From optimisation standpoint ... (dragons)

[Balor01]

What class would a dragon most likely seek to advance in in 3.5? With killing stuff he also gets XP so I see no reason for him not to be able to take some PC class.

thanks

[Amphetryon]

What class would a dragon most likely seek to advance in in 3.5? With killing stuff he also gets XP so I see no reason for him not to be able to take some PC class.

thanks

It depends on the individual dragon type, and personalities. In general, dragons with any levels in rogue (or a similarly stealth-based class) are quite likely to get 1-round kills on unsuspecting passersby at an alarming rate, so if that's the aim, there's a strong motivation there; this also shores up the dragon's weakest save. Dragons are innately magical and usually intelligent, so INT-based casters are an attractive option to add variety to their spellcasting attack.

Combine these two things, and beguiler and (to an extent) factotum become frightening options.

[AMFV]

Frenzied Berserker can be fun and create a pretty horrific encounter for players. Anything with fast casting advancement can produce some very interesting results. Swiftblade could be pretty fun. Thrall of Demogorgon can be a beast because it allows the boss type monster to break the action economy.

[Segev]

I have a PC with a white wyrmling cohort that has taken all his non-base-HD levels in Dragonfire Adept.

[Rebel7284]

There are a bunch of dragon only PrCs in draconomicon. Some of them are fairly nice. Also, I believe taking levels of Sorcerer stacks with Dragon's racial spellcasting. More spellcasting is always nice.

[Balor01]

There are a bunch of dragon only PrCs in draconomicon. Some of them are fairly nice. Also, I believe taking levels of Sorcerer stacks with Dragon's racial spellcasting. More spellcasting is always nice.

Actually I was really thinking about sorcerer.

[AMFV]

Actually I was really thinking about sorcerer.

Dragons should never take levels in Sorcerer... they qualify for a ton of PrCs right out of the box and those are all unequivocally better than taking levels in a base sorcerer. The only advantage to base sorcerer is the sadness of d4 hit dice, which could make the dragon more compassionate or something, and the familiar (which scales off sorcerer level, not caster level).

[Cowardly Griffo]

Go Druid (or Cleric, or Favored Soul) for a few levels and branch into Geomancer? You could be an armored spellcasting beast, especially if you don't change biomes very much so you can pick one ley line and have a +3 to your CL for every spell you cast.

Also the various drifts might make it harder for people to figure out what kind of dragon you are, which could be helpful, or at least highly amusing.

"Err... Ron, that thing has two different sets of wings, zebra-striped bark for skin and deer antlers. I think we're out of our depth here."

[AMFV]

Go Druid (or Cleric, or Favored Soul) for a few levels and branch into Geomancer? You could be an armored spellcasting beast, especially if you don't change biomes very much so you can pick one ley line and have a +3 to your CL for every spell you cast.

Also the various drifts might make it harder for people to figure out what kind of dragon you are, which could be helpful, or at least highly amusing.

"Err... Ron, that thing has two different sets of wings, zebra-striped bark for skin and deer antlers. I think we're out of our depth here."

Eh... just take one of the conversion classes if you want to be a divine casting dragon. It converts all the casting to Cleric Casting, then you can advance as necessary.

[Rebel7284]

Dragons should never take levels in Sorcerer... they qualify for a ton of PrCs right out of the box and those are all unequivocally better than taking levels in a base sorcerer. The only advantage to base sorcerer is the sadness of d4 hit dice, which could make the dragon more compassionate or something, and the familiar (which scales off sorcerer level, not caster level).

While a good point in general, I can see some cases where it's a good idea.

1. Not all dragons can qualify for PrCs immediately, for example, Wurmlings may not.
2. Metamagic Specialist Sorcerer can be a great dip to apply metamagic without increasing casting time. Gets rid of the underpowered familiar too.

But yes, if you can go strait into Abjurant Champion or Incantatrix or something else, you probably should.

[torrasque666]

Wouldn't they need at least one level in sorcerer to get the most out of those classes, as they don't technically have any "levels" in a spell-casting class?

