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Zaydos
2016-08-22, 02:46 PM
Dragonblood Paragon

Dragonblood paragons function slightly differently than normal for paragon classes. Notably to become a dragonblood paragon you simply need the dragonblood subtype (gaining the dragon type prevents progression but does not disqualify you from the class - following the standard rules of paragon classes and race changes). This means that many races can take levels in dragonblood paragon.

In all dragonblood paragons the blood of dragons flows. Not only does the blood course through their veins it swells up, pushing their draconic heritage to the fore. Dragonblood paragons are born to power, natural wielders of it, and as they grow it blossoms. Dragonblood paragons naturally demonstrate more and more draconic traits, showing a draconic heritage which is in a word strong. They have a casual grace and excellence to them that causes them to practically flit through the world. A dragonblood paragon can feel it calling, the destiny of their blood and they must heed it or die trying. It is the destiny to reach out and at least try to shape the world.

Adventures: Dragonblood paragons feel almost compelled to become more than themselves, to strive towards that pinnacle that dragons by their nature occupy. This ambition gnaws at them. A dragonblood paragon would quickly become bored and dissatisfied with life as a farmer or town guardsman, and instead seeks to either soar through the deep end or at least be the biggest fish in their small pond. For this reason they take to adventure naturally, it is the place to go to stretch one's wings. For chromatic dragonblood paragons this often takes the place of a hunger for power, a lustful grasping which causes them to reach out to create their 'hoard'. For metallic dragonblood paragons greed certainly plays a part, there is that in every dragon(blood)'s soul with hungers for the golden throne, but it is tempered and sometimes even subjugated to their other thirst, that thirst for righteous justice.

Characteristics: Dragonblood paragons are gifted. They do not train, do not master the art of combat through experience and drill after drill, at least they do not usually begin that way, instead they simply grasp victory with their natural grace, fighting in combat with a natural ease. It's this same ease they bring to all fields of learning, a natural dabbler in life. Even so there are better warriors, those dedicated to battle. There are those who surpass them in all things, and when a dragonblood paragon's natural talent ceases to carry them they must seek another path. Still they do show one thing in spades that others lack, draconic power. It is a mere shadow of a true dragon's but dragonblood paragons develop powerful signs of draconic heritage and a naturally well rounded foundation.

Alignment: Dragonblood paragons range from champions of Good and Order to the most selfish and destructive Chaotic Evil. That said they tend towards the extremes and to take after the dragons they are descended from. A silver dragonblood paragon might tend to be Lawful Good, but their actions would be quite different than a bronze, focusing more on teamwork and building of Good through Law, while the bronze might focus more on preserving the community through active opposition to evil. Similarly a white dragonblood paragon tends towards a solitary, cruelty, but a red dragonblood paragon tends instead towards a rule of might makes right in which they inflict their will upon others with no care about society as a whole.

Religion: Dragonblood paragons do not, as a whole, show a religious bent. While some may worship Bahamut or Tiamat, or the gods of their races, few see the need for great devotion. Exceptions occur, dragonborn dragonblood paragons for example, but they are relatively rare. Among evil dragonblood paragons the question actually resolves to 'what can my deity do for me' and most that do serve Tiamat do so only in exchange for worldly power.

Background: Dragonblood paragons are born a little different. Even when born of dragonblood stock, silverbrow humans, sunscorched hobgoblins, and so forth, they seem to have something that is a little more than most. The dragon is strong in them. It is this one trait that is in many ways defining for all dragonblood paragons: the dragon is strong in them.

Races: Dragonblood paragons can come from nearly any race, after all dragons' propensity for outbreeding is legendary. They most commonly come from dragonblooded races such as silverbrow humans. Those that come from non-dragonblooded stock are rarer by far, though not wholly unheard of. Dragonblood paragons are often barely concerned with race, however, but instead with actions. They have no strong tendencies towards specific races one way or another.

Game Rule Information:
Dragonblood Paragons have the following game statistics.
Ability Scores: Dragonblood paragons usually rely primarily on the stats of their other classes, or default to melee combatant otherwise. However all dragonblood paragons develop a limited use breath weapon which may see them relying more heavily on Constitution.
Alignment: Any.
Hit Dice: d12.
Starting Wealth: As barbarian.
Starting Age: As sorcerer.

Class Skills:
The dragonblood paragon's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (any, each taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), and Use Magic Device (Dex). In addition the bonus sorcerer class skill from the Draconic Heritage feat they gain as a bonus feat at 1st level is a dragonblood paragon class skill for them, and if the associated dragon has additional class skills (as do all 10 of the core dragons) those additional class skills are class skills for the dragonblood paragon.

Skill Points at First Level: (6 + Int modifier) x 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 6 + Int modifier

DRAGONBLOOD PARAGON


Level
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Special


1st

+1

+2

+2

+2
Awakened Heritage, Draconic Grace, Draconic Resistance


2nd

+2

+3

+3

+3
Breath Weapon


3rd

+3

+3

+3

+3
Draconic Excellence or Draconic Magic


Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A dragonblood paragon is proficient in all simple weapons, and light armor. They do not gain proficiency in shields.

