Pyroclastic Dragon questions

[Max Caysey]

So, I was looking into trying to acquire the best possible dragon cohort for my evil minionmancer. I was basically set on red dragon, because I wanted a large dragon which I can use as mount when I get it…

I then stumbled across the pyroclastic dragon in Draconomicon. Now, a very young one (same size, ECL and CR as a very young red dragon seems somewhat more powerful!

As I read it, even a very young one has two breath weapons, one being dissintegration! They also have spell like abilities including meteor shower.

This seems like very powerful things to have for a CR 5 dragon, so my question is thus twofold:

1) Am I reading the entry correct? - that a very young pyroclastic dragon indeed has these things? Or am I missing something???

2) Would/ should I be allowed to pick a planar dragon when taking the feat Dragon Cohort? Here I’m looking for your personal feeling and not raw, since the raw seems clear!

Cheers!

[tyckspoon]

You are misreading, at least in part (it is generally true that many of the planar dragons are more powerful than their traditional color-coded material plane counterparts.) The 'Spell Like Abilities' list in the 'Combat' entry does not indicate powers every Pyroclastic Dragon gets - you still need to reference the age category charts to see when they earn those. At Very Young they only have Pyrotechnics and Sound Burst. Meteor Swarm doesn't show up until Great Wyrm.


CR 5 with a full on save-or-die area attack that has no easy immunities (not Mind-Affecting or Death) is still really nasty, tho. Honestly I suspect most of the planar dragons only have their lower age categories listed because it's tradition for dragons and you aren't really intended to deal with these things earlier than the levels where a party can go plane-hopping under their own power.

[Thunder999]

SLAs are tied to age category, the breath weapon is certainly a nasty save or die, but CR5 is the same as Basilisks with their equally lethal gaze (being turned to stone and killed are functionally the same unless someone has stone to flesh on hand, which they don't at level 5) The dragon has higher DC, but it's a line every 1d4 rounds as a standard action rather than a gaze.

[Drakevarg]

The big difference between planar dragons and chromatic/metallic ones is that planar dragons have a set selection of SLAs they have access too, whereas older chromatic/metallic dragons begin casting as a sorcerer. Since a handful of powerful SLAs is a lot less useful than "potentially any arcane spell," the planar dragons tend to skew a bit more heavily in the raw power department. Which can make them look a bit overpowered if you miss the part where the red dragon is hiding a high-level sorcerer under that scaly monster bod.

[Biggus]

I wouldn't have a problem with planar dragon cohorts in general, but I wouldn't allow the pyroclastic dragon for the reasons Tyckspoon mentions: its disintegration breath is an area-affect save-or-die that very few things are immune to. Add Ability Focus, Heighten Breath and Shape Breath and cast Bear's Endurance on it and it's a DC 25 SoD in a 40ft cone at CR5.

When I DM the disintegration breath is changed to work like the Disintegrate spell does in 3.5, ie it does damage and disintegrates you if you reach 0HPs. Given that Draconomicon came out very soon after the change from 3.0 to 3.5, I suspect the writers didn't know Disintegrate had been changed when it was first written and forgot to change it later.

[Crake]

When I DM the disintegration breath is changed to work like the Disintegrate spell does in 3.5, ie it does damage and disintegrates you if you reach 0HPs. Given that Draconomicon came out very soon after the change from 3.0 to 3.5, I suspect the writers didn't know Disintegrate had been changed when it was first written and forgot to change it later.

Yup, this is what I came to say.

Also another thing to note about planar dragons that acts as a rather big balancing factor at the later age categories is that they completely lack any kind of innate casting.

[Max Caysey]

The big difference between planar dragons and chromatic/metallic ones is that planar dragons have a set selection of SLAs they have access too, whereas older chromatic/metallic dragons begin casting as a sorcerer. Since a handful of powerful SLAs is a lot less useful than "potentially any arcane spell," the planar dragons tend to skew a bit more heavily in the raw power department. Which can make them look a bit overpowered if you miss the part where the red dragon is hiding a high-level sorcerer under that scaly monster bod.


Yup, this is what I came to say.

Also another thing to note about planar dragons that acts as a rather big balancing factor at the later age categories is that they completely lack any kind of innate casting.

While I see how loosing general sorcery spell casting is a heavy toll, I would ever only advance it one age category. What ever spellcasting my dragon cohort would get, would be from class levels. As such, the Pyroclastic dragon seems a much better choice in that regard.

Especially since it has that very potent breath weapon!