[AMFV]

Wouldn't they need at least one level in sorcerer to get the most out of those classes, as they don't technically have any "levels" in a spell-casting class?

Nope... They have an effective Sorcerer level. That's what advances.

[WhamBamSam]

Dragons should never take levels in Sorcerer... they qualify for a ton of PrCs right out of the box and those are all unequivocally better than taking levels in a base sorcerer. The only advantage to base sorcerer is the sadness of d4 hit dice, which could make the dragon more compassionate or something, and the familiar (which scales off sorcerer level, not caster level).Unfortunately, they cannot by RAW advance racial spellcasting with PrCs unless they belong to the class in question. I'm on my phone right now, but the relevant quotes can be found in the handbook in my sig (currently midway through being updated at long last!)

Also, if I may toot my own horn, I think the handbook is a pretty good resource for wyrmling class levels, and a lot of it extends to higher age dragons as well. It will be an even better one in a week or so when I've finished the planned additions and corrections.

One noteworthy thing at higher age's is that a few martial adept levels can be absolutely lethal as dragon HD count for 1/2 IL.Tornado Throw is an extinction event at dragon fly speeds, and some of the counter maneuvers like Baffling Defense and Wall of Blades can make just about anything miss, as an equal CR dragon's attack bonus and sense motive mod are tough to overcome with an attack roll.

Ur-Priest or Divine Crusader into a Divine Conversion PrC is pretty nasty in the middle age ranges when racial sorc caster level is getting up into the high single digits.

[AMFV]

Unfortunately, they cannot by RAW advance racial spellcasting with PrCs unless they belong to the class in question. I'm on my phone right now, but the relevant quotes can be found in the handbook in my sig (currently midway through being updated at long last!)


I think you are mistaken, sir.


Spells

A dragon knows and casts arcane spells as a sorcerer of the level indicated in its variety description, gaining bonus spells for a high Charisma score. Some dragons can also cast spells from the cleric list or cleric domain lists as arcane spells.

This would suggest that one could advance the class, since it casts as a, which means that it has effective sorcerer casting. Now you could make an argument against this, but if you're customizing dragons that are high enough ECL to go into caster PRCs, you're probably the DM, and can make that call.

Suffice it to say I disagree though, I would rule casting as, would allow advancement as, depending on the PRC in question. This has been a very lengthy argument for a very long time, and should not be presented as though there is an easy RAW answer, because there isn't. The question as to whether zero level things can stack is a complicated one. The problem is that there isn't clear wording on this, or an example of it anywhere, so we have no way of knowing which it would really be and therefore we must assume that it's a DM call.

Edit: I probably shouldn't have stated my viewpoint as though it was gospel either but there is clear room for either interpretation here.

[Cowardly Griffo]

Eh... just take one of the conversion classes if you want to be a divine casting dragon. It converts all the casting to Cleric Casting, then you can advance as necessary.True true, but why do one when you can do both? That's why I advocate the Geomancer (well, that and it creates a dragon with antlers). :smallcool:

I feel like there is also room to take a single level of Mystic Theurge and advance that as your spellcasting class when you level up Geomancer. But I get the feeling that advancing Mystic Theurge via a PrC is probably against an FAQ somewhere.

Edit: Yeah, PrCs that advance spellcasting but don't have any spells of their own don't count as spellcasting classes. Makes sense.

[Vaz]

Actually I was really thinking about sorcerer.

Sorcerer adds to spellcasting. An important thing to note is that any Dragon without Sorcerer levels cannot (by RAW) benefit from the +1 spellcasting provided PrC's, because they do not actually have a class to add to (even if by virtue of their natural abilities their qualify for the PrC). However, many Dragons, especially larger ones are NPC only, and so above such petty distinctions, as the DM either grants them the additional sorcerer level just because, or he vetoes it anyway. @AMFV, sorry, you're wrong in this instance. It requires a specific caster class to advance. You have no casting class levels.

So what does that provide you with?

