Athasian Dragon - Revision history

imported>Administrator: 20 revisions imported

2023-06-17T19:59:07Z

20 revisions imported

← Older revision	Revision as of 19:59, 17 June 2023
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1d4chan>Nubnuber: /* Gallery */

2021-08-30T22:40:14Z

Gallery

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	Dark Sun Dragon TF.jpg		Dark Sun Dragon TF.jpg
	Dragotyr.gif		Dragotyr.gif
			dragon king boxed set.jpg
			dragon king revised.png
	Athasian Dragongirl.jpg\|Because of course there's a [[monstergirl]] version		Athasian Dragongirl.jpg\|Because of course there's a [[monstergirl]] version
	</gallery>		</gallery>
	[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Dark Sun]][[Category:Dragons]] [[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Classes]]		[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Dark Sun]][[Category:Dragons]] [[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Classes]]

2603:8001:3500:CB:C1D2:F698:23D1:6337 at 10:37, 28 January 2021

2021-01-28T10:37:50Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:37, 28 January 2021
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	One of the many ways that [[Dark Sun]] differs from your traditional [[Dungeons & Dragons]] setting is that there are no native [[Dragon]]s. Oh, there are Athasian Drakes, but those are basically giant feral reptiles with innate elemental psychic powers - the Fire Drake, for example, is basically a T-Rex with pyrokinesis. In fact, there is supposedly only one Dragon in Athas - the Dragon of Tyr.		One of the many ways that [[Dark Sun]] differs from your traditional [[Dungeons & Dragons]] setting is that there are no native [[Dragon]]s. Oh, there are Athasian Drakes, but those are basically giant feral reptiles with innate elemental psychic powers - the Fire Drake, for example, is basically a T-Rex with pyrokinesis. In fact, there is supposedly only one Dragon in Athas - the Dragon of Tyr.

	But that's not quite accurate. See, Athasian Dragons are epic-leveled multiclassed psionicist-defilers who have turned their combined magical powers towards transforming into a superior state. The Dragon of Tyr is the ~~just~~ first psion/defiler to complete the transition, and his former compatriots, the Sorcerer-Kings, are all at some level along the transformation themselves.		But that's not quite accurate. See, Athasian Dragons are epic-leveled multiclassed psionicist-defilers who have turned their combined magical powers towards transforming into a superior state. The Dragon of Tyr is just the first psion/defiler to complete the transition, and his former compatriots, the Sorcerer-Kings, are all at some level along the transformation themselves.

	Athasian Dragons, needless to say, are nasty, ''nasty'' creatures, with immense physical, arcane and psionic power at their command. In their appearances prior to 4th edition, this was somewhat counterbalanced by the extreme requirements needed to progress through the levels to become a full-fledged dragon, and by the fact that most of those levels allowed the [[Dungeon Master]] to take control of your character whenever they felt like it. On the other hand, achieving even the lowest level of Athasian Dragonhood meant that your character became ageless, as well as gaining increasingly strong combat abilities, the ability to speak any language, along with eventually gaining a devastating breath weapon of superheated sand.		Athasian Dragons, needless to say, are nasty, ''nasty'' creatures, with immense physical, arcane and psionic power at their command. In their appearances prior to 4th edition, this was somewhat counterbalanced by the extreme requirements needed to progress through the levels to become a full-fledged dragon, and by the fact that most of those levels allowed the [[Dungeon Master]] to take control of your character whenever they felt like it. On the other hand, achieving even the lowest level of Athasian Dragonhood meant that your character became ageless, as well as gaining increasingly strong combat abilities, the ability to speak any language, along with eventually gaining a devastating breath weapon of superheated sand.

1d4chan>Uvexar: Added Athas.org Athasian Dragon summary

2021-01-13T21:54:49Z

Added Athas.org Athasian Dragon summary

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	So while having the option was nice, the finagling required to get it working in a normal game meant that it wasn't really worth the trouble.		So while having the option was nice, the finagling required to get it working in a normal game meant that it wasn't really worth the trouble.

