Savage species: if I turn into a dragon puppy...

[Conradine]

If I trun a character into a young dragon ( "young" as generic term, not the age cathegory ) he will grow with time, up to becoming a might Great Wyrm?

And if it's a multiheaded dragon will he develope more and more heads while aging and becoming bigger?

[Kalkra]

I came for puppies. Where are the puppies?

With regards to your question, aging and polymorph effects are never really addressed to the best of my knowledge, but I'd allow it, although it seems a lot more appropriate for an NPC due to the time frame and RHD.

[Ashtagon]

Two months of solid adventuring gets you from level 1 to 20 (4 encounters per day; 13 1/3 encounters per level). It takes a couple of decades for dragons to go through two or more age categories. I mean, I guess this could be a working plan depending on your campaign, but it seems easier just to level up the old-fashioned way.

If I were GMing a campaign with such a character, I'd rule that the character increases their LA penalty as appropriate for the new age category when the dragon "ages up".

[HouseRules]

If it gain multiple heads, will that be an Ogre Battle's "Hell Hound" and then a Cerberus?
Or would it be a "Hydra"?

[Buufreak]

Puppies or riot!

Seriously though, there is nothing in dragon's typing or the multi head template that would cause more heads with age.

[Efrate]

Warren's puppy was a good doggo. Only kept 1 usually. Maybe more in hardtype.

Barring a fast time plane if you want to dragon up it it is unlikely that you will gain much in the way of age categories. Time frame is something like 100 years an age category iirc, more on the higher end than the lower end, but thats roughly what you expect to gain 3 or 4 HD in? I think 100 to 1 is the fastest plane normally, so you would need a 100 to 1 demiplane on 100 to 1 plane (or a 10 to 1) to progress apace. You also run the risk of blowing past your party, because dragons can get epic feats earlier than most.

Provided it is an npc, you could design a ritual to get more heads like the multi headed templates, but if you are just growing old you do not have the experience and gold.

[Remuko]

If you turn them into a true dragon, yeah they should age as a true dragon including gaining HD and age/size categories as they grow older. Multi-headed is a template and you dont ever get more heads than the template gives you unless you apply it more than once (afaik), so no, they would never grow more heads than they had originally.

[HouseRules]

Warren's puppy was a good doggo. Only kept 1 usually. Maybe more in hardtype.

Barring a fast time plane if you want to dragon up it it is unlikely that you will gain much in the way of age categories. Time frame is something like 100 years an age category iirc, more on the higher end than the lower end, but thats roughly what you expect to gain 3 or 4 HD in? I think 100 to 1 is the fastest plane normally, so you would need a 100 to 1 demiplane on 100 to 1 plane (or a 10 to 1) to progress apace. You also run the risk of blowing past your party, because dragons can get epic feats earlier than most.

Provided it is an npc, you could design a ritual to get more heads like the multi headed templates, but if you are just growing old you do not have the experience and gold.

Warren's Hellhounds are better than Princess Rauny's Hellhounds? Sure, they start at lower levels, so they have more opportunities to gain more stat points.


SRD Link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm)
Category Age (Years)
Wyrmling (equivalent to human infant) 0-5
Very young (equivalent to human toddler) 6-15
Young (equivalent to human single digit children) 16-25
Juvenile (equivalent to preteen and teen) 26-50
Young adult (equivalent to human in 20's) 51-100
Adult (equivalent to human in 30's) 101-200
Mature adult (equivalent to human in 40's and 50's) 201-400
Old (equivalent to humans in 60's and 70's) 401-600
Very old (equivalent in humans in 80's and 90's) 601-800
Ancient (equivalent to humans in 100's and 110's) 801-1,000
Wyrm (equivalent to humans in 120's and 130's) 1,001-1,200
Great wyrm (equivalent to humans in 140's and older) 1,201 or more

So it's 200 years after adulthood. I've added my comparison to humans.

The OP must confused with puppy, baby, cub, kitten, and the like when opening the thread.

Any ways, is the OP thinking about the Tiamat and the polychromatic dragons? Or is the OP really thinking about "lesser dragons" or "pseudo lesser dragons" such as hydrae?

[False God]

If I trun a character into a young dragon ( "young" as generic term, not the age cathegory ) he will grow with time, up to becoming a might Great Wyrm?

And if it's a multiheaded dragon will he develope more and more heads while aging and becoming bigger?

"Turn into" via a spell like polymorph? I don't believe there's an official answer to that. "Turn into" via some other shenanigans specific to your game? Like, you're 100% that creature now? Then probably yes, but you'd want to double-check that's how your DM is gonna run it.

As other people have mentioned, it's faster to level up than it is to grow old. And you gotta be about 100 before you start getting to "the good stuff" in most dragons.

