Playing Dragons

[PlusSixPelican]

I'm kind of curious about playing dragon PCs, and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on that subject.

Note: Please don't tell me dragons are broken for PC use. If they were, they'd rule their worlds. xD

[Rebel7284]

The best dragons are Dragonwraught Kobolds. -1 Feat, +3 Int, +3 Wis, +3 Cha is nice. :D

The other nice dragons are Steel Dragon and Tome Dragon (Dragon Magazine). Generally they are used for gish builds.

[TypoNinja]

I'm kind of curious about playing dragon PCs, and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on that subject.

Note: Please don't tell me dragons are broken for PC use. If they were, they'd rule their worlds. xD

I'm playing a dragon in a game, so I'll give you some insights.

Unless you go epic, PC's don't play Dragons as much as you play Dragon Children. You won't be the big bad kingdom terrorizing beasts of legend.

Very high damage output to start, A medium sized dragon has 5 attacks. If they get a chance to full attack expect something (or even more than one something) to die. And they aren't iterative so you don't suffer accuracy fall off like usual.

AC on the sad side. Dragon natural armor is tied to HD, which seems cool, but then you realize as a PC You have a relatively high LA, that keeps going up over time. A CR 12 Dragon and a PC dragon at level 12 are very far apart in power. If your party is fighting any monster type that's basically a beat stick its not going to have any issues tagging the Dragon PC(s).

The amounts to fairly heavy glass cannon syndrome unless you drop a lot of WBL on AC. I embraced it, my typical tactic is to let a fullplate type go in first, then charge up behind them and use the bite from reach. Next turn if the target is still there 5 foot step and full attack. It usually dies.

Very severe tactical advantage. Not a whole lot can match a dragon for sheer speed, even with magical movement enhancers. Don't expect your badguys to be able to break contact without straight up teleporting away. Also, hiding your caster badguys behind melee types doesn't work unless there's a really low ceiling. Dragons fly, when you can take a literal flying leap over the front line and land on a caster he doesn't live long. Also, Dragons are living siege engines, Grab a 500lb rock, fly up, drop it on some poor buggar.

You will be required to purchase an amulet of mighty fists. It's expensive. It's worth every penny. Get Two. One for Straight up ass whooping, one with metaline in case you run across something with a material based DR. Lots of attacks also means lots of missing damage when you meet a DR you can't beat. Rely on caster for alignment needs.

Dragon senses will drive your DM up the wall. The dragons blind sense means nothing can sneak up on the party, if its within 60 feet of him, the dragon knows about it. Invisibility doesn't really work that well either, same reason.

All I can think of off the top of my head. Hope that helps you.

[Shir]

Check out Dragon #320 and #332 for the dragon template classes.

[Randomguy]

If you feel like giving up a breath weapon and bite attack, then you could get yourself a Mouthpick weapon. Mouthpick is a +1 enchant that lets you use a weapon in your mouth (but only if you have a bite attack) and replace your bite attack with weapon attacks. The main advantage this gives is that it lets you use iterative attacks.

I remember there being a guide or two on this, but my google-fu is failing me.

[Rebel7284]

Also, Loredrake (and the other dragon archeotypes from Dragons of Eberron)

[Person_Man]

Draconomicon has specific rules for players as dragons. They're fairly weak, because at a minimum you're looking at +2 Level Adjustment and 4 racial hit dice, and the benefits of being a dragon (flight, attribute adjustments, natural armor, breath weapon, and maybe spell resistance) are not as powerful as the benefits provided by most classes. You're much better off just playing a Dragonfire Adept.

[ThiagoMartell]

Steel Dragons kick major ass. They are completely worth their LA.
You can be one at level 6 and you basically get wildshape... without the HD cap. Hello, mr Legendary Monkey, I really like your Str 30. Oh, you can assume human form as well. You can even take the Half Dragon Form feat from Dragons of Eberron. Well, hello mr Half-Dragon Legendary Monkey, how is that Str 38 doing? :smallamused:
Of course, you play a dragon to be a dragon, not to be a half-dragon legendary monkey. That's why you're going psionic and grabbing Expansion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/expansion.htm). In three levels, thanks to Practiced Manifester, you'll be a Large dragon, which is pretty damn cool.

