Dragonflame Sorceror (PEACH) (Homebrew world PRC)

[PeacefulOak]

I wrote this prestige class for a new player to D&D who is playing a Sorcerer in a homebrew campaign setting I am running, alongside a Druid and a Teramach (Xefas' creation).

She is enthusiastic about the draconic nature of the sorcerer, and wanted to expand on that, and I found a definite lack of good dragon-themed prestige classes for the sorcerer. Any feedback on the class would be greatly appreciated, and any thoughts on other Gifts of Dragonflame that I could add to the list would also be appreciated.

Dragonflame Sorceror

Requirements:
Knowledge (Arcana) - 8 ranks
Draconic Heritage Feat
Must have spent 1 hour in a Draconic form
Must undertake the Dragonflame Ritual


HD: d4
BAB: Bad (1/2)
Saves: Fortitutde - Bad, Reflex and Will - Good
Spell Progression - Full
Class Skills (as Sorcerer)
Skill points per level - 2 + Int.

Class Features:
1: Draconic Magic, Gift of Dragonflame
2: Dragon Familiar
3: Bonus Metamagic
4: Gift of Dragonflame
5: Enduring Dragonform
6: Gift of Dragonflame
7: Blessing of Dragonflame
8: Improved Draconic Familiar
9: Gift of Dragonflame
10: Draconic Rapture


Dragonflame Ritual
To undergo the dragonflame ritual, you must have received the blessing of an existing Dragonflame Sorcerer, or the blessing of a true dragon. The ritual requires 2000gp worth of incense and ceremonial materials. The ritual takes 24 hours uninterrupted, and requires the sorcerer to channel all their available magical energy into a gem or chunk of metal that matches their patron dragon (as defined by their Draconic Heritage) that must be worth at least 500gp (in addition to the materials of the ritual).

The ritual changes your eyes to appear draconic. You gain Darkvision 60', or your existing darkvision is extended by 60'.

Draconic Magic
Choose 2 schools of magic. The save DC for spells of that school increase by 1, plus 1/5 levels of Dragonflame Sorcerer (+2 at 5, +3 at 10).

Dragon Familiar
You gain the feat Dragon Familiar. Regardless of level, your familiar matches your heritage (ie. Blue Dragon Heritage would have a Blue Dragon Wyrmling familiar). In addition to aging normally, your familiar ages 1 year per 2 levels of Dragonflame Sorcerer. Your familiar is not restricted by the age category of the dragon. Instead, your familiar cannot have more Hit Dice than your Character Level. If at any point your dragon's intrinsic Hit Dice would increase beyond your Character Level, your dragon stops aging until it can do so without breaking the familiar relationship.

Bonus Metamagic
Gain one Metamagic Feat for which you meet the prerequisites.

Enduring Dragonform
Any spell or effect that causes you to take a draconic form is Extended as per the metamagic. You do not require the Extend Metamagic Feat for this to take effect.

Blessing of DragonflameAny spell or ability that deals energy damage of a type that matches your draconic heritage is Empowered as per the metamagic. You do not require the Empower Metamagic Feat for this to take effect.

Improved Draconic Familiar
Your familiar is no longer limited in its growth. As long as the dragon is willing to maintain the relationship, it continues to serve as your familiar. **NOTE** Artificially aging your Draconic Familiar angers the gods of the Dragons, and both Tiamat and Bahamut will descend upon you simultaneously to destroy you utterly. You have been warned.

Draconic Rapture
Any spell or effect that causes you to take a draconic form has its duration change to "permanent, dismiss at will". While in a draconic form, any damaging spell or effect you generate does additional damage as though affected by the Energy Admixture metamagic. The damage type is determined by your Draconic Heritage (ie. Blue Draconic Heritage = Electrical energy). You do not require the Energy Admixture Metamagic Feat for this to take effect.

Gifts of Dragonflame
At each indicated level (First, Fourth, Sixth, and Ninth) choose one Gift of Dragonflame.

Burning Swiftness: Spontaneously Quicken a spell, take 3 x spell level damage. Does not require the Quicken Metamagic Feat.

