Most Powerful D&D Dragon

[ShadowFireLance]

The limits are that I cant use Dragon or Dungeon Magizines, Has to be a Book,

And also has to have a La, Or Be Really strong In melee, If one can Find a Dragon that meets both of those then YIPEE!:smallbiggrin:

As I am looking for a Dragon race such as Fang or Red Dragons
Non-Unique please!

Thanks.....
Shady

[Toliudar]

The absolutely most powerful dragon is probably Io, but Bahamut will do as well. No LA, but definitely strong in melee.

Discounting divinities and epic dragons, I'd check out the Battle Dragon from Draconomicon.

[ShadowFireLance]

Ah I thought of that but shall update first, As I am looking for a Dragon race such as Fang or Red Dragons, Battle dragon... Hmm *Lookies*

[Emperor Ing]

The most powerful dragon variant that comes to mind is the Nexus Dragon from the Immortals Handbook Bestiary. Their CR is listed as around 600. But since CR should be taken with a grain of salt, you should take note that their breath weapons deal d1000s in damage and their flight speed is "superluminal."

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Don't forget to trick out your dragon with some of the sovereign archetypes from DoE!

The Dragonlance books might have some really nice stuff for you. DLCS contains stuff for Advanced dragons the size of large cities. Edit: I actually think it's Age of Mortals, which is a 3rd party book. DL stuff is split like that.

Edit 2: are you going to have to play this character from the earliest level? Are you getting the RHD/LA for free? What do you have to play with? If you're getting everything for free, be a super ancient Prismatic Dragon. If you have to deal with RHD and LA, be a Steel Dragon Wyrmling.

[dspeyer]

AFAICT, the Immortals Handbook is third party and almost another system.

Setting that aside, it's hard to beat the Great Wyrm Force Dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/dragonEpic.htm#forceDragon) with colossal+ size, 75 strength and 36th level sorcerer casting.

If you meant that you want something with a level adjust AND good at melee, your best bet might be a young gold: large and str 25.

[Aharon]

time dragon, in the last 3.5 dragon.

[ShadowFireLance]

Might I repeat myself. No Dragon mgazine?

Anyways it can be up to level 26 total, no free La No free RHD.
And whats DoE?

Dragons of Eberron?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

In that case, go Wyrmling Steel Dragon + class levels, advancing as a gish. I recommend Hoarding for Fun and Profit (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1518) and Dragon PC Races (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3070).

Yes, DoE is Dragons of Eberron. The sovereign archetypes can get you bonus sorcerer casting, maneuver progression from ToB or a number of other nice things.

[ShadowFireLance]

And What I might say to help here is:

I am attempting to make a Dragon Empire, With Crazy amounts of Followers and Whatnot, Epic leadership on my Chorats and down the line, I have over 9,000,000 followers and about 20-25 Chorats, With levels

28-26-22-20-18-16-15-14-12-11-10-8 and so on, So I might ask, What would be the best course of action?

(And I dont know how to spell Chorats right now :D)

I have one homebrew slot left and it can be a Homebrew or Dragon/Dungeon and 3rd party counts as Homebrew So I must ask, What is a good dragon for that?

[Acathala]

Why not trick out a Shadow Dragon with some undead creation spells and related feats? I can so see them controling empires with vast undead armies. They're in one of the WotC dragon books.

[ShadowFireLance]

Hmm, However smart that is... Im kinda going for a living one :D

And they are from Draconomicon.

[Rubik]

The strongest dragon is the great wyrm prismatic dragon your level 20 spell-to-power erudite used Fusion and Astral Seed on after having done the same with a psion X/metamind 10.

[wayfare]

I think Prismatic Dragons are fairly awful, if you can find a way to bump Touch AC. Take a look: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/dragonEpic.htm

[Douglas]

The most powerful dragon based on what?

Most powerful dragon for its age category? Most powerful for its ECL? Most powerful for its CR (the idea that this one might even have an answer just shows how screwed up the CR system is)? Most powerful for its hit dice? Most powerful period?