Seriously, just play a Steel Dragon wyrmling. You'll rock.

[TypoNinja]

I'm doing a fang dragon, makes a pretty good little ginsu machine. Racial: damage one size up, Improved nat attack feats, magic item to go large sized. Three size category boost to damage.

Improved muti-attack to make the penalties go away, and I'm sitting on six attacks all at very good odds to hit.

[MachineWraith]

I've always wanted to play a dragon, but I've never had a DM that would let me. To that end, however, I've found a helpful link:

This (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1518) is a link to a Dragon Handbook. Unfortunately it's not terribly fleshed out, so don't go there looking for dragon-only exploits or anything. It's mostly just which dragons are worth looking at as player characters. Steel dragon wyrmlings, for example, are probably the best dragon for players, as they've got 4 RHD and +2 LA, which is about as good as it gets. They've also got good movement, not bad ability mods, and some decent SLAs. They work pretty well as gishes.

One thing I can tell you with absolute certainty: any dragon PC you build will have a much better chance of staying relevant if you DM allows LA buyoff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm).

[Gavinfoxx]

You generally want to minimize LA and Racial HD, and maximize casting.

That means you generally play a Wyrmling Steel or Tome dragon.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9064.0

[TypoNinja]

One thing I can tell you with absolute certainty: any dragon PC you build will have a much better chance of staying relevant if you DM allows LA buyoff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm).

Mine is, he's even been kind enough to let me count racial HD for the buy off since its supposed to be only class levels, since I plan on going pure dragon.

My only curiosity is, how do you actually work it?

For example, fang dragon. +3LA and 3HD. So I can buy off a LA at 9HD, but at 9HD, my LA is up to 5. I'll never have 3x as many HD as LA. I guess by RAW it would never be a problem since you can't buyoff with dragon HD normally, so the advancing LA isn't technically supposed to ever be an issue.

In the end we settled on treating each LA advance as its own template, so I have a +3 a +1 and a +1. So I'll be buying off at 9HD 15HD 18HD 21HD and 24HD. That seems like a reasonable solution, I'm just curious if there's any rules out there that would have helped guide us.

[Igneel]

Not generally thought of as optimized/OP, but I oh so enjoy playing the almost always forgotten Pseudodragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/pseudodragon.htm) [2HD/3LA]. 60ft Telepathy/Blindsense + Mindsight makes you a pretty good little radar-system for your party minus the dip into classes like Mindbender. Get a little bonus for hiding because of your size along with chameleon-like skin and a boost to Dex makes it an interesting sneaky choice. Could potentially even milk your tail poison for a little bit of profit on the black market, especially if you boost your Con score up for classes like Dragonfire Adept (my favorite class to take with this race along with Sorcerer).

Its a interesting alternative to the bigger more 'scary' dragons that might have trouble sneaking into towns without magic such as Polymorph or Wildshape, and you can pretend to be the spellcaster's familiar while giving him a bit of a boost in the reputation department since stronger spellcasters have dragons for familiars. I always like playing them as trying to become more dragon-like either through spellcasting or by taking up the Dragonfire Adept class and generally annoy my enemies by being next to impossible to find or catch.

[PlusSixPelican]

The character in mind is a Gold Dragon (steep LA, I know) that I fell in love with the design I came up with. I've figured out that the level adjustment kinda nerfs it, which is why people tend to play LA+0 a lot. Although, from a non-mechanical perspective, it looks like the naturally less-capable species (humans, elves, etc.) are BETTER in-universe than species with a level adjust that live for thousands of years and can see in the dark and stuff. I know it's a balance thing, but between the racial hit dice as levels-in-Dragon and then the LA, it's kinda...well, it feels a little over-nerfed, personally, and looks weird, because you'd think a dragon would be more competent than a human. xD

