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Jade_Tarem
2007-01-16, 04:13 AM
Ok, so look at it like this: You (and by you I mean I :smalltongue:) want to play a big, bad, firebreathing dragon PC. I just want to try for the flavor of it.

Problem 1: You can't.

No, really, the ECL system grinds dragons into the dirt. You're losing levels for flying, the possibility of DR, SR, and some special stuff, and a breath weapon that will not keep up with the wizard's fireball. They have a nice Hit Die ticker, but it's actually hurting more than it helps as each hit die is equivalent to a level of fighter/monk with no bonus feats and more expensive (not better) armor, and a +1 ECL, of course. So you can play a dragon, but at the expense of everything that makes a dragon worth playing. At best, when you're at level 20, you're large sized and have a breath weapon that can tickle the tanks at that level. Whoop de frickin' doo.

Problem 2: WotC's solution to problem one reeks. "Here, have some class levels, now shut up and let me get back to sleep!" is what it boils down to. I don't want class levels. I don't even want a lot of class levels. I want a bigger dragon, but you say that +5 BAB and a couple save adjustments is equal to 7 levels of a PC class. Whatever.

Problem 3: LA buyback ain't good enough.

What I usually end up doing is wait for the opportunity to Ritualize myself into an age category of dragon appropriate for the partie's level - usually it's around level fifteen and the book says that the dragon I'm becoming is epic, but it hasn't been unbalanced yet, the ultimate acid test shows that the difference between the acid tested LA and the Dragon's LA grows to tremendous size late in high-level campaigns. It costs gold, but I don't care. I can also pull a couple other tricks involving age categories, but I'd rather not.

Is there a legal fix for Dragons?

Lord Sidereal
2007-01-16, 04:31 AM
I can explain why this happened at least.

Back in 2ed, someone racconed up the LA fortonnes of monsters, and brokeness ensued. Suddenyl no one was playing as the core races becuase you could trade off one or two levels for massive, game-beating bonuses. Hence the over-zealous LA we see today. I assume you have/have read tyhe dranoconicom?

oriong
2007-01-16, 05:03 AM
Not to mention that it quite frankly is not what the game is about. It's hard enough for developers to balance classes, prestige classes and core LA 0 races against each other, expecting them to do it for every monster in the book is simply unreasonable. After all not only are these things often a mish-mash of many many abilities (dragons are one of the biggest: spellcasting, heavy defenses, massive ability scores, melee combat ability, and miscillaneous abilities like flight. Even worse when you consider they're about the only monsters who get massive new abilities just by waiting long enough) but only a handful of players are going to play them anyway.

The LA rules are an afterthought, especially for the nightmares of balance like dragons and powerful outsiders and that's really how they should be. The dragons are there to be fought or interacted with by the PCs not to be played. I'd much rather the developers not assign LA or err on the side of caution with a rough one than take the time to assign balances to every creature in the book.

Thomas
2007-01-16, 05:45 AM
"Dragons/monsters aren't balanced as PCs."

Yeah, they're not. Where's the problem?

If you want to play dragons, play a Council of Wyrms -style setting where everybody's one. (Even though that one was total crap.)

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-01-16, 07:14 AM
"Dragons/Monsters are not balanced as PCs"

The above is definitely untrue. What is true is the following:


"Dragons/Monsters are not balanced as PCs when you use WotC LA rules"

This might also be true depending on the situation:


"Dragons/Monsters are not balanced as PCs when you play low level and nonepic games"

I have been playing in mixed groups containing dragons, outsiders and low LA PCs with class levels at the same time for many years now. There haven't been namy balance problems. In reality, there haven't been balance problems at all when the PCs were played correctly. We are currently playing a pbp campaign (in another site) that has lasted two years that contains the following: an adult black dragon barbarian (not sure about the class but has rage), a marilith blackguard, a quasit rogue, a human vampire warlock, a human deathknight fighter, an erinyes monk/blackguard (I think), a succubus archmage focusing on blasting and a succubus archmage focusing on buffing/healing. As you can see, this game is a prime candidate for a balance nightmare. There are high racial HD PCs, mid racial HD PCs, low racial HD PCs and no racial HD templated PCs. Most PCs have SLAs. All PCs have varying special abilities. Some PCs are spellcasters (LOL). Appearances however can be deceiving-the game is considerably more balanced than a "normal" level 20 game using core classes and core races. Here is how this is possible:

The DM (which is not me BTW) assigned the LA of the various races/templates taking into account all their abilities as well as their base HD. Let's say you have a 5 HD creature and a 10 HD creature with both having the same racial ability modifiers and special qualities. The 10 HD creature will have a lower LA than the 5 HD creature despite having the same "powers' because it will also have the additional penalty of getting fewer class levels due to higher HD. Thus, the quasit in the game was LA +1, the succubi LA+5, the erinyes LA +7 and the marilith LA +9. The dragon I don't know for sure but I think it was +1 LA per age category. The templates as per normal.

