[DnD 3.5]Dragonborn Mongrelfolk Dragonfire Adept

[theonesin]

We're starting a level 2 campaign and I've decided to make a Dragonborn Mongrelfolk Dragonfire Adept. My rolled stats are: 17, 15, 15, 14, 12, 9.

I know that my Charisma will suck, so I won't be using much, if any, Cha-based invocations. I'm thinking about focusing on metabreath feats, but I keep wondering about what I'll be doing while waiting for my breath to recharge.

Any advice on where to take this thing?

[mootoall]

Take the breath aspect of the dragonborn. You now have two breath weapons. So blast with a metabreath'd Dragonborn breath, boosted with whatever that magic item is that boosts your damage dice, then blast with a standard DFA one for as long as you like. Gestalt with Dragon Shaman for more dragon-y breaths of dragon dragonness.

[Keld Denar]

Doesn't work like that...when one breath weapon goes on cooldown, they all go on cooldown for the longest cooldown duration.

I'd suggest the usual. Entangling Exhalation, Ability Focus, Dragon Spirit Cincture, etc...

Endure Exposure is great, so is See the Unseen or the detect magic invocation.

[mootoall]

Doesn't work like that...when one breath weapon goes on cooldown, they all go on cooldown for the longest cooldown duration. Can I get a source for that rule?

[Starbuck_II]

Doesn't work like that...when one breath weapon goes on cooldown, they all go on cooldown for the longest cooldown duration.

I'd suggest the usual. Entangling Exhalation, Ability Focus, Dragon Spirit Cincture, etc...

Endure Exposure is great, so is See the Unseen or the detect magic invocation.

Is there some FAQ or something because I don't think that is true. Otherwise Taimat's aspect, etc are broken as they list her doing multiple breaths.

[Siosilvar]

Rules Compendium, page 22:

Most creatures that have breath weapons are limited to a number of uses per day or by a minimum length of time that must pass between uses. Even if a creature has more than one type of breath weapon, the time between uses is a time during which it can’t use any of its breath weapons.

Emphasis added.

[Arbitrarity]

We're starting a level 2 campaign and I've decided to make a Dragonborn Mongrelfolk Dragonfire Adept. My rolled stats are: 17, 15, 15, 14, 12, 9.

I know that my Charisma will suck, so I won't be using much, if any, Cha-based invocations. I'm thinking about focusing on metabreath feats, but I keep wondering about what I'll be doing while waiting for my breath to recharge.

Any advice on where to take this thing?

Unless you're using Dragonborn Breath aspect, you can't apply metabreaths by default to DFA, you don't have a breath with a recharge duration measured in rounds. If you use Breath aspect, you can then apply metabreaths, so I'll assume that's what you're doing.
The alternative is Dragon Magazine 313's Power Surge, which adds a one round cooldown to your breath, and increases the DC by 1, damage per die by 1, or duration by 50%.


To start, Entangling Exhalation, all the time, always. It's a staple for every DFA, and that'll probably be your first feat. Invocations-wise, you'll probably want Endure Exposure, or one of the skill boosters. Magic Insight is also pretty good.

Recover Breath is a feat you'll want if you plan on using metabreaths heavily. Cutting the adjustment by a round is... really useful. Rapid Breath appears to do exactly the same thing, though it's from SS, so using it is... sketchy.

[Keld Denar]

Rules Compendium, page 22:

Thanks, I was checking the FAQ, but it wasn't there. I knew it was somewhere. My next stop was the DFA handbook...

[theonesin]

I've played a DFA a bit before (only up to level 2 again though), so I know how good Entangling Exhalation is, as well as Ability Focus. I just never got high enough to explore other setups, especially with metabreath stuff. The DM seems pretty lenient on most things, so I'm pretty sure Power Surge is available to use.

But again, my point is that if I focus on metabreath feats that cause my breath to have recharge rounds, what do I do in the off time?

[Kaje]

Invocations that don't have a save.

[Draz74]

But again, my point is that if I focus on metabreath feats that cause my breath to have recharge rounds, what do I do in the off time?
There are several options, most of which will be hurt by your poor Charisma.


