CR Question for "Dumb" Dragons [Archive] - Wizards Community

CR Question for "Dumb" Dragons [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
JDeMobray
11-11-04, 03:59 PM I'm in the process of writing up a new campaign for my group.

As part of the backstory, just about three thousand years ago there was a great war between the races of Dragonkind and the Titans with Humanity (and Demihumanity) caught in the middle. Humans entered into an alliance with the Dragons and together created a great magic ritual that would seal the Titans in the underworld forever.

What the Humans (specifically the first human Emperor of the vaguely Roman themed empire that still stands today) didn't tell the dragons is that they were also afraid of the dragons power. They snuck in some extra magical stuff into the ritual that permanently bound the "souls" of the dragons into ten noble houses of humanity (justifying the use of the Bloodline rules from Unearthed Arcana).

Now for the last 3k years, the dragons have been reduced to essentially soulless animals. They are bred by the empire as war machines and mounts, but otherwise live throughout the world like any other wild large predator. I want to drop their intelligence down to 2, lose the spellcasting and spell-like abilities and probably drop the SR. This should greatly reduce their CR but, not being exactly a rules guru, I don't know by how much.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
RavinRay
11-12-04, 04:52 AM That is extreme. What a sorry, sorry state for a majestic gold or silver, and even red or blue, dragon to be in.

Let's see, you kept the breath weapons and immunities, right? And you keep the supernatural abilities? An Int of 2 basically reduces them to animals, even dumber than your average white wyrmling (not that they're dumb at all). That dragon has a CR of 2.

Looking at Draconomicon, they seem closest in abilities to zombie dragons. That template's CR is base dragon CR x 1/2 + 1 (minimum 2). Maybe you can use a similar rule, but make the adjustment a bit higher because maybe they've kept some of their hunter's cunning.
Wolf72
11-12-04, 10:20 AM so they're still machines of death and destruction, just not self-guided machines of death and destruction.

cool ... 3.0 monster creation pdf (http://www.enworld.org/cc/downloads/files/monster_article.pdf) ... might help. Page 13 has the CR guestimator.

if you're going to give them int 2, you might want to check out the handle animal skill and treat them like animals (can learn up to 6 tricks) ... maybe come up with different tricks (like use breath weapon, snatch, combat flying, etc).
JDeMobray
11-12-04, 03:52 PM That is extreme. What a sorry, sorry state for a majestic gold or silver, and even red or blue, dragon to be in.I agree, and once the PCs figure out what's going on I'm hoping they will want to fix things.

It hadn't occured to me to use the Zombie Dragon template as a guideline (although I was going to use Zombie Dragons). Good advice, thanks.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JDeMobray 11-11-04, 03:59 PM	I'm in the process of writing up a new campaign for my group. As part of the backstory, just about three thousand years ago there was a great war between the races of Dragonkind and the Titans with Humanity (and Demihumanity) caught in the middle. Humans entered into an alliance with the Dragons and together created a great magic ritual that would seal the Titans in the underworld forever. What the Humans (specifically the first human Emperor of the vaguely Roman themed empire that still stands today) didn't tell the dragons is that they were also afraid of the dragons power. They snuck in some extra magical stuff into the ritual that permanently bound the "souls" of the dragons into ten noble houses of humanity (justifying the use of the Bloodline rules from Unearthed Arcana). Now for the last 3k years, the dragons have been reduced to essentially soulless animals. They are bred by the empire as war machines and mounts, but otherwise live throughout the world like any other wild large predator. I want to drop their intelligence down to 2, lose the spellcasting and spell-like abilities and probably drop the SR. This should greatly reduce their CR but, not being exactly a rules guru, I don't know by how much. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
RavinRay 11-12-04, 04:52 AM	That is extreme. What a sorry, sorry state for a majestic gold or silver, and even red or blue, dragon to be in. Let's see, you kept the breath weapons and immunities, right? And you keep the supernatural abilities? An Int of 2 basically reduces them to animals, even dumber than your average white wyrmling (not that they're dumb at all). That dragon has a CR of 2. Looking at Draconomicon, they seem closest in abilities to zombie dragons. That template's CR is base dragon CR x 1/2 + 1 (minimum 2). Maybe you can use a similar rule, but make the adjustment a bit higher because maybe they've kept some of their hunter's cunning.
Wolf72 11-12-04, 10:20 AM	so they're still machines of death and destruction, just not self-guided machines of death and destruction. cool ... 3.0 monster creation pdf (http://www.enworld.org/cc/downloads/files/monster_article.pdf) ... might help. Page 13 has the CR guestimator. if you're going to give them int 2, you might want to check out the handle animal skill and treat them like animals (can learn up to 6 tricks) ... maybe come up with different tricks (like use breath weapon, snatch, combat flying, etc).
JDeMobray 11-12-04, 03:52 PM	That is extreme. What a sorry, sorry state for a majestic gold or silver, and even red or blue, dragon to be in.I agree, and once the PCs figure out what's going on I'm hoping they will want to fix things. It hadn't occured to me to use the Zombie Dragon template as a guideline (although I was going to use Zombie Dragons). Good advice, thanks.