Draconians from Dragonlance vs Half Dragons

[Mulet]

I'm the DM, and just threw a half black Dragon, half Elven dude at the party. He could fly, spit a beam of acid and attack intelligently.

I've also read 3 books from the Dragonlance books (a Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 Campaign setting) and found the Draconian race to be absolutely marvellous.

Is there anything like the Draconian in Pathfinder? Half Dragons are much too rare for my liking.

[justaworm]

I believe Weiss and Hickman, or at least TSR->WoTC->Hasbro, own "draconians", so there isn't a PF equivalent.

You can take their death effects and apply them to Half dragons to make a new race of your own.

Or ...
This should cover it...

3.5 OGL Dragonlance Campaign setting

3.5 Dragons of Krynn bestiary with Draconians

3.5 OGL to PF conversion rules

[Marco Polaris]

If you're specifically looking for something in the lore of Golarion, the nearest in-setting equivalent would probably be the Dragonkin from Triaxus. Of course, even through the planet Triaxus is part of the same setting as Golarion, it's a whole 'nother planet, so they're probably harder to find than a half-dragon as far as the Inner Sea goes.

EDIT: Wait, do the Wyvaran count? They're draconic, though they lack the breath weapon or death throes. I'm not sure how common they are in Golarion.

[boring7]

Dragonlance was actually a 2nd edition setting, it dipped its toes in 3.5 very shortly before 4th edition came out. As a result there are certain tropes that are just hard to follow, 2nd edition had a lot of races just not being able to take some (or any) character class levels. So making the translation will get weird, and depends largely on what you actually want. What part of Draconian or Half-dragon or whatever are that special scaly spice you want to add to your campaign crock-pot?

Dragonkin are much bigger and all of them can actually fly, they're basically the dragons from the Dragonriders of Pern series. You wouldn't really call them "humanoid" like you might call a half-dragon or a draconian.

Wyvaran are closer, probably close enough, though they are pretty vanilla as critters go. If all you want is the draconic look they're the best. You can have entire tribes of them kicking around with enough class levels to an appropriate threat from level 1 to level 20.

3.5 Draconians had lower stat adjustments than Half-Dragons (+4 is the highest bonus, if memory serves) and 2-8 racial hit dice to go with their other abilities (skills, attack bonus, etc.). Also they were largely remembered for how they died, with the explosions and the petrification and such.

[Kthulhu]

Dragonlance came out of 1e, actually.

[wally.west]

Kthulhu wrote:

Dragonlance came out of 1e, actually.

Yep and there is at least one version of them that can fly. Sivak draconians if I remember correctly.

[boring7]

Bozak could too, though not as well, Kapak could fly very badly (more gliding than flying), and I'm not sure about Aurak. Baaz couldn't at all.

Dragonlance started as 1e, updated to 2e, in the end days of 2e they tried to make their own completely new system involving flash cards and massive "After the End" semi-post-apocalyptic setting where magic was low again (the setting always tried to be low-magic and then power-creeped up with successive storylines) and the gods were missing. 3rd edition ALMOST passed it by completely.

I don't know if there was any 4th edition stuff, though apparently they're really pushing a 5e version, along with all their other campaign settings.

[Mulet]

boring7 wrote:

Dragonkin are much bigger and all of them can actually fly, they're basically the dragons from the Dragonriders of Pern series.

Wow, I thought I was the only one who read the dragon riders of pern. By the way, F that book series. Too much boring drama in a world packed tight with potential.

ANYWAY, you're meaning is perfectly understood!

boring7 wrote:

Wyvaran are closer, probably close enough, though they are pretty vanilla as critters go. If all you want is the draconic look they're the best. You can have entire tribes of them kicking around with enough class levels to an appropriate threat from level 1 to level 20.

Dragons are wonderful to fight. Not many creatures can be so diverse, yet so familiar. Plus, combat with a lot of NPC's means a lot of legwork, for us DMs and LLLOOOONNNNGGG turns.