Drake (3.5e Monster)

''Drakes are a distantly related creature to a wyvern, who are fierce and cunning predators, one of the most powerful of its kind. Drakes are wary of humanoids and are only aggressive to humanoids who are foolish enough to enter their territory.

A drakes scales range in color from a glistening silver to a dull shade of gold, and can often be mistaken for young or juvenile silver or gold dragons (DC 8 Knowledge (Arcana) or DC 15 Wisdom checks for the average adventurer to know better). Drakes lair in deep, extended subterranean caves that go deep into the earth. Hatchling drakes always stay near their parents and because of their bright silver and gold scales are easily spotted in the sunlight by both hunters and predators alike, so a drake does not venture outside until it is better able to handle itself against potential threats.

Because the young of a drake stay so close to its highly territorial and aggressive parents, its very difficult to acquire a young drake to rear as a mount. But when such a drake is obtained and properly trained, drakes make amazingly adept, and stubbornly loyal mounts for only the most courageous adventurers. Using the handle animal skill to rear a drake for combat riding is DC 30 for a young drake or DC 35 for a mature drake of 3 or more years in age (instead of the normal 20) and takes 8 weeks (instead of the normal 6) due to the stubborn nature of a drake. A drake egg is worth 6,500 gp on the open market and live young are worth 10,000 gp a piece. Young drakes fully trained for combat riding cost 15,000 gp on the open market, but are extremely rare to come by, even in the inventory of an exotic mount trainer. The cost of a trainer to train a young drake is 3,000 gp.

A Drake speaks only draconic.

Combat
In combat a drake will start combat by utilizing its superior airborne speed and maneuverability to its advantage and will use its flyby attack to target weaker or frailer looking targets in the party or even injured or defenseless targets first, attempting to incapacitate its targets. After it downs a target or two it looks for a nearby clearing to get the party all on one side so that it can face them all and then opens ground combat with its breath weapon before moving into melee combat.

Breath Weapon: An Drake can breathe fourth a cone of fire. This fire when used spreads fourth in a 30 ft cone dealing 6d6 damage, and a character caught in the cone can make a DC 18 (10 + 1/2 its HD + con mod) reflex save for half (any creature held in the Drake's mouth at the time the breath weapon is used, is not entitled to a reflex save for half damage). This attack is not used often by the Drake, but is most commonly seen when a creature attempts to threaten or provoke the Drake.

User:The-Marksman