Concerning the Dragonfire Adept

[The Ogre]

Is it a good enough base class to warrant me buying a copy of Dragon Magic? Because I'm wanting to play a dragon themed class that isn't the sorcerer or the mediocre dragon shaman.

[gkathellar]

It's a very nice class, a fun Tier 3 that breathes fire all day.

Dragon Magic also has a lot of other very nice material (feats and spells, mostly). So yes, if you can afford the space in your pocketbook, I recommend it.

[Boci]

Its a nice class, but don't take my word for it: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060912a&page=2

[Draz74]

Yeah, you shouldn't buy Dragon Magic just for the DFA, since it's a free sample on the WotC website.

[Boci]

Yeah, you shouldn't buy Dragon Magic just for the DFA, since it's a free sample on the WotC website.

Well you do still need the exact wording of the breath weapons and invocations if you don't want to/can't homebrew them yourself.

[Draz74]

Well you do still need the exact wording of the breath weapons and invocations if you don't want to/can't homebrew them yourself.

The breath effects are also given in the free Excerpts.

The invocations, I'll grant you. Although most of them are pretty easy to guess the exact effect from the short description given, and/or by reading the Dragonfire Adept Handbook. The only thing you're really left guessing about is their Equivalent Spell Levels (which affect Save DCs). Those are hard to guess exactly, but easy to ballpark.

[TroubleBrewing]

Dragon Magic is also great for MoI classes, and it's even got a few Draconic Vestiges for Binders.

There's loads of cool spells, and its got tons of nifty feats. It's one of my favorite splatbooks (that doesn't introduce a new subsystem of magic).

[The Ogre]

The dragonfire adept seems pretty neat. It is sort of lame though that you need to be a dragonborn or take that one surge feat from whatever Dragon Magazine.

Guess I will be playing a desert half-orc dragonborn next campaign.

By the way, what is MoI?

[Curious]

The dragonfire adept seems pretty neat. It is sort of lame that you have to be a dragonborn or take that one surge feat from whatever Dragon Magazine.

Guess I will be playing a desert half-orc dragonborn next campaign.

Obligatory Suggestion: Warforged Dragonborn is awesome.

[Manateee]

Dragon Magic has a couple neat things going for it, but almost all of them have caveats:

Good part: Dragonfire Adept!
Qualifier: Look at the excerpt, look at the Warlock and you have the class. You'll probably be homebrewing some infusions anyway if you play more than one DFA, so the benefits of an explicit list are pretty limited.

Good part: Support for Incarnum! (Also Binding!)
Qualifier: The melds are okay, but they don't seem to be written by someone familiar with the MoI rules or design principles. They give classes unusual bonus types and their shaping/binding benefit principles don't jibe with MoI's content. Additionally, they fall into the Cleric pattern of adding constantly-available options at no cost. On one hand, they're kind of interesting. On the other, they're probably sloppier both in design and in implementation than the equivalents that you'd write if you wanted sub in some dragon-themed soulmelds. Binding shares the second trait, but I don't consider myself familiar enough with binding to comment on the first.

Good part: More limited Polymorphs for your nerfed-Polymorph game!
Qualifier: You could probably just name a monster and hash out one of these spells out in 20-30 seconds.

Good part: Some pretty well-balanced prestige classes.
Qualifier: Nobody will ever take them, because half of all 3.5 PrCs are imbalanced in a favorable way.

Good part: Cool faustian pacts!
Qualifier: The rules go on forever and map out a system no one will want to use.

Good part: All those weird Dragonfire feats!
Qualifier: For some of them, nobody's sure what they do. For some of them, nobody's sure why anyone would want to do what they do. For some of them, somebody at the table's going to end up sobbing.

Good part: Nifty Spells! (Arcane Spellsurge, those Long-term Druid buffs with stacking effects)
Qualifier: Actually, I don't have any qualifiers for these. I just really like them.


Overall, it's a book I use when it's at the table, but not a book I'd recommend going out to buy if it's conflicting with another purchase.

[Igneel]

The dragonfire adept seems pretty neat. It is sort of lame though that you need to be a dragonborn or take that one surge feat from whatever Dragon Magazine.

Guess I will be playing a desert half-orc dragonborn next campaign.

By the way, what is MoI?