Sorcerer 1; adds +1 to effective Sorcerer casting level.
Familiar, capping out with "Alertness, improved evasion, share spells, empathic link".

Bear in mind that unlike a normal Sorcerer, you also have X amount of HD to benefit from - remember you get the Masters 0.5*HP, BAB, Saves, on a D12 HD (with high con), all good saves and full BAB. A Juvenile Red Dragon Sorcerer 1 has 17HD - that's Familiar, even on its own, has a BAB of 16, +10/+10/+12 Saves, and 84HP. This is straight out of the box. The only problem with this Familiar is that it doesn't get feats for improved HP, but magic items can rectify that. A Juvenile Red Dragon has already existed longer than most adventurer's careers do, and has triple wealth from all the enemies he has killed (because with a PC class, it gains the Elite Array making it even more dangerous).

Said Juvenile Dragon has 2nd level arcane spells, which is enough for Alter Self. As the Dragon Ages, the familiar gets even more powerful - just look at the Great Wyrm Dragon/Sorcerer 1. Shapechange is available, but even without the Dragon Trading away its greatest asset, it can pick up Polymorph specifically for the purposes of having the Familiar go into town.

You can even trade away the familiar, and have the Dragon pick up Divine Companion (brilliant - with items increasing your spell slots (like memento mori etc), being able to increase your deflection bonus to AC and resistance to saves up to the number of stored spell levels is brilliant, depending on which dragon it is - a Great Wyrm Steel Dragon Sorcerer 1 can get a +22 bonus to those.

Alternatively, Dragonblood Sorcerer (my favourite use to use Draconic Heritage to qualify for Draconic Claw, which lets you make a swift action claw attack with a held charge spell. Something like a Standard Action teleport for Shadow-pounce-lite), or Metamagic Specialist which allows you to quicken spells, along with usually a naturally high intelligence. The other ACF's either don't trade your familiar effectively, or anything else.

The usual problems of being a familiar is that it's not survivable are mostly lost thanks to the Dragons own innate survivability. The only issue now comes from a lack of feats. There are several magic items which grant feats (http://home.comcast.net/~ftm3/JHtB/feats.html) while the Arms and Equipment Guide provides the ability to craft magic items which provide feats. When a Dragon becomes capable of casting Limited Wish, it should take advantage of this, as they can craft the magic item using the feat, then limited wish for Psychic Reformation, and choose a new feat. Admittedly, it does add quite a bit to the xp cost (assuming that the chosen feat you want to craft was gained at the most recent level up, it's a further 550XP. However, as an NPC dragon, it doesn't really matter, either way. Or just pick up a crafter wizard and trade your knowledge and protection for his services. Anyway.

As such, there is plenty of use for a Sorcerer dip in Dragon.

However, that said, if you're desperate for a familiar, for the trade of the Sorcerer's familiar (in return for a bonus like Dragonblood Sorcerer, Metamagic Specialist or Divine Companion which are just immensely cool with the use of proper memento magicka, a Young Adult Red Dragon Loredrake Sorcerer 1 has access to 8 Caster levels - so can store 8 spell levels within. At a cost of 1.5K each, 1st level Memento Magica are insanely cheap - for 12K, said Dragon has a 1/day free +8 to deflection AC (suck on that, touch attacks)/Saves for 8 rounds, or in other words, the duration of the encounter. I know I'm going on about it, but on a Dragon? It's fantastic). Then, pick up obtain familiar, and a higher HD one, such as a Monitor Lizard (requires huge size, DMG - 3HD, Worg (Imp Familiar, 4HD), Hellhound (Fire Immunity, Red Dragon, see where I'm going with this?) etc, all provide powerful creatures to piggy back off the fantastic Dragon HD.

I'm beginning to ramble, and since I started there are probbaly a ton of new posts which I need to answer.

[Pan151]

I think you are mistaken, sir.



This would suggest that one could advance the class, since it casts as a, which means that it has effective sorcerer casting. Now you could make an argument against this, but if you're customizing dragons that are high enough ECL to go into caster PRCs, you're probably the DM, and can make that call.

