Undead Dragon Optimization help

[Schattenbach]

Hello,

for the first campaign I'm planning to DM, I'm currently looking for some kind of Undead Dragon (that isn't all bones) that's both workable as NPC character (as partner and mount of another NPC ... caster-type) and optional boss encounter and I've currently set my eyes on applying the Mummy template on some Young Red Dragon (according to the template itself, it apperantly works on most things) as well as adding some class levels on top of that to end up with a considerable threat for non-Epic characters.

I'm kind of confused about what Stat modifiers that kind of (young red) dragon actually gets, though, and what feats and class levels to add to that character to add afterwards, though.

The character is supposed to be kind of brutish in melee but I would kind of dislike gimping its casting too much (so it should possess at least .

Has someone any good suggestions?

[Eldariel]

Draconomicon contains some good Undead Dragon Templates. There's Vampiric Dragon for a Dragon that maintains most of its abilities but is undead; Zombie Dragon and Skeletal Dragon lose most of their abilities but are quite strong physically. Then there's Ghostly Dragon which is probably not what you're looking for if you want a brute. If you want to run it as is, I'd go for a Vampiric Dragon personally. Those things are pretty awesome.

Mummy in PHB is not a template. There's Mummified-template in Libris Mortis but that can't normally be applied to Dragons. Note that default Undead templates are kinda cruddy for Dragons as they tend towards high Con and losing that is kind of a big deal and the Undead-type is a rather big downgrade from the Dragon-type far as stats go. They get some immunities but with their normal saves, they rarely would have to worry about such abilities anyways.

Anyways, if we bypass that limitation a Young Mummified Red Dragon would have the following:
Large undead (augmented dragon)
84 HP (13d12)
AC 23 (10 + 2 Dex + 12 Natural Armor - 1 Size); Damage Reduction 5/-
30', 150' Fly (poor)
Touch 11, Flat-Footed 21
Fort +8, Ref +10, Will +11; Undead immunities, vulnerability to fire, immunity to fire, vulnerability to cold

Dragon senses (Super Darkvision, Super LLV, Blindsense, yaddayaddayadda)

Bite +23 for 2d8+11 and 2 Claws +18 for 1d8+5 and 2 Wings +18 for 1d6+5 and Tail +18 1d8+16 OR Slam +23 for 2d6+16
Mummy Rot (Su) on hit, save DC 19
Despair (Su): On sight, DC 19 Will or be paralyzed with fear for 1d4 rounds.
Breath Weapon (Su): DC 19, 40' Cone of Fire for 6d10 damage.

1st level Sorcerer casting.

13 BAB/+28 Grapple

Str 33
Dex 14
Con -
Int 8
Wis 17
Cha 16

Thus, any non-Int casting class is fine. That said, that's really darn strong for a companion. In general, Red Dragon (and the other higher order Dragons) tend to produce physically very imposing creatures. Feats, it's totally up in the air. Anything goes. Dragons can go for movement, utility, combat. If you build it into casting, it can go that way too.

[A_S]

I'm assuming you're using the Mummified Creature template from Libris Mortis (since the basic Mummy from the Monster Manual is a specific creature, not a template), even though it can't normally be applied to dragons.

First off, some important reading: Urpriest's Monstrous Monster Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?207928-Urpriest-s-Monstrous-Monster-Handbook[/URL), the most important resource ever written about creating 3.5 monsters. Any questions you have about how monster hit dice, templates, and class levels interact are almost certainly answered in there.

