Handling a Dragon Character stuck in human form?

[Durzan]

Okay... lets say I was a GM who was creating a character for a new player who wanted to play a dragon stuck in human form. (This concept needs to be addressed adequately in order to successfully convert fluff to crunch for a certain campaign setting of mine: Illnora, The land of the Dragon Masters.)

The Problem: If I generate the Dragon PC as your standard True Dragon (type doesn't matter too much, although the additional headaches of creating a Dragon PC are worth considering), then I could either use alternate form or Polymorph (or similar spell) to force the dragon to assume human shape. The issue here is that according to standard Polymorph rules, the character would then have average ability scores (IE all 10's and/or 11's) for their physical stats, and would still have some Dragon special abilities... when that is decidedly not what I (or this theoretical player) want as it doesn't make sense within the setting's fluff with regards to Dragons.

If I build the character as a Human, but then fluff it in that they are a dragon now stuck in human form due to a spell being placed upon them while they were in that form... well, then how the hell do I explain that in game mechanics without digging through hundreds of sourcebooks looking for just the right spells and status effects.

Tentative Solution: Alter how Polymorph effects work slightly. Instead of Polymorph effects granting physical ability scores equal to the typical monster of that race, it grants a temporary ability modifier to the physical stats of the Character roughly equal to (New Racial Modifiers + ability score size adjustments - Old Racial Modifiers) according to the monster advancement by size table.

How it effects special abilities could be tweaked based on the spell or alternate form capability.

Now then. What would be the implications of this change? If you have any suggestions for improvement or tweaking, feel free to post.

[Jirachi]

Have you looked at the Giant's homebrew regarding Polymorph? What it does to your ability scores is just remove racial effects. The only things you would retain would be the Racial spell like abilities (which, while flavorful, are distinctly unhelpful at the level you get them) and Racial Sorcerer casting.
You do want the sorcerer casting, right?
The implications don't have to be large. The homebrew fix isn't even particularily radical for what it is, and allows you to take on any form you wish, like the standard one, within HD limitations. In fact, if you have a polymorph fix already in use or are fine with as-written polymorph, you could simply modify the dragon's alternate form feature to follow those rules.
Additionally, the rules in the monster manual include an exception which gives an identical result in this case (Spells and Spell like abilities, no breath weapon) and the form that you take is the 'heroic' character with ability scores as normal (except mental, which are calculated with a decent bonus). the character should probably be considered a sorcerer of there effective sorcerer level with an LA of +1 or 2. However, you will have d12 HD...
If you are looking for a melee character, a stuck dragon isn't really a good choice, as they will maintain there racial modifiers to there mental ones an not the physical, along with complementary sorcerer casting (though convertible with a few tricks).
If your character archetype is sorcerer, you may want to give them rather low hit points per die as if they had rolled horribly to prevent a bloated LA.
For goodness sake, don't use the standard dragon rules for PCs.

[lylsyly]

As the GM of course you can do pretty much what you wish (hopefully in a consistent way, ie nor giving PCs things you don't give NPCS, ect).

Does it have to be polymorph? You say the PC is a dragon stuck in human form. So maybe the PC did something to **** off his deity, and the deity cursed him/her.

This gives you the freedom to allow above average stats where you want them, keep EX, SA, SU, SLA if you want them ... blah blah blah.

Also gives you and the player a role playing possibility (the PC has to atone, must behave a certain way, ... blah blah blah ... whatever you decide).

Actually, I like the concept and will probably steal it (ain't plagiarism grand) ;)

just my 2 coppers
YMMV

[Durzan]

As the GM of course you can do pretty much what you wish (hopefully in a consistent way, ie nor giving PCs things you don't give NPCS, ect).

Does it have to be polymorph? You say the PC is a dragon stuck in human form. So maybe the PC did something to **** off his deity, and the deity cursed him/her.

This gives you the freedom to allow above average stats where you want them, keep EX, SA, SU, SLA if you want them ... blah blah blah.

