Dragon Dragonfire Adept: How viable is such a build?

[HaikenEdge]

How viable would playing a true dragon dragonfire adept be? I'm thinking something along the lines of a Mercury or Steel Dragon as the base species, then tacking on Dragonfire Adept levels, but am unsure how viable such a character would be, and what kind of build I'd need to look into.

Assuming Level Adjustment buy-off is in play, and all WotC official and licensed materials are legal, is this a good idea or even an idea worth exploration?

[Mnemnosyne]

As a mercury dragon wyrmling, I'd say it works very nicely indeed. You can get rid of your RHD through level drain if you want, or just keep them; 3 dragon RHD aren't that bad, since you get a d12 hitdie, full BAB, and all good saves, as well as 6+Int skill points. You'll do a little less damage with your breath weapon if you don't get rid of the RHD, but that's still very solidly made up for with a 200 ft. perfect fly speed. You don't need to go out of your way to qualify for metabreath feats, since you already have a breath weapon with a recharge measured in rounds. Pick up Flyby Attack of course, and you're basically going to be forcing your enemies to ready attacks to even get a chance to hurt you, unless you're fighting in a very open environment. After all, with 200 ft. perfect flight, you can be 100 ft. away from your target, behind total cover, dash out from behind the cover, approach, fire off your breath weapon, then get back behind total cover before the enemy can act, unless he uses an immediate action or has a readied action.

I probably wouldn't go for it with any but a mercury dragon, personally. The RHD on most is higher, and they lack that sweet perfect fly speed, which is really what makes the mercury dragon wyrmling really awesome.

[Grod_The_Giant]

To be entirely honest, it doesn't sound that strong-- too many of the class abilities are just replicating normal dragon abilities.