Or as a third option [not including multi-classing] you can purchase a Draconic Graft [Races of the Dragon] for ~56k that gives you a flat 6d8 breath weapon of the same energy damage the donor had. Its expressed in 1d4 round recharge.

Also don't forget to snag a Crown of the North Winds [Dragons of Faerun] for the ability to switch out your element energy damage breaths for metallic 'secondary' breath weapons for ~70k.

MoI = Magic of Incarnum

[Mantarni]

It's an amazing battlefield controller for mid-range, IMO. CON-based, so you have hp, which is always nice. Does less damage than even an unoptimized warlock, but if you're looking at damage instead of battlefield control stop playing it.

At-will breath (slow breath) + Entangling Exhalation feat = win. 1/2 speed (1 round on save, 2 on fail) + another 1/2 speed and entangled (1d4 rounds). Or you could use weakening breath and do -6 str penalties instead of the slowing. Take frightful presence invocation or feat to have more fun.

I don't think you have to be dragonborn though, it counts as an arcane class and doesn't have draconic race in any of the requirements I can see. And you automatically count as having the sorceror's draconic heritage when you take the class. But, dragonborn race = surged breath on top of your at-will one = you can take breath feats.

That said, if you want to play that class and can afford it without missing any of the money you might want it. Otherwise, pass.

[candycorn]

At-will breath (slow breath) + Entangling Exhalation feat = win. 1/2 speed (1 round on save, 2 on fail) + another 1/2 speed and entangled (1d4 rounds). Or you could use weakening breath and do -6 str penalties instead of the slowing. Take frightful presence invocation or feat to have more fun.Won't work. At least, not fully.

Slow breath replaces the damage with a slow effect.
Entangling exhalation only slows creatures that are damaged by your breath. If you slow, you don't damage your opponent.

However, since you can't apply the same breath effect in consecutive rounds, you can alternate between the two, and with modest luck, you could keep things limited to a partial action, and at 1/4 movement.

[Mantarni]

^ What she(?) said.

Although the EE part doesn't seem clear -- it does half damage and 1d6 damage of that element per entangled round, but also specifies that if they took no damage then the entangled effect is present without the 1d6. It's probably for dr or immunities, but it still seems vague.

Oh yeah, and one of the breath modifiers does a 20(ish)ft radius cloud around you. Did I mention a 1st level invocation lets your allies be immune to your breath effects for the day? An amusing class to play if you can rp a personality who likes making enemies lives miserable (or not, but it fits amazingly well). The lack of invocations and no armor/weapon proficiencies is painful though (mithril chain shirt is about the only answer).

[candycorn]

^ What she(?) said.

Although the EE part doesn't seem clear -- it does half damage and 1d6 damage of that element per entangled round, but also specifies that if they took no damage then the entangled effect is present without the 1d6. It's probably for dr or immunities, but it still seems vague.Incorrect. It states that if it doesn't deal energy damage, then creatures damaged by the initial breath are entangled.

It still requires damage to entangle. It's just that if that damage isn't of an energy type, then the victim doesn't take additional damage.

[Tsuzurao]

The dragonfire adept seems pretty neat. It is sort of lame though that you need to be a dragonborn or take that one surge feat from whatever Dragon Magazine.

Guess I will be playing a desert half-orc dragonborn next campaign.

By the way, what is MoI?

Eh? You don't need to be dragonborn to take the class. There's no requirement at all for the class. You might need those mentioned things to be able to apply metabreath feats, but there's no requirement just to be able to play one.

MoI, as previously stated, is "Magic of Incarnum", the book that covers Soulmelding. There are a few Soulmelds added in Dragon Magic (one of the only sources that ever expanded on Soulmelding before 4.0 came out).

[The Ogre]

Eh? You don't need to be dragonborn to take the class. There's no requirement at all for the class. You might need those mentioned things to be able to apply metabreath feats, but there's no requirement just to be able to play one.

I was refering to needing either one of those in order to qualify for metabreath feats.

After scouring through my books, I found a better alternative would be to dip into Binder since Amon grants a breath weapon with a given recharge time and for Naberius to help play party face.

Do dragonfire adepts qualify for prestige classes in the same way that warlocks do by being at a specific caster level?

[ZeroGear]

Do dragonfire adepts qualify for prestige classes in the same way that warlocks do by being at a specific caster level?

Short answer: yes.

