohort feat in Draconomicon reduces the ECL of a dragon cohort by 3.

If we're dealing with CR (say if you're playing 3.P or something), there is actually a way to reduce CR for dragons. The Ravening Dragon Psychosis from Dragon Magazine 313 can cause a dragon to take Con drain if it doesn't eat enough, and the dragon's CR is reduced by 1 per 4 points of Con lost. This is not an ideal way to reduce CR however, especially as the Ravening template is focused around breath blasting. Technically, the dragon's CR doesn't actually seem go back up if the Con drain gets healed, so you can reduce CR arbitrarily if the dragon has a level of Binder or something, but that's taking a sharp turn into TO territory.

[PelicanOfDeath]

Sorry. Yes, I am refering to PF rules, although my DM has ruled that I may convert 3.x things over at will.

It should also be noted that I am refering to followers, not cohorts, which is why I need the ECL so low. My cohort is currently a Wyrmling Gold Dragon because my leadership score is insanely high (17 at level 7, treated as 19 for followers).