Draconic Majesty: Gain a bonus equal to your Dragonfire Sorcerer level + 2 to all social skills (Bluff, Intimidate, Sense Motive, Diplomacy), but only when interacting in an authoritative or superior manner, or from a position of strength/power.

Draconic Metamagic: Instead of spending a higher spell slot in order to apply metamagic to a spell, you may instead spend the normal spell slot plus an additional slot equal to the level cost of the metamagic feat you wish to apply. You MUST have the metamagic feat in order to apply it. (ie. Fireball is a 3rd level spell. Empower requires a two level increase. Thus, you would spend a second and third level spell slot in order to cast an Empowered Fireball).

Draconic Presence: Whenever you cast a spell, you generate an aura of Fear with a radius of 30' x 1/3 spell level (ie. 1st level spell, 30' radius. 4th level spell, 60' radius. 7th level spell, 90' radius). Creatures other than allies within that range must make a will save equal to the save DC of the spell cast + 1/2 your Dragonfire Sorcerer level or increase their fear by 1 level.

Dragonflame Spirit: Your effective level for the purpose of any spell or feat that refers to dragons or allows you to take draconic form is increased by your Dragonfire Sorcerer level (ie. your levels in this class apply twice - Sorcerer 5, Dragonfire Sorcerer 4 would have a caster level of 13 for dragon-related spells).

[Pyromancer999]

Just glancing over this, and so far, here are my nitpicks:


You say the class is for a player who wants to expand on draconic magic. What exactly are they looking for? Also, how are the many prestige classes in Races of the Dragon and the book literally named Dragon Magic insufficient for your purposes?
Also, you say this class is to expand on Draconic Magic, but it offers absolutely no spell progression, just some metamagic feats. Okay, just noticed the full progression. That is way too much for this prestige class.
Draconic Presence is already a [Draconic] feat, and is almost the same as what you have listed
How does having a Dragon Familiar tie into expanding on Dragon Magic?
Regarding the requirements, how is someone going to qualify for this prestige class? Although it's definitely possible I could be blanking, there aren't any ways I can think of at the low-to-mid-level gameplay that would give someone the form of a dragon for a whole hour. So when are you expecting the player to enter this prestige class?
Draconic Familiar is somewhat odd. So to my understanding, any dragon of your HD or less can become your familiar? So now you have a companion that has spellcasting(most likely), and is better than any other familiar out there. Also, Improved Draconic Familiar states that artiificially aging your familiar angers the draconic gods, but that's exactly what Draconic Familiar does.
Dragonflame Spirit should be changed to specify caster level, as level by itself is non-specific.
Being able to eventually be in dragon form permanently is certainly flavorful, but this means that the classic Essence of Dragons + Alter Self now gives you permanent draconic goodies, although to be fair the benefits of this are not necessarily the best. On a higher level, if someone discovers a way to become a Great Wyrm dragon or similar, they could be so permanently. Not really nitpicking this one, just noting some hangups it could cause.

[Ryunosuke]

First and foremost, I am assuming that this class is meant to advance the Sorcerer's spellcasting based on the wording of that last ability, however you never actually state this in the class itself, nor at what rate. Given these abilities I think maybe 1 or at most 2 levels of caster should be lost over the course of this PrC at least. Now for the abilities themselves:

Draconic Might: this is...good. Very good in fact as it outclasses the free DC boost Red Wizardsget and that only applied to their single specialized schools. Wizards are however inherently 'stronger' than Sorcerers, and This PrC will/should be losing caster levels where the Red Wizards do not.

Dragon Familiar: So at character level 7 (based on the prerequisites) you are given a free Wyrmling familiar of your heritage dragon as a familiar. Do they get all of the standard Familiar benefits based on your Sorcerer level? Does this PrC stack with Sorc levels for this? And the free aging 1 year per 2 class levels is...odd, especially given the 'you can't artificially age your dragon' thing when that's exactly what this does by itself. Also they'd reach the second age category by the 10th level of this PrC and that's it unless you have the campaign going over decades of time (hope this player isn't a human)

Metamatic Feat: a slight bit random, especially when they're getting a bunch of free metamagic boosts to their primary element spells already...

