I am fire, I am death - How to make a Dragon PC

[Ansem]

So yeah, I figured a fun thing to do after mixing some stuff up is how to, as good as possible, make a dragon PC.
I'm aware of the Dragon progression class from Drg but I want to see if its doable gamewise.
What I've found so far is going Half Dragon template + feat for breath weapon 1/day -> 1d4 rounds or Dragonfire Adept - at will breath weapon and throw that in with metabreath feats to make it stronger (abuse Dragonfire Adept for no waiting rounds but thats a different story).
Would still need to find a way to make the character large or huge and voila.

With the concept of the Fire-Breathing Dragon of DOOM, how good am I on the way with this and how would you approach this?
How to make a legit Dragon PC. Without starting as a lvl 32 dragon from the MM ofcourse.

[Phelix-Mu]

Getting a dragon body of some kind probably isn't too hard, given an appropriate cheese allowance. Some brand of ice assassin plus true mind switch will probably achieve the desired effect. I think you could pull it off somewhat early on, but, again, this would need much more cheese.

Early levels access to wish for scroll of ice assassin of the desired dragon. Use UMD op to cast the scroll. Once you have the ice assassin dragon, you need to UPD a power stone of true mind switch. Pretty sure this is the normal method of getting an unusual body.

Or astral seed suicide chains. Pretty sure that is more labor intensive, though.

But, as nice as that all is, I'm pretty sure there is a more elegant way to manage this.

[Grams]

Dragonwrought Kobold + Sorcerer/Wizard + Alter Self into said dragon.

[Ansem]

The Wish / True Mind Switch seems a bit too situation and up to DM imho.
And Kobold Sorcerer -> Alter shape isn't really being a Dragon of itself.

[Phelix-Mu]

Well, maybe there is some way to use the Dragonborn ritual from RotD to turn a large/huge creature into a dragon. It won't be an actual dragon, but I think the actual appearance is basically "dragonborn-esque," meaning if the ritual is used on a quadruped, the resulting creature ends up looking like a scaled, horned, and otherwise draconic beastie.

If that actually works, then all you need now is a permanent way to turn yourself into a shape of the desired size. This is still not easy, as pretty much all of the effective means of assuming big sizes are not low-level effects, and many of them explicitly do not stack.

An alternative is to start out large via a template (half-minotaur?) and then find a way to be a quadruped (ideally with wings). Lol, now it's not seeming so cheap. Tauric hippogriff something or other, but you're still eating a bunch of LA, and you'll look like a tauric creature (i.e., not like a dragon).

Hmm. Worth thinking about though. Dragonborn ritual is pretty useful, but now you have to suck up the fluff about working for Bahamut. Bleh, not particularly useful.

[AMFV]

What starting level do you want?

Air Drake works starting at level 11. It's large, has a fly speed, and you can add the breath weapon through other means.

[Ansem]

Dragonborn is a good one yes, but you still need to either get a breath weapon or get wings with it.
What would the actual criteria be for achieving a dragon?
I summed it up for myself with having natural weapons, being large or bigger (intimidating, heh), having a breath weapon doing fire damage, something akin to frightful presence so fear aura or some way to scare the **** out of everyone, fly speed which is atleast 50ft>, not sure what else a dragon needs.

[eggynack]

If I wanted to make a dragon character, I'd probably do it druid-style, and pick up dragon wild shape at level 12. You don't get to be large (though maybe some size increasers could get you there), but you do get a massive pile of other stuff. There's breath weapons galore, in every flavor imaginable, frightful presence sometimes, flight speeds that can hit 250 ft. (good), a bunch of crazy abilities, and the natural weapons that dragons are naturally a party to. It doesn't technically make you a dragon, but it does make you better at dragoning than pretty much anyone else in existence, at least at that level.

Edit: Also, other forms are large and have a bunch of natural weapons, so you still get that stuff. Also, you're a druid. Fancy stuff.

[paddyfool]

D&D 3.5 doesn't really do this that well.

On the other hand, Fantasy Craft has the option to play as a dragon from level 1 in its core rules.