Awakened Heritage (Ex): A dragonblood paragon's draconic heritage is more active than the norm even among dragonbloods. At 1st level they gain Draconic Heritage as a bonus feat if they do not already have it, or they are considered to have 1 additional Draconic feat for the purposes of the benefits granted by Draconic feats if they already have Draconic Heritage. In addition they fulfill prerequisites for Draconic feats as if they were a sorcerer of their character level. Finally for each dragonblood paragon level beyond 1st they possess they are considered to have 1 more Draconic feat for the purposes of determining benefits from Draconic feats.

Draconic Grace (Ex): A dragonblood paragon takes natural to most fields of mundane endeavor, demonstrating at least basic talent in most things. A dragonblood paragon gains a +1 bonus to all skill and ability checks.

Draconic Resistance (Ex): A dragonblood paragon gains part of a dragon's immunity to sleep and paralysis resisting these effects and gaining a +4 bonus on saves versus paralysis, sleep, and hold effects.

Breath Weapon (Su): A dragonblood paragon develops a dragon's most powerful, or at least iconic, weapon. Beginning at 2nd level a dragonblood paragon may use a breath weapon which deals 1d6 damage per character level of the damage type associated with their draconic heritage (if the associated dragon does not deal hit point damage they deal fire). When they gain this ability they must choose line or cone; if they choose line their breath weapon is a 10-ft/character level long line, if they choose cone it is instead a 5-ft/character level cone. A Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 character level + Con mod) is allowed for half damage against this ability. A dragonblood paragon may use this ability 1/day + 1/day per 6 character levels beyond 2nd, but once they have 2 or more daily uses of this ability they must wait 1d4 rounds after using it before using it again.

Draconic Excellence or Draconic Magic: At 3rd level a dragonblood paragon's draconic blood comes to a blossom in one of two ways. At 3rd level a dragonblood paragon must choose Draconic Excellence or Draconic Magic. If they choose Draconic Excellence they gain a +2 bonus to Constitution and Charisma, a +2 bonus to all skill checks (this stacks with Draconic Grace), and a +1 increase to their natural armor as light scales form mixing in with their skin. If they choose Draconic Magic they instead gain +1 level to their existing Sorcerer casting and +1 level to their existing Dragonfire Adept casting as well as for determining (dragonfire adept) breath weapon size and gaining breath effects.

khadgar567
2016-08-23, 12:51 AM
Looks good zaydos but small question is this thing stack with dragon fire adept if yes then i need to brew a prc to finish the chain

Draconium
2016-08-23, 03:54 PM
Okay, let's see what we have here...

d12 Hit Die, 6+Int skills, full BAB, and all good saves. Just like Dragon RHD, which is nice. They also get all the same class skills as True Dragons, which is a bonus, because it's a fairly nice list.

Gaining Draconic Heritage and qualifying for draconic feats is nice, though most draconic feats aren't really that good anyways. There are a few gems, though. Draconic Resistance is a nice bonus to have while also being in line with being a dragonblood paragon. Draconic Grace, on the other hand... Useful, but not something I would usually associate dragons and dragonblooded with.

Breath Weapon? Now we're talking! 1d6 damage per character level with no other cap is good. Reflex save for half isn't as good, but makes sense, and scaling it off character level is good, too. And if your draconic ancestor doesn't have a classic HP-draining breath, you revert to fire damage - but it still lets you choose something like a Force Dragon to have fun with. Scaling uses per day is also good, though, even if it's still pretty highly restricted. Too bad you can't take the Dragon Breath feat from RotD to eliminate the per-day usage, reducing it to just the 1d4 round recharge, though. Still, it seems you would qualify for metabreath feats after gaining the second per-day use, so I could see a nice breath weapon blasting build working off of it.

For the final level, Draconic Excellence seems to be the clearly superior option here. +2 to two different stats, +2 to all your skill checks, and +1 natural armor are all fairly small bonuses, but still useful to have. Draconic Magic, on the other had, only increase already-existent casting, and while not a bad option, there are still superior options to increase your casting than waiting for the third level of a paragon class. Though I can certainly see why it might be useful in some builds.

Overall impression? Nothing too powerful, but still a neat little class that I could certainly see myself getting mileage out of. Nice work as usual, Zaydos!

Zaydos
2016-08-23, 04:41 PM
@khadgar: I did not post the DFA gish PrC I half made did I... I hate writing fluff so it'll be a while.

@Draconium: Thanks :smallbiggrin:

The breath weapon ended up with a per day limit because I wanted it to be usable and useful at all levels but not overpowered at below 7th, so they got 1 use when AoE damage is still 'I win the encounter' (5th level fireball will win encounters, autokilling that group of hobgoblins that otherwise could be a threat due to Aid Another and Flanking, if you aren't wasting it on one foe... which all the math for 'haste is better' assumes* for some reason that always bothered me), and as it becomes less likely to win encounters (hp progresses at a non-linear rate per CR) they get more uses and the ability to take Maximized Breath to make it really deadly.

Draconic Grace was just because I was thinking about dragons and they always seem to do everything well and it was some ability I could give to represent that general all-encompassing talent without being overpowered.

Meanwhile Draconic Excellence is to enable Draconic Feat based Sorcerer-Gishes and give an option to replace Sorcadin, it's not really as good as Sorcadin but at least it hopefully makes a viable alternative that does have advantages. That said I'm going to modify it so that it increases Dragonfire Adept level for breath effects (and very clearly for breath weapon including increased range).

*They also assume the target makes the Reflex save 50% of the time, but the bonus attacks from Haste always hit (it bothers me when people use obviously wrong and biased math to prove something is "useless").