Making a "big" Dragon playable

[GrayDeath]

Hello Y`all!


An old friend, but new D&D (and almost ceompletely new RPG) player, has decided to join an upcoming higher Level game.

He is at the moment absolutely fascinated with Dragons and really REALLY wants to play one. Since he is very much not an optimizer (heck he played once or twice at most^^) and I am the DM, we decided to allow it, IF we can get it done within the following limits (and since I expect it: No, transforming into a Dragon or being a Halfdragon are declined^^):


Achieve "useful and powerful feeling" play without too much handwaving/homebrewing
Allow them all to be more or less "equal" (the Druid Player is the least optimizing) within the expected Range until the end of the game at level 19-20ish
Not make the Dragon complicated to play.
Have fun.


Party is at Level 12-13 when he joins (using medium to slightly above OP, consists of a Druid, a Bard (with some extra goodies and Sublime Chord) and a Paladin/Warblade Gestalt).



I have so far found no even remotely RAW way to do this. I am open to Homebrewing/modifications as long as they fulfill the above and are not COMPLETELY out of whack.

Now my thoughts, if going homebrew/mod-heavy at the moment where kicking any LA and allowing him to play an adult or so that starts without casting and would gain that within the next few levels, but even that would need lots of work.....


Thanks in advance for your help.

[Fouredged Sword]

Well, ignore LA. Let him play a dragon with 12hd. He will feel powerful, but really will be a high stat warrior with good saves and a 1d4 round area attack. Fun dynamic, but by no means gamebreaking.

He will have 1st, maybe 2nd level spells. Fun to play with, but not powerful.

[rel]

You could just build a dragon from the monster manual with about the right power (maybe CR equal to party level) and give it to the player.
Advance and rebuild as necessary to maintain parity as the party levels.

[NomGarret]

If you could find whatever issue that was of Dragon magazine that had racial class progressions for dragons, it’s a good start and keeps you from having to do most of the leveling work. I second ignoring LA, as I find replacing any of those levels with another RHD a better option.

[thethird]

+1 to going by HD (and ignoring LA completely). Make it a xorvintal dragon too for more thematic dragon goodies and ease of use. Look into the alternative racial features in dragon magic. Consider allowing draconic breath effects a la dragonfire adept as feats.

[martixy]

+1 to going by HD (and ignoring LA completely). Make it a xorvintal dragon too for more thematic dragon goodies and ease of use. Look into the alternative racial features in dragon magic. Consider allowing draconic breath effects a la dragonfire adept as feats.

+2

I got a dragon in my game right now. We just ignore the LA. It works good.

[Mutazoia]

Or you could port in the "Draconians" from Dragonlance, and let him play one of those. Technically they are still dragons (mutated in the egg).

[Fouredged Sword]

Your only tier 3 is a geastalted innitiator with really high saves. The dragon will do more consistant damage, the initiator will do more peak damage and more other stuff.

At level 11 and large you are looking at very young gold dragon, so no casting to worry about for a while.

He can even turn human or animal if he wants to be stealthy. I had a dm who had a gold dragon that liked to fly around as a hummingbird.

[Mutazoia]

BTW, as a general rule, I really don't recommend starting a new player out with high power, high OP characters. That's kind of like teaching a kid how to drive, using a Funny Car.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, but playing a dragon isn't the worst way to go about it. Sometimes there is only one table in town. He will be able to learn the rules and have enough cool stuff (breath weapon/alternate form) to do. On the other hand his character can be played straight off the srd.

[Mutazoia]

And when he goes to his next game (assuming that he does), and CAN'T play a dragon?

[Lord Haart]

Ah, the age-old question.

There is the obvious way: to ignore the restrictions WOTC put on playing a non-whelp true dragon. And there is a different, difficult way. The way that will make certain people hate and revile you forever, while others will applaud your ingenuity. It WILL let you use a character build that stays fully within the Rules, but at the cost of entering into a dark, demanding pact with the Rules themselves.

Basically, it's the way of refluffing. If it is Huge like a dragon; fights with its claws and teets and powerful burning breath like a dragon; flies with good maneuverability and great overland endurance (and swims, too); is subject to any effects that specifically affect/target dragons; has superhuman senses, including blindsense and scent, and a fearful presense that makes mortals cover…

Then can you (and your DM, and the players around your table) believe it's a dragon?


Because if you can, you can have it all. You just need to play a Dragonborn Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale* Dragonfire Adept (with maybe a single-level dip into Cloistered Cleric), pick some necessary feats and pay for spellcasting services to get a Caster Level 30 permanencied Enlarge Person effect on you.

Interested?

