Dragonfire Adept race and gestalt questions

[snoosnaa]

Hello,

I am about to start a new campaign(starting lvl 1) and rolled some pretty low scores:

str to cha: 10, 13,13,10,11,14

I am allowed to gestalt, and have decided to go with a dragonfire adept. The first problem I am having is what race to choose. There are three good options I believe but I can't decide which is best.

Human: the usual reasons
Mongrelfolk: 10, 13, 17, 8, 11, 10 best option for straight con i think
Water Halfling: 8,15,15,10,11,14 all around option, with more cha for invocations

Some suggestions on what to gestalt with would be awesome as well. Right now I am leaning towards a bunch of dips for different abilities, or possibly a caster. Also, would warlock be terrible? I think that would be kind of fun with all the invocations. First post here, thanks in advance.

[Amnestic]

Can you re-arranged your scores? Swapping your Con and Cha around is a minor thing, but still a net-gain for you.

Gestalt classes I'm a fan of with DFA are:-
Binder (lots of passive buffs and fancy doo-hickeys)
Incarnate/Totemist (see above)
Crusader (shared Con/Cha focus, stack up Metabreath then roll out the maneuvers).

Race wise, I'm a fan of Dragonborn Warforged, because dragon robots are cool. Humans are fine too I suppose. Being able to grab Ability Focus (Breath Weapon) is pretty handy with early DCs, but delaying it to 3rd doesn't really hurt that much either, so...

[Azernak0]

Wow, a 23 point character. I would consider burning your dice.

The "I want all the Constitution in the world" race combination is a Dragonborn Mongrelfolk. Dragonborn is found in Races of the Dragon is a no LA template that gives more Constitution.

I would advice against Warlocks. Breath Weapon from DFA is a better use of your Standard Actions. Also, Casters are pretty much in the "Nope!" category because of your low mental stats. Something that might be kind of interesting is going Wildshape Ranger and going Master of Many Forms. Would replace those terror-ific physical stats.

Dragonfire Adepts have a lot of Invocations that do not require Charisma to do much. Those are the best to take. Dragonfire Adept Handbook (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870954/The_New_Dragonfire_Adept_Handbook!) could help you out here.

[thethird]

I personally have had fun with dragonfire adept / dragon shaman. Using metabreath feats for the win and basically being a battlefield controller, with those stats it will probably work fine for you.

I also recommend to swap arround CHA and CON, you can work without much CHA, the dragonborn mongerfolk is always a nice option.

[snoosnaa]

OK, cool. Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately I cannot swap my scores, it was straight rolls, no rerolls what you get is what you got.

Is the dragonborn template just for bahamut? I dont wanna have to be good aligned.

Dragonborn warforged does sound fun and I was looking into it. Wouldn't I have to take adamantine body then? Without it I would have low armor and no way to wear armor. With it, I would be wearing heavy armor. I know I'm not gonna be in melee, but with other races I can have more versatility with armor. I have been referencing the DFA handbook, and know about not having to worry about arcane spell failure or even proficiency.

I don't really like the dragon shaman, but I appreciate the suggestion. I will look into wildshape ranger with MoMF. Would going with a bunch of dips to compliment the DFA be terrible? I could get abrupt jaunt, cleric devotions, mindbender, beastmaster, swordsage, marshal.

I am playing with only one other character and he is going rogue/??? so possibly helping him with making foes flat footed or flanked could help. I have seen references to entangling exhalation doing this, but it looks like that just lowers dex, rather than denying it. I'll be taking it either way, but would be nice to have reference if it does help for sneak attacks.

Sorry for such a long post, maybe I should have included some of this info earlier. Thanks again for the help!

[ZamielVanWeber]

If you have a rogue DFA is not a good choice. Not being allowed to wear armor plus a d6 hit die means you should not be flanking much, which in turn means no Sneak Attack for them (unless they do the "I flank with myself" trick). Dragon Shaman would work out better for you in that case.

[Amnestic]

Is the dragonborn template just for bahamut? I dont wanna have to be good aligned.

You just have to be non-evil, rather than Good. You could, however, ask your DM for a Dragonborn of Tiamat if you want Evil. That's up to them though - I doubt many would deny it really.



Dragonborn warforged does sound fun and I was looking into it. Wouldn't I have to take adamantine body then? Without it I would have low armor and no way to wear armor. With it, I would be wearing heavy armor. I know I'm not gonna be in melee, but with other races I can have more versatility with armor. I have been referencing the DFA handbook, and know about not having to worry about arcane spell failure or even proficiency.

AC tends not to be such a big deal (and you can supplement it with wands if need be, which is not a bad option). The way Dragonborn interacts with Warforged is that it essentially gives them the benefits of Unarmoured Body for free as I understand it.

I wouldn't consider Adamantine Body a necessity by any means. Useful perhaps, but not a necessity :smalltongue: Especially if you opt to go into a Fly-by attack build using your Dragonborn Wings or the DFA Invoc.



I am playing with only one other character and he is going rogue/??? so possibly helping him with making foes flat footed or flanked could help. I have seen references to entangling exhalation doing this, but it looks like that just lowers dex, rather than denying it. I'll be taking it either way, but would be nice to have reference if it does help for sneak attacks.

I don't believe it does (directly), but Entangling Exhalation is still amazing as all hell :smalltongue:

[snoosnaa]

Thanks.

I'm starting to like the idea of dragonborn warforged. Can you explain what you mean about the unarmored body? Nevermind, just googled it and found that composite plating is eliminated by dragonborn, so I can wear armor. Nice! Thanks a bunch for pointing that out.

Still looking for gestalt possibilities.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

With those ability scores, I'd recommend DFA 20// Wild Shape Ranger 5/ Master of Many Forms 7/ Warshaper 4/ WSRanger or Nature's Warrior 1/ MoMF 3 in that order.

Combine Water Halfling with Strongheart halfling (FRCS), trading the racial bonus on saving throws for a bonus feat. If that's not possible then just go with the Mongrelfolk.

For feats I'd get Entangling Exhalation at 1st, Alertness at 3rd, Combat Reflexes at 1st or 6th, Frozen Wild Shape at 9th, Robilar's Gambit at 12th, and Defensive Sweep at 18th. Your 15th and possibly 6th level feats can be whatever you want.

Get a reach weapon and just focus on keeping every opponent entangled. Multiple applications of Entangling Exhalation will stack the 1d6/round damage it deals.

[snoosnaa]

Thanks! I appreciate all the replies.