What Book is Half-Dragon Race from?

[Starwulf]

Trying to design a character for a game, and I know I have the book, but I can't seem to find it, so I was wondering if someone could tell me what book has the racial stats/abilities for a Half-Dragon/Half-Whatever ^^. Also, I'd be willing to listen to suggestions for alternate types of dragon like characters, but absolutely NO CHEESE involved whatsoever. It's going to be for an epic game(starting at level 20, proceeding into).

[Jeraa]

Half-Dragon is a template in the Monster Manual.

[*.*.*.*]

I'm hating the term "cheese" more it is used.

Here is the link to the template:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/halfDragon.htm

[Hirax]

Get Races of the Dragon, it has great tools for creating dragon characters, and introduces draconic races that would probably be of interest.

[PollyOliver]

I believe it's a template in the monster manual. Page 146 in my copy.

Other good options for a dragony creature without cheese are spellscale, dragonborn, and draconic creature. Dragonborn is especially nifty, IMO. All are in races of the dragon.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Trying to design a character for a game, and I know I have the book, but I can't seem to find it, so I was wondering if someone could tell me what book has the racial stats/abilities for a Half-Dragon/Half-Whatever ^^. Also, I'd be willing to listen to suggestions for alternate types of dragon like characters, but absolutely NO CHEESE involved whatsoever. It's going to be for an epic game(starting at level 20, proceeding into).

It's possible to get cheese when using half-dragons? I thought that was just for raptoran dragonborn...

Half-dragons are bad. Very bad. Unless your DM let's you have the wings. And even then.

[Starwulf]

It's possible to get cheese when using half-dragons? I thought that was just for raptoran dragonborn...

Half-dragons are bad. Very bad. Unless your DM let's you have the wings. And even then.

Lol, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how to "cheese" ANY character, INCLUDING wizards(Besides, ya know, just being a Wziard). I've just heard to often that people will come ask for advice and are given these massively over-powered builds, so I figured I'd cut that possibility off at the pass, ya know? I like being effective, don't get me wrong, but Over-powered? Nah. Unless it's that type of campaign, which I wouldn't play in because of the aforementioned fact that I have absolutely no idea whatsoever how to build an overpowered character.

Thanks for the advice one and all though, I have Races of Dragon in pdf form on my computer, I'll open it up and take a browse. I basically want a dragonish character who will either start with, or eventually(well, since it's 20th level, I'm assuming I'll already have it) a breath weapon. I have an interesting character concept I'm working on that revolves around that :)

[Zaq]

I'm hating the term "cheese" more it is used.


Lol, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how to "cheese" ANY character, INCLUDING wizards(Besides, ya know, just being a Wziard).

That's because "cheese" doesn't mean anything.

Wait, no, scratch that. It means "things I don't like." This is, as you may imagine, helpful to pretty much no one.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Lol, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how to "cheese" ANY character, INCLUDING wizards(Besides, ya know, just being a Wziard). I've just heard to often that people will come ask for advice and are given these massively over-powered builds, so I figured I'd cut that possibility off at the pass, ya know? I like being effective, don't get me wrong, but Over-powered? Nah. Unless it's that type of campaign, which I wouldn't play in because of the aforementioned fact that I have absolutely no idea whatsoever how to build an overpowered character.

Thanks for the advice one and all though, I have Races of Dragon in pdf form on my computer, I'll open it up and take a browse. I basically want a dragonish character who will either start with, or eventually(well, since it's 20th level, I'm assuming I'll already have it) a breath weapon. I have an interesting character concept I'm working on that revolves around that :)

Dragonborn get a better breath weapon than half-dragons do. Raptorans have the wings. Get a permanencied darkvision if you want the half-dragon's darkvision. It's still not cheese.

[Hirax]

I basically want a dragonish character who will either start with, or eventually(well, since it's 20th level, I'm assuming I'll already have it) a breath weapon.

If that's the case it might be worth looking into the Dragonfire Adept class from Dragon Magic, and the Draconomicon for feats that can augment your breath weapon.

edit: I should specify that those suggestions are independent, since dragonfire adepts can't use metabreath feats from Draconomicon (red the description of metabreath feats to see why).

[Starwulf]

If that's the case it might be worth looking into the Dragonfire Adept class from Dragon Magic, and the Draconomicon for feats that can augment your breath weapon.

edit: I should specify that those suggestions are independent, since dragonfire adepts can't use metabreath feats from Draconomicon (red the description of metabreath feats to see why).

