[3.5] Dragon advancement

[MelkorsHalo]

quick question. if advancing a dragon in a prestige class gives them enough hit dice to go up an age category, do they? or do age categories only count actual dragon hit dice?

[H0L7]

I'm prety sure dragons racial hit die is tied to age not total hit die

[KillianHawkeye]

I would say they only increase in age category whenever they actually, y'know, get older. :smalltongue:

But yeah, class levels never make you older. Unless you're in the Cranky Old Man or the Geezer PrC. :smallbiggrin:

[Tsotha-lanti]

HD do not define age category; age category defines HD.

So no, raising HD does not raise age category. I don't see why anyone would think it does.

[MelkorsHalo]

alright, thanks everyone, that's what i thought. rules were a bit unclear on the point, so i thought i'd ask around to make sure.

[Ionizer]

I may have found the confusion. Beware, this contains many quotes and excepts from the SRD. I am going to use Blue Dragons in my examples. Here we go.

As we all know, True Dragons gain power as they age. The older the dragon, the more powerful it is. The SRD gives us a table showing dragon age categories in years:



Category...........|....Age (Years)
Wyrmling...........|........0-5
Very young........|.......6-15
Young...............|......16-25
Juvenile.............|.....26-50
Young adult.......|.....51-100
Adult................|....101-200
Mature adult......|....201-400
Old...................|....401-600
Very old............|.....601-800
Ancient.............|.....801-1,000
Wyrm................|....1,001-1,200
Great wyrm........|.....1,201 or more

Personally, I've always kinda felt bad that most dragons are just obstacles in a standard campaign. In Epic Levels, few things but the oldest dragons have a chance at posing a challenge to PCs. It's sad that a mighty dragon that's lived well over a millennium will fall to the PCs in just a few minutes of combat (not to mention that smart players know that they just have to deal 10 Dex damage to even the most fearsome dragon to render it comatose and at their mercy).

Anyway, that rant about age brings us to my next point. Dragons are given an entry called "Advancement" in their descriptions. Here is the Blue dragon's "Advancement" Entry:


Advancement: Wyrmling 7-8 HD; very young 10-11 HD; young 13-14 HD; juvenile 16-17 HD; young adult 19-20 HD; adult 22-23 HD; mature adult 25-26 HD; old 28-29 HD; very old 31-32 HD; ancient 34-35 HD; wyrm 37-38 HD; great wyrm 40+ HD

This tells us that we can advance dragons by HD, just like any other monster. Well, to an extent. Notice how there are only 2 additional HD at each age category? Also notice how there is a missing HD in-between the age categories? These bring us to our next table:



Age.............|...Size....|.....Hit Dice
Wyrmling......|.....S......|......6d12+6
Very young...|.....M.....|......9d12+18
Young..........|.....M.....|.....12d12+24
Juvenile........|.....L......|.....15d12+45
Young adult...|.....L......|.....18d12+72
Adult............|.....H.....|.....21d12+105
Mature adult..|.....H.....|.....24d12+120
Old...............|.....H.....|.....27d12+162
Very old........|.....H.....|.....30d12+180
Ancient.........|.....G.....|.....33d12+231
Wyrm............|.....G.....|.....36d12+288
Great wyrm....|.....G.....|.....39d12+312

We now see that the gaps in the Advancement entry are the "Basic" HD of the table. This brings a conundrum the to foreground: Exactly how do Dragons advance via HD? It's technically by aging, but dragons jump several HD from age category to age category. If we want advancing by HD to represent as dragon getting stronger, wiser and more powerful as it ages, we need to tweak a few things. First off let me tweak the Age Category Tables from earlier (Using Blue Dragons for an example):


Category...........|....Age in years, by HD
Wyrmling...........|........0-1(6HD), 2-3(7HD), 4-5(8HD)
Very young........|.......6-9(9HD), 10-12(10HD), 13-15(11HD)
Young...............|......16-19(12HD), 20-22(13HD), 23-25(14HD)
Juvenile.............|.....26-33(15HD), 34-41(16HD), 42-50(17HD)
Young adult.......|.....51-67(18HD), 68-84(19HD), 85-100(20HD)
Adult................|....101-134(21HD), 135-167(22HD), 168-200(23HD)
Mature adult......|....201-266(24HD), 267-334(25HD), 335-400(26HD)
Old...................|....401-466(27HD), 467-534(28HD), 535-600(29HD)
Very old............|.....601-666(30HD), 667-734(31HD), 735-800(32HD)
Ancient.............|.....801-866(33HD), 867-934(34HD), 935-1,000(35HD)
Wyrm................|....1,001-1,066(36HD), 1,067-1,134(37HD), 1,135-1,200(38HD)
Great wyrm........|.....1,201-1,266(39HD), 1267+(+1HD per 66 years)

This is important to know if you have a Dragon Cohort or something along those lines. The rules say that Dragon cohorts "Age, but do not gain experience." This system of gaining HD in increments instead of lumps prevents situations like "Happy Birthday, my dragon friend! Holy crap! You became alot more powerful overnight! Wow!" or other such nonsense because you can gradually observe the dragon gaining power while it travels with you (or sits in a dungeon you're guarding, or when it periodically snatches away one of your sheep every week, etc.).

Anyway, I forgot what the point of my post was, so I'll just leave you with this statement:

"My brain is a antelope! We need mustard cuz it's Easter in the Philippines!"