As for the metabreath feats, I thought most of them only require a breath weapon to work. Also, I would like to point out that Adepts get a feat at first level called Dragontouched, which gives them the Dragonblooded subtype automatically, so maybe you don't need to be a Dragonborn.

[The Ogre]

(Draconomicon, p. 66)To take a metabreath feat, a creature must have a breath weapon whose time between breaths is expressed in rounds. wrote:
To take a metabreath feat, a creature must have a breath weapon whose time between breaths is expressed in rounds. Therefore a hell hound (which can breathe once every 2d4 rounds) can take metabreath feats, whereas a behir (breath weapon usable 1/minute) cannot.
Which is the main reason that a DFA takes the Power Surge feat or have another source of a breath weapon with an expressed recharge time to actually use and take metabreath feats.

[Optimator]

I don't regret buying Dragon Magic at all. It's full of goodies.

[dextercorvia]

I don't understand why everyone wants metabreaths. I found them kind of meh. Also, your BW only comes back at the rate of your slowest BW. That turns your at will class feature into something that is only available sporadically -- probably only twice per combat.

[kardar233]

Yeah, but if a Maximized Heightened Enlarged Clinging Lingering Fivefold Breath of Tiamat doesn't win a combat, you're either fighting an army worth of archdevils or your DM really truly hates you.

Plus there are a lot of nice spells in Dragon Magic. Though I might be confusing it with Races of the Dragon. Which one has Wings of Cover in it?

[candycorn]

I don't understand why everyone wants metabreaths. I found them kind of meh. Also, your BW only comes back at the rate of your slowest BW. That turns your at will class feature into something that is only available sporadically -- probably only twice per combat.
You don't need to use them all the time. If they're useful, then you use them. If not, then you don't. They're good fight finishers, and good situationally in other areas. If your character has other options than breath, then they're pretty solid. Between breath, invocations, and the like, you can have solid options for using a more powerful Breath Weapon, that isn't usable every round.

[Keld Denar]

Except that you can't alternate breath weapons. Using one breathweapon effectively puts all of them on cooldown for the duration of the one. So if you breath once with your DFA breath, then Quicken Breath breath your Dragonborn breath, you're DFA breath will be put on the same extended cooldown that your Dragonborn breath now has.

So if you do gamble on a metabreath, hope that you don't need to breath again, because thats 1d4+a few rounds you'll have to wait to get it back online again.

Then again, you could always spam Chilling Tenticles in between breaths. There's no such thing as too many tentacles!

[candycorn]

Except that you can't alternate breath weapons. Using one breathweapon effectively puts all of them on cooldown for the duration of the one. So if you breath once with your DFA breath, then Quicken Breath breath your Dragonborn breath, you're DFA breath will be put on the same extended cooldown that your Dragonborn breath now has.

So if you do gamble on a metabreath, hope that you don't need to breath again, because thats 1d4+a few rounds you'll have to wait to get it back online again.

Then again, you could always spam Chilling Tenticles in between breaths. There's no such thing as too many tentacles!

This. For Metabreath builds, this is the mindset. You use breath when you can, and other abilities when you can't.

[FMArthur]

Those aren't the only reasons to get the book though. Dragon Magic is the source for some other significant gains for other classes who aren't DFAs and sorcerers...
Fanged Ring: Item that gives Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Natural Attack, mandatory feats for unarmed attackers, allowing any class to just buy this and take one feat - Superior Unarmed Strike from ToB - to fight unarmed like pros. Brawling is a weapon style, not a whole damn class, and this is one of the things that helps you stick it to the designers who apparently believed otherwise.
Dragonfire Inspiration: Lets bards add d6s of damage in place of each +1 attack/damage from Inspire Courage. This rocks face.
Drakkensteed Mount ACF for Paladins: Trades your horse for a flying horse that looks like a dragon and costs you basically nothing. Come on. Not the best dragon mount you can get, but this is a freebie and others are not.
Eldritch Glaive: This is the main gateway to melee warlock builds, giving you iterative attacks with your Eldritch Blast as a reach weapon and the use of it for AoOs. The warlock still isn't saving face against the dragonfire adept, but this is at least a useful tool warlocks can use for outdamaging them and for doing something different from them in combat.
Dragonfire Strike: This feat lets you deal precision damage as energy damage. There are some better options for skirting immunities, but this can be useful in its own way.