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RagnaroksChosen
2009-09-09, 12:54 AM
So quick question. Would allowing a DFA to use meta breathe feats be over powered? especialy if when they applied the Meta breathe they would have to wait to use the breathe weapon again for the amount of rounds the metabreathe was for?

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-09-09, 07:16 AM
There are, iirc, one or two ways to do it legally. One involves giving your breath weapon a cooldown time via one feat.

The Dragonfire Adept handbook is offline, so I can't tell you more at present.

mikej
2009-09-09, 07:23 AM
There are, iirc, one or two ways to do it legally. One involves giving your breath weapon a cooldown time via one feat.

The Dragonfire Adept handbook is offline, so I can't tell you more at present.

I believe the feat you're refering too was Power Surge from Dragon 313. I think the other was being a Dragonborn.

Temet Nosce
2009-09-09, 07:24 AM
Dragonborn (gets you a second breath weapon, that does have a recharge time in rounds... this works since there's nothing on the metabreath feats saying what you can apply them to) or...

Power surge from Dragon 313, which gives you a recharge time in rounds (in return for some other benefits... which ironically aren't as useful to you as the penalty).

So, you can do it in at least two ways legally... but if you want to just give it to them without the careful rules use it's not gonna hurt anything either.

RagnaroksChosen
2009-09-09, 07:45 AM
So even if you get the metabreathe feats from a legal way what happens when you use them on your DFA breathe... Do you have to wait x amount of rounds before using your DFA breathe?

Eloel
2009-09-09, 07:49 AM
So even if you get the metabreathe feats from a legal way what happens when you use them on your DFA breathe... Do you have to wait x amount of rounds before using your DFA breathe?

With Power Surge, yes.
Dragonborn way, while legal, is as plausible as Pun-Pun is. (no, it's not that broken. But they both abuse RAW, ignoring RAI)

Temet Nosce
2009-09-09, 07:53 AM
So even if you get the metabreathe feats from a legal way what happens when you use them on your DFA breathe... Do you have to wait x amount of rounds before using your DFA breathe?

Yeah, but that can be reduced with other feats so it's not that big of a deal. I'd suggest hunting down the DFA handbook (even if it's gone, you should be able to get to it using the Google cache)

RagnaroksChosen
2009-09-09, 07:57 AM
I've read it before it didn't seem to clear it seemed more to explain how to get metabreathe feats rather then how they work with DFA breathe weapon.

If it where me doing it i would be using dragon shamans cuz it qualifies easyer and I enjoy the flavor more.

however a friend likes DFA's and I wanted to know if that's how by RAW it would work. And or if not by raw if that would make it broken or to good.

mikej
2009-09-09, 08:04 AM
How I understand it. It goes a litle like this, if for example the DFA has Power Surge and uses Meta Max Breath. The DFA has to wait 4 rounds ( +1 for Power Surge and +3 for the Meta feat ) before using it's breath weapon again.

RagnaroksChosen
2009-09-09, 08:12 AM
How I understand it. It goes a litle like this, if for example the DFA has Power Surge and uses Meta Max Breath. The DFA has to wait 4 rounds ( +1 for Power Surge and +3 for the Meta feat ) before using it's breath weapon again.

I don't know what power surge does,
But has any one had any experiance with this?

Just trying to get some insight on it before i give the thumbs up

Tokiko Mima
2009-09-09, 08:32 AM
If you're low level, Entangling Exhalation from Races of the Dragon is awesome. It's big advantage is that it's totally legal, since it's not a Metabreath feat at all and the requirements (Breath Weapon, Dragonblood subtype) all DFA's automatically have at 1st level.

Entangling Exhalation basically turns your fire breath into napalm breath, entangling and damaging your enemies to the tune of 1d6 more points for 1d4 rounds after your initial breath attack. Entangled (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#entangled) enemies take some nasty penalties, like halved movement, -4 Dex, -2 to attack rolls, and they have to make a Concentration check to cast a spell or they lose it. It like a cheap version of Web you can hit with all the time. The only cost to do this is that it halves the damage on your initial breath attack, which is an easy tradeoff to make until level 10 or so.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-09-09, 11:07 AM
With Power Surge, yes.
Dragonborn way, while legal, is as plausible as Pun-Pun is. (no, it's not that broken. But they both abuse RAW, ignoring RAI)Can you give me any interpretation of the Sarrukh's ability by RAI that doesn't lead to Pun-Pun? The thing was poorly written beyond anything else in the game with no thought as to what the effects of this ability would be. Nothing that it is used for in the chain is against RAI, though.

Doc Roc
2009-09-09, 11:10 AM
Can you give me any interpretation of the Sarrukh's ability by RAI that doesn't lead to Pun-Pun? The thing was poorly written beyond anything else in the game with no thought as to what the effects of this ability would be. Nothing that it is used for in the chain is against RAI, though.

There is no such thing, in a meaningful sense, as RAI in a generic system.

Lamech
2009-09-09, 11:59 AM
Can you give me any interpretation of the Sarrukh's ability by RAI that doesn't lead to Pun-Pun? The thing was poorly written beyond anything else in the game with no thought as to what the effects of this ability would be. Nothing that it is used for in the chain is against RAI, though.
Its intention is to give the DM a cool way to make unique kobolds. Its similar to protean scourge, or shadow. The DM was supposed to retain control of it and not be a jerk about it. Like protean scourge the DM was not supposed to have it come pre-split and kill everyone with a maximized fireball swarm from 800 ft away; shadows should not be unleashed on a town and end with the annilation of everything. There are quite a few other monster ablities like that. PC's are not supposed to have them; DM's are not supposed to abuse them.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-09-09, 12:04 PM
Its intention is to give the DM a cool way to make unique kobolds. Its similar to protean scourge, or shadow. The DM was supposed to retain control of it and not be a jerk about it. Like protean scourge the DM was not supposed to have it come pre-split and kill everyone with a maximized fireball swarm from 800 ft away; shadows should not be unleashed on a town and end with the annilation of everything. There are quite a few other monster ablities like that. PC's are not supposed to have them; DM's are not supposed to abuse them.If that's the case then why are there so many ways for players to get control of monsters? It's incredibly easy to get a Shadow under your control, and you can turn into a Sarrukh core-only by level 17, SRD getting you 13.

nightwyrm
2009-09-09, 12:54 PM
If that's the case then why are there so many ways for players to get control of monsters? It's incredibly easy to get a Shadow under your control, and you can turn into a Sarrukh core-only by level 17, SRD getting you 13.

At first guess, I'd say it might have something to do with the idea that NPCs are suppose to be built using the same rules as PCs. If the DM was able to build a caster BBEG who can summon shadows by the rules, PCs should also theoretically be able to summons shadows if they were build the same way. There are no abilities or feats or classes that are labelled "DM controlled characters only" even though a lot of them would be broken at the hands of a PC.