Anyways, I sound a little heretical, but they could make it less penalized to play a dragon. All I'm sayin'. xD

[Marnath]

Not generally thought of as optimized/OP, but I oh so enjoy playing the almost always forgotten Pseudodragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/pseudodragon.htm) [2HD/3LA]. 60ft Telepathy/Blindsense + Mindsight makes you a pretty good little radar-system for your party minus the dip into classes like Mindbender. Get a little bonus for hiding because of your size along with chameleon-like skin and a boost to Dex makes it an interesting sneaky choice. Could potentially even milk your tail poison for a little bit of profit on the black market, especially if you boost your Con score up for classes like Dragonfire Adept (my favorite class to take with this race along with Sorcerer).

Its a interesting alternative to the bigger more 'scary' dragons that might have trouble sneaking into towns without magic such as Polymorph or Wildshape, and you can pretend to be the spellcaster's familiar while giving him a bit of a boost in the reputation department since stronger spellcasters have dragons for familiars. I always like playing them as trying to become more dragon-like either through spellcasting or by taking up the Dragonfire Adept class and generally annoy my enemies by being next to impossible to find or catch.

Depending on how long your campaign runs, the lifespan could be a very serious drawback. You live a shorter life than most house cats. Monster manual says 10-15 years. That's less than 1% of the lifespan a real Red would get. On the upside though you can chirp and purr, so I guess it evens out.:smalltongue:

Also, I love your avatar. He looks cute and dignified which is a combo you don't see often.

[Tvtyrant]

The way I play dragons (I seem to be posting this explanation a lot these days) is to simple advance by age categories when your HD reaches the new level. So a Black Dragon starts at level 4 as a Wyrmling (it cannot be played at lower than level 4), and evolves into a Very Young dragon at level 7. They can be played alongside normal ECL characters this way pretty effectively, being about as strong as a tier 3 character.

So at 20 HD as a Black Dragon, you would be an Adult with 3rd level casting and decent abilities. A 20 HD Green Dragon would be a huge adult, and would be decent at just about everything (but great at nothing).

If you play a dragon only campaign, and want it to be more high power, you can simply skip up an age category every other time you would normally level. You would advance HD to the level of the age category, so you would be Ancient at level 20 as a Black Dragon, and have 31 HD. This would only work with dragons, if other characters were played alongside it would get wonky.

[Igneel]

Depending on how long your campaign runs, the lifespan could be a very serious drawback. You live a shorter life than most house cats. Monster manual says 10-15 years. That's less than 1% of the lifespan a real Red would get. On the upside though you can chirp and purr, so I guess it evens out.:smalltongue:

Also, I love your avatar. He looks cute and dignified which is a combo you don't see often.
This is quite true, which is another way to play it differently then other dragon characters. You can play it as your not as knowledgeable about events in the past, or that you just don't care as your too busy trying to extend your life for example. You don't have centuries of living ahead of you, you just live it up on the moment! Might even give you incentive to go into the Dracolich/Vampiric Dragon templates even (with some alterations of course) :smallbiggrin:

Thank you and yes, Igneel the Pseudodragon is quite dignified with his little hoard he obtained from a dragon that fell to his 'mightier' draconic magic. :smalltongue:

[Gavinfoxx]

The character in mind is a Gold Dragon (steep LA, I know) that I fell in love with the design I came up with. I've figured out that the level adjustment kinda nerfs it, which is why people tend to play LA+0 a lot. Although, from a non-mechanical perspective, it looks like the naturally less-capable species (humans, elves, etc.) are BETTER in-universe than species with a level adjust that live for thousands of years and can see in the dark and stuff. I know it's a balance thing, but between the racial hit dice as levels-in-Dragon and then the LA, it's kinda...well, it feels a little over-nerfed, personally, and looks weird, because you'd think a dragon would be more competent than a human. xD

Anyways, I sound a little heretical, but they could make it less penalized to play a dragon. All I'm sayin'. xD

Yea, you don't want to play a gold dragon in a normal D&D game. It doesn't work. Sorry. And you definitely noticed that a gold dragon TOTALLY is not worth it, if you are constrained by 'level' at all in any way whatsoever.

