Creating Dragons as PC's

[Nightheart4575]

I've been sitting on the idea for a while now, of running a game where my players are given randomly selected pre gen characters, and one of them is actually a dragon, and their goal is to keep it a secret from the rest of the party.

I have the Draconomion at home and tried to read it a few times but I'm not sure I can get my head around the creation of the dragon pc, how many class levels to give it, or what level to have the party at to "balance it out." Does anyone have any advice on Creating dragons as PC's? The only person I know who could help me is one of my players and I don't want to spoil the surprise. I'm thinking of trying to get an ECL around level 10.

[Urpriest]

If you're feeling at all unsure of the monster rules in general, you should check out the Monster Handbook in my sig. There are a lot of things that people tend to gloss over and it pays to make sure everything is being done correctly. Plus, the whole structure tends to make a bit more sense afterwards.

In terms of dragons, there are feats in Dragons of Eberron that let any Dragon get an Alternate Form (not just the ones that by default have them), and that add additional stat boosts to a Dragon's Alternate Form (by default they're a typical member of the species).

All that said, Dragons are only barely up to speed as PCs of their ECL, and only when intelligently optimized. You might be better off using one of the homebrew monster classes developed on the homebrew section of this forum: rather than reproducing a monster's stats as written, they give a class progression with levels up to the monster's CR that gives abilities similar to the monster's but balanced for PC use.

[Amnestic]

There's two issues of Dragon Magazine (320 and 332 iirc) which give a breakdown of chromatic and metallic dragon monster classes. There's also a few homebrew versions floating around which might be of help to you.

[Marnath]

If you're feeling at all unsure of the monster rules in general, you should check out the Monster Handbook in my sig. There are a lot of things that people tend to gloss over and it pays to make sure everything is being done correctly. Plus, the whole structure tends to make a bit more sense afterwards.

In terms of dragons, there are feats in Dragons of Eberron that let any Dragon get an Alternate Form (not just the ones that by default have them), and that add additional stat boosts to a Dragon's Alternate Form (by default they're a typical member of the species).

All that said, Dragons are only barely up to speed as PCs of their ECL, and only when intelligently optimized. You might be better off using one of the homebrew monster classes developed on the homebrew section of this forum: rather than reproducing a monster's stats as written, they give a class progression with levels up to the monster's CR that gives abilities similar to the monster's but balanced for PC use.

Or you could just drop the LA. The LA values for dragons are idiotic. Most LA is, but these are especially bad. It's bad enough that you have to take so many RHD. Dragon hit dice are pretty good, but you're still getting mostly a beatstick with a little sorcerer casting on the side. You don't really need to punish the player for wanting to be a decent melee, especially since if they'll be in human/elf form they won't be shredding people anyway. Their BAB, hp and saves will be high but as long as the player just adds sorcerer levels it'll be fine with the capabilities of the other PC's, probably. A little behind even if they take a not-sorcerer.

[Urpriest]

Or you could just drop the LA. The LA values for dragons are idiotic. Most LA is, but these are especially bad. It's bad enough that you have to take so many RHD. Dragon hit dice are pretty good, but you're still getting mostly a beatstick with a little sorcerer casting on the side. You don't really need to punish the player for wanting to be a decent melee, especially since if they'll be in human/elf form they won't be shredding people anyway. Their BAB, hp and saves will be high but as long as the player just adds sorcerer levels it'll be fine with the capabilities of the other PC's, probably. A little behind even if they take a not-sorcerer.

Eh...
Dragon HD give full BAB, good HD, and lots of skill points. Factoring in the delayed casting, you're basically playing a Ranger with ability boosts instead of class features. That's playable, sure, but it's not exactly good class design. If you don't want to put much effort in that's a viable fix. Otherwise, the homebrew monster classes are going to be much closer to how a PC class should be: abilities every level, thematic and unique class features, etc.

[purpenflurb]

I am actually the DM of an all dragon campaign, and all I can tell you is that it isn't great at low levels. We have been going with a max +4 LA and 1 racial hit die = +1 LA (making sure WBL keeps up with that). Giving the dragons stat increases of whatever they are given as having over 10 (so wyrmling gold dragon 17 str = +7). We started out at level 12 and there was no way the dragons were competing with normal level 12 characters. However at higher levels they have gotten much better, especially with ways to get abilities such as pounce. Being in disguise would negate the strengths of a dragon, though.

[CIDE]

My suggestions is to use a Steel Dragon. STill a dragon but you don't have to deal with all the same nonsense. Or you can use Pathfinder's system for CR=ECL for player characters.

[Eslin]

Backing people up on this - if you want someone to play as a dragon, offer the race as is without level adjustment.