Talk:Shadowfire Dragon (3.5e Creature)

Issues

First, here are some dragon templates to use for formatting.

Subtypes (if applicable), environments, organizations, challenge ratings, treasure, alignment, advancement, and level adjustments (optional) are all missing.

Is this a true dragon or an epic dragon? Why doesn't the HD progression follow the expected pattern for either (i.e. 3 HD per age category for true, or 5 HD per age category for epic)?

This seems like true it starts Ewokdruid 11:35, 1 September 2009 (MDT)

Why do some of the ability scores increase by odd numbers? Ability scores for dragons have always increased by even numbers.

Can the dragon cast cleric spells or any domain spells?

Lastly, the text at the bottom describing the breath weapon does not match the table. --Sledged 10:58, 19 July 2006 (MDT)

Size is also an issue. --Dmilewski 16:32, 10 December 2006 (MST)

Seeing that this was started by a IP address, I think we may need to change this to make it work within the D&D rules. Anyway want to do this job? --Green Dragon 18:20, 10 December 2006 (MST)

dosent it need a template to become augmented? Ewokdruid 11:35, 1 September 2009 (MDT)

Update

This entry has not been updated since July. With so many progression simply wrong for a dragon type (either too strong or weak), I gutted almost the entire entry. I have based the creature on the Red Dragon type. It still needs tweaking and updating, but it should be much closer to a proper True Dragon. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dmilewski (talk • contribs) 19:44, 10 December 2006 Dmilewski (MST). Please sign your posts.

Renamed the creature to Shadowfire Dragon. That has a far better ring to it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dmilewski (talk • contribs) 10:33, 11 December 2006 (MDT). Please sign your posts.

Sounds good. I was going to suggest "Hellshadow Dragon" myself. —Sledged 12:30, 11 December 2006 (MST)

I like the new name. --Green Dragon 22:57, 11 December 2006 (MST)

I noticed you gave it the Outsider (Augmented Dragon, Fire, Incorporeal) type (subtypes). I recommend keeping its type as Dragon (Extraplanar, Fire, Incorporeal). All true dragons have the dragon type, including the planar dragons (Draconomicon) and the dragon gods (Dieties and Demigods), despite the divine rules saying that most deities are creatures of the outsider type. —Sledged 12:59, 11 December 2006 (MST)

I'll switch it back. I'm all for standards. If you see any standards-based changes that need to happen in this entry, by all means, make them. Actually, any reasonable change is good. I'm only interested in bringing this entry up to snuff. It will need a bit of mangling and tweaking before it's fit. I could really use your estimate the CR for the creature's ages. I'm thinking it should be CR+2 across the board, as if a template was applied to a Red Dragon. That will also keep the number crunching to a minimum. --Dmilewski 07:41, 12 December 2006 (MST)

I did a bunch more updates. I made changes as indicated above, plus added Chaotic and Evil to its descriptors. I crunched out some of the abilities and made them far more thematic. I toned down the power. With so many invulnerabilities, I added vulnerability to positive energy/light and removed resistance to acid. This thing is starting to take coherent shape. Time to think about the abilities some. Should it touch attack like a shadow? How should we adjust physical damage, if it should have any at all? How to adjust CR? How easily can the PC's foil it through simple spells? Things to think about. --Dmilewski 10:48, 12 December 2006 (MST)

When get my hands on the copies of various sources that have true dragons, I'll have a better idea of what's standard without exception and what's standard with exceptions. Within the SRD, true dragons don't gain DR until young adult. Epic dragons have it from wyrmling. From there it increases by 5 every other age category. For epic dragons the last increase is at very old. Also at young adult, instead of increasing by 5, the DR type changes from magic to epic. I think some of the non-SRD dragons have exceptions, but I'm not sure what they are or how often they occur. Also, at the age categories where the DR increases, they don't gain any other abilities. —Sledged 12:30, 12 December 2006 (MST)

Made a few changes based on above. The dragon is non-epic. (It's based on a Red Dragon.) I toned down the powers a bit. It now looks a bit more appropriate to a red dragon's CR.--Dmilewski 13:50, 13 December 2006 (MST)

Unrelated

Anyone find it odd that angel and archon are subtypes, but demon and devil are not? —Sledged 12:44, 12 December 2006 (MST)

That is odd. Likewise, we have no Celestial or Fiend subtype. We have no words for lawful and chaotic extraplanar types. I think. I might be wrong in that. --Dmilewski 13:25, 12 December 2006 (MST)

Presumably, Axiomatic and Chaotic would be the extraplanar tag-words, but I can't think for sure of a place where they ever actually used them... you could try the inevitables, though. Would be there, if anywhere. --EldritchNumen 19:06, 13 December 2006 (MST)

Nm. Inevitables only have subtypes... --EldritchNumen 19:07, 13 December 2006 (MST)

I would imagine that the reason why there is not celestial or fiend subtypes is because they're easily identified as extraplanar outsiders with the good and evil subtypes respectively. Whereas angels and archons are a specific subset of celestials. Similarly, not all outiders with the evil, lawful, and extraplanar subtypes are devils, just a select few.

Lawful and chaotic outsiders... orderlies and anarchists? —Sledged (talk) 15:57, 5 September 2007 (MDT)

Now I finally figure out why there's no demon and devil subtypes. What originally prompted me to comment on the above observation was the fact that there are listed traits for demons and devils just like angels and archons have listed traits, but unlike demons and devils, there is an angel subtype and an archon subtype. So I realized that in the MM the demon and devil traits are listed as "tanar'ri" traits and "baatezu" traits, and if you look at some of the devils in the MM they are presented with the "baatezu" subtype (and some demons have the "tanar'ri" subtype). However, since both terms are Product Identity, they just use "devil" and "demon" instead, but they didn't replace the subtypes in the creature entries. They just removed the subtypes altogether. —Sledged (talk) 15:57, 5 September 2007 (MDT)

JFC on Crack! Brilliant. That means that we can call them subtypes, and even edit them in. (Yes, that's pushing the boundaries of the OGL, but I like to think that we are clarifying the text as intended.)--Dmilewski 19:29, 5 September 2007 (MDT)

Sounds good to me. —Sledged (talk) 12:34, 7 September 2007 (MDT)