Editing Athasian Dragon (section)

==Athas.org==
A fan-created, semi-officially endorsed conversion of Dark Sun to 3.5e, [http://athas.org/ Athas.org] created its own version of the Athasian Dragon rules found in the ''Legends of Athas'' sourcebook. It serves as a middle ground between the zero-consequences ''Dragon'' rules and the horribly punishing 2nd Edition ruleset.

Like in the ''Dragon'' rules, the Athas.org Athasian Dragon is an epic level prestige class. To enter it, the character must be able to cast 9th-level spells and manifest 6th-level powers, which sucks, but should be expected at this point. The character needs the Body Fuel and Psionic Body feats, the former letting you regain power points by taking ability damage and the latter a shitty boost to your total HP based on your total number of psionic feats. The character must also be a defiler.

The Athas.org class returns to metamorphosis spells as a necessary part of advancement. In this case, the spells use the 3.5e epic spell rules. Each spell needs to be either found or developed, costing gold and XP to do so. Interestingly, you do not need to cast any one of the metamorphosis spells after ''defiler metamorphosis I'' to advance in this class: instead, each level of advancement from I to X increases the potency of the class's special abilities. In addition, at 5th and 10th levels, the caster learns the next spell in their transformation process without having to spend gold or XP.

Ideally, then, an Athasian Dragon using these rules would cast one metamorphosis spell per level, culminating in their final advancement at level 10. It's not a perfect system, but it's interesting, and certainly truer to the spirit of Dark Sun.

===The Prestige Class===
'''Hit Die: '''d6

'''Spellcasting/Manifesting Advancement: '''The Athasian Dragon improves their spellcasting abilities on every even level, as if they were advancing in one of their arcane spellcasting classes. Vice versa for manifesting, except that at 1st, 5th, and 9th levels, the Athasian Dragon gains no advancement. Effectively the PrC adds +5 to your arcane caster level and +2 to your manifester level through normal advancement.

In addition, the class grants +1 bonuses to ML and CL at certain levels: 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th for caster level, and 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th for manifester level. In the end, these bonuses mean the class adds +9 to your arcane caster level and +6 to your manifester level.

'''Dragon Magic: ''' Athasian Dragons are such powerful defilers that they can drain from animals instead of plants (though they then cast as if they were in desolate terrain). If they drain from both animals and plants at the same time, the effective terrain condition (which determines how powerful defiler spells are) increases by one, up to "abundant." This condition modifier increases by 1 per two metamorphosis spells the dragon has cast, up to 5, meaning a full-power dragon with animals nearby can cast powerful spells anywhere.

Draining from animals forces them to make a Fortitude save or take 1 point of Con damage. This damage is the same as the condition modifier, meaning it increases as the dragon progresses its metamorphosis.

'''Bonus Feat: '''At 1st level, the Athasian Dragon gains Quicken Spell as a bonus feat, or Multispell if they already have it. At 4th and 8th levels, they gain a bonus feat from the Athasian Dragon bonus feat list, which includes feats ranging from the okay (Master Staff, Armor Skin) to the [[Cheese|broken]] (Permanent Emanation, Improved Metamagic). You only get two of them, but that's on top of epic feat progression.

'''Psionic Enchantment: '''At every even level, the Athasian Dragon can take a Psionic Enchantment option. These are special abilities that combine psionic and arcane powers. These are very similar to the Archmage's High Arcana abilities, but without the need to trade a spell slot for them. They're also way more powerful. Particularly of note are the two metamagic options Metamixture and Metapotency. The former lets you apply a metapsionic feat to a spell as a free action, and the latter rewards you for taking a metamagic and metapsionic feat of the same type by multiplying their bonuses by 150%; i.e. if you have both Empower Spell and Empower Power, their bonuses increase to 75% rather than 50%. Another fantastic one for going nova against psions is Psionic Raze, which causes your defiling spells to drain power points from creatures stuck in the aura if you use this ability while casting a spell.

===Defiler Metamorphosis Epic Spells===
In an improvement from 2nd Edition, casting the defiler metamorphosis spells no longer has a chance of killing you outright. Instead, they use the "backlash damage" mechanic, which is less swingy and gives the defiler a better chance of surviving. Higher-level spells in the chain also require other casters to contribute high-level spell slots, and the final spell requires the dragon to personally kill a 20+HD creature that could cast 9th-level spells.

The bonuses here are similar to the bonuses in 2nd Edition. The dragon increases in size, gains bonuses to its physical ability scores, and gains natural armor bonuses. Eventually, it increases in size, first to Large and finally to Gargantuan (if the original creature was Medium). Along the way it gains dragon abilities like Frightful Presence, damage reduction, Spell/Psionics Resistance, appendage attacks, and finally a breath weapon of superheated sand.

At ''defiler metamorphosis V'' and onward, except for ''X,'' when the dragon successfully casts the spell, it enters a period of animalistic rage lasting a number of months "equal to the backlash roll of the spell." (The final spell in the rage section of the chain has a backlash of 34d6, meaning on average a dragon at this stage will be rampaging for ''[[RAGE|ten years]].'' Better keep that demiplane handy.) Thankfully, the rulebook only "suggests" that DMs "may" want to make your character an NPC for these parts of the game.

Once the dragon has metamorphosed for the last time, it is able to swallow obsidian power orbs and use them as normal, effectively giving maxed-out Athasian Dragons an unlimited supply of power points and spells. But at this point, you've already beaten Athas, so who cares?