BX Monsters A to Z: Dragon turtle

 Here we have not only one of the most powerful monsters in the Expert Rules, but in the game as a whole, far surpassing dragons and giants, rivaled only by the giant roc. Of course, it's the mighty dragon turtle. 

Conceptually, the dragon turtle is a magnificent creature. It's described as having the head, limbs, and tail of a dragon with the shell of a giant turtle. It lives in the deep sea, seldom surfacing but capable of wreaking terrible havoc when it does. It's so large it has been mistaken by sailors for a small island, presumably when it's just floating along in a deep doze, which is the only way you'd ever want to encounter one. Dragon turtles are known to rise up under ships, overturning them so they can devour the crew and passengers. Their lairs are in huge caverns at the bottoms of the deepest oceans, where they hoard treasures gathered from sunken ships. These things sound like the stuff of legends scarcely to be believed, and of sailors' most terrible nightmares, creatures awesome enough to spawn religious cults centered on them, among both humans and the strange folk of the deep seas.   

An Armor Class of -2 (that's negative 2) and 30 Hit Dice form a very solid basis for a legendary sea monster. It's going to average around 135 hit points ANNNNNND it has a breath weapon that operates on the same mechanics as those of ordinary dragons, a (presumably scalding hot) blast of steam 30' wide and 90' long. If you don't have at least half as many hp as the dragon turtle itself, you can just forget about even rolling that saving throw! It's not the swiftest swimmer in the seven seas, sculling along at a leisurely 90'(30') (and a glacial 30'(10') on land, though it's supremely unlikely ever to put itself in that position) so if you're lucky enough to survive the first attack, you'll probably be able to get away, but that's a very big if. The only other glimmer of hope is that only a single one will ever be encountered at a time.

Where the legend goes a bit limp is in the creature's physical attacks. The bite attack for 10-60 damage isn't too unreasonable, but the claws for 1-8 each are beneath the level of a joke. It doesn't actually need bigger damage to be fully legit as a Very Serious Threat, but come on. This is a monster of a full 30 HD, which can be mistaken for a small island, and its claw does damage equal to any schmuck with a sword. For a little perspective, each claw of a 3 HD giant crab does 2-12 points. Let that sink in. No, really. LET. THAT. SINK. IN.

Anyway... the dragon turtle has a very high Morale score of 10, but it's highly unlikely you'll ever need to roll it. Either it's going to win handily in a single round, or the fleeing survivors are going to quickly outdistance it. I can only imagine morale coming into play if a very powerful and well-prepared PC party were to track the beast to its undersea lair and give it the fight of its life. Even with a den full of Treasure Type H, that seems like a poor prospect, given the creature's huge HD, lethal breath weapon, and the sheer difficulty of following it into the lightless depths of some ocean trench. 

Nobody in their right mind should ever try to fight a dragon turtle unless they're pushing the upper limits of Expert-level play (or perhaps higher; the designers of the dragon turtle may have had Companion-level parties in mind), with plenty of magical defense and offense and a very clever strategy to take away the enormous advantage of the monster's breath weapon. Miss any of those points, and you may as well just skip the battle and roll up new characters, unless you enjoy hearing the DM narrate your brutal demise.

It's never explicitly stated in the description, but I assume dragon turtles are capable of holding their breath a very long time. It also isn't said whether they can discharge their breath weapons underwater, and if so, can they maintain their oxygen levels after such a gusty exhale or do they need to surface to take in a fresh gulp of air? Another thing I wonder is where they lay their eggs. Do they crawl ashore on some remote sandy beach to dig nest-pits and deposit clutches of eggs? Or do they lay a couple eggs in a nest of gold and treasure as I'd expect of true dragons? How big are dragon turtle eggs, what uses might they have, and how much would they fetch from a capable buyer? These and other questions must be left as exercises for better minds than mine.

As I already said above, the concept of the dragon turtle is fantastic. It's got flavor to build other world details around; it's got a certain reptilian-hybrid cachet; it's got campaign endgame potential for any oceangoing milieu. I'd definitely bump up its claw damage, though, to 3-18 or so, to reflect the sheer size of the monster, as well as the (utterly laughable, strictly by the book) claim that it has "...powerful claws...." Also, it really ought to have a lot more treasure, maybe x2 or x3 of that normally rolled for Type H, to better represent the hoard of a creature of almost godlike strength and longevity dwelling in one of the most inaccessible environments possible.