*It's a completely existing, legal and endorsed-for-being-played PC race in 3.5. Using it to play a dragon is, if anything, probably less whacky than using it as intended in a party with Tordek and Krusk. Look, WOTC authors did the rulebook writing, it's not for us to judge them on the approach they took to our beloved heroic fantasy; our job is to use everything they wrote and printed to enhance our gaming experience as much as we can.


P. S. It took a lot of jumping through hoops to fit everything together in a ECL 5 build, back when i was gonna play that dragon (for example, getting dragonborn flight to work overland when it does not do so until HD 6 took dipping Divine Mind to get exhaustion immunity; and my grandfather never thought i'd ever fall so far i'll dip Divine Mind). Luckily for you, in a ECL 12 build, most of the hoops won't be necessary at all: for example, you won't have to deal with level-based limitations on Dragonborn flight, and you won't have to scrounge out bonus feats from being tainted.

[Metahuman1]

Ah, the age-old question.

There is the obvious way: to ignore the restrictions WOTC put on playing a non-whelp true dragon. And there is a different, difficult way. The way that will make certain people hate and revile you forever, while others will applaud your ingenuity. It WILL let you use a character build that stays fully within the Rules, but at the cost of entering into a dark, demanding pact with the Rules themselves.

Basically, it's the way of refluffing. If it is Huge like a dragon; fights with its claws and teets and powerful burning breath like a dragon; flies with good maneuverability and great overland endurance (and swims, too); is subject to any effects that specifically affect/target dragons; has superhuman senses, including blindsense and scent, and a fearful presense that makes mortals cover…

Then can you (and your DM, and the players around your table) believe it's a dragon?


Because if you can, you can have it all. You just need to play a Dragonborn Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale* Dragonfire Adept (with maybe a single-level dip into Cloistered Cleric), pick some necessary feats and pay for spellcasting services to get a Caster Level 30 permanencied Enlarge Person effect on you.

Interested?

*It's a completely existing, legal and endorsed-for-being-played PC race in 3.5. Using it to play a dragon is, if anything, probably less whacky than using it as intended in a party with Tordek and Krusk. Look, WOTC authors did the rulebook writing, it's not for us to judge them on the approach they took to our beloved heroic fantasy; our job is to use everything they wrote and printed to enhance our gaming experience as much as we can.


P. S. It took a lot of jumping through hoops to fit everything together in a ECL 5 build, back when i was gonna play that dragon (for example, getting dragonborn flight to work overland when it does not do so until HD 6 took dipping Divine Mind to get exhaustion immunity; and my grandfather never thought i'd ever fall so far i'll dip Divine Mind). Luckily for you, in a ECL 12 build, most of the hoops won't be necessary at all: for example, you won't have to deal with level-based limitations on Dragonborn flight, and you won't have to scrounge out bonus feats from being tainted.

If your going to do this.

1: Gestalt it with Vanilla PHB Fighter + the Dead Levels variant/expansion rules.

2: Made the Base Anthro Whale a Water Creature. +2 to Con and I think they get some extra Swim Speed out of it.

3: Make it A Mineral Warrior. It should keep the only parts your player cares about.

4: Also make it a Half Minotaur if you have Dragon Mag access.

5: After Dragonborn, give it the Bahamet touched Template. Which is just a pallet swap of the Lolth Touched Template from MM4.


It makes sure it has the Muscles and Durability to go with it for the sell, and that it's as good as he's gonna want to be at using the parts he should care about. Flight, melee competency, and Breath Attacks, as well as a pinch of magic.

[Crake]

When you say "big" dragon, what exactly do you mean by it? Medium? Large? Huge?

Also keep in mind that he won't be advancing by dragon HD as he levels up, dragon HD only come with age, 1HD at each 1/3rd of an age category, then up into the next age category. That means, unless you're doing some incredibly long time skips, your dragon is gonna be advancing by class levels.

If we assume you want something at least large, then you're looking at the large-scale evil dragons, wyrmling starts at medium, and very young jumps into large at an acceptable 10HD. The good ones tend to have an extra HD ontop, so a very young gold dragon has 11HD, but in the draconomicon, you also have pyroclastic dragons (with their very good disintegrating breath weapon) who come in at 10HD, and tarterian dragons with their very nice always on freedom of movement at 11HD. If you're gonna be using homebrew, I would recommend using my optional gestalt/LA homebrew system that's linked in my signature, I've quite thoroughly playtested it through my games, and you can use it to essentially "gestalt" your dragon LA alongside it's racial HD. It's not as "free" as everyone else just recommending to throw away the LA completely, but I've found the system makes many high LA races much more tolerable to play without making them too good that they're automatic picks.

