I've never liked the idea of intelligent, spell casting dragons. I prefer them to be more animalistic and feral.
So, let's say I have an Adult Black Dragon (CR 11).
It has the following spell like abilities
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 14th)
At will—darkness (60-ft. radius)
Spells Known (CL 3rd)
1st (6/day)—alarm, mage armor, obscuring mist
0 (at will)—dancing lights, detect magic, mending, message, read magic.
What kind of CR adjustment would you give if you stripped away it's spell casting?
Do you believe an equation could be created to adjust the CR of any dragon when removing its spell casting?
Too small.
Even a Flame Drake is only CR5 and large.
They also have far less attacks.
A flame drake only bites and tail slaps.
I'd still want something that bites, claws, and slaps.
Drake breath weapons are weak as well.
For casting removal I'd reduce its CR by the equivalent caster level. In this case it's CL 3, so removing those spellcasting abilities would be like taking away 3 Sorc levels. (Maybe 1 less, since it doesn't get the other Sorc class abilities like bloodlines and stuff, so in that case reduce by 2. Or -1/5 Caster levels or something if you want to get more complex, so a Dragon with CL 5 would be reduced by 4 but a dragon with CL 6 would also be reduced by 4 since there's an even greater percentage of Sorc class abilities they're not getting. Your call.) This also might need some eyeballing at the higher CRs, where the CL is much closer to the Dragon's total; perhaps go with 1/2-CL instead? Again, your call.
Going with Reduce by CL, that brings it down to CR8. Removing its Spell-Likes... Darkness puts it on par with a Tiefling, but a little better since it's at-will rather than 1/day. I'd consider that worth 1 CR, personally, it's a useful ability but not game-breaking to remove and does not weaken the dragon significantly, I think, compared to losing its casting. So that puts it at about CR7.
Nuke its INT stat down. If you just leave it at ... say ... 5 INT? I think it doesn't need further adjustment. If you reallocate those lost points into something combat-affecting (Str, Con, or whatever stat it uses to calculate its breath weapon DC) then I'd bump the CR back up by 1.
SO:
CR 11 - 3 (losing Sorc casting) - 1 (spell-like abilities) = CR 7 for low-Int, no-spells Adult Black Dragon
+1 if lost Int points are reallocated into more useful stats = CR 8.
Seem accurate?
Maybe not at this low level, sure. I'm more shooting for a standard overall, though. Something that can be slapped on any dragon for quick-and-easy conversion.
1/2 caster level might be more reasonable though. So that'd be 11-1-1=9, 10 if you reallocate its stats. Not a major difference at this level, but for things like the Ancient Wyrm dragons with CL 15+ it'll make a more noticeable adjustment.
Replace spell casting with barbarian, fighter, ranger or cavalier class abilities (of a suitable archetype) and add those class skills to their known class skills if applicable.
no increase in HD, BAB, skill points or armor proficiencies.
I'd default to barbarian, possibly with invulnerable, scarred berserker or savage archetype, adjusted slightly to benefit the dragon in some cases.
The archetype and class distinction I could use to add personality to a dragon.
otherwise I'd decrease the intelligence and charisma by 4 and increase str, dex and con by 2 each.
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I like the idea of alternate class abilities, might play with that.
A rogue-y black dragon in a dark swamp could be terrifying.
I agree immensely.
So, linnorm?
Green Ronin, in their Advanced Bestiary, publish stats for feral dragons. D20PFSRD did a conversion to Pathfinder rules (see the link below).
Green Ronin, in their Advanced Bestiary, publish stats for feral dragons. D20PFSRD did a conversion to Pathfinder rules (see the link below).
That helps immensely as well, thank you.