Silver Dragon favored class

[Andorn]

So, if you absolutely had to assign a favored class to a Silver Dragon PC, what class would it be, and why?

[Yael]

Paladin, probably. They are the ones who rush against evil, aren't they?

[Thurbane]

Do they have innate Sorcerer casting? Then Sorcerer, maybe.

But yes, Paladin seems a solid choice thematically.

[ksbsnowowl]

It isn't a direct equivalence, but I think you can gain a lot of insight from the Associated and Nonassociated Class Levels section of the Monster Manual.


MM1, p. 294

Associated Class Levels
Class levels that increase a monster’s existing strengths are known as associated class levels. Each associated class level a monster has increases its CR by 1.
Barbarian, fighter, paladin, and ranger are associated classes for a creature that relies on its fighting ability. For example, if you add a level of fighter, barbarian, ranger, or paladin to a frost giant, this directly improves the monster’s existing strengths and is therefore an associated class level.
Rogue and ranger are associated classes for a creature that relies on stealth to surprise its foes, or on skill use to give itself an advantage. The babau demon, for example, is “sneaky and sly” and has sneak attack as a special ability. Rogue is an associated class for this creature.
A spellcasting class is an associated class for a creature that already has the ability to cast spells as a character of the class in question, since the monster’s levels in the spellcasting class stack with its innate spellcasting ability. A rakshasa, for example, casts spells as a 7th-level sorcerer. If it picks up a level of sorcerer, it casts spells as an 8th-level sorcerer.Then, when you look at the Rakshasa entry in the MM, you see that under the "Rakshasas as Characters" section... their favored class is Sorcerer.

[ZxxZ]

Silver Dragon class levels from Dragon Magazine *kappa*

I think it depends on the individual dragon. They cast as sorcerers, they're the first to fight against injustice, and they spend tons of their lifetime in the guise of a human or elf so they can have meaningful relationships with the little people. So perhaps a Sorcerer that focusses on primarily Shapechanging effects and nonlethal takedowns

[nedz]

The Sorcadin options seem appropriate though they can also cast Clerical spells

Can also cast cleric spells and those from the Air, Good, Law, and Sun domains as arcane spells.

[NomGarret]

Soulborn. What? Nobody said it had to be a good class.

[Andorn]

Well, if you use the Soulborn fix here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?119121-3-5-Soulborn-Fix then it's not so bad. But thematically it doesn't seem very silver-dragony.

The MM-listed SLAs seem more to do with air than any particular casting class. The stat block doesn't list any combat-type feats, or ability to turn undead, so Paladin doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

There is a * footnote on the Abilities by Age table, but there are no * characters in the table, so I'm not seeing where this footnote actually applies. I see a "caster level" column, but no * on it, so technically the caster level only applies to its SLAs, and the footnote looks like a cut-and-paste artifact. Air domain ties in with some of the SLAs, but where does reverse gravity come from?

Thematically, it just doesn't jib for me.

[Ruethgar]

They have a favored class, Dragon. This is according to Dragon Magazine #320. It also presents rules for ECL 0 dragons, of which Silver is the most powerful. Technically they can take any dragon class(such as White) and level up as a Wyrmling of that color but cannot multiclass into another one. It should also be noted that there is no need to take a dragon class at all, but White would get you Silver-ish abilities with fewer levels. The big three you get from the classes are natural weaponry, breath weapon, and flight, but you can get those elsewhere if you wanted a more caster type dragon.