[Shir]

It bears repeating. Using the template rules from savage species plus the gold dragon template class in dragon 320 will allow you to play a wyrmling at no LA. Keep in mind you'll not be gaining class levels as dragon is your class but it will get the job done and you get alternate form for free at lv 4.

[That_guy_there]

i can't really add too much to the great things said here, but if you're going for a melee/ combat focused dragon anyway, I humble suggest the Pyroclastic Dragon. The second breath weapon alone is worth it. (A line of disintigration, thank you).

[Invader]

This is one of my favorite subjects as I learn something new and valuable almost every time it's brought up.

Someone pointed out this homebrew to me at one point that I'd really like to try.


http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10996288&postcount=3

And also look here for some dragon by level builds:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165439&postcount=1

[Eldest]

This is one of my favorite subjects as I learn something new and valuable almost every time it's brought up.

Someone pointed out this homebrew to me at one point that I'd really like to try.


http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10996288&postcount=3

Heh, I was the guy that showed you that. And I was about to do it again. Nice.

[Gavinfoxx]

Oh, hey, look at this!

Someone made a homebrew rework of a Gold Dragon as a level 1-20 class!

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=954.0

[willpell]

Although, from a non-mechanical perspective, it looks like the naturally less-capable species (humans, elves, etc.) are BETTER in-universe than species with a level adjust that live for thousands of years and can see in the dark and stuff.

You're not going to really get the full "dragon experience" until epic levels (and as far as I know they don't ever tell you exactly how much LA you get for playing dragons above the epic watermark, so you may have to ad-hock it a bit). Great Wyrms are godlike in power, but humans have the advantage of numbers. Really, if you want a CR-appropriate challenge for an elder dragon PC, you're probably going to be fighting 1d3 moderate-sized nations (or 1d3 dire nations in a swamp (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0564.html)).

[Milo v3]

The best dragons are Dragonwraught Kobolds. -1 Feat, +3 Int, +3 Wis, +3 Cha is nice. :D


Dragonwrought Kobolds can also take this PrC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=231146) at level two IF your DM counts them as True Dragons. This meaning they can effectively become proper dragons rather than simply having the type.
Though lets not get in that argument.

[PlusSixPelican]

The character's a ~ECL20 Gold Dragoness cleric of Bahamut, I just dun know how many levels in cleric she gets. I know it's one, at least.

[ThiagoMartell]

Dragonwrought Kobolds can also take this PrC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=231146) at level two IF your DM counts them as True Dragons. This meaning they can effectively become proper dragons rather than simply having the type.

Too bad they don't qualify since they're not true dragons.

[Kymriana]

Thought I had posted in the wrong thread and deleted my post... oops.

I was curious about this post for a few reasons... (namely my Dragonborn cleric recently got blown up by the freakin' rogue and reincarnated into a very young red dragon...)

I guess I'm kind of sad that really fun RP decisions are deemed 'not good' because of stats these days. I thought the point of D&D was to RP... if I want to live-by-numbers I can play a video game were they are set in code.

Maybe I've been living under a rock or had GMs that just didn't focus so much on the high-numbers-combat-game, but why is it that characters with high cost to play(like my red dragon... went from a level 10 dragonborn cleric to a level 1 red dragon cleric) are so very bad? It's a scale thing, right? Whereas my party more or less has effective level of 15(some with issues of their own, like the rogue being a half-dragon with the subsequent loss of class levels due to its cost), am I so really 'behind the curve' for them? I mean, sure... as the cleric I used to be, maybe... but now I have a different 'niche' to fill in the party with the strength, movement, flight, firey-breath-of-doom and amusing 'oh crap' moments when a plaintive young dragon goes 'I'm hungry'. Yeah, I can't rez or heal, but it just shifted me from 'healy cleric'(I avoided the CoDzilla builds on purpose) into a versatile fighty-type.