The LA done, we made characters. The high-HD, high-LA beings with many defences and special qualities as well as additional limbs became the meele characters. The low HD/LA creatures became spellcasters and the quasit became a rogue. This meant the spellcasters had access to almost full spellcasting for their ECL (they only lost their LA in caster level due to practiced spellcaster feat) and both had the supposed brokenness all epic spellcasters are accused of. The meele guys had higher physical ability scores and stronger/more numerous attacks than a standard meele character of their ECL. They also had stronger defences. Therefore, a great part of the advantage spellcasters have in highe levels over meele characters was erased. Our rogue had the higher skill max ranks than all of us and full sneak attack due to no LA to speak of when compared to the rest of us and very few racial HD plus some abilities that complimented his rogue skills so he was a very good rogue. So now, we were balanced. as usual, the high-level spellcasters could blast anything out of the sky. But with the dragon barbarian having a monstrous constitution and strength score and the marilith fighter having 20+ attacks per round, the fighters could match us in killing capability. The quasit rogue had racial SR and resisted divinations/blindsight with some abilities and items and could sneak upon tough enemies almost every time. The erinyes monk had an AC noone could hit and similarly high saves. The warlock and Deathknight had strong single attacks. Yes, the spellcasters were more efficient. But they didn't dominate every combat.

So, what do we learn from this? Monsters are not imbalanced when they are placed in the right environment. Using core classes only the game becomes imbalanced in levels higher than 12 because of the firepower of spellcasters overwhelms the meele characters. Usign monsters as meele characters (or bigger monsters as meele characters and smaller ones for spellcasters) bridges the gap and creates an even playing field. Plus the game is more interesting. Using monsters in epic levels is even more fun and serves in keeping the balance.

Premier
2007-01-16, 07:30 AM
I can explain why this happened at least.

Back in 2ed, someone racconed up the LA fortonnes of monsters, and brokeness ensued. Suddenyl no one was playing as the core races becuase you could trade off one or two levels for massive, game-beating bonuses. Hence the over-zealous LA we see today. I assume you have/have read tyhe dranoconicom?

I daresay you're incorrect.

2nd edition didn't have the concept of "LA", or any similar but differently named concept. The closest (or rather, least remote) thing I can think of is the class and race customisation in Skills and Powers, but neither that, nor the Complete Book of Humanoids (which was the supplement responsible for making many "monster" races playable) had anything that would allow you to trade off levels for race-specific bonuses. So, don't blame this on 2nd ed., since 2nd ed. had nothing to do with it.


As to the original post: IMO the problem is that, plain simply, D&D was not designed to have dragons as a playable race. The game has a certain focus (humans and human-like creatures going out on adventures), and the concept of plalyable dragons is just so far away from this focus that no matter how you try to bend it, it won't fit. If you want to play dragons, use (or create) a whole different system which has THAT as its focus.

It's just like how you can't play a sports car driving gun-toting hacker in D&D 3.5E. It's too far from the game's focus, so you need a separate game for it, like d20 modern or Cyberpunk.

Thomas
2007-01-16, 08:02 AM
2nd edition didn't have the concept of "LA", or any similar but differently named concept. The closest (or rather, least remote) thing I can think of is the class and race customisation in Skills and Powers, but neither that, nor the Complete Book of Humanoids (which was the supplement responsible for making many "monster" races playable) had anything that would allow you to trade off levels for race-specific bonuses. So, don't blame this on 2nd ed., since 2nd ed. had nothing to do with it.

No? Skills and Powers did have some sort of rules for playing gnolls, hobgoblins, etc., though, didn't it?

Saph
2007-01-16, 08:14 AM
As to the original post: IMO the problem is that, plain simply, D&D was not designed to have dragons as a playable race.

Yup.

Or to put it in game-balance terms: dragons are WAY too good. They have the melee power of a fighter, the toughness and armour of a tank, the spellcasting abilities of a sorcerer, the detection abilities of a rogue, and spell resistance, some cleric spells, flight, and a bunch of spell-like abilities thrown in just for fun. And some immunities. And great saves. And that's not even counting their breath weapon.