Enduring Dragonform: This is very nice, in most cases not a big deal since Draconic and normal Polymorph are measured in minutes per caster level but a decent help for longer time dungeon delves or when they need to fly long range in dragon form.

Blessing of DragonFlame: that's a bunch of free damage and part of why this needs a loss of caster level somewhere in the progression (especially for the more obscure elements like lightning or acid which have far fewer resistant enemies than say fire)

Improved Draconic Familiar: Nearly pointless as an ability at all unless as I said the campaign covers several decades or more of time o this familiar starts gaining their own class levels or something somehow...

Draconic Rapture: Because Draconic Polymorph is the best use for this (unless I missed something) this is like....ever sorcerer's dream come true. If it wasn't for the 'doesn't gain the creature's special qualities' restriction on the spell itself this would be hella broken but is instead only mildly broken. Being able to spend only 1 (maybe 2) spell casts in a whole day to be a badass dragon (that loses no caster power at all) is great, especially when Sorcerers normally have a limit to their options compared to Wizards so this frees up a lot of spells per day for them overall. The only drawback to the polymorphing theme overall is that it doesn't fix the d4 hit die problem, but proper magic use can potentially supplement that...to an extent....

Gifts:
Burning Swiftness: for a d4 caster...that's a lot of burn, even if it *is* an alternate quicken spell method, especially when the other metamagic gift here is a much less brutal cost to do the same thing should they simply learn the feat itself...possibly with that free metamagic slot you tossed them.

Draconic Majesty: Very fitting for a dragon theme character and helps with diplomancer builds. I like it.

Draconic Metamagic: Far superior to the first gift and overall an amazing powe for Sorcerers to have considering their overwhelming amount of spell slots to burn. Expect them to use this to spam Maximize alongside that free empowered effect on their elemental damage spells.

Draconic Presence: Frightful Presence on every spell they cast? At a DC 1-5 points higher than the regular DC of that spell being cast anyways for free? Without the standard 24 hour immunity to your Frightful Presence if the will save succeeds? That's...a bit excessive really...they could spam low level spells easily and have every non BBEG enemy left in a shaken status until dead...I think the fear DC of this should be the same as the save DC for the cast spll would be if it had one, the Draconic Magic ability would then boost this right off the bat by 1-3 more anyways. It should also be activated by choice, or at least only apply when casting like...damaging spells. casting shield on yourself shouldn't strike fear into everyone's hearts. Id say just make it work as Frightful Presence does, if they fail, shaken, if not, they're 'safe' for 24 hours.

Dragonflame Spirit: If this class suffers no caster level loss, this is the ability that breaks its balance easily. Draconic may be more restricted than normal Polymorph but the spell as a whole is still pretty damn strong and raising their caster level (and potentially the CR of what they become) well over their own character level, then that's easily game breaking, even if the other rpc is a druid (the best base class of standard 3.5 not counting psionics shenanigans). At worst, assuming you lose no caster level from this class, they could be only character level 12 or 13 and be able to draconic polymorph into the strongest forms permitted by the spell's 20 HD cap (5 sorc, 7-8 this PrC) and that's definitely not ok in any campaign.


Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE the idea behind this as a massive dragon fanatic and fan of the dragon shaman and adepts and all that (even if both are horridly weak) so this is a really cool idea but it is, to be blunt, a tad overpowered as written.

[Draconium]

HD: d4
BAB: Bad (1/2)
Saves: Fortitutde - Bad, Reflex and Will - Good
Spell Progression - Full
Class Skills (as Sorcerer)
Skill points per level - 2 + Int.

Emphasis mine. The spell progression's in an odd place, but it is there.