Also gives you and the player a role playing possibility (the PC has to atone, must behave a certain way, ... blah blah blah ... whatever you decide).

Actually, I like the concept and will probably steal it (ain't plagiarism grand) ;)

just my 2 coppers
YMMV

Most spells use polymorph and its cousins as the basis for transformations... hence why I was using it as a guideline.

The actual concept for this hypothetical PC is based on a story I was writing, and I kinda just wanted to figure out how to handle the setting and characters if they were PCs.

Dragons are basically creatures that can be summoned for long periods of time in this world... and keeping them in a humanoid form unless their master allows them to transform is one way of controlling them. Dragons are hardly ever casters, due to a 'curse' placed upon their race long ago for causing something called the Great Cataclysm (Dragons basically bored a hole through reality and accidentally tapped into this world's equivalent of the Abyss... called the Void... the energies of the void shattered the world, and as punishment, dragons were practically cut off from magic and cast into exile on a demi-plane, where they now are in a constant state of famine.)

For Dragons's I'm going to be using a custom made Dragon race... as True Dragons are a bit too OP for what this world is dealing with. The whole story involves dragons redeeming themselves and gaining back some of their lost power. And Illnoran Dragons are not nearly as formidable as True Dragons... though they still are fearsome opponents. The whole reason I am using True Dragons as a starting off point is cause I am basing Illnoran Dragons off of True Dragons... but powering down their abilities and adapting them to compensate for the lore.

This is why the default alternate form rules using the average statistics of the physical stats of what they are transforming into is a problem in the first place... as dragons literally cannot be spellcasters (at least not easily... in order to overcome the curse, Dragons can assume human form to bypass the curse, but doing so requires being extremely talented... AND learning how to think and act like a humanoid... a very alien concept to them.)

Yeah, its a setting that requires a lot of homebrew work on my part just to make it work with 3.5... and this is only one of the many issues. I also got to deal with races, classes, magic (I have to come up with a different magic system, as spell slots doesn't work well for Illnoran Magic), the whole nine yards. I basically have to create my own setting source book for it... or design my own RPG from scratch (I am working on that ... but decided to try building this world in 3.5 as a challenge)

Anyway, the intended idea was that the dragon character was summoned by a kindly Dragon Master (Wizards who are in charge of dealing with Dragons... usually by summoning them.), who then proceeds to teach her how to use magic. She starts off as a more martial character (due to the curse), but then is eventually able to learn spells.


Have you looked at the Giant's homebrew regarding Polymorph? What it does to your ability scores is just remove racial effects. The only things you would retain would be the Racial spell like abilities (which, while flavorful, are distinctly unhelpful at the level you get them) and Racial Sorcerer casting.


You do want the sorcerer casting, right?

The implications don't have to be large. The homebrew fix isn't even particularily radical for what it is, and allows you to take on any form you wish, like the standard one, within HD limitations. In fact, if you have a polymorph fix already in use or are fine with as-written polymorph, you could simply modify the dragon's alternate form feature to follow those rules.

Additionally, the rules in the monster manual include an exception which gives an identical result in this case (Spells and Spell like abilities, no breath weapon) and the form that you take is the 'heroic' character with ability scores as normal (except mental, which are calculated with a decent bonus). the character should probably be considered a sorcerer of there effective sorcerer level with an LA of +1 or 2. However, you will have d12 HD...

If you are looking for a melee character, a stuck dragon isn't really a good choice, as they will maintain there racial modifiers to there mental ones an not the physical, along with complementary sorcerer casting (though convertible with a few tricks).

If your character archetype is sorcerer, you may want to give them rather low hit points per die as if they had rolled horribly to prevent a bloated LA.
For goodness sake, don't use the standard dragon rules for PCs.

Do you happen to have the links to the alternate polymorph rules? those might be worth referencing.

[aimlessPolymath]

Here you go. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?172910-Articles-Previously-Appearing-on-GiantITP-com&p=9606712&viewfull=1#post9606712)