Dragonwrought. Explain it to me like I'm 5

[Delcor]

I love sorcerers, and forum/handbook I look at seems to metnion dragonwrought kobolds or draconic heritage and all sorts of dragon this and dragon that. So I looked into Races of the Dragon, and other than the disgustingly broken Practical Metamagic feat I see nothing to gawk at. Someone please explain to me the big deal with kobolds/draconic stuff.

[Coventry]

JaronK's answer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?138544-(3-5)-Dragonwrought-Kobold) to a similar question.

[Ellowryn]

Dragonwrought changes your type to dragon, making you immune to aging penalties and allowing you to take feats/templates/abilities only for dragons. The most well known cheese is taking the greater draconic rite of passage and loredrake increasing your sorcerer level by 3 i.e having a 9th level sorcerer at 6th level.

Edit: Aaaaannnnd ninja'd :smallfurious:

[Pyromancer999]

Dragonwrought is a feat, taken at first level, that gives Kolbolds the Dragon type.

Since Kolbolds are described as advancing in age categories, many people feel that they qualify as True Dragons for things, as True a Dragons are defined as creatures of the Dragon a type that advance in age by age categories.

This qualifies them for many things, such as Draconic Archetypes from Eberron, such as Loredrake, which give a agree level of Sorcerer spellcasting, and other good Teue Dragon things.

[Zanos]

Here is the web enhancement. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a)

[Giddonihah]

So the older you get the smarter you get right? But old guys also get reaaaally weak. But Dragons can be reeally old and reaaly big and strong. So Dragonwrought makes the Baby Kobolds like Dragons so that when they get reaaly old they are still strong.

Was that enough for a 5 year old? Its always hard to tell.

[Rubik]

So the older you get the smarter you get right? But old guys also get reaaaally weak. But Dragons can be reeally old and reaaly big and strong. So Dragonwrought makes the Baby Kobolds like Dragons so that when they get reaaly old they are still strong.

Was that enough for a 5 year old? Its always hard to tell.Maybe the O.P. meant in dog years -- which is 35 years old.

I think we're done here.

[ryu]

Also having the dragon type gets you early access to epic feats. Epic magic feats are hilarious people. Great at parties.

[mythmonster2]

Where is it stated that dragons automatically qualify for epic feats?

[Psyren]

"Oh my god, where are your parents?" (http://xkcd.com/1364/)

[ryu]

Where is it stated that dragons automatically qualify for epic feats?

Draconomicon, page 66. Have fun with that.

[Crake]

Also having the dragon type gets you early access to epic feats. Epic magic feats are hilarious people. Great at parties.

It's not the dragon type, its specifically True Dragons of Old age category or older. So unless you're one of the chuckles who hopped on the "Dragonwrought kobolds are true dragons" bandwagon then they don't qualify.

[Doc_Maynot]

It's not the dragon type, its specifically True Dragons of Old age category or older. So unless you're one of the chuckles who hopped on the "Dragonwrought kobolds are true dragons" bandwagon then they don't qualify.

Looking at it right now, it just says "Dragons of at least old age." with no mention of True

[ryu]

Looking at it right now, it just says "Dragons of at least old age." with no mention of True

Indeed. Thank you for clearing up a rather common misconception while I was doing something else. MOST of the power of the dragonwrought feat doesn't really care if the kobold counts as a true dragon or not.

[WhamBamSam]

Looking at it right now, it just says "Dragons of at least old age." with no mention of True
Indeed. Thank you for clearing up a rather common misconception while I was doing something else. MOST of the power of the dragonwrought feat doesn't really care if the kobold counts as a true dragon or not.To clarify some more, the only things I know of which require the kobold to be a True Dragon are as follows.

1. Dragon Pacts (Dragon Magic) This isn't really a big one, as the True Dragon's position in the pact isn't really better, just different.
2. Sovereign Archetypes (Dragons of Eberron) - I ban the big two, Loredrake and the standard Wyrm of War from being used by kobolds and restrict the spell list expansion to Sorcerer casting only, as it's just dumb on fixed list casters.
3. Dragon Psychoses (Dragon Magazine 313) - I would ban Spellhoarding and Riddled except in very high power games. I'm a big fan of Ravening, but it's actually not as great for Kobolds as for other dragon PCs as they don't come with their own breath weapon to make use of it out of the box and the usual ways of getting said breath weapon never seem to play nicely with the template's Wis penalty.
4. The Xorvintaal Template (MMV) - Per this line in the SRD, templates which do not give a LA section are LA+0.
A template’s description provides a set of instructions for altering an existing creature, known as the base creature. The changes that a template might cause to each line of a creature’s statistics block are discussed below. Generally, if a template does not cause a change to a certain statistic, that entry is missing from the template description. For clarity, the entry for a statistic or attribute that is not changed is sometimes given as "Same as the base creature."Hence, the Xorvintaal template in MMV, which can be applied to any True Dragon of Young Adult age or older can apply to kobolds at the cost of their spellcasting ability, if any. This does not include non-Magic Mantle Psionics under the standard transparency rules, Factotum SLAs, or Binders. It's broken amongst party members of the same tier or lower, but I could maybe allow it on a PsyWar or Factotum who wanted to roll with a party consisting of a Wizard, Druid, and Cleric.