There's no way you can get that as a PC without spreading yourself so thin that you couldn't do any of them well. So obviously, if you try and PC-ify a dragon, you're going to have to scale all their abilities so far down that they can't do any of them well.

The idea of playing a dragon is cool, I know, but like most monsters in the Monster Manual, they're really designed to be enemies or NPCs, not player characters.

- Saph

The Dirge
2007-01-16, 08:18 AM
But dragons are dragons. Dungeons and DRAGONS is the name of the game so i personally think that dragons should be total overblanced ass-kickers. Even a rules exploter would get sick of dominating (wheres the challenge) but it would be nice to have the option there for fun.

MrNexx
2007-01-16, 08:57 AM
No? Skills and Powers did have some sort of rules for playing gnolls, hobgoblins, etc., though, didn't it?

Yes, but no Level Adjustment. All of the ones in S&P were the same cost as other PC races.

In Complete Book of Humanoids, there were a couple races that required double XP to advance (ogre magi and pixies come to mind). I believe, but I'm not quite sure, that drow in Meine Alfe had a slight penalty to XP (like a 10 to 20% penalty).

Remember, though, the rules for new races in 2nd edition were a lot different. There were no racial HD. Instead, a large creature got bonus HP at 1st level equal to its HD. Thus, while an ogre PC was tough, slow, and stupid (+2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, Wis, and Chr, caps on Dex, Int, Wis, and Chr), and had a lot of potential, a 1st level ogre fighter, built as a PC, was downright wimpy compared to a regular ogre (4D8+X HP, 17 or so ThAC0, bonuses due to strength, etc.)

Premier
2007-01-16, 09:04 AM
No? Skills and Powers did have some sort of rules for playing gnolls, hobgoblins, etc., though, didn't it?

Yes it did, but my point is that it didn't have anything like LA-s. What S&P did have was a sort of point-buy system for racial and class abilities. It worked like "Here's a list of elvish racial abilities, you can buy 60 points' worth of stuff from it. Then here's a list of thief abilities, you can buy 30 points' worth." However, the two didn't mix, so you couldn't, for example, buy more racial abilities at the cost of fewer class abilities.

Then there was Complete Humanoids, but that was simply a list of racial abilities and the like. So, just like how your bog-standard PHB elf would have immunity to sleep and charm, +1 to bows and swords etc., now your minotaur would have similar things, too. But there was no customisation, nor anything like LA.


EDIT: MrNexx is a 7th level Hobgoblin Simu-ninja. :)

Person_Man
2007-01-16, 11:06 AM
There are rules for playing a Dragon PC in the Draconomicon. I've never used them before, but from just reading them I thought that they were pretty balanced. I'll have to check it again when I get home.

pestilenceawaits
2007-01-16, 11:32 AM
I don't think they got the shaft they are designed to be monsters and they fit that function perfectly I think people forget that dragons get more powerful as they age and in DnD it takes hundreds of years to get to great wyrm status (unlike Eragon where it happens very quickly) and that just doesn't translate well into the short time frame of most campaigns.

Kaerou
2007-01-16, 11:43 AM
In every game i have played with non standard races, the PC races were better.

Far better.

They came out on top EVERY time.

Why? Class levels get progressively better the higher they go for the most part (except for fighters) Non standard races lose out on that due to racial HD / LA

Yakk
2007-01-16, 11:51 AM
If you want a balanced way to add dragons...

1> Hack up classes. Reduce saves slightly, subtract 1/2 per level BaB, use fractional saves. Reduce HP:
1 HP/level d4 HD
2 HP/level d6 HD
3 HP/level d8 HD
4 HP/level d10 HD
5 HP/level d12 HD

Drop skill points by 2/level.

2> Write up PC racial classes. All races would have a 1/2 BaB and about as many saves as you stripped from the PC classes, plus some special abilities. Each level of a racial class should be as powerful as 1 level of a class, overall.

A "base" humanoid race would gain 2 HP/level, 2 skill points/level, and get a 1/2 BaB.

No race should have better than a 1/2 BaB, and races with less than a 1/2 BaB make horrid melee characters.

3> Write up a Dragon class. It should be balanced with other classes on a per-level basis.

4> Add the rule: whenever you gain a level, you gain 1 racial and 1 character level. Monster characters can instead add 2 racial levels.

Now a L 10 Fighter is a L 10 Fighter L 10 Human. This may end up boosting character power.

Now, you can set it up so a L 40 pure Dragon is balanced with a L 20 Fighter L 20 Human.