Throw out decent Invocations, such as Terrifying Roar and Charm. Not sure if there are any good ones that don't allow a save.
Sit around being a UMD monkey. If you have enough wands full of Benign Transposition, Heroics, Haste, etc., your party might not mind if you're only attacking a couple times per battle.
Use social skills -- either try to end battles peacefully and early with a bunch of Diplomacy checks, after dipping a level of Binder for Naberius, or use Intimidate as another sort-of Invocation with Imperious Command to strengthen it.
Dip a level in a Tome of Battle class and start spamming White Raven maneuvers (WRTactics most of all, of course) to help your party break the action economy.

[Arbitrarity]

Unfortunately, the opportunity cost of most of those is fairly high, as the ToB dip costs a level, and requires a few levels first, and many maneuvers involve attack rolls.

I would say pull out the wands with UMD. Even with a low charisma, UMD is a class skill, and useful. Low level wands have a variety of tactical applications, and with a few levels, you can use them consistently.

[NeBr8D]

I happened to see this, and thought I would chime in.

:


Rules Compendium, page 22; Most creatures that have breath weapons are limited to a number of uses per day or by a minimum length of time that must pass between uses. Even if a creature has more than one type of breath weapon, the time between uses is a time during which it can’t use any of its breath weapons.

"proper" Emphasis added. :smalltongue:

No clue why some are implying that the word "most" means absolutely none. Most actually means the majority of times, so yes there clearly has to be at least 1 exception or it wouldnt say "most", it would say an absolute word instead like every creature, all creatures, etc.

I'm pretty darned positive that they can. Besides it says right in the DFA description that they can do their normal fire breath every single round. DFA's have breath effects, and they can rotate through them. The only rule is that they cant use the same special breath effect in 2 consecutive rounds. i.e. in a row.

ex I have a 12 lvl DFA, he has 3 breat effects: cold, slow, sonic.

I cant do cold, cold, in 2 consecutive rnds, but I could do cold, fire, cold. With the way that its worded I could even do slow, sonic, slow, sonic, slow because no 2 are in a row. :smallwink:

You people are mostly correct on that rule though because I cant think of any other race, class or creature that could do this, but I am fairly certain that DFA's are definitely the exception.

Why anybody would take a secodary dragon class though if they are a DFA? It would probably be best to just stick with DFA than to multi class 2 dragon classes. Its silly to take a 2nd class to get a breath weapon, dragon blood, flight etc when you can already get those things with your primary class. It would make as much sense as a Paladin multiclassing with Ranger so he can cast more divine spells. :smallbiggrin:

[Siosilvar]

-snip-

You're looking at the wrong sentence. The first sentence (with "most") means that most breath weapons have a recharge time.

The second sentence says that recharge time is universal for all breath weapons a creature has.

Normally, you could alternate DFA special effects. If you have another breath weapon which you use metabreaths on, all of your breath weapons go on that longer cooldown, including the DFA breath weapon, no matter what special effects you try to apply.


Also, I don't think anybody's suggested a second dragon class yet (outside of gestalt, at least). Dragonborn is sort of a template, and Mongrelfolk is a race.

I'm going to suggest a second dragon class right now, though: One level of Dragon Shaman for the fast healing aura.

[Fouredged Sword]

Just for the sake of stateig it, there is a feat that lets you gain a draconic aura. Some readings seem to suggest you can take vigor as an option. Read the feat (dragon magic maybe?) and ask your DM. A feat is an easier option to a class level.

[Stallion]

Be a UMD monkey, throw around no-save invocations (although the two real gems, Baleful Geas and Chilling Fog, are Greater Invocations and you won't get them for a while), have fun with the racial imitate sound ability that mongrelfolk get at low levels. If you're just kicking around at exclusively low levels, ditch frost breath for sickening breath and use that during the recharge times (you could argue that since it isn't a damage dealing breath that it doesn't apply to the metabreath recharge time, although that's a really sketchy argument and would depend entirely on the DM). Save reductions are always good, and at low levels it'll be much more valuable than when you're higher. Also, invest in an Eternal Wand of Blinding Breath. Chuck that out every round, and eventually you'll be blinding a whole lot of people.

At high levels (although this requires Eberron material and a fair bit of feat investment), going one level of Nosomatic Chirugeon with the Mastery of Day and Night feat is pretty wonderful, as you can throw around maximized mass inflict X wounds while you're waiting for your breath to recharge. Another thing that's REALLY awesome is to dip one level into Mindbender and pick up Mindsight out of Lords of Madness (pg. 126). It's a good substitution for the Voidsense invocation, IMO.