[PeacefulOak]

Just glancing over this, and so far, here are my nitpicks:


You say the class is for a player who wants to expand on draconic magic. What exactly are they looking for? Also, how are the many prestige classes in Races of the Dragon and the book literally named Dragon Magic insufficient for your purposes?
Also, you say this class is to expand on Draconic Magic, but it offers absolutely no spell progression, just some metamagic feats. Okay, just noticed the full progression. That is way too much for this prestige class.
Draconic Presence is already a [Draconic] feat, and is almost the same as what you have listed
How does having a Dragon Familiar tie into expanding on Dragon Magic?
Regarding the requirements, how is someone going to qualify for this prestige class? Although it's definitely possible I could be blanking, there aren't any ways I can think of at the low-to-mid-level gameplay that would give someone the form of a dragon for a whole hour. So when are you expecting the player to enter this prestige class?
Draconic Familiar is somewhat odd. So to my understanding, any dragon of your HD or less can become your familiar? So now you have a companion that has spellcasting(most likely), and is better than any other familiar out there. Also, Improved Draconic Familiar states that artiificially aging your familiar angers the draconic gods, but that's exactly what Draconic Familiar does.
Dragonflame Spirit should be changed to specify caster level, as level by itself is non-specific.
Being able to eventually be in dragon form permanently is certainly flavorful, but this means that the classic Essence of Dragons + Alter Self now gives you permanent draconic goodies, although to be fair the benefits of this are not necessarily the best. On a higher level, if someone discovers a way to become a Great Wyrm dragon or similar, they could be so permanently. Not really nitpicking this one, just noting some hangups it could cause.



Honestly? I've yet to find a dragon-themed prestige class that A) advances spellcasting at a decent rate, B) adds flavor content to the class, and C) doesn't suck. I own Dragon Magic, and was spectacularly unimpressed with what it had to offer.
Having a dragon that is an extension of your spellcasting nature seems quite in tune with a Dragon-themed sorceror. In terms of qualifying... being affected by a targeted polymorph spell, other external factors, OR... Draconic Heritage gives you the Dragonblood subtype. I'm allowing that to work with Alter Self to take on a dragon form so long as it meets the HD requirements (some wyrmlings actually do). Dragons don't get Spellcasting until Adult or Mature Adult stages, generally. At that point, they have upwards of 16 to 18 Hit Dice. I don't see an issue there.
Agreed on Dragonflame Spirit, will make that change.


First and foremost, I am assuming that this class is meant to advance the Sorcerer's spellcasting based on the wording of that last ability, however you never actually state this in the class itself, nor at what rate. Given these abilities I think maybe 1 or at most 2 levels of caster should be lost over the course of this PrC at least. Now for the abilities themselves:

Draconic Might: this is...good. Very good in fact as it outclasses the free DC boost Red Wizards get and that only applied to their single specialized schools. Wizards are however inherently 'stronger' than Sorcerers, and This PrC will/should be losing caster levels where the Red Wizards do not.

Dragon Familiar: So at character level 7 (based on the prerequisites) you are given a free Wyrmling familiar of your heritage dragon as a familiar. Do they get all of the standard Familiar benefits based on your Sorcerer level? Does this PrC stack with Sorc levels for this? And the free aging 1 year per 2 class levels is...odd, especially given the 'you can't artificially age your dragon' thing when that's exactly what this does by itself. Also they'd reach the second age category by the 10th level of this PrC and that's it unless you have the campaign going over decades of time (hope this player isn't a human)

Metamatic Feat: a slight bit random, especially when they're getting a bunch of free metamagic boosts to their primary element spells already...

Enduring Dragonform: This is very nice, in most cases not a big deal since Draconic and normal Polymorph are measured in minutes per caster level but a decent help for longer time dungeon delves or when they need to fly long range in dragon form.

Blessing of DragonFlame: that's a bunch of free damage and part of why this needs a loss of caster level somewhere in the progression (especially for the more obscure elements like lightning or acid which have far fewer resistant enemies than say fire)

Improved Draconic Familiar: Nearly pointless as an ability at all unless as I said the campaign covers several decades or more of time o this familiar starts gaining their own class levels or something somehow...

Draconic Rapture: Because Draconic Polymorph is the best use for this (unless I missed something) this is like....ever sorcerer's dream come true. If it wasn't for the 'doesn't gain the creature's special qualities' restriction on the spell itself this would be hella broken but is instead only mildly broken. Being able to spend only 1 (maybe 2) spell casts in a whole day to be a badass dragon (that loses no caster power at all) is great, especially when Sorcerers normally have a limit to their options compared to Wizards so this frees up a lot of spells per day for them overall. The only drawback to the polymorphing theme overall is that it doesn't fix the d4 hit die problem, but proper magic use can potentially supplement that...to an extent....

