[3.5]Diamond Dragon PRC

[Vash9177]

Has anyone ever played this class before?

Seems like it has some neat abilites and flavor. However I'm not sure what a good build for it would be. Seems like an Ardent entry might be good but it uses wis instead of int so maybe psion is a better entry for synergy even though they can't get into unil later.

Is there a better build for using it's abilites?

[Eldaran]

I could see it being decent for a melee focused Ardent; with Practiced Manifester you won't be losing much in the way of power progression like a Psion would.

The abilities are decent but not amazing, it does a good job of making you like a dragon, but the claws are weak compared to Claws of the Beast, and the breath weapon should really scale off Con like other breath weapons, rather than using Int.

If the saves were changed to work off your manifesting stat it would be pretty nice for an Ardent actually, as getting flight and a nice blasty power would save you powers known, and even a mantle known.

[Void Star]

Ardent looks just fine, but i do not know what kind of build you are going for. I will just assume that you would like to play some kind of dragon flavoured gish, but as the tail attack does not count as a natural weapon (neither do the claws by RAW, as far as i know), there is not really any synergy with a natural weapon oriented build. Alsoy manifesting them takes a standard action and their rather short duration severly reduces their viability in encoutners, as it would take 2 rounds to manifest both of them, if you do not want to use extra pp on things like twin powered synchronicity.
I would recommend taking at least 1-4 levels in jade phoenix manifester (the psionic variant of jade phoenix mage) after getting a few levels in this prc, as it gives you an extra ml aswell as some other pretty useful abilities, although you would use your pp mostly on amplifying your melee damage even though your pp pool is already pretty small because of the early loss of full casting progression.
Maybe something like Ardent 5/Diamond Dragon 3/Swordsage 1/ JPM 1-4/ Diamond Dragon 7

[Vash9177]

I might run using wis for the class by my dm. Gish does seem like a good way to go, expansion for more strength, dimesion hop to help move around. Using the ardent acf I'm sure could get a few other powers into a mantle but should it focus more on powers that give extra attacks like bite of the wolf or would buffing powers work better?


Ardent looks just fine, but i do not know what kind of build you are going for. I will just assume that you would like to play some kind of dragon flavoured gish, but as the tail attack does not count as a natural weapon (neither do the claws by RAW, as far as i know), there is not really any synergy with a natural weapon oriented build. Alsoy manifesting them takes a standard action and their rather short duration severly reduces their viability in encoutners, as it would take 2 rounds to manifest both of them, if you do not want to use extra pp on things like twin powered synchronicity.
I would recommend taking at least 1-4 levels in jade phoenix manifester (the psionic variant of jade phoenix mage) after getting a few levels in this prc, as it gives you an extra ml aswell as some other pretty useful abilities, although you would use your pp mostly on amplifying your melee damage even though your pp pool is already pretty small because of the early loss of full casting progression.
Maybe something like Ardent 5/Diamond Dragon 3/Swordsage 1/ JPM 1-4/ Diamond Dragon 7

I think you form two claws at once but the wording is really murky, says claws and may attack with both. However it also says manifests around your hands but dosen't cover what happens if you have more then two.

Psionic Jade Phoenix Mage sounds cool but would warblade be a better one level dip than swordsage?

As for direction I'm kinda just brainstorming right now, a game I thought was going to be gestalt changed to being not. The class looked cool and I was wondering if there was a way to make it effective.

[Void Star]

Using the ardent acf I'm sure could get a few other powers into a mantle but should it focus more on powers that give extra attacks like bite of the wolf or would buffing powers work better?

I'd assume buffing works better, as your BAB will already be pretty low.


Psionic Jade Phoenix Mage sounds cool but would warblade be a better one level dip than swordsage?

Warblade has no real synergy with a wisdom based manifester, besides getting iron heart surge, Swordsage on the other hand, offers you the possibility to dip another level later on to get your wisdom to Ac, which should already be pretty high for obvious reasons.

By using Ss, the psicrystal/vigor/share pain combo (don't know if ardents can access these powers easily) and dimension hop you could become a pretty mobile front liner but the lower pp pool is really going to ruin your day if you are facing many small encounters. I'd recommend trying to compensate with items for that, like dorjes.

All in all it sounds like a pretty fun build to play, flavour and mechanic wise.