True Dragons and LA

[Blackhawk748]

I have been poking around on here, examining various handbooks and flipping through the Draconomicon, and i have come to realize that when someone wants to play a Dragon they get all sorts of great build advice, but that they are playing a Wyrmling. I have really never seen anyone build a Dragon on here that isnt a Wyrmling. Now i get it, its that stupid LA that cant even be decent and stay constant, but are true dragons actually worth all that LA?

Now speaking on a personal level here i would happily swallow +2 LA and play a White Dragon, but i want to be Huge. "Well sorry you cant, but you can be Medium for another +4 LA" ................what. Now we all know that LA is just bonkers anyway, and that Dragons have some scary scary cheese, but what if you just want to be a Dragon? Im talking 20 lvls of RHD (yes i know its BLASPHEMY), then there is no way Dragon is worth that much LA.

Sorry about my little rant, but its something that has always bothered me, thus why i dont enforce LA on someone who is playing a Dragon in my group, but then they dont take class levels as they want to be bigger and scarier. So if anyone else has some views on this id love to hear them, lets rant together! :smallbiggrin:

[Urpriest]

Being Huge is generically pretty expensive.

LA are generally excessive, but Dragon HD are also generally pretty powerful. Are you familiar with the Homebrew Monster Classes? They tend to solve this problem rather handily.

[Blackhawk748]

I am not, but i am now intruiged. And i agree that Dragon HD are actually good, but when they are all your really taking its pretty much just class features instead of Racial features isnt it?

[Fax Celestis]

I am not, but i am now intruiged. And i agree that Dragon HD are actually good, but when they are all your really taking its pretty much just class features instead of Racial features isnt it?

Sort of. As far as RHD goes, dragon dice might as well be class levels. They come with all the regular stuff of RHD, but also age-based category increases, stat boosts, SR, spellcasting, racial SLAs, and more.

[Urpriest]

I am not, but i am now intruiged. And i agree that Dragon HD are actually good, but when they are all your really taking its pretty much just class features instead of Racial features isnt it?

Well, you're still also getting large ability boosts and delayed casting. Some Dragons probably are roughly ok with HD alone, but it's definitely something that needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Here's the brilliantgameologists version (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9557.0) of the monster classes. There are similar threads on this forum's homebrew section.

Basically, they take monsters, and turn them into normal base classes with HD=ECL=CR of the monster. They're generally pretty balanced, at the cost of not really being the same as the original monster.

[Blackhawk748]

Just looked them over and their White Dragon makes me happy