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Now, as for this particular monster: You're starting with a young Red Dragon, which, according to its SRD entry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm) has the following stats:

STR 25, DEX 10, CON 17, INT 12, WIS 13, CHA 12

Then you're applying the Mummified Creature template, which gives +8 str, -4 int, +4 wis, +4 cha, and grants the Undead type, which removes your con score. So that means after applying the template, your dragon mummy's stats are:

STR 33, DEX 10, CON -, INT 8, WIS 17, CHA 16

These are the stats of the average Mummified Young Red Dragon. If you wish to stat out an exceptional Mummified Young Red Dragon (which would make sense, given that this is a boss encounter that you're giving class levels), you may wish to use the elite array (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm), rather than average stats. To do this, you convert your creature's stats to stat modifiers by subtracting 10 (for even ability scores) or 11 (for odd ability scores) to reverse-engineer the bonuses. This gets you:

STR +22, Dex +0, CON -, INT -2, WIS +6, CHA +6

Then you take the elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8), assign them to the stats you want, and apply your reverse-engineered bonuses to them as you see fit. So, if you want your dragon to be a bruiser who's good at spellcasting but kind of dumb, you might order your stats as (15, 12, 8, 13, 10, 14), yielding the following final stats for your creature:

STR 27, Dex 14, CON -, INT 11, WIS 16, CHA 20

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Now, all of that is before you add class levels. Monsters don't receive ability score increases for the hit dice that are included in their base stat block, but monsters who advance by adding additional hit dice or class levels gain a +1 bonus to an ability score on levels when their total hit dice is a multiple of four, just like PC's do. Your dragon mummy has 13 hit dice to start off. If it takes three levels in (say) Sorcerer, then it will have a total of 16 hit dice, and gain an ability score increase (it could increase its Str to 28, for instance).

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Now, optimization advice:
A Young Red Dragon has pretty crappy casting (it casts as a level 1 Sorcerer). So, if you want its casting to be at all relevant, any class levels you add should be in Sorcerer, or something that advances Sorcerer casting. You could also add the Loredrake sovereign archetype from Dragons of Eberron, which would give +2 levels of Sorcerer casting for free (the normal cost is that it reduces your hit dice to d10's, but the Mummified Creature template would turn those d10's back into d12's).
Metabreath feats, and other stuff that improves breath attacks (like Entangling Exhalation) can be very strong on dragons.
Your dragon has quite a few natural attacks. If you want to be a melee bruiser, consider the (Improved) Rapidstrike feat line. You might also want to look for a way to get pounce, like a 1-level dip in Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian.
Giving your dragon a mouthpick weapon can allow it a full armed attack routine in addition to its natural weapons.
A piece of advice that isn't really about the dragon's build: If you want this to be a fun encounter, I would add some additional, weaker creatures to the fight. Single, big solo enemies are too easy to take down in 3.5 by way of action economy advantage. Give it some Zombie Wyrmling friends or something.

[Ruethgar]

Be sure to add the Spellstitched template with that much Wis, also Loredrake could be good if you wanted the casting to be not so gimped.

[Draconium]

Hello,

for the first campaign I'm planning to DM, I'm currently looking for some kind of Undead Dragon (that isn't all bones) that's both workable as NPC character (as partner and mount of another NPC ... caster-type) and optional boss encounter and I've currently set my eyes on applying the Mummy template on some Young Red Dragon (according to the template itself, it apperantly works on most things) as well as adding some class levels on top of that to end up with a considerable threat for non-Epic characters.

The part I emphasized here is what confuses me. You want this character to be a threat to characters of 20th level and below, but you're using a CR 7 dragon as the base. I mean, dragons with class levels can be a pain to deal with, don't get me wrong. But you don't really seem to have a specified CR range for it, which makes it a bit hard to deduce exactly how difficult of a fight you're looking for. So may I ask what level you plan to have the party fight it, if at all?

Also, why are you going with undead? Because for NPCs, it really screws over players like the Rogue, who can't use their main features against it, while making it easier on the Fighter-types due to them having less HP to soak up damage with. Not to mention that dragons - especially younger ones - have far less reason roleplay-wise to become undead than humanoids, due to being able to live for thousands of years. I get that it may not be a choice, and it may just be bias talking, but I really just don't see the reason to bother with going undead for it.

[Schattenbach]

Thanks for the answers.


