How to make a Dragon Hunter

[Arkusus]

So, I've got a campaign going, and the party is about to head into a mountain range that serves as the home to most of the dragons this campaign has to offer (as well as various other unpleasantries, but the dragons are what we care about right now).

I'm trying to create a character who lives in the mountains, and is a well known dragon hunter who (yada yada), and (backstory, plot and exposition).

So, here's the question. I want the character to be primarily a physical character (minor use of spells or spell like effects is acceptable), but other than just making a tough warrior... I'm not really sure what would make a character particularly good at specifically fighting dragons. Well, that is of course excepting that I'm the DM, and I can contrive whatever I want, but given the way I want this to work out, I want to basically build something out of powers that a player character could get access to.

What would help someone be good at hunting down dragons?


So far I only know two options:
1: Vorpal weapons work nice on dragons (1/20th the time anyway)
2: There are some classes (like ranger), and feats I believe that let you pick a favored enemy. But honestly, none of those bonuses really seem like they help a whole lot against a really tough enemy. (maybe I'm missing some?)

[Coidzor]

If you gotta go with Ranger, take the Arcane Hunter ACF for Favored Enemy Arcanists. It will apply to the vast majority of dragons(that is, the threatening ones that aren't gem dragons) and also a good portion of other foes as well.

At the end of the day though, many dragons are casters and the best way to kill a caster is to be a caster or have a caster of your own to kill them with.

So you could go for a sort of Gish, taking a level or two of Ranger & then Wizard & then PrCing out into Abjurant Champion 5(Complete Mage), Spellsword 1(Complete Warrior), and maybe some Dragonslayer from Draconomicon (though probably just the first level). Dragonslayer is a half-progression gishing PrC though, so if you wanted to limit yourself to lower level spell effects that would help do it.

The Mystic Ranger from Dragon Magazine gives 0 to 5th level spells in exchange for the animal companion, melee martial weapon proficiencies, and a (slightly) delayed progression for ranger abilities. That may be exactly what you're looking for, though. With the Sword of the Arcane Order feat, you can get access to Wizard spells so long as you have a spellbook handy. There are a number of areas where the written rules for it aren't completely clear, so for actual play there would need to be a discussion between player and DM beforehand. There's a discussion of the various issues that need DM adjudication and a summary of the arguments for the main ways to rule floating around somewhere as a handbook, though the title escapes me at the moment.

[Gavinfoxx]

...Whyever would a dragon hunter be a primarily physical character?

[Xerlith]

Some food for thought:
Feat Rogue 2 gives two martial feats and Evasion. All it loses is sneak attack. combine with Wilderness Rogue variant.
Ranger 2 with Favored Enemy (Arcanist) gains some minor bonuses
Warblade! Iron Heart Surge to deal with debiliating magic. Diamond Mind save counters eliminate failures on nat1 (pump that Concentration check), Mountain Hammer line lets you bypass the draconic Damage Reductions (if any).
Swordsage dip - for Shadow X movement, Child of Shadow (concealment, and cheap!)