Cold Drakes

[Venture42]

My group will soon be heading to the Withered Heath. I'd like, for the big encounter, to feature a small cold drake. I was wondering if some of you, more skilled and experienced than myself could help me stat one up. Any help would be appreciated. Also, new to the forum and the game, but I'm liking what I see so far.

[Angelalex242]

Well...

Theroetically, you take Smaug's statblock and depower him a little.

If you have Smaug's statblock, that is.

If you don't...

Well, let's see...

Bewilder could represent the fabled Dragon Gaze
Dreadul Spells could represent almost anything you want the dragon to do.
Fell Speed is a gimme, cause it flies.
Foul Reek is a gimme, cause Smaug had that.
Hideous Toughness, Horrible Strength, Thick Hide, and Great Size are all obvious.
Considering a Dragon has teeth, wings, 4 claws, and a tail, it's conceivable to give it No Quarter
Savage Assault makes sense for all those attacks it has.
Lastly, Thing of Terror, cause hey, it's a Dragon.

[Hermes Serpent]

A cold drake features in one of the adventures in Tales of Wilderland and features many of the Special Abilities favoured by Angelalex242.

i.e. Great Size, Thick Hide, Savage Assault, Foul Reek, Horrible Strength, Dreadful Spells, Thing of Terror, Weak Spot, Poison Blast.

[Venture42]

Thanks guys. I haven't looked through my copy of tales of the wilderland yet, didn't know a cold drake was in there. I'll take a look. Thanks again.

[poosticks7]

I did a stripped down version of a cold drake for Rich H's document, sadly it is unavailable.

If you are interested I could post the stats to you by private message. Be warned though it is a mighty foe, Pc deaths very likely.

[Venture42]

Yes please do, I'd love to see them.

[Glorelendil]

Digging through older posts and found this one.

Here's an idea for a community project: instead of having stat blocs for every creature, let's invent a system for generating creatures. That is, analogues for "culture" "backgrounds/traits" "weapon skills" "virtue/wisdom" "rewards" for creature races. So "cultures" become Drake, Orc, Troll, Spider, Wraith, Wight, Worg, etc. (Probably want to rename the terminology, like the way "Hope" becomes "Hate".)

In prewritten adventures the stat blocs would still exist, but GMs could create any variant of any creature that worked in their campaign. Want a very young Cold Drake for your adventurers, the equivalent of Attribute Level 4? No problem, just use the rules the same way you would make an Attribute Level 4 player character.

Orcs are maybe the best example. There are a variety of cultures (Misty Mountain, Dol Guldur, Mordor, Uruk-hai, etc.) and backgrounds (tracker, archer, leader, strangler) weapon skills, and so on.

(The tool to generate creatures would make a great app, by the way.)

So, what do people think? I'm still new to TOR so I may not have a good sense of game balance yet, but it would be a blast to participate in and contribute to such a project. I see an eventual official book (and app...)

[poosticks7]

Well I didn't go that far, but I did make a lot of additional foes for the game - lots of varients based off monsters already done and a few I thought of.

Take a look at Rich H's additional rules pdf, lots of cool stuff in there Elf Crusher

I didn't want to go as far as building a system, I just eyed balled stuff.