Gifts:
Burning Swiftness: for a d4 caster...that's a lot of burn, even if it *is* an alternate quicken spell method, especially when the other metamagic gift here is a much less brutal cost to do the same thing should they simply learn the feat itself...possibly with that free metamagic slot you tossed them.

Draconic Majesty: Very fitting for a dragon theme character and helps with diplomancer builds. I like it.

Draconic Metamagic: Far superior to the first gift and overall an amazing powe for Sorcerers to have considering their overwhelming amount of spell slots to burn. Expect them to use this to spam Maximize alongside that free empowered effect on their elemental damage spells.

Draconic Presence: Frightful Presence on every spell they cast? At a DC 1-5 points higher than the regular DC of that spell being cast anyways for free? Without the standard 24 hour immunity to your Frightful Presence if the will save succeeds? That's...a bit excessive really...they could spam low level spells easily and have every non BBEG enemy left in a shaken status until dead...I think the fear DC of this should be the same as the save DC for the cast spll would be if it had one, the Draconic Magic ability would then boost this right off the bat by 1-3 more anyways. It should also be activated by choice, or at least only apply when casting like...damaging spells. casting shield on yourself shouldn't strike fear into everyone's hearts. Id say just make it work as Frightful Presence does, if they fail, shaken, if not, they're 'safe' for 24 hours.

Dragonflame Spirit: If this class suffers no caster level loss, this is the ability that breaks its balance easily. Draconic may be more restricted than normal Polymorph but the spell as a whole is still pretty damn strong and raising their caster level (and potentially the CR of what they become) well over their own character level, then that's easily game breaking, even if the other rpc is a druid (the best base class of standard 3.5 not counting psionics shenanigans). At worst, assuming you lose no caster level from this class, they could be only character level 12 or 13 and be able to draconic polymorph into the strongest forms permitted by the spell's 20 HD cap (5 sorc, 7-8 this PrC) and that's definitely not ok in any campaign.


Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE the idea behind this as a massive dragon fanatic and fan of the dragon shaman and adepts and all that (even if both are horridly weak) so this is a really cool idea but it is, to be blunt, a tad overpowered as written.

Given that the party is a Druid and a Teramach, I felt it appropriate to give the Sorcerer some form of power boost. This is not a particularly high-optimized game, thus I'm very comfortable with the characters having high-powered abilities/classes. That being said, I'm starting to agree with you that maybe one lost caster level wouldn't be a bad thing. Where do you think that would be appropriate to insert into the progression? I may also drop the bonus metamagic, I was going for "No dead levels", but gaining caster progression definitely isn't a dead level.

Dragon Magic, I think with a lost caster level it may balance out? Maybe?
Dragon Familiar, the feat itself says that if the dragon is no longer a wyrmling, it's no longer your familiar. I think that's silly, so I added the different progression. I actually may want to advance the clock a bit further to make the dragon relevant at later levels (1 year per DFS level). The "can't artificially age your dragon" was more for the min-maxers (who I'm not playing with, but eternally guard against thanks to past games) who would use time magic tricks to age the heck out of the dragon. Which would lead to a RFED situation on my part, so net loss for all.

Burning Swiftness is intentional in its cost, as it allows a sorcerer to bypass some action economy issues. Is it too costly? Should it be spell level x 2? I may write in to Draconic Metamagic that you can't use it with any other metamagic provided by gifts or class abilities... would that fix it a bit?

I need to refine the wording on Draconic Presence.

Dragonflame Spirit... yep, probably overpowered. Thing is, I wanted more than 4 gifts so that the choice would be an actual choice of what to take, not just at which level to take which ability. Any thoughts on other Dragon-themed gifts that could be included?



Emphasis mine. The spell progression's in an odd place, but it is there.

