PRC Dragon Campaign

[j_spencer93]

I have been thinking of doing this for awhile now but still hesitate every time and end up doing another campaign. Would you run a campaign where all of your players are dragons? It sounds like it could be a lot of fun but would the "power" quickly get out of hand? Are there even enough options to make a campaign like this enjoyable?

Any ideas, thoughts, experiences, ect, on a campaign like this would be nice.

[Lorddenorstrus]

In one of my Campaigns a dragon got forced into it's Elf form and was unable to transform back for "some reason." Perhaps if something similar was done so that they at least stayed humanoid and had restricted ability access.. perhaps it wouldn't go to nuts in power?

[j_spencer93]

I have thought about that but for the time being lets assume i am allowing them "full" dragon form. Simply because i want to blow up the planet. Jk. Kinda.
I am afraid the bad guys would also be regulated to bigger dragon < bigger dragon < biggest f****** dragon ever

From your statement though it sounds like you had the same fear as me, the power would go through the roof.

[Fouredged Sword]

I have been thinking of doing this for awhile now but still hesitate every time and end up doing another campaign. Would you run a campaign where all of your players are dragons? It sounds like it could be a lot of fun but would the "power" quickly get out of hand? Are there even enough options to make a campaign like this enjoyable?

Any ideas, thoughts, experiences, ect, on a campaign like this would be nice.

OK, dragons have a couple of problems. First, they are all pretty much the same. Unless you gestalt them with class levels on one side, they are boring. Now, if everyone is dragons, then you can basically ignore the power curve issue. Everyone gets flight, everyone gets full bab, everyone gets good physical stats everyone gets minor spellcasting. None of this is gamebreaking.

Here is my suggestion. Ignore the stated LA for the dragons. Add one dragon HD per class level and whenever they cross an age category, they get the listed bonuses to stats, size, and abilities. You are a wryrmling until your HD > than the listed wyrmling HD. You have physically powerful dragons like red and gold that advance in age slowly. You have physically weak dragons like white and brass that age quickly.

The characters should be able to face CR+2 battles fairly easily, and you can gestalt any boss creatures to make them a little more of a challenge.

One person could play a gold dragon 11 // rogue 11 and be a large very young gold dragon with 11 HD. They could also play a white dragon 11 / wizard 11 and be a medium young white dragon.

For levels 1-8 or so, the larger dragons are slightly better per HD. After that, it should level out pretty well.

[j_spencer93]

not a bad idea, but must ask. So basically the dragons would get the skills/features of their class but not HD/BAB/Saves, where they would keep their racial ones. Or would you give them saves too?

[Lorddenorstrus]

Well i guess every dragon had to start it's horde somehow. Thought i'd probably run something like that as a solo myself, toss an NPC or 2.. I'm not sure if I'd start with a bunch of dragons together and just see how it works.

Also, Fouredged Sword is basically saying Savage Progression the Dragons and have them Gestalt the Racial levels with class ones. It'd work custom savage progressions following the same rules for stuff like Nymphs etc that people have wanted to play have been made.

[j_spencer93]

Oh I see. Really hate the savage progressions to be honest. And Dracominicon doesn't really give good directions for Dragon PCs either, as far as I can tell.
I thought about maybe allowing one player to be a dragon, but each level simply be him gaining another racial HD (i see the glaring flaws), while the others play as draconic themed characters.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Oh I see. Really hate the savage progressions to be honest. And Dracominicon doesn't really give good directions for Dragon PCs either, as far as I can tell.
I thought about maybe allowing one player to be a dragon, but each level simply be him gaining another racial HD (i see the glaring flaws), while the others play as draconic themed characters.

Sadly the only way to effectively do it would be a S. Progression / Gestalt. And the progressions have no reason to be hated really.. you're already looking at giving players a "race" they aren't meant to be able to play. The progression rules simply make it playable and not "heres a ton of stats and frak uuh might as well ignore the LA thats supposed to go with that." No progression has HD at certain levels, skill points etc it does everything. Just with Gestalt you'd be able to ignore the bad HD unless you pick d4 classes or something and turn them into a quite strong, but viably played race. But with any Gestalt game you're going to be looking at some super powerful PCs if people build something functional.

[j_spencer93]

Never ran a gestalt game, either have my players.

[Glimbur]

The reason Gestalt is being pitched is because otherwise the dragons will be pretty same-y. Sure, their breath weapons are different but everybody's a flying bag of scales and teeth. Kind of boring if everyone is too similar. Another option that would also help differentiate the PC's is the Sovereign Archetypes from... some Eberron book. You usually see them come up in kobold shenanigans, but if everyone is a dragon then you can have one person trade their spellcasting for Tome of Battle things, another change over to Wizard casting, another do something else... and then the PC's are different without gestalt.

