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Fishy
2010-01-19, 11:48 AM
And now, a bit of Theoretical Pessimization.

The Cataclysm Mage from the Eberron Explorer's Handbook is a prestige class with a rather 'interesting' capstone. Once per day, they get to manifest the dragonmark of their choice. This grants them awesome powers- and also flips the bird at the dragons of Argonnessen, who spend their lives examining the dragonmarks, who has them, where they are, and what they mean. As a class feature, epic level dragons with epic spellcasting hate you and want you to die.

Changelings never manifest Dragonmarks. However, the Racial Emulation feat from Races of Eberron lets them count as a different race for various purposes, including feats. Including, say, the floating bonus feat that Chameleons (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20041210b) get at level 2.

Put it together, and a Changeling Expert 5/Chameleon 2 with Racial Emulation can manifest the dragonmark of his choice, once per day, and start screwing up the Draconic Prophecy for everybody. Good luck, kiddo.

Optimystik
2010-01-19, 12:33 PM
Ticking off Epic Spellcasters at ECL 7!


...is probably not a good idea.

Kylarra
2010-01-19, 12:39 PM
...is probably not a good idea.
Well, unless you're a bad* pun-pun.


*bad as defined by lagging until ecl 7 obviously.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-01-19, 12:42 PM
The one issue I can see with this is that the Cataclysm Mage can manifest any dragonmark he wants (least, lesser, or greater), whereas the Chameleon is limited to the least mark because the Lesser and Greater Dragonmark feats have that as a prerequisite. If you could find another method of gaining floating feats that would work, or if you could find a way to make another method of feat-swapping (psychic reformation, the DCFS) XP-free.

On the flip side, this build can also pick up the Aberrant Dragonmark feat for a few other useful abilities and the ability to seriously freak out the Marked Houses as well as the dragons.


...is probably not a good idea.

Hence "pessimization" instead of "optimization." :smallwink:

LibraryOgre
2010-01-19, 12:49 PM
Not knowing Racial Emulation, is it one per race, or one to emulate any race? Cause if it's the second, then you can do it a lot easier.

Fishy
2010-02-04, 11:24 AM
PairO'Dice has a good point. I've been mulling it over, and I think I've got... something: Dragonmark Heir.

Using Racial Emulation again to count as a Human (for example), you mechanically qualify for Favored in House at level 6 and Least Dragonmark via the Chameleon bonus feat. You qualify for Dragonmark Heir, totally legally, and then you're a productive and influential member of House, let's say, Cannith.

The next day, you turn into a Dwarf, manifest the Least Dragonmark of Warding, and something really weird happens.

You still have the Least Dragonmark feat, you still have the Favored in House feat, so the mechanics say that you still qualify for Dragonmark Heir. As a class feature, you still get the Lesser and Greater Dragonmarks appropriate to your House... but you've changed Houses.

I'm not 100% sure what happens next, but you get either the DM or the Epic Dragons really mad.

Anyway. @Mark: Racial Emulation (among other things) gives you the subtype of whatever humanoid you are currently imitating, so you can be of any race, but only one at a time. If you've got a solution that's less torturous, I'd love to hear it. Screw the Prophesy!

Tavar
2010-02-04, 11:28 AM
Hmmm....what if you took levels in Stoneblessed? It makes you a dwarf for purposes of requirements. Does that mean you could have 2 sets of dragon Marks at once? Or 3 if you also take the elf-based class?

Fishy
2010-02-04, 12:03 PM
That's also pretty hilarious, but 1) I think you'd run out of feats rather quickly, and 2) if you could do that, you could just take all 5 of the human marks.

Here's the build anyway, just for laughs.

{table]Level|Class|Feat|Counts As
1|Half Elf Paragon 1|Least Dragonmark of Detection, Human Heritage|Half-elf, Human
2|Human Paragon 1|
3|Stoneblessed (Dwarf)|Favored in House Medani
4|Stoneblessed 2|
5|Stoneblessed 3||Dwarf
6|Dragonmark Heir|Lesser Dragonmark of Detection, Least Dragonmark of Finding
7|Dragonmark Heir|
8|Dragonmark Heir|
9|Dragonmark Heir|Greater Dragonmark of Detection, Least Dragonmark of Warding
10|Stoneblessed (Gnome)
11|Stoneblessed
12|Stoneblessed|Least Dragonmark of Scribing|Gnome
13|Spellthief
14|Spellthief
15|Spellthief|Lesser Dragonmark of Warding
16|Spellthief
17|Spellthief
18|Spellthief|Lesser Dragonmark of Scribing
19|Human Paragon|Lesser Dragonmark of Finding
20|Human Paragon[/table]

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-02-04, 04:29 PM
As a class feature, you still get the Lesser and Greater Dragonmarks appropriate to your House... but you've changed Houses.

I'm not 100% sure what happens next, but you get either the DM or the Epic Dragons really mad.

I love it! :smallbiggrin: Next time I run Eberron, the PCs will definitely run into a changeling using this to pull the biggest inter-House con in Eberronian history.

AShadowofLife
2010-02-04, 05:54 PM
"The Prophesy says that there will be a being.. who will bear all Thirteen dragonmarks. And then the island of dragons will destroy the world." - Wise old sage in Breland.


Hehe.