It does require a fair amount of game balancing and mechanics, but it is a D&D like system in which you can be balanced playing a pure Dragon. :)

Starbuck_II
2007-01-16, 11:57 AM
I don't think they got the shaft they are designed to be monsters and they fit that function perfectly I think people forget that dragons get more powerful as they age and in DnD it takes hundreds of years to get to great wyrm status (unlike Eragon where it happens very quickly) and that just doesn't translate well into the short time frame of most campaigns.
Only in the movie did he grow fast.

It took months for the Dragon to get that big in Eragon. Faster than D&D but better than the movie. Hiding him was the hard part.

pestilenceawaits
2007-01-16, 12:21 PM
Only in the movie did he grow fast.

It took months for the Dragon to get that big in Eragon. Faster than D&D but better than the movie. Hiding him was the hard part.

I haven't seen the movie I have only read the book. I thought months was fast. The fact that it goes faster in the movies disturbs me greatly. :smallconfused: :smallsmile:

Thomas
2007-01-16, 12:52 PM
The fact that you read Eragon disturbs me greatly.

Hilariously, when we first saw the trailer in a movie theater, one of my friends opined, "Looks like Star Wars with dragons." Now that is intuition...

pestilenceawaits
2007-01-16, 12:57 PM
The fact that you read Eragon disturbs me greatly.

Hilariously, when we first saw the trailer in a movie theater, one of my friends opined, "Looks like Star Wars with dragons." Now that is intuition...

I honestly had no idea what it was when I read it. My brother gave it to me and said it was good I read the first one and was very disappointed and now my brother is dead to me (at least when it comes to book recommendations) :smallbiggrin:

Closet_Skeleton
2007-01-16, 01:44 PM
I attempted to make a balanced PC dragon race and class once. It was based off the Mamkute/Maneket in the Fire Emblem video game series. Basically it was a race that appears human but if they take this class avalable only to them they could turn into a dragon for short ammounts of time each day. As you leveled in the class you got a larger dragon form, faster fly speed, more energy resistance and a stronger breath weapon. It didn't get spells since I already based it off Dragon HD so spells would be overpowered.

Balancing it was too hard. I tried to get it even in attack power with a fighter of the same level but the fighter's bonus feats made it too complicated.

Harstrack
2007-01-16, 02:06 PM
Well I play a Red dragon And I´m at lvl 15 and will keep taking dragon lvls till 19 and I'm the most powerfull mellee in the party and the party has 18lvl mellee caracters. I dont see it as too expensive to buy at all...

Mewtarthio
2007-01-16, 02:34 PM
The fact that you read Eragon disturbs me greatly.

Hilariously, when we first saw the trailer in a movie theater, one of my friends opined, "Looks like Star Wars with dragons." Now that is intuition...

I took my little sister in to see it. Before the title even came up, I started regretting that (I don't like it when a guy tells me what's already happened in the world. I prefer to figure that out myself). About five minutes into the movie, I felt like gouging my eyes out. Did they literally take a checklist of every fantasy cliche in history and then go down the list, implementing each thing in the most cliche manner possible? It's as though originality is anathema to them, and they have to write the most unoriginal movie possible or they turn to dust. Oh, well. At least my sister liked it (though she liked the book better).

Anyway, where were we, again? Oh, right, dragon PCs. I don't really think you should be allowed to take more Dragon HD on level-up. Moving from, say, 4 to 16 HD is supposed to take over fifty years for a dragon, while the average PC can do that much, much more quickly. Dragons don't get caught in hyper-aging fields if they run around adventuring (unless you put those in your campaign to screw the melee guys, give power-with-a-cost to the casters, and severely overpower your dragon). It is, however, quite possible that a dragon would take class levels in the same way as any other creature. It's just that you never see dragons with class levels because they tend not to adventure much.

Thomas
2007-01-16, 02:38 PM
Did they literally take a checklist of every fantasy cliche in history and then go down the list, implementing each thing in the most cliche manner possible? It's as though originality is anathema to them, and they have to write the most unoriginal movie possible or they turn to dust. Oh, well. At least my sister liked it (though she liked the book better).

You mean "he". It was written by an (at the time) 20-year-old fanboy, who's idea of classic fantasy is David Eddings. Since Paolini's parents were in the publishing business (Paolini International LCC), their kid's fanfic got published and made into a movie. Nepotism is one way to break into the business, even if your book stinks and is nothing but a melting-pot of cliches and rip-offs.