Thanks for the suggestions. I might skip the Half-Dragon template then

Also: Duly noted on the "Cheese" thing. For now on, I'll just state "No over-powered builds". Though, I imagine one of these days I'll be back asking for help on how to actually build an over-powered character, just so I know how to actually do that. Really, it's in the application of knowledge when things get sketchy. Actually learning/knowing things is good, great even ^^

Really looking forward to building this character, should be fun. Are all the classes mentioned thus far base classes? If so, what are some good PrC's to dip into? Keep in mind, I'm not a fan of multiple dips for specific things, so If I go into a PrC, I'm quite likely to take it all the way to the end. I don't mind a powerful ability being at the end of a 10 level PrC though, as that's basically a reward for seeing it through to the end.

[Rawn]

The only class mentioned so far in this thread is Dragonfire adept, all the others are races.

Dragonfire adept is a base class. It gives you enough nice stuff that that it's worth it to go the full 20 levels. You might want to check out the handbook (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870954/The_New_Dragonfire_Adept_Handbook!), which has a section on multiclassing and prestige classes.

[herrhauptmann]

Dude, you're jumping into an epic game.
Those pretty much require cheese by default. Especially if you wanna do a warriornon-caster and remain effective. It gets even worse since you've got some massive LA as a half-dragon, as a caster you'll get epic spells 4 levels after everyone else. As a non-caster, well you'll be a 17th level character when the wizard is eclipsing the sun with a standard action, from his private demiplane using a projection or simulacrum of himself.

Perhaps if you told us what kind of character you'd like to make besides just half-dragon.

[ericgrau]

There are varying levels of cheese and power, likewise what's "good" and what's "too much". There are better things than half-dragon in various books. But half-dragon is perhaps the strongest monster manual templates and without the low-level "I have no HP" slump, at level 20+ it's worth 4 LA compared to core classes.

What's even better compared to core classes is dragon disciple, or a least 4 or 7 levels of it. From 10 levels you get wings, so it might be nice to finish too. It gives nice stats overall, better than what you could get from other core classes: d12 HD, good saves, etc. On top of what the template gives. If you dipped 1-2 levels of sorcerer to meet the requirements you can use any sorcerer/wizard staff with spells of any level on it, even while wearing armor. And staffs are quite helpful and affordable at epic levels: you can get see invisibility, greater magic weapon, moment of prescience, time stop, etc. The drawback is that while you hit harder, survive more punishment, etc., you have less levels left for other interesting things you might want to include.

Generally if you're playing a half-dragon or dragon disciple then you want to make a melee build. Telling everyone what books are allowed will let them help you there, and also help them understand what's merely powerful for your gaming group and what's cheese for your gaming group. Usually anything with shocktrooper in it is over the top, though there are lesser and greater things that may or may not be within your bounds. Neither the half-dragon template nor the PrC may be as good as some options in certain books.

[Greenish]

Also: Duly noted on the "Cheese" thing. For now on, I'll just state "No over-powered builds".That's still not very useful at all. How are we to know what's weak, strong or overpowered in your group?

[Starwulf]

Definitely a non-caster, I want a melee type character with a breath weapon. Half-Dragon is not by any means necessary, if I can acquire a breath weapon through a class, that's fine. Basically I'm envisioning a character wielding perhaps a Battle axe, flying is optional(but would be nice), a powerful breath weapon, and a few other nice abilities(preferably draconic in nature). The Dragon-born sounds nice(Especially the bahamut one, since it involves a transformation from your original race into a dragon humanoid through his blessing). Honestly, I'm not worried about outrageous powers, and I don't particularly care if I can compete with a Wizard or Sorc, I just want to be effective at dealing damage, taking punishing hits, with decent to good saves.

Note: I typed this up last night, but the servers went down for nightly maintenance, so I just went to bed. I have no idea if anyone else has replied to this thread since then, this is just addressing several questions that were aimed my way last night.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

In addition to the "cheese" nonsense, you are playing epic. Epic Spellcasting is your answer: yes, even then.

[PollyOliver]

If you really want to be a non-caster...maybe dragonborn something warblade with entangling exhalation? Dragonborn raptoran might be cheesy in a level 1 game, but it's not in epic, believe me (if epic spellcasting is on the table, honestly almost nothing you can do on a non-caster can possibly be cheesy). Use your breath weapon to tie enemies down and charge in and hit them with your axe using white raven maneuvers + the standard charging feats? White raven hammer, white raven tactics, war leader's charge, and even that tiger claw maneuver that forces a save vs. your jump check (and yours will be very good, with an extra +10 for wings) for stunning would let you shut down enemies' actions, give your team more actions, and deal a fair amount of damage.