Basically... if the party comes up against a BFM in combat that matches to the basic 'level 15' aspect of the group, is my being what I am going to mean that I am not going to be able to deal with it properly? (I really am trying to understand the negatives involved.)

[Gavinfoxx]

Too bad they don't qualify since they're not true dragons.

Please, let's not get started on that...



Basically... if the party comes up against a BFM in combat that matches to the basic 'level 15' aspect of the group, is my being what I am going to mean that I am not going to be able to deal with it properly? (I really am trying to understand the negatives involved.)

Yes, that is exactly correct.

[willpell]

I guess I'm kind of sad that really fun RP decisions are deemed 'not good' because of stats these days. I thought the point of D&D was to RP... if I want to live-by-numbers I can play a video game were they are set in code.

Personally I agree 100%. Some people maybe are coming from a video game background, or are grognards who had the video game mentality even before video games existed; either way they may use the "hard style" as a transition into a more roleplay-focused playstyle, or they may forever be more satisfied with a "crunchy" game of mathematical efficiency and just not enjoy more freeform RP. Everyone's got their own preferences, and D&D does tend to be designed more for the benefit of the "roll-player", which isn't necessarily a bad thing per se. Other games are better designed for the "role-player", although it would be nice if any of those games featured beholders and illumians and vestiges and ten-color dragons and the dueling god brothers Hextor and Heironeous - those things are exactly why *I* play D&D, despite being more of a role-player and amid some frustrations.


am I so really 'behind the curve' for them?

It's possible you are; unfavorable builds, including those crippled with a lot of Level Adjustment (or weak Racial Hit Dice, although the dragon is one of the few creatures whose RHD are actually fairly comparable to class levels - though still not to a really strong class such as cleric), can end up being unable to best the challenges which the DM is throwing at the party at that level. Of course, a really good DM will take pains to make sure the fights you're having are both difficult enough to provide a satisfying challenge and easy enough not to nigh-guarantee a TPK...but DMing is hard work, and even someone who knows that the CR system is borked may fall back on it just for the sake of convenience. So if you're "sub-par" compared to monsters of your CR, you may end up being a liability to the party, likely to get killed if they don't protect you and unable to do enough to protect them. Of course, the odds of this actually happening may not be as good as your fellow players are worried they might be.

[ThiagoMartell]

Please, let's not get started on that...


There is nothing to start, this discussion ended months ago. :smalltongue:

[killem2]

It bears repeating. Using the template rules from savage species plus the gold dragon template class in dragon 320 will allow you to play a wyrmling at no LA. Keep in mind you'll not be gaining class levels as dragon is your class but it will get the job done and you get alternate form for free at lv 4.

I'm not seeing this. Are you just straight up assuming that the dragon magazine allows the same progression as the savage species?

I like the idea, I just am trying to see the connection. :smallredface:

[PlusSixPelican]

Someone said something about undoing my LA?

[Kymriana]

So if you're "sub-par" compared to monsters of your CR, you may end up being a liability to the party, likely to get killed if they don't protect you and unable to do enough to protect them. Of course, the odds of this actually happening may not be as good as your fellow players are worried they might be.

That gives me hope then. My GM isn't the type to do that and works very carefully on the situations and creatures we deal with. I guess I just get sad when I see people go 'I'd like to play X!' and get told that, hands down, they shouldn't because of numbers. I suppose that's the nature of min-max focused players/games.

[PlusSixPelican]

I'm not trying to make her some kind of min/maxed thing, just a decent shapeshifting healy tank, primarily on the healing.

[Studoku]

I'm not trying to make her some kind of min/maxed thing, just a decent shapeshifting healy tank, primarily on the healing.
How important is being a dragon? A Druid can do all these things.

I'm pretty sure there's a feat/ACF somewhere (Draconomicon?) that lets you wildshape into a dragon too.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'm not trying to make her some kind of min/maxed thing, just a decent shapeshifting healy tank, primarily on the healing.