It might also work to have only one PC be a dragon, but it would be hard to balance. Some parties would be ok with one person being more powerful than the rest, I don't know your group. But if someone wants to be, say, a barbarian then they have trouble competing with a dragon. It might work to have rogues, clerics, wizards, rangers, and other cast-y or skill-y folks but that drives the adventure in a direction where the dragon is less helpful. It could work, but I'd think about group dynamics and talk to them before I tried it.

[j_spencer93]

So far I am getting a big NOPE on trying this. It seems it would either be 1) everyone to similar thus lack of fun, or 2) gestalt would work but I have 0 experience with it and my players literally won't use it.
A player has a suggestion. They pick levels as normal with their age categories increasing after getting enough HD. This creates a huge power bump each time their HD increases their age though. It might work if i made age similar to the blood line things and when their age increases they instead don't get a new level.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Another problem you will run into is that dragons are widely different in power, even for their LA. Tome and Hex dragons are powerful casters; pyroclastic dragon has one of the most terrifying breath weapons in the game; red and gold dragons deal exceptional damage with their breath weapons (and much more). If you look at the same ECL of a white and a gold, the gold is bigger, stronger, smarter, and has better casting.

IMHO the biggest loss is that niche where you have amazing senses. Giving up some class power to be a highly mobile detection force can be cool; when everyone does it is boring.

Allowing soverign archetypes can help smooth over the sameness between your dragon PCs, although for most of them they need to already have sorcerer casting to make use of them.

[j_spencer93]

might look into the sovereign thing. Depends on how the players like my idea of their growth.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Frankly the growth thing sounds like retooled Savage Progression lol. Size categories is part of that as well, as Trolls and many of the other book made ones actually start at a smaller size than normal, then level their own race and grow to Large. So if one did it that way they'd start as Wyrmlings probably and continue as they leveled their own race. If you're going to do it that way at least read on how Wizards did it so you get a general idea of how to do it .

[j_spencer93]

Oh i plan on reading alot before i actually do this i was just making a suggestion. The only real difference would be gaining class features instead of slowly getting your natural abilities as far as i can tell.

[Pluto!]

I don't see why Gestalt is being taken as a "Nope." It's just a way to easily give dragon players distinguishing abilities.

An alternate pitch for doing something very similar:

Break Dragon into something like a souped-up Generic Class.

All dragons progress as characters with full BA, 1d12 HD, 6+Int Skills (all skills on class list), 2 good saves and 1 bad save of the player's choice.

Every player chooses a color.
They start as a medium-sized dragon of that color, with 60ft poor flight, a 1d6 Bite, +2 Str and Con, +3 NA and some minor benefit based on dragon color (Swim Speed, elemental resistance, heightened land speed, whatever).
They get their color's appropriate breath weapon, dealing 1d6/level of the appropriate energy damage, Ref Half, usable every 1d4+1 rounds.

Every player chooses a power source (Arcane/Divine/Psionic).
Arcane dragons learn and cast spells from the Sorcerer spell list, based on Charisma, according to the Bard Spells Known/Spells per day tables.
Divine dragons get one domain (including its granted ability) and gain spells from their domain + the Cleric Spell list, based on Wisdom, according to the Bard Spells Known/Spells per day tables.
Psionic dragons learn and manifest powers from the psion spell list, based on Intelligence, according to the Psychic Warrior's Powers Known/PP per day.

Level 5 and every five levels thereafter, Dragons increase by one size category, gaining +2 Str +2 Con +2 NA (as opposed to the normal crazy values).
Flight speed increases by 30ft at level 6, 12 and 18.
Dragons gain claw attacks at level 3, Wing attacks at level 7 and a tail slap at level 11.

Further "dead levels" can be filled as desired with minor bonuses, but at that point, I think you already can play the Dragon Campaign concept in an interesting way with the d20 rules.

[j_spencer93]

Just found a few "dragon" classes in the dragon magazine. Also as for gestalt, because my players will not use them. Plain as that.

[WhamBamSam]

The handbook in my sig could probably do with a bit of an update, but it might be helpful.

I think there are enough things that you can do on a dragon with class levels that you should be fine. Just start a few ECL higher than you normally would so your players can differentiate a bit from one another. Also, the ways that the PCs will be similar might be less of a problem than you think, because it'll make things like strafing tactics more uniform.

[HolyDraconus]

I ran a campaign like this once. Depending on which true dragon they got decided if they was young or very young. With the class levels the game hit epic by adult for most of them, though you shouldnt age them too fast. From what i learned, you can be a bit more mean since they can typically shrug off alot of things. Feats matter. Alot. Especially if they pick from the draconium. Dragon prc can lead to silly things if not monitored. Magic items were actually rare, unless you follow the variant rules. Was fun. Game ended when the shadow dragon wanted to plane shift and dethrone takhisis