I was inspired by the 5e floral dragons from Hit Point Press to create my own floral dragon for 3.5. Maybe I will update to Pathfinder 1e at a later date if I'm ever so inclined but don't hold your breath.
I didn't want to make a separate stat block for every kind of floral dragon so I decided to make a generic floral dragon and figured I could add specific flower abilities at a later date. I wanted a generic boilerplate to start.
If anyone has any ideas for customizing specific floral dragons, I'd love to incorporate those ideas as well.
These would be a welcome addition to my ecology of the silk grove as mulberry floral dragons would assist the fey in warding off intruders to the grove. See here:
Mulberry Tree Dryad and Monstrous Giant silkworm and sylvan silk armor
Floral Dragons
Medium Dragon (Augmented Plant)
Hit Dice: 8d12+16 (68 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares), fly 120 ft. (Good)
Armor Class: 16 (+6 natural), flat-footed 16, touch 10
BAB/Grapple: +8/+10
Attack: Bite + 10 melee (1d8+2)
Full Attack: Bite +10 melee (1d8+2) and 2 claws +8 melee (1d6+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10 ft. with bite)
Special Attacks: Poisonous petals or pollen (1 Con)
Special Qualities: Alluring scent, floral appearance, keen senses, plant feeding, plantlike, spell-like abilities, sunlight dependency
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +6, Will +6 (add'l +4 against poison, stunning, polymorphing and mind-affecting effects)
Abilities: Str 15, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 10, Wis 11 Cha 12
Skills: Hide +14 (+22 with similar plants), Knowledge (Nature) + 11, Listen +11, Move Silently +14, Spot +11, Use Magic Device +12,
Feats: Improved Initiative, Multiattack, Stealthy
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary, Pair, or family (2 adults and 2-6 young or eggs)
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: Triple Standard
Alignment: Always Neutral
Advancement: 9-10 HD (Medium), 11-16 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment: —
Alluring Scent (Ex): Floral dragons smell like the flowers from which they were born. Creatures within a 30-foot radius of the floral dragon’s scent become placid and react favorably towards it. Any creature that fails a DC 16 Fortitude save against the aura improves its attitude toward the floral dragon one step closer to friendly. Creatures with the scent ability take a –4 penalty on this saving throw. Creatures in the aura must attempt a saving throw each minute. This is a mind-affecting poison effect. The DC is Constitution-based.
Floral Appearance (Ex): While the floral dragon remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary growth of plants of its kind. It has +8 racial bonus to checks made to Hide in areas covered in similar plants (already included in the above stat block).
Keen Senses (Ex): A floral dragon sees four times as well as a human in shadowy illumination and twice as well in normal light. It also has darkvision out to 120 feet.
Plant Feeding (Ex): If a floral dragon remains in the direct light of the sun for at least 4 hours, it does not need to eat that day.
Plantlike (Ex): A floral dragon counts as a plant for the purpose of spells and effects that specifically affect creatures of the plant type. Floral dragons can use magic items with powers or abilities that work specifically for creatures of the plant type. Floral dragons are still fully immune to sleep and paralysis and also have a +4 saving bonus against poison, stunning, polymorphing and mind-affecting effects incorporated in the stat block above.
Poisonous Petals or Pollen (Ex): A creature that touches a floral dragon or hits it with a melee attack while within 5 feet of it becomes poisoned and takes 1 point of Constitution damage (no save).
Spell-like Abilities (Sp): Floral dragons have CL equal to their HD and cast spell-like abilities as sorcerers using their Charisma bonus. At will—speak with plants. 3/day—entangle (DC 12) 1/day—control weather.
Sunlight Dependency (Su): A floral dragon becomes fatigued if it isn’t exposed to sunlight (not in an area of daylight or similar spells) for one hour a day. If it fails to be exposed to sunlight for more than 2 days, it becomes exhausted until it is exposed to direct sunlight for 5 hours.
Floral Dragons were once flowers and plants that became dragons, created by the Goddess Flora before she fell into obscurity. They were made to guard the beautiful, lush gardens cultivated by her followers. Their bodies are covered in the flowers that bear their name.
Floral dragons speak Common and can speak with plants at will.
ADDITIONAL SPECIAL ABILITIES UNIQUE TO CERTAIN FLORAL DRAGONS.
