Second, has anyone made 3e conversions for the various Drakes (Wood, Man, Cold, Elemental, Shadow), uncluding Monster Stats and Character writeups? I would love to see those. I have some ideas myself, but if others have already done the job, ill wait and see what you have come up with...
Havard
Second - Yes! Please do! (I can't help since I know nothing about 3e - but I'm looking forward...)
I second the 3E version idea. Just wish I had time to do it - too many projects as it is. But please, I'd love to see these creatures converted (I have them on my encounter charts and don't even have the stats for them
).Originally posted by havard
how about calling it a Shadow Drake?
I like it.
On the other hand, I think we should be careful over-using the "shadow" prefix. We already have Shadowelves and Shadowdeep and Shadow Drakes. Next thing, we'll have a community of Shadow Hin living in Shadowhome lead by a Shadow Master practicing Shadow Magic... :D
:-) Jesper
:D
Originally posted by Spellweaver
I like it.
On the other hand, I think we should be careful over-using the "shadow" prefix. We already have Shadowelves and Shadowdeep and Shadow Drakes. Next thing, we'll have a community of Shadow Hin living in Shadowhome lead by a Shadow Master practicing Shadow Magic... :D
Good point. The Shadow prefix has certainly been used alot, and I am at least partly responsible for that. I wont be introducing my Shadow Hin and Shadow Dwarves now... ;)
Anyways, I have compiled Monster and Character writeups for the Fey Drakes (but not elemental ones). It was alot of work, but at least now a first draft is completed. I'm sure there are alot of errors, though, both ruleswise and cut and paste stuff that might have snuck intself in there.
Here is an excerpt:
Wood Drake Characters:
+2 dex. -2 Wis
Size: Medium
Speed 30, Flying 5
Change Shape: Wood Drakes can assume Elf or Halfling form at will
Fly: Drakes have small wings that allow them to fly at 5’ per round.
+2 to Sleight of Hands and Use Magic Item skills.
Low-light Vision
Spell Resistance: 14 (modified by cha)
Scales: DR 5/Cold Iron. This only works in Drake form.
Natural Armor +7
Iron Vulnerability: Cannot use equipment made by iron. If so, loses 1 Con per hour exposed to the metal. This applies in both forms.
Holy Water Vulnerability.
Divine disfavor: drakes are unaffected by beneficial divine spells including healing. Druidic spells still affect them.
No hands: In its natural form, a drake has no hands and thus cannot use any weapons or other equipment.
Armor Incompatibility: In its natural form a drake cannot use normal armor, but can only use armor that is especially made for it.
Spell-like abilities: Drakes can use the Invisibility and Detect Invisibility spells 3 times per day.
Extra Hit Dice: A beginning Wood drake begins play with 3d6 extra hit points.
LA+4/+1. By foregoing the extra hit dice and the spell resistance ability, a man drake PC can be created as a LA+1 character.
Favored Class: Ranger
Read the whole thing here.
Let me know what you think!
Havard
With that in mind, what about creating gem drakes?
Originally posted by WizO_Drake
If memory serves correctly, Mystara has gem dragons that are non-psionic (different from the standard gem dragons). For example, there's a crystalline dragon rather than a crystal dragon.
With that in mind, what about creating gem drakes?
Yep, the Gemstone Dragons of Mystara are different from their AD&D counterparts. Actually, I liked the idea of them being psionic though, since it sets them more apart from the other dragons...
Anyways, I like the idea of Gemstone Drakes. Here are some more thoughts on Drakes, connecting them to Dragons and Gemstone Drakes:
Mandrakes:
These have tan or metallic brown scales. They are related to brass dragons (assuming those exist on Mystara)
Wood drakes:
These have Green or Dark Green scales and are based on Green or Copper Dragons.
Cold Drakes:
These have white scales and are related to White Dragons. Oddly enough these are the most powerful of the lesser (non elemental) drakes, in spite of whites being the least powerful dragons.
Shadow Drakes
These have dark gray or black scales and are related to Black or Shadow Dragons.
Fire Drakes:
These have red scales and are related to Red Dragons
Earth Drakes
These have Brown or Golden Scales and are related to Gold
Dragons or Brown Dragons.
Air Drakes
Scales: Light Blue or Silver
Related to: Blue or Silver
Water Drakes
Scales: Blue Green
Related to: Sea Dragons, Bronze Dragons
Gemstone Drakes:
[Topaz=Mandrake (Copper)]
Crystal = Cold Drake (White)
Onyx = Shadow Drake (Black)
Jade Drake = Wood drake (Green, Brass)
Saphire Drake = Air Drake (Blue, Silver)
Ruby Drake = Fire Drake (Red)
[Emerald= Water (Sea Dragon, Bronze)]
Amber, Amethyst = Earth (Gold)
What would be the abilities of Gemstone Drakes though? Should we give them psionics? Perhaps they cannot Change Shape? Do they have foreclaws instead?
