Dragonic sorcadin build rating

[Brian_Gishlover]

Hi all,

The player decided to just go dragonblood sorcerer to this is not really applicable. Feel free to borrow the idea if ya want to

This is my first time DMing and I've only played in a few games. I enjoy reading optimization threads and am very familiar with mechanics.

Well, we're playing a slightly overpowered 3.5e game, I've mostly munchkinized. All players have very nice stats, and I'm trying to balance all as tier 3s (the druid and cleric both have to take prc's with loss to casting, there is a sorcerer based unseen seer with extra bow damage). Well, one of the players was upset the Half-Minotaur Warblade was more powerful that his Socadin during the level 1-5 tutorial, so decided to create a class instead of using this http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7207111. After revisions, I've pushed him towards (what I'm hoping is) a tier 3 compromise. Please let me know your thoughts and any recommendations you have for balancing the party.

Classes used Sorcerer, Warmage (for spells), Vassel of Bahamut, Pally. What I recommended after the last revisions was as follows:

Overall: d8 health, 3/4 BAB, good Fort saves, +4 skills/level

1) Spell casting- sorcerer progression, but most of warmage + the dragonblood infused spells from RotD and DM. Definately weaker than strait sorcorer, but certainly more versatility than a warmage.
2) Smite evil as Paladin except for 1/encounter instead of day
3) Dragon armor- basically a combo of Platinum Armor and Dragonscale Husk. It's Chain mail +1ac he has to forge from dragons he personally performs the deathblow for (first one given in ceremony). Gets elemental resistance 1/rank in craft (armor) and AC +1/5 ranks in craft armor. Thew in a dragon racial dice ability 1/5 levels (immunity frightful presence, then feather fall, then immune sleep, then immune paralysis). He can sleep in it and it has NO arcane spell failure, but NO enchantments and if it is lost/destroyed, he is shaken until he can create another one.
4) Dragonic feats- (this counts as a sorcerer for Dragonic Heritage which he gets free at level 1) bonus feats at levels 6, 12, and 18.
5) Divine grace @ level 3, improves to Dex to AC at 8th (maxes out at +4 dex bonus to AC with the Dragon armor he HAS to wear)
6) Dragonwrach (see Vassel of Bahamumt BoED)- 1d6 lvl 6, progresses 1/3 levels maxing out at 6d6/3d6 at level 20.
7) Full Pally ethics code, alignment, and multiclass restrictions must worship Bahamut and use his favored weapons & dragon armor.

Would love to know everyone's thoughts!

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd have to know more about the spells known to judge. Are we talking mostly Warmage spells? Because those are terrible for a gish. You want spells like fly and wraithstrike,[I], not [I]fireball-- the classic gish uses magic to augment their melee, after all, and that means buffs, mobility, and utility-- not offense, and probably not BFC, either.

Gish builds also tend to take a while to kick in. Sorcadin is going to be pretty crappy until mid-levels, most likely, but Paladin 2/Sorcerer 3/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 10 (or Eldrich Knight 10, if you can't manage the skills for SE) gets you 9th level spells, 16 BAB, 10% ASF reduction (letting you cast in a mithril chain shirt) and freely quickened and pumped-up abjurations for rapid buffing.

Your player shouldn't feel too bad-- Warblade is preposterously strong at low-levels, and adding a cheesy race on top of that isn't helping anything. What level is the actual game at?

[Brian_Gishlover]

The game just dinged into level 6. We're playing with college students who graduate after this academic year, and I expect (in a 1/week 3 hour sessions with their enhanced stats and playing to strengths), they will be about 13-14 by early June.

Knowing the spells would help but he hasn't sent the list yet :smallwink:. It will be mostly direct damage spells (he really likes those and I'll make sure he has the best ones, about 5/spell level), with some buffs (probably 2/spell level like shield, wraithstrike, nothing polymorph like), and the basic mobility ones (probably only 1/spell level like fly, dimension hop, etc.). However the ones which explicitly state something about dragonbood (about 2/spell level includes things like primal speed, arcane spellsurge, wings of flurry, wings of cover, tail slap, etc.) should help him be more of a gish and increase his power overall. I will point out that at level 9 he would not have timestop, gate, or shapechange.

Also, he's going to have energy substitution (to lightning for bronze dragon flavor) and empower with practical metamagic (empower) at 9. Damage will make a difference in the mid-levels, but he'll have a lot of full round casting for metamagic and will not at much to the melee fights (at least not next to the warblade and druid). FYI- he is a smart guy, but doesn't seem to understand that blaster builds (esp sorcerer ones) are not the best.

Also, I know the classic Sorcadin, but he's really in it for the dragon flavor, which is why he was originally going with the Dragon Knights of the Arcane Order prestige, which IMO was just a touch more powerful, though functionally very, very similar to the classic build if you look at all 10 levels.

[Brian_Gishlover]

not offense, and probably not BFC, either.

What is BFC? Base full casting? My initial reaction was to show him the duskblade and let him swap for the pally abilities/restrictions but keep the spell channel at 4 and 13 but make it CHA based spells.

[Grod_The_Giant]

What is BFC? Base full casting? My initial reaction was to show him the duskblade and let him swap for the pally abilities/restrictions but keep the spell channel at 4 and 13 but make it CHA based spells.
Sorry- BFC is battlefield control-- things like web or the wall spells.

Anyway, the paladin-swapped Duskblade isn't a bad idea-- it's got a list heavily weighted towards offense, but if you throw in the draconic spells, and maybe offer some Ecclectic Learning, it should look a lot better. Heck, go ahead and add some classic paladin spells, too. Why not?

[Brian_Gishlover]

Sorry- BFC is battlefield control-- things like web or the wall spells.

Anyway, the paladin-swapped Duskblade isn't a bad idea-- it's got a list heavily weighted towards offense, but if you throw in the draconic spells, and maybe offer some Ecclectic Learning, it should look a lot better. Heck, go ahead and add some classic paladin spells, too. Why not?

That is almost word-for-word the idea that started all of this :smallbiggrin: (minus the eclectic learning bc he gets to modify the list with pally and dragonblood spells already).

BFC- it's ironic I didn't catch that because that's one of the main rationalizations for allowing all of the additions and still daring to wonder if tier 3 was a reasonable gestimation.

The three main kinds of baddies are 1) dragons 2) large+ monsters and an army of orcs and mindless undead. I want him to feel useful and part of the process, but not overshadow the party. Right now, IMO, the build feels like a weak (relative to other builds) blaster, who's not particularly squishy or well suited for melee in encounters longer than a few rounds.

It might help to know his stats are something like 18, 8, 16, 14, 12, 19 and his modified half-dragon is functionally the dragonic template bonuses with half-dragon stats (weak claws, +4 sleep and paralysis resistance, low-light vision, +2 NA, etc.) for a +1LA (the half-fey cleric is the only other one with a +1LA).