If this is a question geared to helping build a character, what framework do you have to work with?

[ShadowFireLance]

I have a 26 level no free La, Nor RHD free, Getsalt chair ?
I guess thats what you want?

And The Most powerful Dragon that is playable in level 26 from anything.

I kinda need it to be a little more melee the Most others.

[Urpriest]

With your source restrictions: Great Wyrm Prismatic is the most powerful (yes including in melee).

Restricted to Dragons with a listed LA, old prismatic dragons are listed as ECL 58 in the Epic Level Handbook, which gives them LA +0, which is probably completely ridiculous but there you go. The update booklet has the Ancient Silver Dragon and Wyrm Brass Dragon with more reasonable ECLs in the Leadership section.

Edit: Ok, this advice isn't very useful given the situation. How is your DM handling LA in gestalt? Do you take the LA on one side, or on both?

[dspeyer]

ECL 26 gestalt, you say...

Annoyingly, most dragons only have LA printed up to ECL 20. I don't know if anything ever supplied the higher ones.

I note that Mature Adult Gold is conveniently 26HD. If you can convince your DM to house rule the LA (10 seems about right to me) and put it on the other side you'll be in good shape. Take swordsage for the remaining levels. Lots of 9th level maneuvers.

[ShadowFireLance]

Hmmm, Hes not much on Manuvers..

[Pokonic]

Time dragons, full force.

[ShadowFireLance]

As I keep sayin, NO Dragon Magazine!

...those are From the magazine right?

[Rubik]

I have a 26 level no free La, Nor RHD free, Getsalt chair ?
I guess thats what you want?

And The Most powerful Dragon that is playable in level 26 from anything.

I kinda need it to be a little more melee the Most others.Honestly, the "most powerful" would be what I showed above. Just boost your ML and Gate one in.

Or Gate in a wyrmling, if you can't get your ML high enough, then use Bestow Curse (as per the BoVD) and age yourself to great wyrm.

[ShadowFireLance]

However awsome that is, BoVD is banned, The 3.5 update however is not :D

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Bestow Curse is in the PHB. Greater Bestow Curse is in the Spell Compendium. The really good aging tricks are from Dragonlance stuff.

[dspeyer]

A specific Young Gold build:

{table=head]side a|side b
rhd|la
rhd|la
rhd|la
rhd|la
rhd|la
rhd|la
rhd|factotum
rhd|factotum
rhd|factotum
rhd|fighter
rhd|war hulk
rhd|war hulk
rhd|war hulk
rhd|war hulk
abjurant champion|war hulk
abjurant champion|war hulk
abjurant champion|war hulk
abjurant champion|war hulk
abjurant champion|war hulk
eldritch knight|incantrix
eldritch knight|war hulk
paladin|incantrix
paladin|incantrix
paladin|incantrix
paladin|incantrix
paladin|incantrix[/table]

Key points:
BAB 26
13th level sorcerer casting from sor/wiz and cleric lists
+20 strength from war hulk, stacks with everything
Can easily persist any spell with Incantrix and Guidance of the Avatar


Final Strength is:
{table]base|25
war hulk|20
righteous might (size)|4
bite of the weretiger(enhancement)|12
total|61[/table]

Size is huge. Natural Weapons do tons of extra damage.

Yes, the Eldritch Knight thing is a little awkward. It's necessary to maintain full bab, full casting and finish war hulk.

Both fighter and paladin would benefit from being swapped out for warblade, if whatever the ToB issue is can be resolved. It would be 8th level maneuvers.

[Kazyan]

Gestalt disallows Eldritch Knight. Not explicity, mind you, but the handwavy generalization obviously includes it.

[Urpriest]

snip.

OP still hasn't said whether separating LA and RHD on two different sides is allowed though.

[Snowbluff]

A specific Young Gold build:

SNIP.

Why not Swiftblade? You can make up the CL loss, and it's awesome.

