baby dragons

[Ettina]

I'm planning on making a PC who's a baby dragon.

At what age would a true dragon be equivalent power to a typical first-level player? Would they be newly-hatched, or a few years old, or what?

Also, what are some of the neat options for dragon races?

I'm thinking of having him have an adoptive parent who's either a kobold or a dragonborn (depending on what kind of servant is more typical for his kind of dragon), who used to serve his mom. Adventurers killed her, but the kobold/dragonborn managed to smuggle out a surviving egg, which then hatched. Now the two are travelling together, the baby just seeing it all as one big adventure while his guardian is doing his best to keep him safe.

[VoxRationis]

At no age is a true dragon equivalent to 1st level. A dragon gets flight and elemental area-of-effect attacks from the get-go, as well as good saves, high BAB, sensory bonuses, and impressive stat bonuses. Draconomicon has rules for dragon PCs, and they usually come on-line at about level 7 at a minimum.

[Nihilarian]

The Dragon Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303204-The-Truest-of-the-True-A-Handbook-to-non-Kobold-Dragons-(WIP)) includes a list of dragons with low HD/LA. Don't think there are any that could be played at 1st level though.

[Werephilosopher]

There are monster progressions for dragons in one of the Dragon Magazines, but I recall them being very underpowered.

[Divide by Zero]

I think the lowest level true dragons start out at ECL 5 for a wyrmling, and only a handful of them are really any good even then (Mercury and Steel [starts at ECL 6] being the standouts IMO, with ludicrous speed and decent spellcasting respectively).

[Greenish]

I'm thinking of having him have an adoptive parent who's either a kobold or a dragonborn (depending on what kind of servant is more typical for his kind of dragon), who used to serve his mom. Adventurers killed her, but the kobold/dragonborn managed to smuggle out a surviving egg, which then hatched. Now the two are travelling together, the baby just seeing it all as one big adventure while his guardian is doing his best to keep him safe.Of the pair, I reckon the kobold would be easier to use as a PC, with the dragon not yet hatched, or too young to do almost anything, at least until you grab Dragon Cohort feat.

You could conceivably homebrew some sort of younger-than-young dragon, but as mentioned, with the flight and natural attacks and senses and breath weapon and whatnot it'd require a lot of tuning (and probably wouldn't end up all that different from a dragonwrought kobold or a dragonborn).

[WhamBamSam]

The Dragon Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303204-The-Truest-of-the-True-A-Handbook-to-non-Kobold-Dragons-(WIP)) includes a list of dragons with low HD/LA. Don't think there are any that could be played at 1st level though.I love it when I come into a dragon thread and see my handbook already linked. But yeah, per the rules in Draconomicon, the default wyrmling HD/LA for a given dragon variety are for a wyrmling less than 2 years old. Moreover, you want to avoid turning 2 if you can, since you really don't want to lose more class levels to RHD and LA, especially since you need to get all the way to the next age category before getting any actual features.

A dragon is around ECL 5 (or higher) within minutes of being born unless you use a savage progression or something.


There are monster progressions for dragons in one of the Dragon Magazines, but I recall them being very underpowered.The biggest problem with those progressions is that they only made them for the 10 Monster Manual dragons which don't make for very good PCs. If you made a similar progression for, say, a Mercury Dragon and jumped out to start taking class levels once you get the important features of the Wyrmling it'd work well enough.

[ShurikVch]

The closest to ECL 1 true dragon wyrmling I know is Deshada (Kingdoms of Kalamar) - 1 HD and LA +1
Deshada dragon is rather weird. It get mental penalties until Young Adult age category; fast healing 1 stops working if it lose more than 50% of health; it's maximal CL is only 3; and will never become Wyrm - biggest age category is Mature Adult

[Ettina]

Well, I can deal with being ECL 5, I guess. My group of friends don't really worry much about characters being overpowered. So, that would be a dragon under 2 years old?

What would that dragon's behaviour be like? I'm guessing since his Int would be decently high, he wouldn't act as immature as a human 2 year old. Plus, a lot of reptiles are pretty precocial at birth (ie mobile, good instincts, fairly independent). Even crocodiles, who get looked after by their mother, can hunt independently from birth. So would it be reasonable for him to learn to talk extremely quickly, and maybe act like a 5 year old when he's only a few months?

