Optimizing Dragonmarks in 3.P

[Tokuhara]

Is this thought even possible?

My idea is that he was an exiled prince from Eberron who during his travels manifested a dragonmark. His however wa the first of its kind: a unique dragonmark of forgotten legend. He then discovers his bloodline leads back to the ancient lords of Khyber, and he chooses to draw from this.

I want to use my Aberrant Dragonmark as my "secret weapon," and be more or less a pseudo-gish. Race-wise, I'm open. I think he could be a Human subrace

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, there was a Warlock/Rogue/Nosmiac Surgeon/Arcane Trickster build that works fairly well. Spontaneously casts Inflict spells by sacrificing a use of his unlimited-use invocations, which gets him the 'casts spells of x level' prerequsite so that he can get into Arcane Trickster to advance both invocations and sneak attack...

[Tokuhara]

Well, there was a Warlock/Rogue/Nosmiac Surgeon/Arcane Trickster build that works fairly well. Spontaneously casts Inflict spells by sacrificing a use of his unlimited-use invocations, which gets him the 'casts spells of x level' prerequsite so that he can get into Arcane Trickster to advance both invocations and sneak attack...

I definately am a fan of Child of Khyber, and want to use it to make my Dragonmark kick some tail

[Zaq]

The thing about dragonmarks is that they're an awfully heavy investment, at least if you want them to keep getting better as you level up. Feats are precious, and while more magic = more better, it's debatable whether having a couple SLAs (most of which are 1/day) is a good trade for half your feats. If they just scaled with level and only required one feat, I think they'd be a lot better . . . but that's not what you were asking.

Anyway, the Dragonmark Heir PrC is pretty much made for this, since it gives you the higher-level feats for free while increasing the number of uses per day you get (or the number of options you get). The downside is that, well, that's five levels right there where you aren't advancing your spellcasting, or your maneuvers, or your full complement of skills, or your meldshaping, or whatever. You're just making your occasional SLAs better. The Dragonmark Prodigy and Dragonmark Adept feats in Dragonmarked are a step in the right direction, but again, more feats.

Make no mistake; some of the spells the greater dragonmarks give you are awesome. Nobody's going to say that True Seeing is a waste of time, or that having Heal in your back pocket is a bad idea. It's just a question of whether it's worth the investment and the opportunity cost.

Aberrant dragonmarks are generally worse, since they don't really do as much unless you take Lesser Aberrant Dragonmark and Greater Aberrant Dragonmark, both from Dragonmarked. Is two feats for, say, Sleet Storm 1/day and Jump 2/day a good trade? For most characters, probably not, but it's your call.

If you've got even more feats to throw at the problem, there are a bunch in (predictably) Dragonmarked that trigger off of "any true or aberrant dragonmark" or "any aberrant dragonmark." They seem pretty niche to me overall, and again, the problem is often that we don't have enough feats to throw into this whole mess in the first place, but they're there.

[Tvtyrant]

Dragonmarks are a good way for Fighters to add some versatility IME, but most classes just do not have the feats for it (maybe psionic warrior?).

[Tokuhara]

Dragonmarks are a good way for Fighters to add some versatility IME, but most classes just do not have the feats for it (maybe psionic warrior?).

The rule is that classes that are translated in PF use the PF version in leu of the 3.5 version. As for 3.X, you take the more beneficial version of the rule in question

[avr]

Is there a particular level range you had in mind? There's a feat in Dragonmarked which gives aberrantly dragonmarked characters DR 5/byeshk which is great when you're taking 5-10 damage/attack, maybe less so when you're taking 20-30 damage/attack.

[Tokuhara]

Is there a particular level range you had in mind? There's a feat in Dragonmarked which gives aberrantly dragonmarked characters DR 5/byeshk which is great when you're taking 5-10 damage/attack, maybe less so when you're taking 20-30 damage/attack.

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