NullAshton
2007-01-16, 02:50 PM
Anyway, where were we, again? Oh, right, dragon PCs. I don't really think you should be allowed to take more Dragon HD on level-up. Moving from, say, 4 to 16 HD is supposed to take over fifty years for a dragon, while the average PC can do that much, much more quickly. Dragons don't get caught in hyper-aging fields if they run around adventuring (unless you put those in your campaign to screw the melee guys, give power-with-a-cost to the casters, and severely overpower your dragon). It is, however, quite possible that a dragon would take class levels in the same way as any other creature. It's just that you never see dragons with class levels because they tend not to adventure much.

Ahem... that is where the DM comes in with cheesy in-game explainations!

Perhaps in that campaign world, dragons don't age normally? Instead, they slowly get life energy(experience) over time, which causes them to grow, and if a dragon starts adventuring, they accumulate that life energy/XP faster, and thus grow faster.

Whamme
2007-01-16, 03:06 PM
Yup.

Or to put it in game-balance terms: dragons are WAY too good. They have the melee power of a fighter, the toughness and armour of a tank, the spellcasting abilities of a sorcerer, the detection abilities of a rogue, and spell resistance, some cleric spells, flight, and a bunch of spell-like abilities thrown in just for fun. And some immunities. And great saves. And that's not even counting their breath weapon.

There's no way you can get that as a PC without spreading yourself so thin that you couldn't do any of them well. So obviously, if you try and PC-ify a dragon, you're going to have to scale all their abilities so far down that they can't do any of them well.

The idea of playing a dragon is cool, I know, but like most monsters in the Monster Manual, they're really designed to be enemies or NPCs, not player characters.

- Saph

two words:

1) Chameleon
2) Shapechange

To explificate: You can, in fact, have a class with a massively diverse range of abilities that does not suck. We call one of them Wizards. Chameleons are a more fun and balanced example (IMO); they really do have all the abilities of low level members of other classes at high enough level to be relevant.

Remember, Mystic Theurge is /underpowered/. So is Eldritch Knight.

If you don't want players to play a dragon, that is your right, but I have yet to see where MELEE or ARCHER type characters were overpowered compared to casters.

It would be pretty dmn easy to make them good enough to not suck.

Dark
2007-01-16, 03:18 PM
You know, if I were to set up a campaign where the PCs play dragons, I'd have them play dragons. Just use their monster stats straight out of the Monster Manual, and drop the whole "character level" concept. Use their CR to balance encounters. Then stretch out the campaign to draconic space and time scales.

DM: Okay, the elven capital lies in ruins and the royal palace is aflame. They won't be bothering you anymore.
Green Dragon: And the halflings?
DM: They've been paying tribute just like they said, no problems there. Though they did try some belladonna seasoning on one of the sheep.
Green Dragon: Hah! Puny mortal poisons.
DM: But it's getting a bit late now and you're feeling tired.
Red Dragon: Ok, we'll nap for the rest of this century. Everyone ok with that?

The time scale will help them gain power by aging, their social status among dragons will be measured by the value of their hoards, and the players can go nuts designing their lair defenses. High social status will eventually let them lead wings of dragons. And there'll be a plot or two by long-lived adversaries (lich lords, abolethes, outsiders) that involves a threat to all dragonkind.

That's how I would do it, anyway :)

Tibor
2007-01-16, 03:19 PM
There are dragon savage progressions in two issues of Dragon Magazine. They water the dragon down as well to balance it all out, but you do increase in size as you advance in levels.

Talyn
2007-01-16, 04:34 PM
You mean "he". It was written by an (at the time) 20-year-old fanboy, who's idea of classic fantasy is David Eddings. Since Paolini's parents were in the publishing business (Paolini International LCC), their kid's fanfic got published and made into a movie. Nepotism is one way to break into the business, even if your book stinks and is nothing but a melting-pot of cliches and rip-offs.

Hey! Nothing wrong with David Eddings! And, while Eragon wasn't the Lord of the Rings by any stretch of the imagination, it wasn't that bad, either. Honestly, literary snobs infuriate me - "oh, the unwashed masses like it, it must be terrible," or "oh, the author didn't reinvent the wheel, he's a derivative hack."

Sorry, back on topic.

I agree that having a dragon PC would only work if EVERYONE has dragon PCs, and even then the poor bastard playing the White Dragon is going to feel screwed.

Talyn
2007-01-16, 04:40 PM
To explificate: You can, in fact, have a class with a massively diverse range of abilities that does not suck. We call one of them Wizards.

d4 hit dice. Enough said.

MrNexx
2007-01-16, 04:41 PM
I'll add to the "nothing wrong with David Eddings" chant.

