The Tavern (OOC)
No hurries and no worries! The game is not meant to be pressure, and weekend posting is not weekday posting. We'll get back into it when it's convenient for ya. =)
I could potentially provide those books to you in a...
>_>
<_<
Way that I shan't go into detail about. Wink wink, nudge nudge, PDFs are bae.
Alternately, I can give you a write-up distilling the valuable parts. In the Company of Dragons for 5e is obviously the best point-of-reference (it's the correct system while the other two books are for Pathfinder and a better-written book than Monster Class: True Dragon on top of that), although it operates on a basis of Small Size and the final product is most definitely not the equal of an Ancient Dragon (it's Gargantuan at level 20, but it has nowhere near the sheer, awesome might, because it's meant to function in a normal adventuring party and have magic items).
There's also not much about Lair Actions and Legendary Actions because, again, adventuring party. But truth be told, I don't think we need to go too crazy adding those. There are a nice variety of both already present in the Monster Manual and Fizban's, and we can extrapolate together on which of those might be appropriate for Vydi as she grows and claims territory.
The text I think we could squeeze out of those books is the so-called Draconic Gifts, AKA the unique abilities of a given breed of dragon and dragons at-large (which the race of that book, the Taninim, echo but are not exact copies of - they don't adhere strictly to the color-coding so that they can be player characters, and that means there's a lot of nice guidelines that may help). The Gift system allows for a level of customization for a Taninim player character to slowly approach the level of a real dragon, although they won't ever quite make it.
However, the most useful and hopefully the most streamlining thing that I could use these books for is to create a more codified progression for us to use so you don't have to come up with everything on the fly. Specific CRs where things which are archetypally dragon are applied to Vydi (the stuff that's in all the blocks of a given age category or a given color) mean things that you don't have to weigh as much when you lay out the advancement options. If there's a CR where her bite or claws are going to get a new die type no matter what, or she's going to unlock Multiattack, that means you don't have to worry about giving me access to something too early or too late, and you can plan for the future with more confidence about what Vydi will look like.
I have the luxury of spanning the entire range of Challenge between two ages, so the stuff that (for instance) an Adult Red has which a Young Red does not can be drip-fed in from CR 11-16, creating more of a power curve that reaches a crescendo at the new age category and also making it less work for you to come up with a list of advancement options. Likewise, it means that most 'levels,' I'll probably only get to pick one advancement while the other is occupied by a guaranteed change from growing more powerful (and then I probably wouldn't pick anything at all when she changes age category because it will pack in a bundle of improvements).
TL;DR: I think I can use these guides to make a rough draft of a full 1-27 class progression. Although a lot of it will be "Special Advance," (meaning the unique or Red-specific properties which Vydi only unlocks access to when she's done something specific with her time or achieved something in-game, as defined by you or plucked from other dragon types if there's a precedent), the fundamental crunch of a True Dragon? I can make a class out of that. I really think I can. Again, 1-27 (or 1-24 and make Great Wyrm a special final leap depending on how she becomes one) instead of 1-20, but definitely doable.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:54, Tue 25 Jan 2022.