[dspeyer]

Gestalt disallows Eldritch Knight. Not explicity, mind you, but the handwavy generalization obviously includes it.

Not obviously. I've seen disagreement. The question is whether BAB counts as a thing to dual-progress. You wouldn't deny Eternal Blade on the basis that it progressed both BAB and maneuvers, would you?

[Urpriest]

Not obviously. I've seen disagreement. The question is whether BAB counts as a thing to dual-progress. You wouldn't deny Eternal Blade on the basis that it progressed both BAB and maneuvers, would you?

The restriction isn't against dual-progression. Dual-progression is fine. The restriction is against PrCs that are essentially just a combination of two classes. By some readings that might restrict Eldritch Knight but allow Swiftblade.

Really, Gestalt, especially when LA and RHD are involved, is a system that rather self-evidently varies game to game. If the OP wanted specific, actionable advice, he would have told us the details of his DM's implementation, or at least the relevant details. As-is, we can assume the OP wants more general feedback.

[Flickerdart]

Why would RHD be a problem? Agitate a Wight into hitting you a bunch of times (as a high level dragon, the chances of it actually being able to threaten you are negligible), willingly fail the saves against negative levels at the end of the day, now you've lost as many of those pesky RHD as you want.

[ShadowFireLance]

....:smallannoyed:.....:smallconfused:......:small smile:........:smallwink:....:smallbiggrin:

:D New corse of action, and he Ruled, Ecl=RHD
so any idea for the best of a 27 Char, getsalt?

[Randomguy]

You could be a Pyroclastic Dragon (draconomicon, it's a planar dragon) with the Heighten Breath metabreath feat. If you're willing to wait, say, 10 minutes, between using your breath weapon, you can just heighten the save DC vs. your disintegrating breath up to 100 something.

Or you could just get a bunch of sorcerer or wizard levels on one side of your gestalt and shapechange into dragons with cool abilities, like the rust dragon and the pyroclastic dragon.

[HunterOfJello]

The most powerful non-deity dragon was most likely Ashardalon. He was so powerful he almost became a deity, but he ****ed it up and got stuck as a Vestige instead.

[SSGoW]

You reminded me of a Force Dragon my party fought.... It's breath weapon was untyped damage + "dust of choking and sneezing" (the curse item).

[Randomguy]

You reminded me of a Force Dragon my party fought.... It's breath weapon was untyped damage + "dust of choking and sneezing" (the curse item).

Well, at those levels you should really be immune to constitution damage, so you could just fail your saving throw.

[dspeyer]

So level 27, gestalt, treat all dragons as LA=0?

Surprisingly, gold still looks best. A simpler build this time:

rhd 26 / abjurant champion 1 // wizard (transmuter) 7 / incantrix 10 / war hulk 10

Same persist trick as before, only now the bite is of the werebear.

[Zaydos]

RHD as ECL and 27 levels to work with.

Mature Adult Gold as already pointed out (+24 Str, +12 Con, +10 to all mental scores, 9th level casting and +25 natural armor) and costs 26 levels on that side.

Mature Adult Silver loses 6 Str, 2 Con, and 1 natural armor but gets paralysis breath, and costs 25 levels on that side.

Old Bronze loses 4 Str, and gains +2 to all mental stats, 2 levels of sorcerer casting, and +1 natural armor. It has worse breath weapon but a mind-affecting alternate breath (meh at these levels really, though) and costs 27 levels.

The Chromatics are worse than the metallic dragons as a rule.

Moving on to the Draconomicon.

Old Shadow Dragon: only +16 Str and +10 Con, but +14 to all mental ability scores. Energy drain breath, +28 natural armor, and CL 9 at the cost of 25 levels.

Mature Adult Tarterian Dragons: Lose casting but force breath weapon and continuous Freedom of Movement are nice.

Mature Adult Radiant Dragons: Lose casting but force breath weapon with highest damage you're likely to snag and blinding. Only +23 natural armor but +7 Deflection bonus.

