3.5 Breath qustion

[Zerath]

I'm trying to make a dragon focused character, and I want his breath weapon to stay up to task in epic levels without being, too, cheesy. some cheese is allright, but I don't want something anyware near pun pun or DW abuse. I just want to be able to make the dice grow when the ECL calls for it.
Anyways, basically I want a half dragon (kobold, teh fluffiness :D) and I'm thinking about adding in a major (red) dragon bloodline: I amuse I can't combine the two breaths into one (it mainly gives the choice between a line of acid and a cone of fire, and fire/acid immunity). anyways, is there some way to buff damage dice of the breath weapons? could it be done with an item and/or sculpt self? I know that I could use Dragon shaman/DFA for growing breath weapon dice, but... it's not how I want to go about it :/

Options? :D

[dungeonnerd]

Easiest way to go (and it works in standard levels too) is the metabreath feats. These are in the dragonomicon - some of my favorites are Clinging Breath, Lingering Breath, heighten breath and maximize breath.

There are also spells that allow you to change your breath - my favorite here is essentially Energy Admixture, which doubles the number of dice by added a second energy type to your breath weapon. Get a wizard to brew you some potions of this spell, and pop and go!

If you take Lingering Breath and some simple spells like Gust, you can push your cloud around in the second round to sweep an area, effectively doing damage over a much wider area than you could breath (or team up with your friendly neighborhood wizard).

Also, if you can manage to talk your DM into it (which, I doubt, but it's worth the shot) theres a book called Horrifically Overpowered Feats. In this book is a feat called Gestalt, which gives you all the abilities of a class at half your hitdice - so at 20th level, you could gain all the bonuses of a DFA/Dragon Shaman of level 10. Of course, if you can talk your DM into it, by all means abuse it until he sets you up against monsters with the same cheese. Also from that book - Extra Lives, which gives you three free True Ressurects a round after all enemies have left the area.

[Zerath]

hmmm, Breath Weapon Admixture + sculpt self: daily uses forever :D
that said, I want to avoid major cheese, its a bit of a gimmick character but I don't want it to be "OMG" or anything, want him to keep pace with a normal party, so no epic book of OPness :P

that said, these buffs don't carry over into epic too well, we're talking about 12d8 damage from two actions, and one is a 8th level spell :/ so that's 6d8 damage a round still, could quicken the breath but at the same time we could be casting a damaging spell with the 8th level slot and quickening the breath and still coming out ahead on Breath Weapon Admixture: on the upside the character has two breath weapons to use quicken breath on, so he could use a move action for one and just be evil about it, using both and casting a spell in one turn XD

Basically, need a way to buff the base damage dice, or in the end it's just wasted feats, I want his breath to be scary dang nab it >_<

[dungeonnerd]

To which my response is strange but interesting -

Metabreath rods.

They exist for metamagic, so why not for metabreath? The creation requirements and price should be roughly the same. Costs you a little cash, but frees up those feat slots.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, those classes are the only ways to affect the actual dice size for your breath weapon. It's entirely possible that I'm wrong, and I hope I am.

Can I make a silly suggestion? Go Druid5/Master of Many Forms4/monk or barb, or anything that ups movement speed. Grab boots of striding and Springing with the beastskin ability. Maybe grab the escape button too.

Wildshape into a snail, zoom around the battlefield at a hundered feet a round, breathe your breath weapon then hide in a chink of armor. Or, sit on their friend's shoulder and breath, then argue that in the heat of combat they'd think their friend breathed on them since you're so small you're hard to spot, and it came from their square.

[Zerath]

well, given that I honestly want to use a sorcerer at some point, one that has been reincarnated as a kangaroo rat, I like the idea lol
(a fire ball is the size of a pea until it explodes, he could spit it out :D)
and rats, I was hoping I could use sculpt self to up the dice size, also, if it can be made into a rode it can be used through sculpt self. half dragons have claws that are fun: and I don't want to have to drop the hyper valuable rod as soon as he full attacks something, that's bad :/

I think there is a samurai class that can stack it's breath attack with a(passably more?) once daily breath attack, but I don't want a one hit wounder: the character is suppose to be highly dragon like, not disposable version there of :/

As for the boots: I prefer making customized versions of them: drop the jump and just pump the speed to silly levels: again, can do it with sculpt self, bonus limit do to caster level of boot maker? sculpt self has no caster level needed for anything so you don't have definitive limits. thus you can get a 9th level spell while at level 1 without anyone's help :D
the cost to use an average 9th level spell once weakly though sculpt self? about 7406 XP(37029 gold if you DM lets you translate it into gold cost): the caster level is 18, and you can do it without getting AoOed in the face.
(or you can just get a epic spell with no fail chance) we're off topic though...

do you know a reasonable home-brewing that could work?
do you think a feat that makes breath weapons scale to Xd8 dice, X being 1/2.5th Cataract level (dragon shaman woks out to 1/2th) be reasonable? (and perhaps a second feat to nudge it into 1/2)

Again, I'm not looking for cheese, but I want something to make the breath weapon keep up, if not a core of side book then a reasonable brew, not using the character yet, but I'm just wanting to do so badly :3

[nedz]

A different route is to take the Draconic Breath feat which is part of the Draconic Heritage chain. Sorcerer only, you can sacrifice a spell for a 2d6 per spell level breath weapon. This scales to 18d6 for a 9th level spell. Oh and you are a Sorcerer. I kind of view this as an additional spell known. No recharge time either, and you could have it at level 1.

[Zerath]

it works and yet it dos not, it works in that its a growing breath weapon, but not because it's just replacing the natural breath weapon(s) with a new ability.:smallconfused:

That and I want the lil kobold to be able to fight in melee...:smallredface:

[nedz]

That and I want the lil kobold to be able to fight in melee...:smallredface:

Kobold, Melee :smallconfused:

Build a Battle Sorcerer based Gish, fewer known spells, can wear armour ?

[Rejakor]

Apply to your DM.


Breath weapons don't advance properly.

Ask for a feat that makes them advance properly, or a spell.

Alternatively go Dragonfire Adept, but even that's breath weapon is terrible.


Clinging Breath and Entangling Exhalation and Maximize Breath Weapon make a crappy breath weapon kind of passable, but it's still not great.


a) Ask if you can combine your breath weapons with a feat or something

b) Ask if you can use a bloodline, or a feat, or even a class, to make your breath weapons advance so they do d8/level (or d6/level, even). Show that you can make a sorcerer that does much, much more than that with a breath weapon but want to do it from your race.

c) Ask if you can use Metamagic feats on your breath weapon via a feat (Metamagic Breath?), substituting higher spell levels for extra rounds til you can use the breath weapon again.

d) Use a Searing Fiery Empowered Maximized Widened Energy Admixtured (Fire) red dragon breath weapon for 540 irresistable fire damage in a 120' cone.

e) Then attack. Be a neo-trancer or chrono-legionnaire gish, teleporting around like a tiny kobold dervish of doom. Rounds and rounds later, you can unleash another searing breath if you wish.