Draconomicon contains some good Undead Dragon Templates. There's Vampiric Dragon for a Dragon that maintains most of its abilities but is undead; Zombie Dragon and Skeletal Dragon lose most of their abilities but are quite strong physically. Then there's Ghostly Dragon which is probably not what you're looking for if you want a brute. If you want to run it as is, I'd go for a Vampiric Dragon personally. Those things are pretty awesome.

That vampire dragon template sure looks nice. I didn't really take note of them beforet. It looks like they have to be at least adults, though.

And ... besides the vampire weaknesses ... at least that is the way it looks to me ... they have to relocate their "coffin" (pile of treasure) often if they actually travel around, I guess?

Either way, their fluff (besides they're slightly weaker physically and require more dragon RHD) looks nice but adult sized huge dragons complicate things a little bit unless the dragon some decent means of altering its size/taking on some kind of humanoid form.

On another note ... The dragon keeps the immunities of his original subtype, but how are things in regard to the weaknesses/vulnerabilities of his original subtype?


Thus, any non-Int casting class is fine. That said, that's really darn strong for a companion. In general, Red Dragon (and the other higher order Dragons) tend to produce physically very imposing creatures. Feats, it's totally up in the air. Anything goes. Dragons can go for movement, utility, combat. If you build it into casting, it can go that way too.

Any (dragon specific) feats (to boost defense, for combat and movement) dragons should take if they can?


First off, some important reading:

Thanks for posting that link. Very helpful.


Now, all of that is before you add class levels. Monsters don't receive ability score increases for the hit dice that are included in their base stat block, but monsters who advance by adding additional hit dice or class levels gain a +1 bonus to an ability score on levels when their total hit dice is a multiple of four, just like PC's do. Your dragon mummy has 13 hit dice to start off. If it takes three levels in (say) Sorcerer, then it will have a total of 16 hit dice, and gain an ability score increase (it could increase its Str to 28, for instance).

-----

Now, optimization advice:
A Young Red Dragon has pretty crappy casting (it casts as a level 1 Sorcerer). So, if you want its casting to be at all relevant, any class levels you add should be in Sorcerer, or something that advances Sorcerer casting. You could also add the Loredrake sovereign archetype from Dragons of Eberron, which would give +2 levels of Sorcerer casting for free (the normal cost is that it reduces your hit dice to d10's, but the Mummified Creature template would turn those d10's back into d12's).
Metabreath feats, and other stuff that improves breath attacks (like Entangling Exhalation) can be very strong on dragons.
Your dragon has quite a few natural attacks. If you want to be a melee bruiser, consider the (Improved) Rapidstrike feat line. You might also want to look for a way to get pounce, like a 1-level dip in Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian.
Giving your dragon a mouthpick weapon can allow it a full armed attack routine in addition to its natural weapons.
A piece of advice that isn't really about the dragon's build: If you want this to be a fun encounter, I would add some additional, weaker creatures to the fight. Single, big solo enemies are too easy to take down in 3.5 by way of action economy advantage. Give it some Zombie Wyrmling friends or something.


1.1.) Sorcerer AB and HD are quite horrible (especially when sorcerer don't really get any class feature) ... I guess I will look into useful Sorcerer PrC that only need as few as possiple sorcerer levels to qualify as possible.
1.2.) I didn't know that applying templates would work that way. Seems quite useful.
2.) Thanks for the tip about the Metabreath feats, I will look into it. Which other Metabreath feats could be considered to be good?
3.) Which source is Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian from?
5.) Yeah, that would be for the best ... as a standalone target, there really isn't much he could to against prepared players other than being put out of action and slowly grinded to death. If he isn't caught off-guard, he will have access to quite a few undead soldiers from the Lich Empire he works with. As he's also (not always, though, but often enough) partnered with an ECL 27 Master of Shroudes; well, more like ... 22 caster-type class Levels + LA+5 ...), there shouldn't be an issue when it comes to that.



Thus, any non-Int casting class is fine. That said, that's really darn strong for a companion.