Specific types of plants may give a floral additional special abilities. For example, aquatic plants give the floral dragon a swim speed equal to its land speed, and they gain the Amphibious special ability as they breathe both air and water.
For floral dragons that have thorns (rose, holly, agave, etc.), there is the Thorny Extraordinary ability:
Thorny (Ex): The flora dragon is also covered with thorns amidst its flowers. A creature that attacks with natural weapons takes an additional 1d4+1 points of piercing damage from the thorns unless it is wearing armor.
Some flowers produce nectar which can be harvested by bees, giant bees, bee-like creatures and others. Some have poisonous nectar (and that would carry over into honey made from the nectar such as the Rhododendron floral dragon. Then there is the toxic Oleander floral dragon.
Nectar Producing (Ex): These floral dragons produce sweet nectar that bees and other creatures can harvest for food. Nectar producing dragons often attract bees, giant bees and bee-like creatures. The nectar can also be harvested for consumption of other creatures.
In order to harvest the nectar, the floral dragon has to be at least friendly. It takes one hour to harvest enough nectar to feed a Medium-sized Humanoid and a successful Survival check (DC 16).
Taking the nectar by force or by knocking the floral dragon unconscious can also be done, but is not recommended least you earn the enmity of the floral dragon and those it guards.
Poisonous Nectar (Ex): Sometimes the nectar (and any honey made from the nectar) of the floral dragon is poisonous except to those that pollinate these types of floral dragons. For example, Rhododendron floral dragons would have this ability. You must make a successful Fortitude save vs. Poison (DC 16) or become nauseated for one hour after eating the nectar or honey. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Some floral dragons are just toxic such as the Oleander floral dragon. Every part of the dragon is toxic. Luckily, Oleander floral dragons do not produce nectar.
Toxic (Ex): Eating any part of an Oleander floral dragon is risky except to those that pollinate Oleander floral dragons. Their poison is more powerful than standard poisonous floral dragons (DC 18) and anyone who fails the save is sickened for one day (24 hours). Anyone who fails their save by more than 5 points must make a secondary save at a -2 penalty to avoid dying. The save is Constitution based and includes +2 racial modifier.
Some actually roost in flowering trees (magnolia) or in the water (Kelp). I'm gonna be up to my eyeballs in floral dragons coming up with individual abilities.
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EDITED INFORMATION
Open Content material I included:
Hit Point Press was just a jumping off point. I actually converted Sunlight Dependency from 5e to 3.5 from their first Floral Dragon book. Poison Petal and Pollen was also a conversion from 5e Poison Petal (which I changed to petal and pollen) to 3.5 with a lot of changes from their second Floral Dragon book.
Alluring scent [from Herald of Passion] is from Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Gods © 2014, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Authors: Sean K Reynolds, with Amanda Hamon, James Jacobs, John Ling, Mark Moreland, David N. Ross, F. Wesley Schneider, Amber E. Scott, Tork Shaw, James L. Sutter, Jerome Virnich.
Plantfeeding from Plantblood Template from Advanced Bestiary by Green Ronin.
The Plantlike Extraordinary ability is from the Starfinder Universal Monster Rules. It is a fairly basic ability and easy to customize. It shows up in a variety of creatures that are open content).
After making sure everything was open content, I then modified the heck out of abilities to make it specific to floral dragons. These are literally nothing like the 5e monsters that inspired them as the rules don't convert easily.
Floral dragons have similar (almost identical) stats of a very young green dragon and modified them as a generic floral dragon. It's so much easier when I don't have to start from scratch and can just modify existing rules.
Floral Dragons should have 66 skill points. They can have a max of 11 ranks in each skill. I'm giving them max ranks in 6 skills.
Some rules were bent such as Floral Dragons have Dragon Features and Modified Plant traits. Because it made sense to do it that way. The biggest was the Augmented Subtype.
"Augmented Subtype
A creature receives this subtype whenever something happens to change its original type. Some creatures (those with an inherited template) are born with this subtype; others acquire it when they take on an acquired template. The augmented subtype is always paired with the creature’s original type. A creature with the augmented subtype usually has the traits of its current type, but the features of its original type."
Because floral dragons have dragon features and plant traits, it is reversed from the norm, still allowed due to USUALLY.
This is why it is so important to look at the rules and try not to break them but to use them in the best way possible.
Debby
Floral Dragons [Please PEACH]
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