Sit down and read "The Belgariad" and "The Elenium" again. Forget that there's a Mallorean. Forget that there's a Tamuli. Just read those books. Listen to the dialogue flow. Watch how he develops his characters. They're not literary masterpieces, but they are genuinely fun to read and, if you have the time, you can finsh them relatively quickly.

EDIT: D4 HD on wizards do not matter. If you're getting hit, you've screwed up, or the rest of your party did.

Zincorium
2007-01-16, 05:50 PM
EDIT: D4 HD on wizards do not matter. If you're getting hit, you've screwed up, or the rest of your party did.

I had the sorceror in a game I DMed a few weeks ago end up closing to a grapple with a chuul (which was equal CR to the average PC level). In a 30 ft deep pool of water. While the main fighter and the cleric stayed in the room previous, saying that 'they'd be right in if they where needed'.

I'm not fond of TPKs, and that whole scenario had me gritting my teeth. Just because your players have been playing D&D for forever doesn't make them tacticians.

Matthew
2007-01-16, 07:28 PM
I'll add to the "nothing wrong with David Eddings" chant.

Sit down and read "The Belgariad" and "The Elenium" again. Forget that there's a Mallorean. Forget that there's a Tamuli. Just read those books. Listen to the dialogue flow. Watch how he develops his characters. They're not literary masterpieces, but they are genuinely fun to read and, if you have the time, you can finsh them relatively quickly.


I guess I can go along with that. They are not great, but they are not the worst fantasy ever written by a long shot either. I hated the ending of The Elenium, but I have heard that his wife was ill at the time of finishing, so I feel I ought to grant some leeway.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-16, 07:32 PM
It's all in perspective. If you'd read very little (good) fantasy before, Edding's work is great. The problem is just that the genre is so bloated with better choices that Edding ends up feeling like an aside to a lot of fantasy genre veteran. Of course, everyone has different tastes. I know at least two people that prefer Edding over George Martin. Which took me days to wrap my head around.

MrNexx
2007-01-17, 01:35 AM
It's all in perspective. If you'd read very little (good) fantasy before, Edding's work is great. The problem is just that the genre is so bloated with better choices that Edding ends up feeling like an aside to a lot of fantasy genre veteran. Of course, everyone has different tastes. I know at least two people that prefer Edding over George Martin. Which took me days to wrap my head around.

Never read George Martin. And I agree, the ending of Elenium isn't fantastic, and if Leigh was sick, that would explain a lot... all of their later books carried her name, as well, and they've since said that she was a major part of the writing process on all of them.

Jade_Tarem
2007-01-17, 01:51 AM
I assume you have/have read tyhe dranoconicom?

I have indeed, and what's written there is the inspiration from problem 2. I don't want their class levels, even though it does balance the character. The dragon isn't getting any better as a dragon.


Not to mention that it quite frankly is not what the game is about. It's hard enough for developers to balance classes, prestige classes and core LA 0 races against each other, expecting them to do it for every monster in the book is simply unreasonable. After all not only are these things often a mish-mash of many many abilities (dragons are one of the biggest: spellcasting, heavy defenses, massive ability scores, melee combat ability, and miscillaneous abilities like flight. Even worse when you consider they're about the only monsters who get massive new abilities just by waiting long enough) but only a handful of players are going to play them anyway.

The LA rules are an afterthought, especially for the nightmares of balance like dragons and powerful outsiders and that's really how they should be. The dragons are there to be fought or interacted with by the PCs not to be played. I'd much rather the developers not assign LA or err on the side of caution with a rough one than take the time to assign balances to every creature in the book.


Ahhh, but WotC is so good (well, eager) at assigning values to every aspect of life and physics, no? When the name of the game is Dungeons and Dragons, it really is safe to assume that someone will want to control said dragons eventually.


As to the original post: IMO the problem is that, plain simply, D&D was not designed to have dragons as a playable race. The game has a certain focus (humans and human-like creatures going out on adventures), and the concept of plalyable dragons is just so far away from this focus that no matter how you try to bend it, it won't fit. If you want to play dragons, use (or create) a whole different system which has THAT as its focus.

It's just like how you can't play a sports car driving gun-toting hacker in D&D 3.5E. It's too far from the game's focus, so you need a separate game for it, like d20 modern or Cyberpunk.

Cute, but as before, "sports car driving gun-toting hacker" isn't in the title of the game. And while it wasn't designed for dragons to be an initial problem-free starting race, the ECL system is beating them down far more than seems reasonable. Let me put it this way: you can have a half red dragon troll for an ECL of around 14ish... that's a character that's immortal to everything but acid and con damage. An ECL 14 dragon... not so much.


