Campagin Building Advaice: Dragon Party!

[Fayd]

Greeting Playground!

An idea has been bubbling in the back of my mind for a while now, to run a game where the entire party, to a member, are dragons. I have the most sourcebooks for Pathfinder, hence the tag. I'd like the Playground's opinion on the most elegant way to allow for draconic PCs like this. I'm not against having them have thematically appropriate class levels (in order to diversify the party if nothing else), but I'm a bit stuck on how to properly allow advancement in both their draconic nature and their class and be fair to the rest of the group. Secondarily, it is my understanding that the different colors of dragon are not made equal; how do you recommend I boost the weaker ones or weaken the stronger ones?

My general thought for the game itself so far is that two party members are chromatic, two are metallic, and the party will randomly determine their type and color, provided no two are the same, and build from that point. I have the stirrings of a proto-plot that I do believe can challenge even these great beasts.

Thanks greatly for your input!

[Honest Tiefling]

When you mean Draconic, do you mean draconic races, or outright dragons? I sorta like the idea of slapping the Half-Dragon race onto everybody and see if they enjoy the idea of questing to become full dragons. This will give instant Dragon flavor, but things like perspective of time, equipment, size, flight, etc. can all be introduced slowly into the game or taken out if needed.

If you are going full Dragon, why not ask the players? Perhaps the weaker species get a hand-waved boost in the form of allowed better classes or archetypes. Like the stronger ones don't get Tier 1 classes or something. Alternatively, they could get plot benefits like parents, extra gear, or two-legged worshipers.

I'd steal the Gestalt idea from 3.5 and mix it with the racial classes. As they become more powerful, they level up both at once. You'll get your mix of abilities and you'll get your slow increase of draconic abilities.

[Fayd]

Fair. I guess I was a bit unclear, I do mean full fledged dragons, each of them. Taking it to the players is always a good thought, I'll keep that in mind.

Gestalt may well do it; they would be very strong, and I'd have to figure out what to do for sorcerers (probably improve their innate dragon-ness with their bloodline powers). Thanks for the thoughts so far!

[Eox]

There's an actually pretty well-made (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/rite-publishing/draconic-exemplar) 3rd party book with full rules on playing as dragons. Most of it is available on the SRD, you could always have them gestalt with this.

[Pyromancer999]

There's an actually pretty well-made (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/rite-publishing/draconic-exemplar) 3rd party book with full rules on playing as dragons. Most of it is available on the SRD, you could always have them gestalt with this.

Seconded. Also, if you get the supplement, you also get access to dragon-specific archetypes, which includes one for almost all classes, that swaps out some class features in exchange for being able to gain features from the Draconic Exemplar racial class, although not at full advancement. It also has a couple regular archetypes, including one for the Sorcerer, if I remember correctly.

[Florian]

I would´t use the Gestalt rules for this.
Settle on one age category and strip down the racial HD to zero. Make a note on the differences in CR between the Dragon colors. I´d settle for the "Adult" category as that leaves enough room to work with.
Aim for a Level 6 game. The "strongest" color starts out with 6 class levels, the "weaker" colors gain additional level according to the difference in CR. (When the strongest is Red and the weakest is Green, the Green gains two additional levels).

Do not, under any circumstances, give magical items or use WBL of any kind. Using Dragons in this way will simply replace the whole math behind the magical items and after level 10 or so, it´ll break even.

[Fayd]

I'd heard of that third party book (I'd actually bookmarked the shop page for it), but I've always been a bit leery of third party material. It's generally considered pretty good though? That's good to know, I might have to just pick it up, and it's fairly inexpensive, which is a nice bonus!

[Honest Tiefling]

I'd heard of that third party book (I'd actually bookmarked the shop page for it), but I've always been a bit leery of third party material. It's generally considered pretty good though? That's good to know, I might have to just pick it up, and it's fairly inexpensive, which is a nice bonus!

It looks like some of the stuff is on the OGC site, in which case, poke around and look to see what is offered up to see if the content is to your liking.

[Fayd]

Yeah, the race seems to be certainly workable, and I saw a preview of the stat table for Draconic Exemplar... I've got some ideas! Thanks all!

[Fayd]

An update for the curious: I looked over the full supplement and it is perfect for what I want. I think I'm going to semi-gestalt with Draconic Exemplar (just the class features) and the party's chosen class, with a bit of tailoring if they pick certain options (Sorcerer). I appreciate everyone's guidance in this matter, and I think my party will have a lot of fun going from hatchlings to great wyrms.