Suffice it to say I disagree though, I would rule casting as, would allow advancement as, depending on the PRC in question. This has been a very lengthy argument for a very long time, and should not be presented as though there is an easy RAW answer, because there isn't. The question as to whether zero level things can stack is a complicated one. The problem is that there isn't clear wording on this, or an example of it anywhere, so we have no way of knowing which it would really be and therefore we must assume that it's a DM call.

Edit: I probably shouldn't have stated my viewpoint as though it was gospel either but there is clear room for either interpretation here.

Yes, they qualify for most casting prcs but cannot advance their casting level without at least one level of sorcerer. Casting prcs say that you gain new spells as if you gained a level in your original class, and Dragon is not a class that has spellcasting by itself...

[Sith_Happens]

Trick question: They take item creation feats.

[WhamBamSam]

I think you are mistaken, sir.



This would suggest that one could advance the class, since it casts as a, which means that it has effective sorcerer casting. Now you could make an argument against this, but if you're customizing dragons that are high enough ECL to go into caster PRCs, you're probably the DM, and can make that call.

Suffice it to say I disagree though, I would rule casting as, would allow advancement as, depending on the PRC in question. This has been a very lengthy argument for a very long time, and should not be presented as though there is an easy RAW answer, because there isn't. The question as to whether zero level things can stack is a complicated one. The problem is that there isn't clear wording on this, or an example of it anywhere, so we have no way of knowing which it would really be and therefore we must assume that it's a DM call.

Edit: I probably shouldn't have stated my viewpoint as though it was gospel either but there is clear room for either interpretation here.Except another section of the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spells) goes into greater detail on what "casts as an nth level X" means. It says...
Sometimes a creature can cast arcane or divine spells just as a member of a spellcasting class can (and can activate magic items accordingly). Such creatures are subject to the same spellcasting rules that characters are, except as follows.

A spellcasting creature that lacks hands or arms can provide any somatic component a spell might require by moving its body. Such a creature also does need material components for its spells. The creature can cast the spell by either touching the required component (but not if the component is in another creature’s possession) or having the required component on its person. Sometimes spellcasting creatures utilize the Eschew Materials feat to avoid fussing with noncostly components.

A spellcasting creature is not actually a member of a class unless its entry says so, and it does not gain any class abilities. A creature with access to cleric spells must prepare them in the normal manner and receives domain spells if noted, but it does not receive domain granted powers unless it has at least one level in the cleric class.Emphasis mine. It therefore does not belong to the Sorcerer class until it takes a level in Sorcerer, and therefore can't progress its spellcasting through PrC advancement out of the box even if their spellcasting does allow them to qualify for the PrC in question. I found it pretty irksome too, but the RAW is entirely unambiguous on the point.


Sorcerer adds to spellcasting. An important thing to note is that any Dragon without Sorcerer levels cannot (by RAW) benefit from the +1 spellcasting provided PrC's, because they do not actually have a class to add to (even if by virtue of their natural abilities their qualify for the PrC). However, many Dragons, especially larger ones are NPC only, and so above such petty distinctions, as the DM either grants them the additional sorcerer level just because, or he vetoes it anyway. @AMFV, sorry, you're wrong in this instance. It requires a specific caster class to advance. You have no casting class levels.

So what does that provide you with?

Sorcerer 1; adds +1 to effective Sorcerer casting level.
Familiar, capping out with "Alertness, improved evasion, share spells, empathic link".

Bear in mind that unlike a normal Sorcerer, you also have X amount of HD to benefit from - remember you get the Masters 0.5*HP, BAB, Saves, on a D12 HD (with high con), all good saves and full BAB. A Juvenile Red Dragon Sorcerer 1 has 17HD - that's Familiar, even on its own, has a BAB of 16, +10/+10/+12 Saves, and 84HP. This is straight out of the box. The only problem with this Familiar is that it doesn't get feats for improved HP, but magic items can rectify that. A Juvenile Red Dragon has already existed longer than most adventurer's careers do, and has triple wealth from all the enemies he has killed (because with a PC class, it gains the Elite Array making it even more dangerous).