Multi-headed is a template applied to the base creature. Each instance of the template indicates a fixed number of heads. The bonus HD from multi-headed are counted separately from dragon RHD for age questions, but are included for feat progression. Unless your DM says otherwise, a creature with two heads at birth has two heads till death.

[Quertus]

"Turn into" via a spell like polymorph? I don't believe there's an official answer to that. "Turn into" via some other shenanigans specific to your game? Like, you're 100% that creature now? Then probably yes, but you'd want to double-check that's how your DM is gonna run it.

Savage Species has a ritual.


Puppies or riot!

Seriously though, there is nothing in dragon's typing or the multi head template that would cause more heads with age.


Multi-headed is a template applied to the base creature. Each instance of the template indicates a fixed number of heads. The bonus HD from multi-headed are counted separately from dragon RHD for age questions, but are included for feat progression. Unless your DM says otherwise, a creature with two heads at birth has two heads till death.

So, the issue is, Multi-Headed is a size-based template. A colossal dragon could have 20 heads. But what did that dragon look like when it was Medium size, when the template doesn't support having that many heads?

EDIT: do we still have a "rules dysfunctions" thread, and is this in there already?

[magic9mushroom]

I will note that the Draconomicon kinda torpedoes most "accelerated aging" schemes with its rules for PC dragons (basically, when you gain RHD and LA, you don't gain XP - you're simply forced to spend your next few level-ups on "being a dragon").

[False God]

Savage Species has a ritual.

So, the issue is, Multi-Headed is a size-based template. A colossal dragon could have 20 heads. But what did that dragon look like when it was Medium size, when the template doesn't support having that many heads?

Unless the creature is a completely custom monster, I see no reason to believe adding a new head at youth would be an indicator of having more heads at adulthood. Also, I'm sort of running under the assumption that when he says he's turning into a "dragon puppy" that is "young" he's going to be large or smaller.

[Quertus]

Unless the creature is a completely custom monster, I see no reason to believe adding a new head at youth would be an indicator of having more heads at adulthood. Also, I'm sort of running under the assumption that when he says he's turning into a "dragon puppy" that is "young" he's going to be large or smaller.

You're looking at it backwards: the question is, is having 20 heads at adulthood an indicator of having 20 heads in its youth?

Because, yes, "puppy" is almost certainly "young", and therefore large or smaller. If he's a baby of a 20-headed Dragon, how many heads should he have?

[Remuko]

So, the issue is, Multi-Headed is a size-based template. A colossal dragon could have 20 heads. But what did that dragon look like when it was Medium size, when the template doesn't support having that many heads?

EDIT: do we still have a "rules dysfunctions" thread, and is this in there already?

Is there an update? The only version of the template I know says this:


"Multiheaded" is a template that can be added to any corporeal creature with a discernible head. Animals with this template become beasts, but otherwise their type remains unchanged. If the base creature has different types of heads (such as a chimera), determine a specific type for each head. (Special Attacks are determined by head type in these cases.) Up to seven heads may be added to a base creature. Multiheaded creatures use all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted below.

Bolded the important bit. No mention of size and a flat cap on 7 additional heads.

[False God]

You're looking at it backwards: the question is, is having 20 heads at adulthood an indicator of having 20 heads in its youth?

Because, yes, "puppy" is almost certainly "young", and therefore large or smaller. If he's a baby of a 20-headed Dragon, how many heads should he have?

Personally, I'd say 2. Why? Because I see the increased head-support as something like a hydra. As long as it has one head any head it loses can be replaced with 2 more, up to its size cap on heads.

Still, we don't know how many heads he's going for. And frankly, adding heads to dragons is some serious cheese.


Is there an update? The only version of the template I know says this:

Bolded the important bit. No mention of size and a flat cap on 7 additional heads.

The template as printed in Savage Species is newer and has a scaling cap.

[Quertus]

1) Personally, I'd say 2. Why? Because I see the increased head-support as something like a hydra. As long as it has one head any head it loses can be replaced with 2 more, up to its size cap on heads.

2) Still, we don't know how many heads he's going for. And frankly, adding heads to dragons is some serious cheese.



3) The template as printed in Savage Species is newer and has a scaling cap.

Numbered for convenience.

1) unless he has Lernaearn, the heads don't do that; even if he does, a) the cap is 2x the original number of heads (so no 20-headed Dragon possible if starting from just 2 heads); b) the extra heads die after 24h.

2) Dragon is some serious anti-optimization. Your cheapest dragon is, what, 4 HD & +2 LA? Adding 1 extra head adds 2 HD, and 3+1 LA? So, 6 HD, plus 6 LA, for a "12th level" character, who can breathe a 2-die breath weapon twice per 1d4+1 rounds. That… hardly sounds useful, let alone powerful. And adding more heads, at a cost of 2 HD (and occasionally additional LA, too) each? That's making the character weaker, not stronger.

3) where is the old template from?