			==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?

	==4th Edition==		==4th Edition==

1d4chan>Nubnuber: /* 3rd Edition */

2021-01-11T04:44:14Z

3rd Edition

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:44, 11 January 2021
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	==3rd Edition==		==3rd Edition==
	[[File:Dragon king Dragon 339.~~jpg~~\|right\|100px]]		[[File:Dragon king Dragon 339.png\|right\|100px]]
	In 3rd edition, the Athasian dragon appeared as an epic level prestige class in [[Dragon Magazine]] #339, cutting out most of the stuff that made AD&D's Dragon progression a real pain in the ass. Instead of casting spells with a flat chance of killing you just to level up, you could level up normally. You still had to put up with the bullshit of the DM taking control of your character at certain levels, though.		In 3rd edition, the Athasian dragon appeared as an epic level prestige class in [[Dragon Magazine]] #339, cutting out most of the stuff that made AD&D's Dragon progression a real pain in the ass. Instead of casting spells with a flat chance of killing you just to level up, you could level up normally. You still had to put up with the bullshit of the DM taking control of your character at certain levels, though.

108.192.1.9: spelling correction

2020-12-03T05:03:53Z

spelling correction

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	The ritual that creates the Athasian Dragon inspired the only Sorcerer-King to almost complete it, the [[Lich]] (or pseudo-[[Dracolich]]) Dregoth, to believe it was humanity's ultimate destiny to transform into dragons as a species. His experiments in bringing this about led to the creation of the [[Dray]] race.		The ritual that creates the Athasian Dragon inspired the only Sorcerer-King to almost complete it, the [[Lich]] (or pseudo-[[Dracolich]]) Dregoth, to believe it was humanity's ultimate destiny to transform into dragons as a species. His experiments in bringing this about led to the creation of the [[Dray]] race.

	The Preserver counterpart for this ~~creatrue~~ is the [[Avangion]].		The Preserver counterpart for this creature is the [[Avangion]].

	==AD&D Athasian Dragons==		==AD&D Athasian Dragons==

1d4chan>Nubnuber at 03:27, 27 October 2020

2020-10-27T03:27:16Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 03:27, 27 October 2020
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	==3rd Edition==		==3rd Edition==
			[[File:Dragon king Dragon 339.jpg\|right\|100px]]
	In 3rd edition, the Athasian dragon appeared as an epic level prestige class in [[Dragon Magazine]] #339, cutting out most of the stuff that made AD&D's Dragon progression a real pain in the ass. Instead of casting spells with a flat chance of killing you just to level up, you could level up normally. You still had to put up with the bullshit of the DM taking control of your character at certain levels, though.		In 3rd edition, the Athasian dragon appeared as an epic level prestige class in [[Dragon Magazine]] #339, cutting out most of the stuff that made AD&D's Dragon progression a real pain in the ass. Instead of casting spells with a flat chance of killing you just to level up, you could level up normally. You still had to put up with the bullshit of the DM taking control of your character at certain levels, though.