[herrhauptmann]

Oh, there's lots of items you'll probably want.
-Soulfire on your armor. Blueshine or durable armor
-Everbright, magebane, smoking, warning on your weapon(s).
-Some nice but expensive items: Retribution amulet (BoED), Phoenix Cloak (MiC), ring of rapid healing (Epic), 1/day mindblank (perhaps 2/day if you expect to get dispelled).
-Belt of magnificence (boost all stats, Minis handbook I think).
-Belt of battle, stack them, get 3. They're that good.
-Get yourself an animated shield. Now you've got both hands free, and one more spot to put some enchantments.

edit:
Dragonwrought kobold? If you're old or venerable, you suddenly get to take feats with the [Epic] tag. Of course, you still have to meet other prereqs. But with good optimization, you should be able to meet most of those by level 15. Granted, some epic feats are good, some suck.

[Starwulf]

Polly, thank you for your suggestions. I'll be honest, I don't know squat about the classes in ToB. I have it, but after skimming through it, all the maneuvers and stuff sounded a bit complicated, so I'd have to spend time learning how to use them all, which is the main reason I've never tried a Psion yet, complicated ><. LOL. But I still like your suggestions, and I probably will force myself to sit down and learn it, the whole raptoran thing sounds interesting.

To everyone who keeps freaking suggesting Epic spellcasting, STOP. I'm tired of it. I don't want to be an epic spell-caster. Epic spell-casters may be gods, congrats, who cares. Ya know what, they'll eventually run out of spells, or they won't have prepared the right ones. Even if they did, who cares still? Epic spell-casting is not the be-all, end-all of D&D. They are not the only class that exists in Epic. Not everyone wants to play an epic spell-caster. Argh. I swear, I'm so irritated, why is everyone's solution to playing an Epic character a Spell-caster? Hell, I've seen several Epic games on GITP, and most of them don't even have people PLAYING epic casters, so why is everyone on THIS part of the forums so focused on them all the time?

OK, rant over, I'm calmer now. Really though, I'm not interested even a teensy, tiny, itty-bitty bit in Epic Casters, I just want to play a melee character with a breath weapon. I can't give specifics because I don't have a big 16 yet. Once I've created the core concept of my character, I plan on asking for an epic game that is not over-powered(no pun-pun, no "I am god" wizards, no "I can control the flow of time with my mind" psions. Just efficient, medium powered characters, so ya know, we can actually be challenged by epic level fights, instead of having one person point at the creature and say "die" and it does. I've never played in an epic level game, and I want to experience it, but not in a game where one player holds all the power

[The Glyphstone]

Cause Epic Spellcasting (not Epic-level casters, the Epic Spellcasting rules specifically) is utterly stupid and ridiculous - get enough Solar buddies, and your wizard can cast "Kill Everyone In The Universe Who Can Hurt Me With No Save, Including Overdeities and People Who Haven't Been Born Yet Or Only Exist In Alternate Universes" as a free action. The only way to play Epic is to ban Epic Spellcasting abilities outright, at which point it's basically like pre-epic except everyone's numbers are bigger. It's the elephant in the living room, basically - it's always there, and always a potential problem even if you ignore it until you get rid of it.

If 'having a breath weapon' is your goal, I'd suggest a Dragonfire Adept. They're an Invocation class from Dragon Magic, who get an at-will breath weapon and a handful of other at-will magical abilities. With enough Metabreath feats, you'll be able to do all sorts of crazy stuff just by coughing on people hard. It's a simple class to learn, not too hard to play, and can be an effective character if the rest of your group isn't playing Wizards, Clerics, or Druids (oh my!)

[PollyOliver]

I love epic without epic spellcasting--I've played a couple games that far, one that just didn't have epic spells and just stopped advancing spellcasting at 9th level spells, and one that was epic gestalt with no full casters in the party; our best caster was a bard. Very fun. I've been in one game with epic spellcasting, and everyone in it agreed to rebuild, resulting in the latter example above, after two encounters. Just way to much rocket tag for our taste, though I can see how some people would like it. I think the reason people are telling you to do it is not because they're trying to completely ignore your wishes, but mostly because unless the rest of the party is willing to exercise restraint, the risk is that you feel left out because you can't warp the universe with your mind. If the other players are considerate, though, you should be okay.

