Playing a Dragon

[Atomsk777]

I've heard from many players that there are plenty of ways to change into a dragon.

What Id like to do is make a character who has enough monk levels to make unarmed damage usefull (as well as flurry of blows), and then turn into a dragon who can take advantage of those monk abilities.

I don't care what level I end up as, but the earlier the better.

Ideas?

[Urpriest]

I'd do this with a Tashalatora character. Monk 1/Ardent 19 would be the fastest, if a bit feat-starved. You take Metamorphosis from the Natural World Mantle at level 7, and you can turn into Dragons on a reasonably regular basis while advancing flurry of blows and unarmed damage. Tashalatora is a feat in Secrets of Sarlona.

[Randomguy]

"Enough monk levels to make unarmed damage useful" generally means 2 Monk levels. Any more than that, and you're wasting potential.

What do you mean exactly by turning into a dragon? Is dragon disciple o.k. for example, or do you want to be a True Dragon? Do you want to be able to polymorph into one, or permanantly be one?

To boost your unarmed damage get yourself a Monk's belt and take the Superior Unarmed strike feat. You could also take the Aescetic Knight or Aescetic Hunter reserve feats and multiclass either paladin or ranger to get unarmed damage as well as full BAB.

You could always start as a dragon, despite the LA and racial hit dice. Steel dragons are the best for this, or so I heard. In the Monster Manual, Brass dragon Wyrmlings are ECL 6, which makes playing them somewhat practical. You could also play a Pseudodragon, which are ECL 5.

Another alternative is becoming a gish and using Polymorph spells to turn into a dragon every once in a while.

[Endarire]

Being an Unarmed Swordsage (Tome of Battle) is probably a better deal. Ask what sorts of goodies the USes get.

There's also the King of Smack (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19866038/The_king_of_smack.). Sure, it can be improved upon, but it's lasted this many years as being pretty spiffy. Have at it!

[Atomsk777]

What I was aiming for was morphing into a true dragon temporarily (only for combat).

I found a druid wildshape style build that synergized well with monk only cuz of its wiz bonus.

Thanks for all the ideas so far, all very good.


Inspiration came from seeing that the dragon can attack with bite, 2 clasw, wings, and tail on a full round action. I wanted to combo that with monk

[Randomguy]

Isn't there a monk ACF somewhere that grants wildshape? If you took that, you could then take the Dragon Wildshape feat and turn into a dragon. But it would probably be better to take the Frozen Wildshape feat and just turn into a cryohydra for a bunch of bite attacks instead.

[Urpriest]

Dragon Wildshape isn't all that great for melee combat...you are strictly limited by size, and there are larger, legitimate wildshape targets that have as many or more natural attacks. To make the most out of being able to turn into a Dragon as a melee character you really ought to use either Polymorph/Metamorphosis or Master of Many Forms to get larger dragon forms.

[Coidzor]

Steel Dragon has the most playable dragon in terms of LA, starting size, and RHD, IIRC. Depending upon the version you go with, I think it can get access to MOMF as well, or at least is close enough that you could potentially argue for it being within easy wiggle room rather than something relatively out there as far as departing from strict literalism at all times.

If you just want a bunch of attacks, No Monk + Superior Unarmed Strike + Snap Kick + turning into a Fleshraker is not half bad for a fair stretch of the game. And as said, Cryohydras give a very fun number of bite attacks.