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JellyPooga
2009-02-14, 09:14 AM
Considering that you lose practically everything except size, speed and ability score modifiers upon completing the Rite of Rebirth, I was wondering what suggestions people had for good races to become Dragonborn.

Of the PHB races:

Humans: These guys lose everything that makes them good. No additional stat modifiers, no bonus feat and no extra skill points makes them fairly bland dragonborn.

Elves: These guys are no different in any way to human dragonborn, except Favoured Class. The DB stat mods cancel out the Elven ones and they lose everything else.

Dwarves: Lose a lot. They're stuck with their crummy 20ft speed, but lose all those goodies that make dwarves one of the best Core races. The DB Con bonus combined with the Dwarven one is quite tasty though.

Half-Elves: Like Elves, these half-bloods don't look a lot different to Human DB.

Half-Orcs: Surprisingly good choice IMO. The Fighter as a Favoured Class opens up 2 level dipping as a more viable option and the +Str in addition to +Con makes them superior fighters than many Dragonborn. There is no 'cost' for Half-Orcs as far as I'm aware because they don't have anything but Ability Score modifiers in their racial package.

Gnomes: Like Dwarves, they lose a lot and the double Con bonus is tasty.

Halflings: Swapping Dex for Con is something that a lot of people might be tempted by...but not me. The loss of skill, save and attack bonuses is just too high a cost for my liking.

Going outside of the PHB opens up a lot of options, which is why I ask here for suggestions. Here's just a couple that I thought were quite good off the top of my head:

Catfolk (RotW): The only loss is their natural armour and skill bonuses. +Dex, +Cha and 40ft speed makes a Catfolk Dragonborn a fairly good candidate for the Monk/Paladin stereotype.

Orc (MM): Orcs, like their half-blood brethren have a lot to gain if they can overcome their racial prediliction for Evil. They even lose their Light Sensitivity!

Starbuck_II
2009-02-14, 09:28 AM
Dragonborn Water Orc
Water Orc gives +2 Con more than Standard orc. Dragonborn eliminates penalties from being a Water creature.

Water is from Unearthed Arcana.

Adumbration
2009-02-14, 09:47 AM
Dragonborn Mongrelfolk is pretty decent. That +6 to Con simply can't hurt an aspiring Dragonfire Adept.

Nohwl
2009-02-14, 11:30 AM
warforged dragonborn are great. you keep the immunities and get rid of stuff that isnt that great. it benefits you if you are an arcane caster because you dont have to take a feat to get rid of the plating.

Eldariel
2009-02-14, 01:12 PM
Orcs in general. They "lose" Light Blindness. Elves are fairly good; not like you lose anything important as far as e.g. Wizards go. Also, Lesser Tieflings are decent, although they lose a lot. You get awesome stat adjustments though. Basically, Dragonborn get awesome stuff so it's worth it to lose a lot for them. And the adjustments are gold.

Eloel
2009-02-14, 01:20 PM
Dragonborn Mongrelfolk is pretty decent. That +6 to Con simply can't hurt an aspiring Dragonfire Adept.

Pretty much this.

JellyPooga
2009-02-14, 02:34 PM
Elves are fairly good; not like you lose anything important as far as e.g. Wizards go.

Huh? Elves make as bland a Dragonborn as Humans do, perhaps worse...They lose their Dex bonus, but their Con penalty is removed, they lose Elven Weapon Proficiencies, racial Skill Bonuses and everything else that makes them an Elf...except their Favoured Class. An Elven Dragonborn is mechanically exactly the same as a Human one, except it has a fixed FC of Wizard (a class that, incidentally, Dragonborn aren't in general particularly suited to). At least Humans still get 'Highest Class' as Favoured.

I hadn't thought of Mongrelfolk, but then I generally don't like them as a race...I prefer a higher Charisma than they get and I don't rate Constitution in my top three stats for any class. Having said that, +6 is quite something, but they do lose a whole plethora of other stuff.

Warforged is an interesting one. Double Con bonus is a plus and you keep the sweet immunities (because they're from their Type/Subtype, which you keep). You lose the Plating, Fortification and Slam, which hurts a little but the abilities you gain probably make up for that....hmmm, definitely one to ponder.

To make the most of the Rite of Rebirth, you need as much in the way of Ability Score bonuses and Speed (preferably multiple types of) and as little as possible in anything else...Racial Skill bonuses, Sp/Su/Ex abilities/attacks, Natural Armour/Attacks and anything else you care to mention, except Racial HD and LA, is lost.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-02-14, 02:45 PM
I hadn't thought of Mongrelfolk, but then I generally don't like them as a race...I prefer a higher Charisma than they get and I don't rate Constitution in my top three stats for any class. Having said that, +6 is quite something, but they do lose a whole plethora of other stuff....