In terms of what kind of dragon he'll be, I'm mostly interested in what would make a neat story, not whether it would be balanced or not.

[Phelix-Mu]

Definitely try to read parts of Draconomicon. Dragons inherit parts of their knowledge base very early on, as part of the magic in their blood, and thus have access to racial knowledge banks that make even the young ones quite formidable. Usually, what makes young dragons weak is lack of practical experience combined with thinking they can handle anything (since dragons tend to be a bit on the egocentric side). Still, decently good Wisdom can temper that, as well, as can a mind for virtue or teamwork, or one that is decently paranoid.

[aleucard]

Talk with your DM about picking a Dragon you like, then see if he'll let you modify it so that it doesn't get bigger with age and everything that scales off of its HD scales off of Class levels too. That should keep your RHD to a minimum with minimal hair-pulling, and can potentially give you Spyro-esque flavor if that's your thing. A lot of the reason that Dragons are so strong for their CL is their downright insane WBL, and you don't really get too many of the Racials that make up the rest of the difference at those levels. Make sure that the rest of the party is of similar level, though; nobody likes being in the same party with someone several levels ahead for too long.

[Ettina]

Talk with your DM about picking a Dragon you like, then see if he'll let you modify it so that it doesn't get bigger with age and everything that scales off of its HD scales off of Class levels too. That should keep your RHD to a minimum with minimal hair-pulling, and can potentially give you Spyro-esque flavor if that's your thing. A lot of the reason that Dragons are so strong for their CL is their downright insane WBL, and you don't really get too many of the Racials that make up the rest of the difference at those levels. Make sure that the rest of the party is of similar level, though; nobody likes being in the same party with someone several levels ahead for too long.

But I want him to get bigger with age. My whole idea is some cute little guy who you know will be truly formidable once he's grown up. (Not that he'll grow up that quickly in-story, anyway.)

[ShurikVch]

Do you know about the Savage Progression (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060728a) for Ambush Drake (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040815b&page=3)? It's considered one of the best SP ever due to lack of any annoying LA and... You know... Dragon...

Also, you can try to take Griffon SP (10 levels, 7 HD, becomes Large-sized at 10th level) and slap Half-Dragon template on it

[Heliomance]

Alternatively, you could all play dragons. One of the most hilariously fun campaigns I ever played in, we all played dragons, and more-or-less gestalted our dragon HD and class levels. It wasn't quite gestalt - HD size, saves, BAB, and the like were all based off of the class levels, not the best of both, but we also got the dragon stat adjustments, flight, breath weapon, spellcasting, and so on.

[VoxRationis]

If everyone is playing dragons, I'd argue that no classes are necessary. As it stands now, defining a dragon as a DM is as much effort as making a character for a player; why do you feel the need to stack a player class on top of that?

[aleucard]

But I want him to get bigger with age. My whole idea is some cute little guy who you know will be truly formidable once he's grown up. (Not that he'll grow up that quickly in-story, anyway.)

In that case, for class I'd recommend something that either synergizes with the RHD directly so you get as much use out of those bloody things as possible,or something that is useful in its own right no matter what level you get it at. Maybe you can talk your DM into allowing RHD to count as Sorcerer levels similar to how Unbodied (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Unbodied_(Race)) RHD stack with Telepath Psion levels? As long as you don't do something truly absurd with them, you should be alright for that. LA is a bitch, but there are ways to deal with that, and admittedly Dragons are one of the few races where such things to this degree are appropriate.

[Heliomance]

If everyone is playing dragons, I'd argue that no classes are necessary. As it stands now, defining a dragon as a DM is as much effort as making a character for a player; why do you feel the need to stack a player class on top of that?

Because if everyone plays just dragons, you all play basically the same. We had a white dragon barbarian, a copper dragon bard (me), a crystal dragon sorcerer, a blue dragon wizard, an amethyst dragon psion, and a brass dragon druid, I think, and we all played as differently as you would normally expect those classes to play.

[SiuiS]

Frank & K's tome stuff sounds like it could work? Distill "dragon" down to a racial thing and then use classes for the bulk of the numbers?

I think I've said that before though.