Rogar Valertis |
Try primal dragons. A crystal dragon could do perfectly for your needs. Or just put a primal dragon inside each of the gems (magma dragon for a ruby for example, a cloud dragon for a diamond and so on) and have the crystal dragon hire the PCs to recover all of the gems freeing its brethen... then you have a BBEG (big bad evil guy) and a few friends of comparable power for your PCs to face (maybe not right away), in this case I would make the number of gems the PCs need to recover equal to the number of PCs.
Edit: a great wyrm crystal dragon is CR18 and if you need tougher there's always the mythic template.
Btw, gems associated with elemental dragons could be:
-Azurite crystal (or aquamarine) for Brine Dragon
-Diamond (or sapphire) for Cloud Dragon
-Ruby (or fire agate) for Magma Dragon
-Onyx (or obsidian) for Umbral Dragon
Lincoln Hills |
Single-enemy fights can be somewhat anticlimactic. Supply the dragon with enslaved undead, constructs, or outsiders - or, if you're particularly wicked, a couple of simulacra of himself (the potential of getting stuck between two draconic full-attacks or within multiple breath weapon areas, even if one's half-power, is disheartening to say the least.)
Dastis |
I enjoy the legendary rules from d and d 5th edition for any single foe boss fights
Rather than being a dragon it could be a spellcaster of another race using form of the dragon with a ring of continuation. Bonus points if he as a familiar he does the same thing with
Gem dragons from 3.5 MMII fit very nicely
Could just use a normal dragon that just loves gems/magic gems and nobody would bat an eyelash
There was an essoteric dragon template I remember where the dragon became so consumed by its hoard it slowly became part of it until the hoard was the dragon. I will post agian if I remember where this was. This type could gain stats/lifespan/whatever as it increases the value/magic/gemness/whatever of its hoard if you wanted an easy motivation