Yay someone saw it! Thank you. =)

[Ryunosuke]

well for the familiar first, you could make it 1 year per level in this PrC and they would still only ever become the Very Young stage (the category after Wyrmling) regardless unless you account for in game time altering this. I think what you are prefering in this case is something more akin to the Dragon Cohort Feat since you seem to want a more combat usable familiar? Especially given any Wyrmling True Dragon is better than any standard familiar of even higher level spellcasters in most cases for simply being tougher than the rest and having the standard abilities as a familiar.

I'm not familiar with what a 'Taramach' is, and in an unoptimized game even the Druid can be balanced with ease (they are still the top tier class in being tough, having damage spells and healing and shifting and companion support with d8 and armor) and if you wanted to boost the Sorcerer up then that's not hard, but this went a tad too far. If you are set on keeping this one a bit stronger than normal for the sake of your campaign, then i might try and make my own take on this since a polymorph spammer to become a dragon as a sorcerer is a very interesting concept for a character to me.

For Swiftness, I forgot the Quikened Spell isnt normally possible to Sorcerers at all, but still, spell level x3 is a harsh burn for those that get so few hit points anyways, and the fact they are likely going to attempt some melee situations with their dragon forms, they won't have much to spare honestly...I don't think this should cost hp at all personally. Instead make it so their draconic power enables them to cast some spells faster, permitting the use of any metamagic feat without prolonging the spellcasting time to do so. This fits in your metamagic theme in here and improves them overall by removing that harsh limit, and it synergizes better with the other gift that lets them mix slots for metamagic costs.

I also feel there should be more gifts to choose than can be taken, to enable there to be more unique combinations of this class in its members' abilities. I do believe gaining some temporary hit points during any transformation to be a dragon (to avoid regular polymorph abuse) based on caster level maybe to help them die less. Like maybe caster level x1 or 2 in temporary hitpoints for the duration of the change? As long as it remains restricted to dragon foms, a gift to break the limits of polymorph/draconic polymorph o give over special qualities to the user could be a gift as well.

[Pyromancer999]

Honestly? I've yet to find a dragon-themed prestige class that A) advances spellcasting at a decent rate, B) adds flavor content to the class, and C) doesn't suck. I own Dragon Magic, and was spectacularly unimpressed with what it had to offer.

There are many with flavor, and you could just houserule full casting progression for an existing prestige class if there's one you like. Also, for someone talking about flavor, you have included very little in your prestige class.


Having a dragon that is an extension of your spellcasting nature seems quite in tune with a Dragon-themed sorceror.

It is still very powerful for a full-casting prestige class, and also do not see how that works as an extension


ThereIn terms of qualifying... being affected by a targeted polymorph spell, other external factors, OR... Draconic Heritage gives you the Dragonblood subtype. I'm allowing that to work with Alter Self to take on a dragon form so long as it meets the HD requirements (some wyrmlings actually do).


That's still not enough for an hour. A 20th level sorcerer casting an Extended Alter Self or Polymorph would last in Dragon form for 40 minutes.(1 minute/level * caster level 20 * 2 for Extended = 40 minutes). So even a 20th level sorcerer would not be able to be a member of this prestige class without serious help. Even with Persistent Spell(Spell lasts 24 hours, +6 level adjustment), you would have to wait until Sorcerer 16 to enter this prestige class without serious metamagic reduction shenanigans.

[PeacefulOak]

I meant to say cumulative, not continuous. For this I apologize.

I have a whole lot of fluff/flavor in my head for it, I haven't written it in as yet.

I was looking more at the mechanical side of things in terms of assistance in adjusting the class. I appreciate that it is on the strong side of things, possibly too much so.

The Teramach is one of Xefas' creations, in the line of his Mythos-based classes. Designed to be Tier 1 or in the neighborhood.

As for Gifts, I really want there to be more options. Any ideas? I was scraping the bottom of my barrel when I came up with the last one, which is rather OP and so will be scrapped.

I'll try to find some time to write out the feel of the class, see if that helps.

Thank you for your honest feedback. :)

[Nifft]

Seems much too strong for a PrC, but as a Sorcerer compensation device -- to push a Sorcerer up a tier -- the power level might be okay.

Though, I wouldn't have it do what it's doing, which is mostly just making various numbers bigger. T1 is about flexibility, not just raw power (though power is also necessary).