The other big things, namely free aging, Alter Self shenanigans, dragonblood auto-qualification (See the cheese section of the dragon handbook in my sig, though it's slightly out of date. I don't believe that taking Racial Substitution Levels out of order actually works. Maybe I'll finally get around to that update this week.), and taking epic feats that you qualify for without needing to have 21 HD, come either from just being a dragon (true or otherwise) or directly from the feat (Races of the Dragon states point blank that age penalties don't apply to Dragonwrought Kobolds).



On the whole I think Dragonwrought Kobolds get kind of a bad rap. Yes there's a fairly long list of banworthy things, but the majority of the cheese is actually quite flavorful. Freedom of concept is one of 3.5's greatest strengths, and dragonwrought kobold cheese makes a whole lot of weird concepts go that would otherwise stall out.

[Psyren]

Templates which do not give a LA section are LA+0.

I would think the default would actually be "LA -": i.e., not suitable for players. In fact, the sidebar makes it clear that players are only supposed to be the exarchs (read: pawns) of a DM-controlled Xorvintaal Dragon.

[ddude987]

Not that there are many epic feats that are obtainable and useful early in the game. Also if you aren't playing in Ebberon Loredrake isn't a problem as the appropriate deities to obtain it don't exist. At the end of the day DWK becomes a +3 to mental stats and a few extra levels of sorcerer casting.

[Studoku]

Looking at it right now, it just says "Dragons of at least old age." with no mention of True
And since "old" is an age category for kobolds, venerable dragonwrought kobolds count, right?

[Jeff the Green]

I would think the default would actually be "LA -": i.e., not suitable for players. In fact, the sidebar makes it clear that players are only supposed to be the exarchs (read: pawns) of a DM-controlled Xorvintaal Dragon.

This is probably the saner option for a real game, but the rules on templates are pretty clear: if it doesn't mention something, it doesn't change. Note how other templates inappropriate for players like zombies have LA: – listed.

[Debatra]

Dragonwrought changes your type to dragon, making you immune to aging penalties *snip*

...And where exactly is that written?

[Psyren]

Even if that's true, you still need the DM in order to become a Xorvintaal Dragon anyway. No details are given on the research or ritual required, and the passage even states that Xorvintaal is beyond the knowledge of the PCs. As I mentioned above, PC participation in Xorvintaal is meant to be limited to exarchs - pawns of a DM-controlled dragon who has undergone the ritual and is playing the game.

This is not to say you cannot become one - say, by True Mind Switching with a Xorvintaal Dragon for instance - but the existence of such beings is up to the DM to place in the world somewhere.

[Jeff the Green]

Even if that's true, you still need the DM in order to become a Xorvintaal Dragon anyway. No details are given on the research or ritual required, and the passage even states that Xorvintaal is beyond the knowledge of the PCs. As I mentioned above, PC participation in Xorvintaal is meant to be limited to exarchs - pawns of a DM-controlled dragon who has undergone the ritual and is playing the game.

This is not to say you cannot become one - say, by True Mind Switching with a Xorvintaal Dragon for instance - but the existence of such beings is up to the DM to place in the world somewhere.

That's true (though to a lesser degree) of many acquired templates, but it is part of why I said it's probably the saner way to play it. However, if your dragonwrought kobold did manage to join in, he wouldn't (by RAW) become LA – (and thus an NPC); he'd have the same LA as he did before.

[Psyren]

I'm not disputing that. If you were somehow granted a template with no listed LA, the assumption would be that the DM who gave it to you still wants you leveling up at the same pace as before.

Rather, my objection was to the notion that such a template would not need to be granted/approved by the DM at all. If it has no LA listed, it would fall to the DM to create one (even if that is zero or negative) as part of the approval process.

[Jeff the Green]

I'm not disputing that. If you were somehow granted a template with no listed LA, the assumption would be that the DM who gave it to you still wants you leveling up at the same pace as before.

Rather, my objection was to the notion that such a template would not need to be granted/approved by the DM at all. If it has no LA listed, it would fall to the DM to create one (even if that is zero or negative) as part of the approval process.

I disagree. The reason Xorvintaal needs to have its LA houseruled is that it was clearly meant to be LA –. That's not true of all other templates without an LA listed. Unseelie fey, for one, was clearly intended to be used by players since the example unseelie gnome has LA 0. (Whether the designers were right about assigning it that LA is an entirely different matter.)

[Divide by Zero]

Note that even if you do qualify for epic feats, most of the good ones have skill requirements or other things that can't be met pre-epic without even worse cheese.

[Psyren]

I'm only talking about the ones were nothing is listed for LA at all. UF has one listed (however accurate the number might be) and so is out of scope for the point I'm making.

[Karnith]

...And where exactly is that written?
It's a benefit of Dragonwrought, not of the Dragon type, but see the footnote to the table on Aging Effects in Races of the Dragon, p. 39. It explicitly states that ability penalties due to age do not apply to Dragonwrought Kobolds.