This dragon defies all the other dragon-creation formula for its Armor Class.
Is it me, or does this dragon have ridiculously low AC? Was this intentional? The poor thing has AC 21 at great wyrm age. At 20th level, a few maxed out Power Attacks by a raging barbarian with a two-handed weapon could wipe this thing out in 2 or 3 rounds... :O
Isn't that the one that, at great wyrm (CR 22ish I think) has a breath weapon with a DC of 45? Sorry, I'm about 25 miles from my books right now.
Yeah that one. It has Con 43 by Great Wyrm stage, Str 43 too. Hmm, it may be balanced out but still. AC 21 is considerably low for a CR 22 creature, huge breath weapon DC or not. If the party is prepared against the breath weapon then it's cake.
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Yeah, that author... who knows what he was thinking?
Actually, wait... I do! :D
So here's the idea behind the chole dragon's balancing features, as I recall them:
• Yes, his AC is low. That was intentional, as his scales do a poor job of protecting his soft dragony bits. Prototentacles push out on the underside of his scales, providing hundreds of tiny areas for weapons to strike.
• To counter that, he has crazy hit point totals. The chole dragon passes even the mighty gold (considered the baseline "toughest dragon") in hit point totals at adult age.
• In addition, a great wyrm chole dragon has DR 20/lawful and DR 5/— and fast healing 15. A barbarian needs to deal at least 41 points of damage with a single hit in order to leave a permanent mark on the dragon's hide, while a different character with a lawful weapon needs to deal only 21 points of damage with a single hit. (Those are not impossible by any stretch, but if he were perfect he'd be the TPK dragon.)
• The chole dragon's schtick is "offense makes the best defense." In addition to all the normal dragon attacks he can make in a round (minus wing buffet), he gets to make two tentacle attacks against random opponents. The tentacles have crazy reach and deal moderate damage, so they can't be ignored. And his offensive-minded spell-like abilities are also pretty sweet...
• Assuming you can deal 100 points of damage a round (after DR and fast healing) to the dragon he'll still last 9 rounds. And in those 9 rounds he can cast Mordenkainen's disjunction, dominate monster, weird, or time stop, (not to mention his other spell-like abilities) depending on the number of tentacles he has.
If you feel, even after that, that he's under-protected, please do feel free to increase his natural armor number. Really, you won't hurt my feelings. :)
I mean, those of the author... (Has this joke run its course?)
Yeah, that author... who knows what he was thinking?
I wonder the same thing from time to time. :P
• In addition, a great wyrm chole dragon has DR 20/lawful and DR 5/— and fast healing 15. A barbarian needs to deal at least 41 points of damage with a single hit in order to leave a permanent mark on the dragon's hide, while a different character with a lawful weapon needs to deal only 21 points of damage with a single hit. (Those are not impossible by any stretch, but if he were perfect he'd be the TPK dragon.)
Your math is off. ;) The barbarian needs to deal at least 36 points - when the DRs are different, only the best applies in a given circumstance. So against a non-lawful weapon, the DR magic number is 20; against a lawful weapon, the DR magic number is 5.
In addition, he doesn't really need to do that in a single hit. As long as each individual attack does more than the DR, the attacker need only do a cumulative total of 16 for the round to have an effect on the dragon's HP total. For example, if the barbarian has 4 attacks and he does 24 points of damage with each (before DR), the net effect of the round (after the dragon does it's fast healing thing) would be one point of damage.
That aside - yeah, this dragon seems tough enough. :)
* Wow - I hope I didn't hurt the author's feelings by pointing this stuff out ;) *
-- John
Yeah, that author... who knows what he was thinking?
Actually, wait... I do! :D
So here's the idea behind the chole dragon's balancing features, as I recall them:
• Yes, his AC is low. That was intentional, as his scales do a poor job of protecting his soft dragony bits. Prototentacles push out on the underside of his scales, providing hundreds of tiny areas for weapons to strike.
• To counter that, he has crazy hit point totals. The chole dragon passes even the mighty gold (considered the baseline "toughest dragon") in hit point totals at adult age.
• In addition, a great wyrm chole dragon has DR 20/lawful and DR 5/— and fast healing 15. A barbarian needs to deal at least 41 points of damage with a single hit in order to leave a permanent mark on the dragon's hide, while a different character with a lawful weapon needs to deal only 21 points of damage with a single hit. (Those are not impossible by any stretch, but if he were perfect he'd be the TPK dragon.)
• The chole dragon's schtick is "offense makes the best defense." In addition to all the normal dragon attacks he can make in a round (minus wing buffet), he gets to make two tentacle attacks against random opponents. The tentacles have crazy reach and deal moderate damage, so they can't be ignored. And his offensive-minded spell-like abilities are also pretty sweet...
• Assuming you can deal 100 points of damage a round (after DR and fast healing) to the dragon he'll still last 9 rounds. And in those 9 rounds he can cast Mordenkainen's disjunction, dominate monster, weird, or time stop, (not to mention his other spell-like abilities) depending on the number of tentacles he has.If you feel, even after that, that he's under-protected, please do feel free to increase his natural armor number. Really, you won't hurt my feelings. :)
I mean, those of the author... (Has this joke run its course?)
Ah yes I see it. In fact, after I made my posts I actually looked over the abilities and noted the damage reduction and fast healing and said to myself "I can see why the low AC now, der!"
So, yeah, next time I'll actually scrutinize a monster in more detail LOL
But kudos to your article Mike! I enjoyed it as well as any article with new monsters, especially dragons. Now the question is: When will we see the Baatorian and Arcadian versions? This can even be stretched to encompass planar dragons of the Elemental Planes and even a Positive and Negative Energy dragon. :D
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But kudos to your article Mike! I enjoyed it as well as any article with new monsters, especially dragons. Now the question is: When will we see the Baatorian and Arcadian versions? This can even be stretched to encompass planar dragons of the Elemental Planes and even a Positive and Negative Energy dragon. :D
Thanks. :) You can bet your bottom dollar that such dragons have been proposed.
;D
Oh boy... still have next week for 344 to appear and I'm chomping at the bit for the planar dragons. Someone over at the WotC boards said that a preview of 345 says there will be aquatic dragons. Without disclosing too much, are these true dragons, and are they similar to the ones I've submitted as proposals.