Yup.

Or to put it in game-balance terms: dragons are WAY too good. They have the melee power of a fighter, the toughness and armour of a tank, the spellcasting abilities of a sorcerer, the detection abilities of a rogue, and spell resistance, some cleric spells, flight, and a bunch of spell-like abilities thrown in just for fun. And some immunities. And great saves. And that's not even counting their breath weapon.

There's no way you can get that as a PC without spreading yourself so thin that you couldn't do any of them well. So obviously, if you try and PC-ify a dragon, you're going to have to scale all their abilities so far down that they can't do any of them well.

The idea of playing a dragon is cool, I know, but like most monsters in the Monster Manual, they're really designed to be enemies or NPCs, not player characters.

- Saph

They have all that lovely stuff about 9 levels later than seems fair. I know everyone's entitled to an opinion, but I was asking for advice, not condemnation. Besides, just look below to see how "way too good" they are.


There are rules for playing a Dragon PC in the Draconomicon. I've never used them before, but from just reading them I thought that they were pretty balanced. I'll have to check it again when I get home.

As above, the Draconomicon sets them up for gaining a bunch of class levels.


In every game i have played with non standard races, the PC races were better.

Far better.

They came out on top EVERY time.

Why? Class levels get progressively better the higher they go for the most part (except for fighters) Non standard races lose out on that due to racial HD / LA

Save for some really wicked combos. The half dragon troll was already listed, but let me make my lantern archon sorcerer and I'll take any human you can put together, except maybe a wizard with a long prep time. :smallamused: And as before, there are some really cheesy ways to get your dragon to grow a bit.


Well I play a Red dragon And I´m at lvl 15 and will keep taking dragon lvls till 19 and I'm the most powerfull mellee in the party and the party has 18lvl mellee caracters. I dont see it as too expensive to buy at all...

By level 15 you mean... ECL 15? These are your racial stats, minus whatever enhancement gear you have, vs. these 18 fighters.

Dragon: (ability bonuses inclusive)
Large Size (barely)
10d12+30hp (10HD)
AC: 16/16FF/10T

STR 21 (or 3d6 with +10 racial)
DEX 10 (or 3d6)
CON 17 (or 3d6 with +6 racial)
INT 12 (or 3d6 with +2 racial)
WIS 13 (ditto)
CHA 12 (ditto)

BAB: +10
Fort: +10 (+7+3Str)
Refl: +7 (+7)
Will: +8 (+7+1Wis)

Land Speed: 40
Fly Speed: 150 (poor)
4 feats
Skills are, what, 4+int x HD+3? (65)

Breath Weapon: 4d10
Immunity to Fire, Vulnerability to Cold

That's it... no DR, no SR, no Spellcasting, none of the wonderful things racking up the Dragon's ECL. At level 15.

Versus (with comparasons made)

Fighter at Level 15/18

HP: 15d10+Con/18d10+Con (15/18HD)
AC: The best armor money can buy at level 15/18

All Ability scores: 3d6+abi? + 3 or 4
Fort: +9+Con/+11+Con
Refl: +5+Dex/+6+Dex
Will: +5+Wis/+6+Wis

BAB: 15/18

Land Speed: 30

16/18 feats!
Skills: 2+Int x HD+3

And, oh yes, standard equipment. Remember the dragon has to pay 25% more to get armor or something made for him.

So the core class stands out quite well against the dragon... usually by 150% or more - and that's the ECL 15 fighter, not the 18 you refer to. At that, your ephemeral "tank" could be a paladin, barbarian, cleric, or even a druid! I really don't see how a dragon outshines that save in the areas of speed, flight, and maybe will saves. Your fire breath has a damage range of (4-40), while the party wizard's DBF has a damage range of (15-90).

Unless you meant some kind of dragon with class levels.
Or you've rolled way too many twenties.

So that about sums it up right there. Many of you are correct to point out that "dragon" was not WotC's first choice of race for the players, but really, after they published Draconomicon they should have come to grips with a better system for dragon characters. There are so many level twenties out there that can kill, by themselves, at least a very old dragon if not a GWyrm. Something seems a little odd about that to me, in terms of balance. You have this level 20 nuking the snot out of this dragon that the ECL system says is ECL 30-odd.