The part I emphasized here is what confuses me. You want this character to be a threat to characters of 20th level and below, but you're using a CR 7 dragon as the base. I mean, dragons with class levels can be a pain to deal with, don't get me wrong. But you don't really seem to have a specified CR range for it, which makes it a bit hard to deduce exactly how difficult of a fight you're looking for. So may I ask what level you plan to have the party fight it, if at all?

Also, why are you going with undead? Because for NPCs, it really screws over players like the Rogue, who can't use their main features against it, while making it easier on the Fighter-types due to them having less HP to soak up damage with. Not to mention that dragons - especially younger ones - have far less reason roleplay-wise to become undead than humanoids, due to being able to live for thousands of years. I get that it may not be a choice, and it may just be bias talking, but I really just don't see the reason to bother with going undead for it.

It's basically a "summoned/reborn into another world (with cheats ... that take the form of templates)" web novel-like plotline with a few twists to it. Basically, the characters are from some other multiverse (that is very much like our own) and are send over to fix the problems going rampant in the world they've been summoned/reborn into (well, they have to ... otherwise the world might end up destroyed and they're screwed over as well) as well as to entertain the Overgod (which that dragon serves) that actually send them over to that World. Well, that pretty much sums it up.

So the reason that NPC is supposed to be undead isn't to annoy Rogues and such but because he belongs to an Lich Empire and was forcefully persuaded to become that way.

The players start with ECL 18 (10 Class Levels as well as up to 8 ECL made up of LA and/or RHD) and I'm planning to manage things so that their high LA won't really cripple them that much.

I don't really know if that dragon is ever going to be put in a live-or-death match against the PCs (although he might beat them up if they try without being sufficiently prepared for it), though, as it's up to them if they actually want to take it on for real (for whatever reason they might find) ... or irritate it too much.

[A_S]

2.) Thanks for the tip about the Metabreath feats, I will look into it. Which other Metabreath feats could be considered to be good?
Well, I was going to suggest Quicken Breath and Clinging Breath, but they both have Con prerequisites, so being undead keeps you from using them. So, probably just Entangling Exhalation, in that case.


3.) Which source is Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian from?
It's an ACF in Complete Champion.

[Schattenbach]

After giving it quite a bit of consideration, I've decided that I like tha vampire dragon version quite a bit ...

... and thus I decided to integrate it in the character concept, rewritting it in the process quite a bit, thought that resulted in it being less of a brute than originally intended (so it actually got decent supernatural utility).

When taking its identity as (adult) vampire dragon into account, I've decided to change it into some other kind of dragon and thus set my eyes on the psionic (well, they are psionic to begin with ... though the point is ... I don't really like Sorcerer Casting all that much when it comes to this character, Divine Casting doesn't really suites it either ... Spellhoarding is still an option, though) might make it end up too powerful ... ) Gem Dragons (I'm talking about their MM2 version, though it seems that there might other versions out there, any other besides that one in the Psionic Handbook Web Enhanchment, I would still need to look up ... do they appear in some updated form somewhere?). Out of all of them, the Smaragd Dragon looks the best to me (design wise as well as in regard to what it puts on the table with its breath attack, movement modi, overall stats, natural immunity, ecetera), though Sapphire Dragon and Amethyst Dragon both sure look like quite the nice find to me, too (well, Shadow Dragon, in its own odd way, looks quite nice, too, but I think I'm going to recycle that concept later on in some other way).

I'm still not to sure if that Vampiric Emerald dragon should go the INT or CHA focused manifester route (INT looks plainly stronger to me, but CHA adds to plenty of templates ... like Vampiric Dragon, Spellstiched, ecetera ... in one way or another), though. Hm ...

As for feats ... Hover, Flyby Attack, Great Flyby Attack, Rapidstrike, Improved Rapidstrike, Entangling Exhalation, Flyby Breath ... already look quite useful. Hm .. what to add?

How useful is Improved Maneuverability?

Breath of Unlife might resolve some of the issues associated with the lack of CON, I guess, though I don't remember Negative Energy Immunity being particulary difficult to get access to.