My favorite thing to do at low levels, however, is to chunk flasks filled with oil and drinks with a near-toxic level of alcohol. More sutained damage over time at that level is your friend, especially if you don't have a tank and can be extremely mobile (the Quick trait helps with that).


I recently had to take on 6 werewolves (CR 3 each) with a party consisting of a rogue, a cleric, and my dragonborn mongrelfolk dragonfire adept, all at level 1. We survived solely because of Entangling Exhalation and throwing flammable liquids. It is a VERY powerful tactic at low levels, enough to even whittle down That Damn Crab with enough good teamwork.



Dip a level in a Tome of Battle class and start spamming White Raven maneuvers (WRTactics most of all, of course) to help your party break the action economy.

I like this. I like this a lot. Go Draz.

[NeBr8D]

You're looking at the wrong sentence. The first sentence (with "most") means that most breath weapons have a recharge time.

The second sentence says that recharge time is universal for all breath weapons a creature has.

Normally, you could alternate DFA special effects. If you have another breath weapon which you use metabreaths on, all of your breath weapons go on that longer cooldown, including the DFA breath weapon, no matter what special effects you try to apply.

Exactly, thats sort of my point. If the rule applied to every creature with a breath weapon that cant be used every round than a DFA wouldnt be able to revert to basic fire after using a breath effect. They would have to stop for 1 round, thats what the 2nd sentance in that rule states. DFA's can, but ya, afaik, only DFA's can.

Honestly, I have yet to read where and how a DFA can get metabreaths, but I know it says something in some Dragon mag. Unfortunately the group I play with has a house rule that we can use any rule that is published in a hardcover book.

Like I said, no clue why you would want to get a 2nd breath weapon from a different source. Seems kinda silly to me, but I guess one could get some of the Invocs like wings from a different source that has its own breath weapon.

Ironically from most threads aboot DFA's that I've seen all say things like theyre good secondary casters, support role, UMD monkey, semi weak and stay at the back of the party, etc. My guy is the party tank, always at the front. :smalltongue:

He's also the party rogue (2 lvs), and with Magic Insight you could almost say he's almost like a Bard, but doesnt suck. He's a pretty sick lil Whispering Gnome. :smallbiggrin:

[Keld Denar]

Wait...why are you saying that a normal DFA can't use his fire breath in 2 consectuative rounds? Or his frost breath, or any other breath? DFAs can use their breath at will. Where are you getting the idea that they can't?

The point of having 2 breath weapons is that the 2nd one is used to qualify for Metabreath feats. DFAs alone don't qualify to take the metabreath feats since they don't have "a breath weapon with a recharge measured in rounds". They have a breath weapon, but it has no recharge. Thus, they don't satisfy the prereqs of the feat. A DFA who is also Dragonborn with the breath aspect has a breath weapon with a recharge time measured in rounds. Once the DFA qualifies for metabreath feats, he can apply them to ANY breath weapon he has, regardless of which one was used to qualify. Thus, he could use Heighten Breath on his DFA breath weapon, for example. Doing so, however, puts both his DFA and his Dragonborn breath weapon on cooldown. Similarly, just using his Dragonborn breath weapon would put his DFA breath weapon on cooldown, simply by virtue of the Dragonborn breath weapon having a cooldown.

Its a hoop to jump through, but its RAW legal.

The other option other than being Dragonborn to qualify for metabreath feats is the Power Surge feat, the Dragon Mag feat you mentioned. It gives any SU ability a cooldown to increase the power. While technically it doesn't actually change your breath weapon and thus wouldn't technically make it a breath weapon with a cooldown measured in rounds, its close enough that its a very simple house rule to make.

Regardless, the rules are clear. If one breath is on cooldown, all breaths are on cooldown. And breath effects are not seperate breaths, they are all the same breath weapon with a different filter over it. If your fire breath is on cooldown, you can't use your frost breath, because you don't have a frost breath. You have a fire breath that is modified to deal cold damage. It would be like putting different spigot head on your shower. Its all the same water, and if you turn the water off, changing the spigot head isn't gonna get you any wetter.

[averagejoe]

The Mod They Call Me: Thread necromancy.