Also of note is that, of all the monsters, I've never seen one with such a gap between CR and ECL... Typically they're within 1-3 of each other, but that ECL 15 dragon is a CR 5! That means that 4 5th level adventurers should be able to kill the ECL 15 Dragon using only 1/5th of their resources! Or one 5th level adventurer could do it with 80% of his. Show me a 5th level PC that can take a lvl 15 anything one on one. That's the kind of imbalance I'm talking about. All that special, magical stuff that Saph mentioned never happens for the PC who wants to play one. You end up with a somewhat beefy fighter with no bonus feats who can fly and boil tea. They have some tanking qualities. No spellcasting, SR, DR, or special moves. And though blindsense is neat, it doesn't equal "the detection ablities of a rogue."

Thanks for those who posted with other balance systems.

P.S. There is ONE thing that dragons shine in above all else: time lapse games. When the DM says that the party goes to sleep for 50 years, the dragon player reserves the right to say "cha-ching!"

oriong
2007-01-17, 02:19 AM
Ahhh, but WotC is so good (well, eager) at assigning values to every aspect of life and physics, no? When the name of the game is Dungeons and Dragons, it really is safe to assume that someone will want to control said dragons eventually.

They assigned a value, that's all the time it deserves frankly. They shouldn't spend the effort to stat them out because it's a waste.

And by your logic there should be rules so people can play dungeons along with all their human friends. The name isn't entitlement to anything.

Siberys
2007-01-17, 10:27 AM
The only problem with the paizo advancements is they need epic progressions. I want rules for Great Wyrms. As of now, I can only get to young adult. :smallfrown:

I did the math once, and I think that it came out to sixty-some total levels.

Person_Man
2007-01-17, 02:56 PM
You mean "he". It was written by an (at the time) 20-year-old fanboy, who's idea of classic fantasy is David Eddings. Since Paolini's parents were in the publishing business (Paolini International LCC), their kid's fanfic got published and made into a movie. Nepotism is one way to break into the business, even if your book stinks and is nothing but a melting-pot of cliches and rip-offs.

Yes, but now Paolini is almost universally reviled by Sci-fi and Fantasy fans.

He made a pile of money, but his parents were already quite rich, so now he has a slightly bigger pile of money, so there's no real benefit there.

He's popular with a bunch of 12 year olds who will grow to hate him as they continue reading and realize that he basically recycled other writers work, poorly.

He got to make a movie, but it bombed, so it's doubtful that he'll ever get a chance to make another movie.

And for the rest of his life, he will be mocked by the people he obviously so desperately wants the approval of.

So on balance, I say he got what he deserved.

Mewtarthio
2007-01-17, 03:28 PM
Also of note is that, of all the monsters, I've never seen one with such a gap between CR and ECL... Typically they're within 1-3 of each other, but that ECL 15 dragon is a CR 5! That means that 4 5th level adventurers should be able to kill the ECL 15 Dragon using only 1/5th of their resources! Or one 5th level adventurer could do it with 80% of his. Show me a 5th level PC that can take a lvl 15 anything one on one. That's the kind of imbalance I'm talking about. All that special, magical stuff that Saph mentioned never happens for the PC who wants to play one. You end up with a somewhat beefy fighter with no bonus feats who can fly and boil tea. They have some tanking qualities. No spellcasting, SR, DR, or special moves. And though blindsense is neat, it doesn't equal "the detection ablities of a rogue."

Then houserule it otherwise. Lower or eliminate the dragons' LA (Heck, you could even give them negative LA to compensate for racial HD: It's your game). Come back and tell us how it goes.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-17, 05:00 PM
God, tell me about it with Paolini. As a writer that started out young, most of my older fantasy work reads like his stuff. I didn't even attempt to sell it, as every time I wrote something new I dwarfed my old writing capabilities and I slowly come to feel ashamed of having anyone read that elder material. Now here I am with a book published that no one's heard of, but I'm satisfied with how it turned out (other then some bizarre spelling and grammatical errors that somehow occured in my compilating...), and while I might never recoup the costs I required to publish it, at least I know that no fan of the genre has ever disliked it.

This is partially due to only having maybe 50 readers. But hey, I'm not picky. 50 fans is 50 fans.

Malachite
2007-01-20, 11:21 AM
...Yet you aren't telling us what it's called, so you won't get more readers? I'd say here was a perfect place to plug your book and recoup some costs ;)

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-20, 11:52 AM
I could, but it's really an odd genre to plug here. Over half the book is written in play format, and it's a bizarre superhero comedy. I mean, really bizarre. We made a short film episode of it that's not in the book, so I guess if you really want to see if it's your kind of schtick, you can check that out- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI7VrXzHHuw

The book is named Sanitational Worker: The Anthology. You can find it over at Barnes & Noble's online shop for one of the lower prices available, if you're interested.

By the way, I played the titular hero in the film :D