More Drakes:
Night Drake: Based on Night Dragons
Drake Rulers:
Pearl/Moon Drake
Diamond/Star Drake
Opal/Sun Drake
Great Drake
Okay, Im getting carried away here. Comments?
Btw, I've already made some changes on the Drakes, making them all Dragon subtypes rather than Fey. These makes them easier to unify with the Greater (Elemental) Drakes.
Havard
All Drakes have the following abilities and weaknesses:
Fly (Ex): Drakes have small wings enabling them to fly at 5 ft per round.
I gave them 10 feet per round (thought it might be slightly more useful), but a direct conversion could go either way (30' doesn't divide very well). We should mention their maneuverability, in either case. I gave them Poor, but I could see an argument for Clumsy.
Spell-like abilities: (3/day) – Invisibility, detect invisibility
I didn't touch on these, because I wasn't sure how to handle them. The detect invisibility should definitely be in, though (I'd actually forgotten to account for Second Sight), but should we make it continuous instead of 3/day? Not sure.
As for the Invisibility, in PC2 they don't get it until they've got a few post-Normal Monster levels in Woodrake. Not sure how that would translate, though. (Racial paragon levels?) Limiting it to 3/day might be a good tradeoff.
Change Shape (Su): A drake can 3 times per day take humanoid form. The exact form(s) it can take depend on the subtype. It can not take the form of a specific individual, and the form is the same every time.
I was going to make this a Change Shape ability like the Aranea, usable at will. One idea I had, though, was to set the alternate form at creation, thus the Woodrakes and Coldrakes wouldn't have any advantage over the Mandrake (2 alt forms versus 1 alt form). The wording of "can take the shape of an elf or halfling" could be interpreted as either "Can take both forms" or "can take one form, selected at creation". I think the intent was to be able to do both, but...
Divine Disfavor: Drakes are unaffected by beneficial divine spells such as healing spells. Druidic spells affect them normally.
This is interesting. I assume this is just an extension of the weird relationship with the Immortals that the Fey of Mystara have? Could be a good balancing factor with some of the other abilities the drakes have.
Vulnerability to Iron: Drakes cannot use items made from iron, even in their alternate forms.
I actually kind of like making iron a bigger factor with the Fey (and not just the Sidhe). I noticed that many of the Fey in 3.5 were given Damage Reduction/Iron where they didn't have it before. Should we implement something like that here?
Mandrake
Hit Dice: 3d6+6 (18 hp)
I'm curious where you got the +6 hit points. Did you intend to give the Mandrake a Con bonus?
Initiative: +2
Shouldn't this be a +1 (from Dex)?
Armor Class: 19 (+1 Dex, +7 natural)
This was one of my hangups. I wasn't sure whether to use the PC2 base armor or extrapolate from the Cyclopedia. Your +7 natural sounds good to me.
Base Attack/Grapple: +6
Not sure where you got this number from. Should this be +1/+1 (Fey Bab= 1/2 HD, and no Strength bonus for Grapple).
Attack: Claw +3 (1d4+1) or Bite +3 melee (1d6+1)
I had bite as the primary natural attack (given their body structure, with only the two limbs to stand on, I figured they'd be more inclined to bite than to claw), and only had 1d3 for their claw damage, though.
I'm curious where the damage modifier comes from, since you don't have them with a Strength bonus.
I wasn't sure whether to include a melee weapon listing for their alternate form, but since you don't and the Aranea listing doesn't, I won't either.
Full Attack: 2 claws +3 (1d4+1), Bite +3 melee (1d6+3)
Again, I had these switched around, but it doesn't really matter. It looks like you forgot to factor in the penalty for multiple attacks (-5 to each attack, or -2 with the Multiattack feat.)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Should this be 5 x 5 instead? (I just had Faith flashbacks saying 5x5)
Special Qualities: Drake Abilities, Spell Resistance 13, Damage Reduction 5/Cold Iron, low-light vision.
See, if I'd just read ahead, I'd have seen that you gave them Damage Reduction already. D'OH!
Don't forget to include Fey traits.
On the Spell Resistance- I wasn't sure whether to give them SR or Spell Immunity (like the Cyclopedia). Immunity is powerful- very powerful (up to 4th level spells?), and for that reason I figured SR would be more doable. At the same time, though, SR allows for some chance to resist 5th and higher level spells, while a blanket immunity to 4th level spells or lower wouldn't.