Wizard:Int/Con/Dex, dump all else
Fighter:Str/Con/13 Int or 13 Dex
Cleric:Wis/Con/12 Dex/maybe Str
Druid:Wis/Con
Barb:Str/Con/Dex

Con is generally the second-most important stat for any class. It controls a save and tasty tasty HP, not to mention being nice for certain class features. +2 in it is generally worth losing 1 AC over.

Eldariel
2009-02-14, 02:52 PM
Huh? Elves make as bland a Dragonborn as Humans do, perhaps worse...They lose their Dex bonus, but their Con penalty is removed, they lose Elven Weapon Proficiencies, racial Skill Bonuses and everything else that makes them an Elf...except their Favoured Class. An Elven Dragonborn is mechanically exactly the same as a Human one, except it has a fixed FC of Wizard (a class that, incidentally, Dragonborn aren't in general particularly suited to). At least Humans still get 'Highest Class' as Favoured.

I was talking about Elven variants such as Gray Elves, Wood Elves, etc. Many of them benefit of Dragonbornation; Gray Elves become ideal Wizards, for example, and Wood Elves become great Fighters/Barbarians (not to mention, you get wings for non-magical flight; spam AMF and profit!). Con is generally superior stat to Dex so the change is all good; one of the principal reasons out-of-book Elves suck is because Con-hit is ridiculously huge.

Also, Con is the only stat that's important for everyone. That's why Dwarves kick so much ass only second to Humans in Core.

Starbuck_II
2009-02-14, 02:59 PM
To repeat:
A Water Orc Dragonborn gains these stats:
+4 Strength, +4 Con, -2 Dex, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma.
And Swim speed retained.

Really good for a Barbarian.

Fax Celestis
2009-02-14, 03:00 PM
I'm a fan of dragonborn whitespawn hordelings, myself.

Eldariel
2009-02-14, 03:14 PM
To repeat:
A Water Orc Dragonborn gains these stats:
+4 Strength, +4 Con, -2 Dex, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma.
And Swim speed retained.

Really good for a Barbarian.

Yea, the Dex-penalty is a pain, but the Con- and Str-bonuses are just gold. The Int-penalty can be gotten around and Wis and Cha mostly ignored for many types of Barbarians (and the types that can't obviously aren't Dragonborn Water Orcs).

JellyPooga
2009-02-14, 04:01 PM
I was talking about Elven variants such as Gray Elves, Wood Elves, etc.

Ah, my bad...I forgot about them (I'm not an elf fan at the best of times, let alone when people start talking about variant elves!). Hmm, yeah, I can see some of them could be juicy.

@Starbuck: Yeah, that looks good. I'm not overly familiar with the UA racial variants. I'm assuming that they don't have the aquatic subtype (which would limit them to...well, aquatic adventures)?

Derail

Wizard:Int/Con/Dex, dump all else
Fighter:Str/Con/13 Int or 13 Dex
Cleric:Wis/Con/12 Dex/maybe Str
Druid:Wis/Con
Barb:Str/Con/Dex

Barbarian: Str, Dex, Wis
Bard: Cha, Dex, Int
Cleric: Wis, Dex, Cha
Druid: Wis, Dex, Cha
Fighter: Str, Dex, Int
Monk: Dex, Wis, Str
Paladin: Str, Cha, Dex
Ranger: Dex, Str, Wis
Rogue: Dex, Int, Cha
Sorcerer: Cha, Dex, Int
Wizard: Int, Dex, Cha

That's just the PHB classes. Yeah, I've heard the arguments why most people regard Con as being potentially the best stat, but I simply don't agree. Con does 2 things 1)raise HP and 2)raise your Fort save. As far as HP go, if you're losing them, you're doing something wrong. "I can get hit more often than you" is not a good line of defence (unless you're Rocky :smalltongue:). The bonus to Fort saves I won't argue, 'cos it is a valid point, but 2 other stats give a bonus to Saves as well, so meh. If the argument is +2 Con is better than +1 AC, I root for AC any day of the week. +2 Con = +1HP/level; a figure that gets increasingly more insignificant the higher the level you are. At level 20, you have an entire 20 HP extra, a level when bad guys deal that much damage just breathing on you. +1 AC is always a 5% increase in the chance that your opponent will miss entirely, no matter the level of play. When you consider that +2 Dex gives you +1 AC and more (including increasing a Save)...