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	==4th Edition==		==4th Edition==
	[[File:Dragon of Tyr 4E.jpg\|thumb\|~~right~~\|The Dragon of Tyr, the only known dragon in Athas, as depicted in 4e.]]		[[File:Dragon of Tyr 4E.jpg\|thumb\|left\|100px\|The Dragon of Tyr, the only known dragon in Athas, as depicted in 4e.]]
	In 4th edition, of course, the Dragon King was brought back as an [[Epic Destiny]]. This version cut out all the bullshit; you just need to get an Arcane character to 21st level and take it. At 21st level it grants the features '''Draconian Defilement''' (arcane defiling grants +2 to attack roll or +6 damage) and '''Skin of the Dragon''' (you gain low-light vision, +2 to Intimidate, and +5 maximum hitpoints, as well as adding your Constitution modifier to your healing surge value). At level 24, it grants the feature '''Draconic Transformation''' (you gain a fly speed of 8, the ability to speak Draconic, and a +2 to any two of [[Intelligence]], [[Strength]], and/or [[Constitution]]). At level 26, you gain the Daily utility "Draconic Rampage", which lets you transform into a Large sized dragon and wreck shit for the rest of the encounter. At level 30, you gain the final feature of '''Draconic Terror''', which grants a new Encounter Attack in "Scathing Breath" (close blast 5 of fire damage that can blind enemies) as well as the ability to transform into a dragon for 1 turn as an Encounter version of the aforementioned Draconic Rampage.		In 4th edition, of course, the Dragon King was brought back as an [[Epic Destiny]]. This version cut out all the bullshit; you just need to get an Arcane character to 21st level and take it. At 21st level it grants the features '''Draconian Defilement''' (arcane defiling grants +2 to attack roll or +6 damage) and '''Skin of the Dragon''' (you gain low-light vision, +2 to Intimidate, and +5 maximum hitpoints, as well as adding your Constitution modifier to your healing surge value). At level 24, it grants the feature '''Draconic Transformation''' (you gain a fly speed of 8, the ability to speak Draconic, and a +2 to any two of [[Intelligence]], [[Strength]], and/or [[Constitution]]). At level 26, you gain the Daily utility "Draconic Rampage", which lets you transform into a Large sized dragon and wreck shit for the rest of the encounter. At level 30, you gain the final feature of '''Draconic Terror''', which grants a new Encounter Attack in "Scathing Breath" (close blast 5 of fire damage that can blind enemies) as well as the ability to transform into a dragon for 1 turn as an Encounter version of the aforementioned Draconic Rampage.

	Becoming a dragon full-time is left for your post-31st level epilogue in this version.		Becoming a dragon full-time is left for your post-31st level epilogue in this version.

			==Gallery==
	<gallery>		<gallery>
	~~File:~~Athasian Dragongirl.jpg\|Because of course there's a [[monstergirl]] version		Dark Sun Dragon TF.jpg
			Dragotyr.gif
			Athasian Dragongirl.jpg\|Because of course there's a [[monstergirl]] version
	</gallery>		</gallery>
	[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Dark Sun]][[Category:Dragons]] [[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Classes]]		[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Dark Sun]][[Category:Dragons]] [[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Classes]]

1d4chan>BeastsOfHysh: Undo revision 685741 by I LOVE gardevoirs! (talk)

2020-08-14T17:30:23Z

Undo revision 685741 by I LOVE gardevoirs! (talk)

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1d4chan>I LOVE gardevoirs! at 16:58, 14 August 2020

2020-08-14T16:58:16Z

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1d4chan>Nubnuber: Added top image

2020-08-14T16:57:28Z

Added top image

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:57, 14 August 2020
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	~~{{NeedsImages}}~~		[[File:Borys of Ebe.jpg\|thumb\|right\|300px\|Borys of Ebe, the first and only Dragon, being epic.]]
	One of the many ways that [[Dark Sun]] differs from your traditional [[Dungeons & Dragons]] setting is that there are no native [[Dragon]]s. Oh, there are Athasian Drakes, but those are basically giant feral reptiles with innate elemental psychic powers - the Fire Drake, for example, is basically a T-Rex with pyrokinesis. In fact, there is supposedly only one Dragon in Athas - the Dragon of Tyr.		One of the many ways that [[Dark Sun]] differs from your traditional [[Dungeons & Dragons]] setting is that there are no native [[Dragon]]s. Oh, there are Athasian Drakes, but those are basically giant feral reptiles with innate elemental psychic powers - the Fire Drake, for example, is basically a T-Rex with pyrokinesis. In fact, there is supposedly only one Dragon in Athas - the Dragon of Tyr.