Seeing as you seem to think SR is better, we should probably go with that. Especially as we hope to make these a playable character race. I might suggest doing SR 11 plus class levels, like many other races... not sure how that works out mechanically, though, without sitting down and doing the math.
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +4
These seem a bit high, given the ability scores you have for the Mandrake. I calculated +1, +4, +2.
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 13, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 10
These are almost exactly what I had. I didn't have the Wisdom penalty, just the Dex bonus, but I didn't feel that comfortable with my scores.
Skills: Bluff +8, Hide +5, Listen +5, Spot +5, Sleight of hands +8, Use Magic Item +8
I didn't calculate scores (didn't go that in depth), but my idea was to use their skill points to simulate the thievery abilities the drakes are said to have. These look fine, the only suggestions I might make would be to drop the Use Magic Item skill (the PC2 description gives NM Woodrakes a 100% failure chance with magic devices), and give them some points in "standard thief skills" to compensate- climb, move silently, chiefly. Also probably some points in disguise (and maybe a racial bonus to disguise?)
One idea I had- didn't get to implementing- to differentiate the various drakes was to have some skill differences. Something like- bluff for Mandrakes, Appraise? Craft? for Coldrakes, Knowledge (nature)? Survival? for Woodrakes. That sort of thing.
Feats: Hover, Weapon Finesse
Hover is a good idea- I hadn't thought of it. The only feat I'd actually had down was Multiattack, to minimize the multiple attack penalty for the drake's natural attacks. Your Hover idea makes really good sense, though- especially in regards to its claw attacks- of course it would need hover to make its claw strikes. I'm more inclined to go with your Claw as Primary attack concept now. Hover! Don't know why it didn't occur to me... D'OH!
Environment: Any
I'd go Cold Mountain (Colddrake), Temperate Forest (Wooddrake), and err... Any (Mandrake). Sound right?
Challenge Rating: 4
Again, I was totally at a loss where to put their CR. 4 sounds about in the right region, though.
Alignment: Usually chaotic good
I went with "Always Chaotic", just from the description (50% good or evil). Kind of torn between that and "Usually Chaotic", though.
Level Adjustment: +3
With the Spell Immune version I came up with, I had a whopping +5 or +6 LA(the Rakshasa, which has similar abilities, is a +7). +3 might be a little on the low side, but +3/+4 would do. When we finalize it, we should do a little comparison between a character of equal ECL and try to figure out where it should sit.
Skills: Mandrakes have +2 to Sleight of Hands and +2 to Use Magic Item
Like I noted above, we might do well to give them a racial bonus to Disguise... although, now I check, the Aranea doesn't have one. Hmm... I guess it comes down to whether the Drakes Change Shape ability is a disguise (ie, multiple types of forms) or whether they only change into a unique shape (ie, always looks the same when it changes into its alternate form). Any ideas?
I like the idea of having different favored classes for the various drakes, too. Makes them somewhat different from each other.
Originally posted by havard
Btw, I've already made some changes on the Drakes, making them all Dragon subtypes rather than Fey. These makes them easier to unify with the Greater (Elemental) Drakes.
I should have noted this before I commented on your conversion- it would have explained many of the questions I had about the figures you had listed. :p
I went back and forth on this one myself- whether to make the drakes Dragons or Fey. I finally settled on Fey, simply because of the background given in PC2. I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with that choice, though, but my rationale was (like I said) based on PC2, and the idea that these aren't really dragons, per se, but fairy creatures who have a distant kinship with and chose long ago to emulate dragons.
As you point out, PC2 complicates matters by stating that the Elemental Drakes aren't Fey, but are distantly related. Presumably that would, indeed, make them Dragons, or Elementals.
If only they weren't all called Drakes. Why couldn't they all have just been given different names? Why torment us?
First on the Dragon vs Fey issue. I agree that this can go either way. In any case the lesser (non-elemental) Drakes will either be dragons with lots of fey abilities or fey with lots of dragon abilities. Greater (elemental) drakes can either be dragons with elemental abilities or elementals with dragon abilities. I think I will go with making all Drakes (both lesser and greater) Dragons just to keep them all the same race, with different bloodlines (Fey or elemental). This is mainly just important for determining HD type, skills, BAB and Saves though, as they will have special abilities of both races.