The only hard requirements you have are 8 skill ranks and one feat. That's not awful -- at least you preclude early entry -- but it's essentially free entry, unless you're really clamping down on wealth-by-level in your campaign.

Anyway, back to power-vs-flexibility. What you're giving is more power -- higher spell DCs, free Quickening, etc. -- but not really more flexibility. You're not moving the caster into T1, you're just pumping up the numbers in T2.

Suggestions:
- New ways to spend spell slots (NOT just more of your current spells, or your current spells but harder).
- Non-spell slot resources.
- Emulate dragons, NOT just slapping the word "Draconic" on every +2.

- - -

Putting it together:
- Gain access to new spells.
- Change which spells you gain on a day-to-day basis.
- Tie the spells you learn to specific dragon types -- so at least 10 different lists.
- Gain Wild Shape, but only for Dragon-type creatures which are not True Dragons (i.e. no Kobolds, nor Metallic or Chromatic Dragons).

For better T1 emulation, don't require that the character pick which Dragon she's emulating until she wants to use one of the class features.

So, something like...

Requirements:
- Knowledge (arcana) 8 ranks
- Draconic Heritage feat
- Sorcerer level 5
(WotC is intentionally indirect with PrC requirements, but you don't have to be so coy.)

Features:
- d4 HD
- 1 good save
- Full Sorcerer spellcasting advancement

Benefits:
1 - Dragon Scholar, Lesser Dragon Wild Shape 1/day (small or medium), Scholar Spells (level 1)
2 - Lesser Dragon Wild Shape 2/day, Scholar Spells (level 2)
3 - Lesser Dragon Wild Shape 3/day, Scholar Spells (level 3)
4 - Heritage Feature 1
5 - Lesser Dragon Wild Shape (large), Scholar Spells (level 4)
6 - Lesser Dragon Wild Shape 4/day, Scholar Spells (level 5)
7 - Heritage Feature 2
8 - Lesser Dragon Wild Shape (tiny), Scholar Spells (level 6)
9 - Scholar Spells (level 7), Heritage Feature 3
10 - Lesser Dragon Wild Shape 5/day (huge), Scholar Spells (level 8)

Dragon Scholar (Su): Once per day as a free action you may call upon your inner draconic strength to grant yourself some measure of the power of one of the ten types of True Dragon. The benefits of your choice increase as you gain levels in this class. Your choice persists until you next prepare spells.

Scholar Spells: When you use your Dragon Scholar feature, you gain access to these spells for the duration, depending on the type of dragon you choose to emulate:

White Dragon
1. Jump, Fog Cloud, Path of Frost (DM)
2. Gust of Wind, Ray of Ice (DM), Crystalline Memories (SpC)
3. Sleet Storm, Water Breathing, Ferocity of Sanguine Rage (DM)
4. Wall of Ice, Ice Ship (Frost)
5. Ice Shape
6. Freezing Fog (SpC)
7. Control Weather
8. Polar Ray

Red Dragon
1. Alarm, Appraising Touch (SpC), Shock and Awe (SpC)
2. Locate Object, Balor Nimbus (SpC), Combust (SpC)
3. Arcane Sight, Suggestion, Warcry (BoED)
4. Channeled Pyroburst (SpC), Firestride Exhalation (DM)
5. Dominate Person
6. Find the Path
7. Evil Glare (SpC)
8. Discern Location

(etc.)


Heritage Feature: When you emulate a type of dragon, you gain these features at the indicated class level:

White
1 - Add class level as a Competence bonus to Hide checks
2 - Icewalking (Ex)
3 - Water Breathing (Ex), Swim speed equal to base land speed

Red
1 - Add class level as a Competence bonus to Appraise and Intimidate checks
2 - Smoke Vision (Ex): see through smoke, but not darkness or fog.
3 - You gain use of the Searing Spell metamagic feat

(etc.)

- - -

Maybe steal from Pathfinder for per-dragon spell lists and features; these ones here were based off the material in the SRD.

You don't have to do the 10 SRD dragons, of course. You could pick any (reasonable) number of dragons from any number of sources. The planar dragons might be cool; or the Gem dragons, plus Shadow, Force, and Prismatic.