More often than not, Con is my dump-stat, even for my low HD characters.

Keld Denar
2009-02-14, 04:34 PM
Wow, Con as a dump stat? Do you have a trend of characters that seldom live through 2-3 combats? I'm not saying you are doing it wrong, but HP are typically your BEST defense. Monster attack bonuses scale so faster than you can possibly keep up with AC unless you devote ALL of your gold, feats, and class features to it, and even then, you'll still probably get pounded.

And how can you not think that Con is important to a Barbarian? The duration of your rage is dependant on Con. Thats a big part of the class.

Sorry for continueing the derail, but wow, thats a really odd outlook on Con.

Eldariel
2009-02-14, 04:40 PM
Derail


Barbarian: Str, Dex, Wis
Bard: Cha, Dex, Int
Cleric: Wis, Dex, Cha
Druid: Wis, Dex, Cha
Fighter: Str, Dex, Int
Monk: Dex, Wis, Str
Paladin: Str, Cha, Dex
Ranger: Dex, Str, Wis
Rogue: Dex, Int, Cha
Sorcerer: Cha, Dex, Int
Wizard: Int, Dex, Cha

That's just the PHB classes. Yeah, I've heard the arguments why most people regard Con as being potentially the best stat, but I simply don't agree. Con does 2 things 1)raise HP and 2)raise your Fort save. As far as HP go, if you're losing them, you're doing something wrong. "I can get hit more often than you" is not a good line of defence (unless you're Rocky :smalltongue:). The bonus to Fort saves I won't argue, 'cos it is a valid point, but 2 other stats give a bonus to Saves as well, so meh. If the argument is +2 Con is better than +1 AC, I root for AC any day of the week. +2 Con = +1HP/level; a figure that gets increasingly more insignificant the higher the level you are. At level 20, you have an entire 20 HP extra, a level when bad guys deal that much damage just breathing on you. +1 AC is always a 5% increase in the chance that your opponent will miss entirely, no matter the level of play. When you consider that +2 Dex gives you +1 AC and more (including increasing a Save)...

More often than not, Con is my dump-stat, even for my low HD characters.

The thing about Con is; sometimes you'll get hit, be it by area damage spells, natural disasters or 20s. At that point, you need a sufficient HP buffer to negate the hit. HP is the best defense: It's applicable against effectively all AC-targeting attacks, most Reflex-save targeting attacks, most touch-attacks and even some Fort- and Will-save targeting attacks. Also, it applies regardless of opponent's rolls; even that double natural 20 doesn't penetrate it (although it might put a huge dent in it).

The second part is that every caster needs Con and all characters need high Fort-saves ('cause a failed Fort-save is usually almost as bad as a failed Will-save; Fort-save is like to kill you, while Will-save not only takes you out, but also often enables the opponent to use you against the party).


If you dump Con, you're like to get killed by one crit from the opponent. Usually it's impossible to reach AC where opponents can't hit you, and even if you do, there're effects that hit you regardless. HP is the only buffer against such attacks.

Myrmex
2009-02-14, 04:42 PM
If you're venerable, and you become dragonborn, do you keep the penalties?

Emperor Tippy
2009-02-14, 04:56 PM
In regards to dumping Con.

If you go Grey Elf then you should dump Con in favor of Int and take Faerie Mysteries Initiate (feat). It lets you use Int instead of Con for HP.

The only other time it's really worth it is when you are playing a squishy class that is starting at a high enough level that any equal CR opponent or challenge will drop you in one hit anyways.

Nohwl
2009-02-14, 06:12 PM
im pretty sure you keep penalties from being venerable if you go into dragonborn.

monty
2009-02-14, 06:37 PM
The only other time it's really worth it is when you are playing a squishy class that is starting at a high enough level that any equal CR opponent or challenge will drop you in one hit anyways.

This is a good point. In a long (1-epic) game I'm playing, I have a wizard with FMI and 8 Con. At some later point, probably around level 12 or so, I'm planning to chaos shuffle it into another metamagic feat, because by that point, anything I can't kill in one hit can probably kill me in one hit regardless of my HP. And, of course, the fact that I'll be continuously flying, invisible, and gods know what else by that point anyway makes HP considerably less important.

Woodsman
2009-02-14, 06:40 PM
If you're venerable, and you become dragonborn, do you keep the penalties?

No, you lose the penalties, and your middle age, old age, and venerable categories change. I believe you keep the bonuses, as well. I'll have to look it up again.

UserClone
2009-02-14, 07:27 PM
You lose any bonuses and penalties derived from aging, and you always emerge as an adult.