I usually have a draconic-type creature in my campaigns, which in Faerûn and the like, is often an actual silver dragon using alternate form a lot. The Faerûnian party in question may occasionally ask for advice from said dragon, but actively soliciting help tends to cost them in platinum, which they're not fond of doing! They also run into him regularly in various guises, but they're not yet aware of most of his humanoid identities. :)
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The trick to having functional dragons is to make them characters and make them have things of their own to deal with.
When the PCs are the only ones doing anything and their story is the only story, you start having issues of why the silver dragon can't fry those goblins.
When the silver dragon has to deal with other issues of its own, as opposed to sitting around in its cave all day, things seem a lot more organic (Ok guys, the Mithril Princess has to deal with that outbreak of fire elemental pickpockets in the west kingdom. We can go kill a few hundred orcs! Huzzah!)
I tend to portray gold dragons as long-lived beings who are typically too paranoid to leave their caves.
Vanity.
Tired of the tarnished color of their scales, silver dragons learned to immerse themselves in an acid bath.
They emerged sparkling and beautiful. And, it takes a LOT of acid to clean off that many scales.
Therefore, they developed the immunity so that they might enjoy the benefits of sparkling, beautiful scales.
Alternately, being the social dragons they are, they spent a few too many days in tye-dye you know, "dropping acid." Much like Keith Richards, they'll be the last living things on Earth after Armageddon, aside from a few cockroaches.
I think the right answer is that they are immune to acid because rules.
Something happen in the long long ago
A Silver help a powerful Angel or
A Silver defeated a powerful black or green or
A sliver helped a copper or
A Silver defeated a copper in a contest of some sort or
Silvers were giving the duty to guard against the evil of black and/or green or
A Silver sacrificed itself by swimming into acid to save the world.
After that all Silver dragons were immune to acid.
I thought of these in 5 minutes.
Those are all possible in world reasons. If you want a IRL reason I would guess either a typo in 3.0 that got carried over or the devs want to give them a little more oomph.
If silver dragons didn't have acid immunity, would you want to give it to them? If so, why?
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If silver dragons didn't have acid immunity, would you want to give it to them? If so, why?
No, because it messes with the 'immune to your own breath weapon' thing dragons have going on. If a particular silver dragon has a reason to have it, they have spellcasting (and/or DM fiat) to get access to energy resistance.
Every dragon has a special bonus thing in addition to immunity to it's own breath weapon. For silvers it's the acid immunity. For golds it's the aura of fire that burns everyone that's in close proximity to the dragon. Coppers have a slow aura.
Silver Dragons don't have an offensive aura, they have this defensive bonus instead.
According to the PRD you are incorrect. http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/dragon.html#_dragon
Golds get a fire aura when they are old.
"Fire Aura (Su) An old or older gold dragon is surrounded by an aura of fire. All creatures within 5 feet of the dragon take 1d6 points of fire damage at the beginning of the dragon's turn. An ancient gold dragon's aura extends to 10 feet. A great wyrm's damage increases to 2d6. The dragon can activate or suppress this aura as a free action."
Silvers also get a cold aura when they are old.
"Cold Aura (Su) An old or older silver dragon is surrounded by an aura of cold. All creatures within 5 feet of the dragon take 1d6 points of cold damage at the beginning of the dragon's turn. An ancient dragon's aura extends to 10 feet. A great wyrm's aura damage increases to 2d6. A silver dragon can suppress or activate this aura at will as a free action."
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Biggest likely reason: Silver dragons are very cool, Huma and all from Dragonlance. Silver dragons are the #2 good dragon, and good dragons are supposed to be stronger than evil generally. But with just cold immunity, Silver dragons were only resistant to the very *least* of evil dragons, the barely sentient whites. Adding Acid immunity made them formidable foes for Black and Green, but still not overly dominant against the stronger Blues and Reds.
This is one explanation I would gladly accept as valid. I really love it when something in Pathfinder happens "because Dragonlance". No sarcasm, Dragonlance is my all-time favorite setting.
If silver dragons didn't have acid immunity, would you want to give it to them? If so, why?No, because it messes with the 'immune to your own breath weapon' thing dragons have going on. If a particular silver dragon has a reason to have it, they have spellcasting (and/or DM fiat) to get access to energy resistance.
I agree with you Ross, it does seem bizarre. This thread prompted me to think about silver dragons and as a result they are now immune to electricity in my game instead. The core rules said dragons tend to have 2 immunities. Since I can't justify an acid immunity in my head, I opted for electric immunity so they are killed by the weather in their native environment by an random bolt of lightning.
Since a bolt of natural lightning deals between 4-80 electricity damage, it would be pretty dangerous for a silver dragon to be flying around inside inclement weather. :)