Said Juvenile Dragon has 2nd level arcane spells, which is enough for Alter Self. As the Dragon Ages, the familiar gets even more powerful - just look at the Great Wyrm Dragon/Sorcerer 1. Shapechange is available, but even without the Dragon Trading away its greatest asset, it can pick up Polymorph specifically for the purposes of having the Familiar go into town.

You can even trade away the familiar, and have the Dragon pick up Divine Companion (brilliant - with items increasing your spell slots (like memento mori etc), being able to increase your deflection bonus to AC and resistance to saves up to the number of stored spell levels is brilliant, depending on which dragon it is - a Great Wyrm Steel Dragon Sorcerer 1 can get a +22 bonus to those.

Alternatively, Dragonblood Sorcerer (my favourite use to use Draconic Heritage to qualify for Draconic Claw, which lets you make a swift action claw attack with a held charge spell. Something like a Standard Action teleport for Shadow-pounce-lite), or Metamagic Specialist which allows you to quicken spells, along with usually a naturally high intelligence. The other ACF's either don't trade your familiar effectively, or anything else.

The usual problems of being a familiar is that it's not survivable are mostly lost thanks to the Dragons own innate survivability. The only issue now comes from a lack of feats. There are several magic items which grant feats (http://home.comcast.net/~ftm3/JHtB/feats.html) while the Arms and Equipment Guide provides the ability to craft magic items which provide feats. When a Dragon becomes capable of casting Limited Wish, it should take advantage of this, as they can craft the magic item using the feat, then limited wish for Psychic Reformation, and choose a new feat. Admittedly, it does add quite a bit to the xp cost (assuming that the chosen feat you want to craft was gained at the most recent level up, it's a further 550XP. However, as an NPC dragon, it doesn't really matter, either way. Or just pick up a crafter wizard and trade your knowledge and protection for his services. Anyway.

As such, there is plenty of use for a Sorcerer dip in Dragon.

However, that said, if you're desperate for a familiar, for the trade of the Sorcerer's familiar (in return for a bonus like Dragonblood Sorcerer, Metamagic Specialist or Divine Companion which are just immensely cool with the use of proper memento magicka, a Young Adult Red Dragon Loredrake Sorcerer 1 has access to 8 Caster levels - so can store 8 spell levels within. At a cost of 1.5K each, 1st level Memento Magica are insanely cheap - for 12K, said Dragon has a 1/day free +8 to deflection AC (suck on that, touch attacks)/Saves for 8 rounds, or in other words, the duration of the encounter. I know I'm going on about it, but on a Dragon? It's fantastic). Then, pick up obtain familiar, and a higher HD one, such as a Monitor Lizard (requires huge size, DMG - 3HD, Worg (Imp Familiar, 4HD), Hellhound (Fire Immunity, Red Dragon, see where I'm going with this?) etc, all provide powerful creatures to piggy back off the fantastic Dragon HD.

I'm beginning to ramble, and since I started there are probbaly a ton of new posts which I need to answer.This is cool stuff. Good point on the familiar thing. Hell Hounds and Winter Wolves also have breath weapons (albeit short range ones) so if the dragon is casting breath spells (or persisting them, as the current versions in the SpC are persistable as well as actually functional), they can get in on the fun there as well. The wyrmlings of the 10 MMI varieties are also familiar options via the Dragon Familiar feat in Draconomicon, so it's not a bad way to make the dragon's young sturdier

Might even be worth it to work in some incarnum stuff and the Share Soulmeld feat. Epic level essentia capacity progression isn't good enough to really be abusable by elder dragons (even the very highest HD great wyrms only get up to 6 before class levels), but some of the epic incarnum feats could make for some cool incarnum stuff even if the dragon is just using incarnum feats or has at most a dip in Totemist or Incarnate.

[thethird]

My favorite incarnum trick is persisting incarnum apotheosis.

Also as an NPC dragon I keep being a big fan of the Hoarder Template.