Personally, however, I'd be quite tempted to try and see how a dragon works out in FATE...

[Karmea]

Yeah, true dragon PCs with manageable LA are generally limited to wyrmlings (Steel & Mercury as a couple of the better ones) so they fall short of your size requirement. Be one of those, get a few class levels and (draconic) polymorph into an older version of yourself :smalltongue:?

And if you're okay with homebrew, there's always the improved monster classes, say, a red dragon (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165439&postcount=1).

[Threadnaught]

Dragonwrought Kobold + Sorcerer/Wizard + Alter Self into said dragon.

Dragonborn Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer, nuff said.
It counts as a Dragon because of Dragonwrought.

If you're working on the assumption of gaining automatic Sorcerer levels because of Dragonwrought, then Druid with Dragon Wild Shape would be better.

Why not just try Polymorph Any Object (at higher levels) to permanently transform a Dragonwrought Kobold into a True Dragon, permanently?

[The_Snark]

The Abyssal Drake (found in the Draconomicon) is probably your best bet if you want to play a gigantic firebreathing monstrosity as a PC. Technically it's an evil outsider, and bears as much resemblance to a wyvern as it does to a true dragon, but still: giant firebreathing monster. Much, much more satisfying than playing a Medium-sized wyrmling, or a human with wings and a breath weapon.

It's ECL 15, but unlike most high-ECL monsters it's a solid option. You get 10 outsider HD, which gives you all-around decent saves and skills. You get a Constitution boost to make up for the deficit in hit points, and a Strength boost to make up for your lower BAB (and then some!). Plus you get Huge size, a passable breath weapon, flight, frightful presence, a bunch of resistances and immunities, and a set of natural weapons (including a poison sting; like I said, wyvern). And because you're a melee monster, you can can build on your natural abilities by adding levels of fighter, barbarian, or a Tome of Battle class.

[Ansem]

The Abyssal Drake (found in the Draconomicon) is probably your best bet if you want to play a gigantic firebreathing monstrosity as a PC. Technically it's an evil outsider, and bears as much resemblance to a wyvern as it does to a true dragon, but still: giant firebreathing monster. Much, much more satisfying than playing a Medium-sized wyrmling, or a human with wings and a breath weapon.

It's ECL 15, but unlike most high-ECL monsters it's a solid option. You get 10 outsider HD, which gives you all-around decent saves and skills. You get a Constitution boost to make up for the deficit in hit points, and a Strength boost to make up for your lower BAB (and then some!). Plus you get Huge size, a passable breath weapon, flight, frightful presence, a bunch of resistances and immunities, and a set of natural weapons (including a poison sting; like I said, wyvern). And because you're a melee monster, you can can build on your natural abilities by adding levels of fighter, barbarian, or a Tome of Battle class.
With a Savage progression table Abyssal Drake would be pretty much perfect.

[Andezzar]

Dragonwrought Kobold + Sorcerer/Wizard + Alter Self into said dragon.The best you could do with that is a medium dragon. Hardly intimidating. Additionally alter self gives you only a small part of the goodies of dragons.

[Urpriest]

If you are ok with a Half-Dragon Dragonfire Adept, why not just be a normal Dragonfire Adept? Works better and gives you the same stuff.

[Snowbluff]

How do you do it? You take the 8th level dragon blood cleric level without the first 7 levels. Then, if you are a true dragon, you add a bunch of dragons templates to yourself...
Don't do these things.
Draconomicon has the rules for leveling as a dragon. You are not starting as large. Usually small or something. And dragon levels kind of suck.

[Threadnaught]

And Kobold Sorcerer -> Alter shape isn't really being a Dragon of itself.

Dragonwrought Kobold gets the Dragon Type. They're not True Dragons, but they're still Dragons and qualify for a lot of Dragon only stuff. You have to read the prerequisites carefully though, Dragon Type means you can take them, True Dragon means you can't.


Dragonborn Template grants the Dragonblood Subtype, not the Dragon Type. Still it grants 1/3 of the Dragon's abilities. Not counting Sorcerer casting.