Then play a Druid with Draconic Wild Shape, and spend all your time as a Steel Dragon. Problem Solved!

[Randomguy]

I'm not trying to make her some kind of min/maxed thing, just a decent shapeshifting healy tank, primarily on the healing.

You could make a dragon druid, or cleric. Steel dragons have polymorph as a spell like ability, so that can cover the shapeshifting. Shapeshifting +being a dragon already makes you a good tank. And cleric or druid both get you healing. So does Healer, but you probably don't want to go down that path.

[PlusSixPelican]

Oddly, the character in mind is a Gold Dragon (I like the extra cleric spell slots) who spends pretty much all her time Alt'd into a human for psychological reasons. She's probably ending up a homebrew character, at any rate.

[willpell]

Someone said something about undoing my LA?

Unearthed Arcana offers a variant rule whereby a character can reduce their LA over time. For instance a White Dragon Wyrmling has 3 HD and LA +2; if it goes out and earns 6 class levels, it can pay 10,000 XP to reduce its LA by 1, and then after 3 more class levels it can pay another 12,000 XP to remove the remaining LA, ending up with 9 class levels and 3 racial HD for a level 12 character. (This is assuming the GM doesn't force you to take additional dragon HD and dead levels to represent aging, as detailed in the Draconomicon section on dragon PCs. I think it's legal for the GM to just not age your dragon if you'd rather progress by class levels, but am unclear on the details.)

This system is not terribly helpful to the Gold dragon, which starts out as an 8-HD hatchling with an LA of +4; she would need to gain 12 levels, becoming an ECL 20 character, before she could pay 19,000 XP to decrease her LA to +3, where it would stay unless you went all the way into epic levels (of course, if you're playing a dragon, you probably should be going all the way into epic levels).


That gives me hope then. My GM isn't the type to do that and works very carefully on the situations and creatures we deal with. I guess I just get sad when I see people go 'I'd like to play X!' and get told that, hands down, they shouldn't because of numbers. I suppose that's the nature of min-max focused players/games.

It isn't just the DM's opinion that matters; your fellow players may feel that an underpowered teammate is a dragon on them or a potential liability. But they may not. You'll have to judge that for yourself based on how well you know them as people, or just talk to them about it. If they say explicitly that they are worried about you not carrying your weight, then come back and ask the community for a little (and specify exactly how much they're asking for) help optomizing the character.

[Gavinfoxx]

Oddly, the character in mind is a Gold Dragon (I like the extra cleric spell slots) who spends pretty much all her time Alt'd into a human for psychological reasons. She's probably ending up a homebrew character, at any rate.

Steel Dragons can learn any Cleric spells. Just saying. They are better spellcasters than Golds, too! Gold's aren't the only dragon that can do that! And seriously... And Steels get more uses of their Alternate Form / Polymorph than Golds...

But that's moot; why not just be a human Druid who sometimes changes into a Steel Dragon, via Wild Shape??

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20040328a (there is also another version of it in the books somewhere, I forget which is most recent)

http://web.archive.org/web/20080919131238/http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-404381

[Marnath]

If a dragon with it's HD and LA would be too weak at level and drag the group down, it seems to me like the more intelligent way to handle it is not to say you can't have one, but to get rid of the LA. You're already taking opportunity cost with the racial hitdice, it hardly seems fair to add a hysterically high LA to it too.

[Gavinfoxx]

A Wyrmling Steel Dragon with a level in Sorcerer, (for acf's and stuff), and some relevant PrC's, with LA Buyoff, isn't too bad.

[Mithril Leaf]

A loredrake wyrmling amphibious can cast as a level 3 sorceror at level 3. At level 9 you can finish buying off your LA and net faster than wizard progression.

[Suddo]

That gives me hope then. My GM isn't the type to do that and works very carefully on the situations and creatures we deal with. I guess I just get sad when I see people go 'I'd like to play X!' and get told that, hands down, they shouldn't because of numbers. I suppose that's the nature of min-max focused players/games.