Assuming ToB is allowed in your game, I think it's a lot of fun. Warblade gets d12 hit dice and some maneuvers that synergize really nicely with charging and jumping, let you move and full attack, and let you give your party members extra actions or inflict conditions on your enemies. They also have INT synergy and more skill points than a fighter, with a nice class list, so you'll be decent out of combat as well. White raven discipline is really nice, and tiger claw synergizes well with jumping, give extra attacks, and has a pouncing maneuver if you don't want to dip barbarian to get pounce. Diamond mind has a nice level 9 maneuver that also gives extra attacks (2 full attacks in a round). Plus, if you go warblade 20 you can be in two stances at the same time, which is very cool.

Edit: if you want to focus more on the breath weapon, dragonfire adept is indeed nice, and it's easy to learn. It's not really a primary melee class though, so you'd be breath weapon and invocations primary smacking things secondary if you went that route.

[Divide by Zero]

If Epic Spellcasting is allowed, and you are playing a noncaster, then there are basically three possible outcomes:

1. The full casters hold back, significantly. This option breaks verisimilitude even more than at lower levels.
2. The full casters only use the example epic spells, or otherwise don't actually use the system fully.
3. This. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw)

[Starwulf]

If Epic Spellcasting is allowed, and you are playing a noncaster, then there are basically three possible outcomes:

1. The full casters hold back, significantly. This option breaks verisimilitude even more than at lower levels.
2. The full casters only use the example epic spells, or otherwise don't actually use the system fully.
3. This. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw)

Then when I ask for my game, I'll simply ask that Epic Spellcasting to NOT be allowed. Epic casters, sure, but Epic Spellcasting, no. That's not that big of a request, I'm sure.

edit: So, after much careful thought, I think that I'm completely torn between the Dragonfire Adept with the metabreath feats that glyphstone mentioned, and the raptoran warblade that Polly has suggested. Both sound like they would be incredibly fun to play. What's a good race for the Dragonfire Adept though?

[The Glyphstone]

Dragonborn Dwarves are excellent, since you need a Breath weapon with a cooldown to get Metabreath feats. But once you have those feats, you can apply them to any breath weapon you have.

[Gardener]

Dragonborn Dwarves are excellent, since you need a Breath weapon with a cooldown to get Metabreath feats. But once you have those feats, you can apply them to any breath weapon you have.

Well, if you're going to eat the slow speed, Dragonborn Gnome is pretty good, too. No Cha penalty, size bonus to AC, random cantrips for extra utility. Makes the "beating people up" part a little harder, though - Small size and a strength penalty will cost you a little melee damage.

EDIT: Dragonborn, duh.

[Thurbane]

That's because "cheese" doesn't mean anything.

Wait, no, scratch that. It means "things I don't like." This is, as you may imagine, helpful to pretty much no one.
Well, my own interpretation of "cheese" generally means anything that breaks the game, or goes well outside of a group's established optimization powercurve. This will, of course, vary hugely between groups...

Most will agree that infinite loops and irresistable "I WIN!" buttons in a character build are cheese.

[PollyOliver]

Well, my own interpretation of "cheese" generally means anything that breaks the game, or goes well outside of a group's established optimization powercurve. This will, of course, vary hugely between groups...

Most will agree that infinite loops and irresistable "I WIN!" buttons in a character build are cheese.

[kind of off topic]It's complicated by the fact that while there are some things that are probably always cheese (infinite loops, chain-gating solars, etc.) to some extent one group's "cheese" might be perfectly acceptable in another group. My normal group (or former normal group I guess, since I've moved) plays at a moderate optimization level where the tier 3's optimize a fair bit and the tier 2's and 1's don't blast, but don't break the universe either. A standard conjurer or transmuter or elven generalist in that group would not go amiss using grease and glitterdust and haste. I played such a character for half a session in a different group before giving up and building a healbot, because I was just too gamebreaking for them.[/off topic]

Anyways--for the dragonfire adept, dragonborn is still good for the reasons above. For the base race, focus on something with a useful type, good ability score adjustments, or good movement modes is recommended, because that's all that survives the template being applied (for example, a human's feat and skill points will not, nor will a gnome's SLAs.)