Originally posted by Cthulhudrew
I worked up a (very) loose conversion earlier tonight, to compare. Then I took a look at Havard's drake conversion. Here are some of my comparative thoughts:
I gave them 10 feet per round (thought it might be slightly more useful), but a direct conversion could go either way (30' doesn't divide very well). We should mention their maneuverability, in either case. I gave them Poor, but I could see an argument for Clumsy.
We could give them 10 ft per round, but Clumsy as a compromise?
I don't feel very strongly about this though. I like making the Drake Flight ability at least a little more useful than in OD&D...
I didn't touch on these, because I wasn't sure how to handle them. The detect invisibility should definitely be in, though (I'd actually forgotten to account for Second Sight), but should we make it continuous instead of 3/day? Not sure.
As for the Invisibility, in PC2 they don't get it until they've got a few post-Normal Monster levels in Woodrake. Not sure how that would translate, though. (Racial paragon levels?) Limiting it to 3/day might be a good tradeoff.
Ah, my bad. We could make a monster or paragon class for the Drake, or just leave the spell like abilities out of it. Drakes don't have those in the Rules Cyclopedia anyways.
I was going to make this a Change Shape ability like the Aranea, usable at will. One idea I had, though, was to set the alternate form at creation, thus the Woodrakes and Coldrakes wouldn't have any advantage over the Mandrake (2 alt forms versus 1 alt form). The wording of "can take the shape of an elf or halfling" could be interpreted as either "Can take both forms" or "can take one form, selected at creation". I think the intent was to be able to do both, but...
I considered this aswell. I decided to go with canon, but again I can be persuaded to have them chose one form. Making it useable at will doesn't really make it that much more powerful so I say we go for that one.
Divine disfavor:
This is interesting. I assume this is just an extension of the weird relationship with the Immortals that the Fey of Mystara have? Could be a good balancing factor with some of the other abilities the drakes have.
That was my take yeah. You will notice in the entire conversion that I was trying not to make the Drakes too powerful since I wanted them to be useable as a PC race with a low or no LA.
I actually kind of like making iron a bigger factor with the Fey (and not just the Sidhe). I noticed that many of the Fey in 3.5 were given Damage Reduction/Iron where they didn't have it before. Should we implement something like that here?
I gave them DR 5/Cold Iron. I think that is in the released version aswell?
I'm curious where you got the +6 hit points. Did you intend to give the Mandrake a Con bonus?
My bad. I originally have the drakes much higher ability scores, but keeping the "useable as PC race" idea in mind I decided to lower them.
Initiative:
Shouldn't this be a +1 (from Dex)?
Another of those. See above.
Natural Armor
[/b]
This was one of my hangups. I wasn't sure whether to use the PC2 base armor or extrapolate from the Cyclopedia. Your +7 natural sounds good to me.
[/b]
It also fits well with the suggested range of natural AC for scales/Dragon Type...
Not sure where you got this number from. Should this be +1/+1 (Fey Bab= 1/2 HD, and no Strength bonus for Grapple).
Yup, that is a mistake. After I changed them to Dragons they will have BAB=HD though.
I had bite as the primary natural attack (given their body structure, with only the two limbs to stand on, I figured they'd be more inclined to bite than to claw), and only had 1d3 for their claw damage, though.
Even with the Hover comment below, I agree that bite should be the primary attack. Claw damage 1d4 is based on what is recommended for medium sized creatures. I'm thinking about keeping that, but perhaps giving them a penalty to str.
I'm curious where the damage modifier comes from, since you don't have them with a Strength bonus.
Yup, thats another remainder of an older version. It should be removed.
I wasn't sure whether to include a melee weapon listing for their alternate form, but since you don't and the Aranea listing doesn't, I won't either.
In my current version that I am still working on, I'm providing stats for each form ala Lycanthropes, so with that one I will be including melee wpn stats. It will be useful for DMs I think. Dragons are usually only trained with simple weapons though, so I will probably stick with short sword/short bow...
Again, I had these switched around, but it doesn't really matter. It looks like you forgot to factor in the penalty for multiple attacks (-5 to each attack, or -2 with the Multiattack feat.)
Thanks for pointing that out. Im still sort of inexperienced with monster conversions.
Should this be 5 x 5 instead? (I just had Faith flashbacks saying 5x5)
Yup. Will be corrected.
See, if I'd just read ahead, I'd have seen that you gave them Damage Reduction already. D'OH!
Don't forget to include Fey traits.
Ah, again these should be fixed, thx.
On the Spell Resistance- I wasn't sure whether to give them SR or Spell Immunity (like the Cyclopedia). Immunity is powerful- very powerful (up to 4th level spells?), and for that reason I figured SR would be more doable. At the same time, though, SR allows for some chance to resist 5th and higher level spells, while a blanket immunity to 4th level spells or lower wouldn't.