Very Old Fang Dragon: Lose 4 Str, 2 Con, 4 Int, and 4 Cha compared to Gold but is Gargantuan and deals damage as if it were colossal with their natural weapons. Lacks a breath weapon but has Trip with its bite and deals Con drain. +26 Nat armor and 27 HD. For a melee build I'd suggest this, and for the cool factor of being Gargantuan but for a charismatic leader gold seems better.

From Dragons of Faerun we have some interesting competitors:
Very Old Mercury Dragon: +20 Str, +8 Dex, +10 Con, +8 to mentals. Their breath weapon is non-consequential but they do get 13th level casting.

Old Steel Dragon: Only +14 Str, +8 Con, +12 Int, +10 Wis, and +8 Cha. They have 15th level casting and are only 25 RHD so you'd have 2 levels to toy around with but for a dragonic feel I'd advice against them. Do have SR 30, 40 against 4th level and lower spells. Also the benefit of dealing with humans regularly through the use of Alternate Form. Only large size but can release Con poison gas as a breath weapon but poison is easy to get immunity to.

I'd say Gold or Bronze might be downright strongest, but that depending upon what the other side of your gestalt is Radiant or Fang could also be useful. Even steel dragon might be good if you don't have casting on the other side of your gestalt and want 8th level sorcerer and cleric spells.

[ben-zayb]

What's up with warhulk? Do you really need that much strength? Why not just grab an Extra Spell (Giant Size) to become Colossal and gain +32 size bonus to STR?

And why not just be straight caster/manifester and Shapechange/Gr.Metamorphosis (RHD25 Dragon) since that's approximately what you are aiming for anyway? And if that's actually the case, Nightcrawler and Titan (MM) both have better respectable 40-ish STR scores.

Alternatively, Rubik's Spell-to-Power Erudite Astral Seed trick might work too. You may also use True Mind Switch for that, if you either got Thought Bottle to store exp or are willing to shell out 10k XP. At epic, full manifesters have PP regeneration anyway, thanks to Twinned Bestow Power so it might be better to use StP Erudite than Wiz/Incantatrix.

If not, then use Very Young Force Dragon as suggested.

[dspeyer]

You *always* need more strength. Strength powers attack, damage, grapple, and generally everything melee characters love.

Giant Size does sound like a good idea, though. What level/list/book is it?

[ShadowFireLance]

EEK!

Zaydos!

Anyways He is supossed to be evil, so I might go with a fang... Or a Tarterian Dragon..

[Urpriest]

You *always* need more strength. Strength powers attack, damage, grapple, and generally everything melee characters love.

Giant Size does sound like a good idea, though. What level/list/book is it?

Giant Size is from Complete Arcane. It's Wu Jen 7

[ben-zayb]

You *always* need more strength. Strength powers attack, damage, grapple, and generally everything melee characters love.

Giant Size does sound like a good idea, though. What level/list/book is it?

If the OP is really looking to bump up STR, the Lolth-Touched template (MM4,p93) gives +6STR (among other stuff) for merely LA+1. It makes the creature CE, so it might fit the Evil fluff. He might take the Half-Dragon template (yes, there are half-dragon dragons; i.e. silver-force dragon) to get +8STR for 1RHD and LA+3.

[kardar233]

You could be a Pyroclastic Dragon (draconomicon, it's a planar dragon) with the Heighten Breath metabreath feat. If you're willing to wait, say, 10 minutes, between using your breath weapon, you can just heighten the save DC vs. your disintegrating breath up to 100 something.

Or you could just get a bunch of sorcerer or wizard levels on one side of your gestalt and shapechange into dragons with cool abilities, like the rust dragon and the pyroclastic dragon.

Note that the DC increase from Heighten Breath is restricted to twice your CON mod, IIRC. Enlarge has no such issues, however. :smallbiggrin:

[ShadowFireLance]

I found the best book ever.

Van Graaf's Journal of Dragons.

I love those feats :D

Thankies for teh input!