[Starwulf]

So, I have got to say, to those of you who suggested Dragonfire Adept, HOLY SMOKES, I love this class. It is literally EVERYTHING that I wanted, and then some. I didn't have the book, so I had to find a place to buy it online, took me a bit download due to my ****ty, extremely spotty(lately anyways) 26.4k dial-up, but I just got it done a few hours ago, and just now got around to looking at it. Wow, is all I can say. I love it.

I have a question though, several of you suggested a Dragonborn Dwarf as the race. I'm not sure I understand why? A dragonborn gets breath weapons, and a Dragonfire Adept gets breath weapons. I'm assuming they don't stack(though, perhaps a Dragonborns breath weapon ability to CHOOSE what type of breath it is, will carry over to the dragonfire adept ability?). Is the sole purpose just to get enough HD to have access to a breath weapon as a Dragonborn, so I can have access to metabreath feats, so that they would then carry over to the breath weapon of my dragonfire adept? Is there any better race besides Dwarf? I'm thinking of including a rather unique request(unique as in I've only seen it once before,that a DM of a game I'm trying to join, introduced) of allowing "Free" LA up to +1 or +2. Assuming the DM decides to allow that, are there any better races to become Dragonborn as? Also, how many HD(levels) of Dragonborn should I go into? The minimum required for breath weapon? Cuz it really does seem like a Dragonfire Adept gets some seriously nice abilities, I don't want to cut into that to terribly much.

[PollyOliver]

Yeah, you want a breath weapon with a cooldown so you qualify for metabreath feats in the first place, as far as I understand.

But when dragonborn says hit dice, it doesn't mean racial. It's a template with a +0 LA, and the HD requirement for breath weapon and wings and whatnot is total character hit dice, meaning your class levels count. It scales as you play.

For races for the base to dragonborn, dwarf is often suggested because you wind up with +4 CON (since ability scores are one of the only big things to stick around). Size, type, and movement are the others, so something with flight (hence raptoran) is often recommended so you can nab the heart aspect and still have wings. Since you get these on an invocation, not as much of a big deal. If you can convince a DM to give free LA (which you may not need to do since dragonborn counts your class levels as hit dice too) a race with flight, good ability score adjustments (don't worry about SLAs or vision, as you lose them), or a type that grants immunities are all nice

[Gardener]

We suggested Dragonborn (Breath) because it has a breath weapon with a recharge time, qualifying you fer the extremely useful Metabreath feats. These can give you a range of powerful and useful effects, at the cost of extending the cooldown on your breath weapon. And by alternating the breath weapons, you can keep up your damage output even while using them.

Also, Dragonborn of Bahamut isn't a class, it's a template. Your breath weapon improves with levels, no matter what class you put them in, and Dragonfire Adept usually rewards sticking with it for a bit.

Take a look at this thread (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870954/The_New_Dragonfire_Adept_Handbook) for a mroe detailed discussion of the mechanics and options behind a DFA. It's a great class, but has a few little idiosyncrasies.

[Starwulf]

So, that means I can start out AS a Dwarven Dragonfire Adept, and then add the Dragonborn Template on top of it, and it won't cost me a single level? So, going into epic, I'll be a fully level 20 Dragonborn Dwarven Dragonfire Adept? Also, is there anywhere that has information on DFAs as epic? if no such thing exists, what is a good PrC to go into for them?(I may have already asked this, if so, I apologize) ^^ I'm about to start designing this char soon, mostly so I have the fluff/crunch done by the time I post up a thread looking for a DM(I hate feeling rushed to create a character for a thread, so Ill have it all done except ability scores and equipment for a change!).

[Gardener]

Dragonborn Dwarves are a LA +0 race, just like normal dwarves. So going into epic, you can be a Dragonborn Dwarf Dragonfire Adept 20.

As far as Epic DFA, there's no official preogression, but going by the guidelines in the ELH and this article on Warlocks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20061027a), a simple extension would be one extra die of breath weapon damage every 3 levels (it's been 1/3 levels since 11th, though 1/2 levels probably wouldn't break the game), +1 Natural Armor every 5 levels (regular since 8th), increasing caster level with invocations, though no automatic new invocations, and a bonus epic feat per 3 levels. Epic Extra Invocation translates directly, while Epic Breath Weapon is a pretty straightforward modification of Epic Eldritch Blast. Lord of All Essences could probably work with breath effects, requiring one of each minimum level requirement (which you'd probably have anyway). The rest of the Warlock-specific Epic feats would take a bit of work to translate, but someone's probably homebrewed some. If not, you can either work on it yourself, or take other Epic feats.