Seeing as you seem to think SR is better, we should probably go with that. Especially as we hope to make these a playable character race. I might suggest doing SR 11 plus class levels, like many other races... not sure how that works out mechanically, though, without sitting down and doing the math.
I figured that was more in line with what a 3e monster would have. It is interesting that the PC1 Wood Drakes don't have the immunity...
These seem a bit high, given the ability scores you have for the Mandrake. I calculated +1, +4, +2.
That is right. If we go with Dragon, they will be different though.
These are almost exactly what I had. I didn't have the Wisdom penalty, just the Dex bonus, but I didn't feel that comfortable with my scores.
I'm considering an STR penalty instead, or perhaps both. What do you think?
I didn't calculate scores (didn't go that in depth), but my idea was to use their skill points to simulate the thievery abilities the drakes are said to have. These look fine, the only suggestions I might make would be to drop the Use Magic Item skill (the PC2 description gives NM Woodrakes a 100% failure chance with magic devices), and give them some points in "standard thief skills" to compensate- climb, move silently, chiefly. Also probably some points in disguise (and maybe a racial bonus to disguise?)
One idea I had- didn't get to implementing- to differentiate the various drakes was to have some skill differences. Something like- bluff for Mandrakes, Appraise? Craft? for Coldrakes, Knowledge (nature)? Survival? for Woodrakes. That sort of thing.
Ah, Use Magic Device should be dropped then. I agree with your philosophy with the skills too. Individual skill specializations is a good idea too!
Hover is a good idea- I hadn't thought of it. The only feat I'd actually had down was Multiattack, to minimize the multiple attack penalty for the drake's natural attacks. Your Hover idea makes really good sense, though- especially in regards to its claw attacks- of course it would need hover to make its claw strikes. I'm more inclined to go with your Claw as Primary attack concept now. Hover! Don't know why it didn't occur to me... D'OH!
Hmmm...so which one should be primary? Bite or claw? Multiattack is probably useful too, but AFAIK they only have 2 feats. With their low str Wpn Finesse sounds useful too....
I'd go Cold Mountain (Colddrake), Temperate Forest (Wooddrake), and err... Any (Mandrake). Sound right?
Yep!
Again, I was totally at a loss where to put their CR. 4 sounds about in the right region, though.
That one was really arbitrary on my part. But shouldnt be too far off...
I went with "Always Chaotic", just from the description (50% good or evil). Kind of torn between that and "Usually Chaotic", though.
I dont like forcing alignments, so i think im gonna stick with "Usually". A Lawful Drake would be an unsual sight though!
With the Spell Immune version I came up with, I had a whopping +5 or +6 LA(the Rakshasa, which has similar abilities, is a +7). +3 might be a little on the low side, but +3/+4 would do. When we finalize it, we should do a little comparison between a character of equal ECL and try to figure out where it should sit.
Hmmm...yeah, that one needs some more looking into. I want to try and keep it as low as possible though in order to make it interesting as a PC race...
Like I noted above, we might do well to give them a racial bonus to Disguise... although, now I check, the Aranea doesn't have one. Hmm... I guess it comes down to whether the Drakes Change Shape ability is a disguise (ie, multiple types of forms) or whether they only change into a unique shape (ie, always looks the same when it changes into its alternate form). Any ideas?
I considered Disguise too. IMO, the form(s) is identical every time. At least that is how we used to play it. Also, keep in mind Sir George's missing arm/wing in the Dragonlord Trilogy....
I like the idea of having different favored classes for the various drakes, too. Makes them somewhat different from each other.
Yep, I was gonna go with Rogue for all of them, but eventually decided they needed a bit more individualization.
Okay, again thanks for the feedback. I'm going to go through the writeup again with your comments in mind. The issue of whether to make them Fey or Dragons still remains in the open. I'd be interested in hearing other people's opinions on that too, unless you've been intimidated by these long posts... ;)
Havard
Originally posted by Cthulhudrew
I noticed that PC1 limits the Woodrake's Spell Immunity to a certain number of rounds/day (based on level). Maybe we could implement something similar? Like give the drakes the spell-like ability to use the Spell Immunity spell a certain number of times per day? Not sure how the mechanics of it would work, but maybe it's an idea?
Hmmmm.....
It is a possibility, but I will have to read up on the mechanics for counter spells and the like.
Bascially I think we get the same effect by having the Magic Resistance, though we could lower it.
OTOH, we could just drop it altogether. It will make for a much more playable race...
Havard