People will say that its a bad idea because they assume you're going, at least relatively, by the CR system in the DMG/MM. If you make your own monsters to throw at PCs then the CR system doesn't matter. I mean in a party of nothing but half dragons it doesn't matter how weak the template is everyone is on the same level and in fact somethings will be easier (because flight is easily accessed).
The problem becomes when someone doesn't have the half dragon template but instead has 3 levels of rogue. They now have a decent advantage (skill points, HP, BAB, features) but also don't have flight, now the party is imbalanced.

So yes if you're whole party has fun little templates slapped on (like half dragon rogues) then the dragon won't be that bad. But in a group of CR appropriate adventures the dragon will seem lacking as anything but a glass canon.

[demigodus]

Of course, a really good DM will take pains to make sure the fights you're having are both difficult enough to provide a satisfying challenge and easy enough not to nigh-guarantee a TPK...but DMing is hard work, and even someone who knows that the CR system is borked may fall back on it just for the sake of convenience. So if you're "sub-par" compared to monsters of your CR, you may end up being a liability to the party, likely to get killed if they don't protect you and unable to do enough to protect them. Of course, the odds of this actually happening may not be as good as your fellow players are worried they might be.

The issue here isn't really that your power level is below your level. If, for example, everyone in the party is about as powerful as they should have been 4 levels ago, the DM can throw creatures with CR-4 at them. Then, so long as he knows that number, he can fall back on the CR system, and still do fine.

The problem is, when half the party is appropriate power for that level, and half is either a few levels lower, or a few levels higher.

Then you end up with a case where anything that challenges the stronger party members will one-round kill the weaker party members. And anything that doesn't auto-kill the weaker party members gets walked all over by the stronger party members.

So the problem is, really, when there is a very high disparity in party levels. Usually, this is solved by having the biggest outlier (which can be either the weakest, or the strongest person, depending on the party), change their character to be more in line with the party. Generally the assumption here tends to be that other party members are whatever the commenter considers appropriate power level for that character level. As such, anything that cripples your character is a bad choice because it makes you dead weight in combat, and anything that is too cheesy makes you walk all over challenges the rest of the party should be facing.

Or in other words, something that "cripples" your character is perfectly fine if the rest of your party is taking options that are equally crippling. If they aren't, it is a bad option. Because if there is a too big power disparity in the party, it might not even be possible to present something that challenges the entire party properly.

[willpell]

The problem is, when half the party is appropriate power for that level, and half is either a few levels lower, or a few levels higher.

Ultimately the easy solution there would be to split the party. Permanently, perhaps with each group creating some characters for the other and you alternating between the two cliques.


Usually, this is solved by having the biggest outlier (which can be either the weakest, or the strongest person, depending on the party), change their character to be more in line with the party.

But they may like their character just the way it is, and they have every right to.

[Invader]

Without going back and looking at all the loredrake stuff, couldn't you make up 2 caster levels pretty easy that way for pretty much no cost. Wouldn't you in effect be 4RHD+2LA = 6ECL but have 2 free levels of sorc on top of that? That doesn't seem like to high of a price to pay unless I missed something somewhere.

[Urpriest]

Without going back and looking at all the loredrake stuff, couldn't you make up 2 caster levels pretty easy that way for pretty much no cost. Wouldn't you in effect be 4RHD+2LA = 6ECL but have 2 free levels of sorc on top of that? That doesn't seem like to high of a price to pay unless I missed something somewhere.

Depends on the Dragon. For Steel, for example, you're still losing a new three caster levels, which is basically the limit for a gish. LA buyoff makes the situation somewhat better, but Steel is the best case scenario. Usually you won't be getting any sorceror casting from your RHD, or they'll be substantially behind.

Plus, there's no reason to think that Loredrake doesn't change LA. There's no LA value attached to it.

[Mithril Leaf]

Plus, there's no reason to think that Loredrake doesn't change LA. There's no LA value attached to it.

There's no reason to think it does change LA though. It has the same LA value attached to it as the archtype which changes nothing of the base dragon.