[Lord Haart]

If your going to do this.

(…)

I don't actually agree with all of that: Gestalt is something that has to be specifically asked from DM (and preferably be in play for the entire table), and this build isn't really much subpar without it (of course gestalt makes it better, but gestalt makes everything better), so it's not necessary to be functional (i tried to offer something that is completely legal in a default assumptions game, with no GM catering needed); Water Creature, if i remember correctly, takes away air breathing even if base creature was amphibious (though i might be wrong); and Mineral Warrior either takes away dragonborn wings, or gets mostly negated by dragonborn (and it's LA +1, not LA +0, so not really worth the cost on ECL 12; it mostly rules levels 2-5 or so). I did use Half-Ogre (Half-Minotaur was banned by my DM), but it's norm on GiTP to not assume Dragon material avaiable by default.

Besides, i tried to pitch the short version to see if OP is interested, not to list the full suite. If he is, i'll of course explain how easy it is to get blindsense, scent etc. and offer ways to optimise it for various degrees of optimisation.

[Inevitability]

Houserule Divine Minion wildshape to count as the druid class feature, enter MoMF at ECL 3, get the ability to wildshape into any dragons up to Gargantuan in size at ECL 12. You could be something like an Ibranlin (MoF) without further wild shape level boosts, and even more powerful dragons if you invest in the right gear.

[Jack_Simth]

Druid-12, take Dragon Wild Shape (Draconomicon, p. 105), and get a permanent Enlarge Person (at a high caster level to avoid dispelling), and Natural Spell. Large size dragon, spellcasting, breath weapon, and at 12th level two uses of Wildshape lets you keep it up 24/7. Technically not a dragon, but... well, very, very close.

[Dragonexx]

I did a rewrite of dragons in my New/Redone monsters thread, partially in an attempt to make them playable. You could just take the statblock right off the page, add some feats and skills, and be ready to play.

Here: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=483328#483328

[Crake]

Druid-12, take Dragon Wild Shape (Draconomicon, p. 105), and get a permanent Enlarge Person (at a high caster level to avoid dispelling), and Natural Spell. Large size dragon, spellcasting, breath weapon, and at 12th level two uses of Wildshape lets you keep it up 24/7. Technically not a dragon, but... well, very, very close.


Houserule Divine Minion wildshape to count as the druid class feature, enter MoMF at ECL 3, get the ability to wildshape into any dragons up to Gargantuan in size at ECL 12. You could be something like an Ibranlin (MoF) without further wild shape level boosts, and even more powerful dragons if you invest in the right gear.

Didn't the OP literally call these exact suggestions out as ones he doesn't want?


and since I expect it: No, transforming into a Dragon or being a Halfdragon are declined^^

[Darrin]

Dragon #320 and #332 provide 20-level "Monster Class" progressions for all the core dragons. I would suggest picking a dragon with the Alternate Form ability, so they can pass as human if need be. Among the Chromatic dragons, this means Bronze, Gold, or Silver... except Bronze doesn't get Alternate Form until ECL 14, so that probably takes it out of the running.

At ECL 13, the Gold is still a medium-sized wyrmling, but has 8d12 HD, 200' fly speed, NA +8, Alternate Form 3/day, water breathing, immunity to fire, and a 3d10 breath weapon. It might be a little underpowered compared to 13 class levels, but it's 100% dragon.

Silver is a possibility, but at ECL 13 it's still a small-sized wyrmling, but can use Alternate Form to assume any animal or humanoid form up to medium. 9d12 HD, fly 100', NA +8, Alternate Form 3/day, cloudwalking, immunity to acid and cold, and a 4d8 breath weapon.

A Steel Dragon (Dragons of Faerun) has Alternate Form early, and you could probably kitbash a Very Young or Young monster progression out to ECL 13, but it's still small or medium size until Adult.

[GrayDeath]

I did a rewrite of dragons in my New/Redone monsters thread, partially in an attempt to make them playable. You could just take the statblock right off the page, add some feats and skills, and be ready to play.

Here: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=483328#483328


Ill give it a read, thanks.


Dragon #320 and #332 provide 20-level "Monster Class" progressions for all the core dragons. I would suggest picking a dragon with the Alternate Form ability, so they can pass as human if need be. Among the Chromatic dragons, this means Bronze, Gold, or Silver... except Bronze doesn't get Alternate Form until ECL 14, so that probably takes it out of the running.

At ECL 13, the Gold is still a medium-sized wyrmling, but has 8d12 HD, 200' fly speed, NA +8, Alternate Form 3/day, water breathing, immunity to fire, and a 3d10 breath weapon. It might be a little underpowered compared to 13 class levels, but it's 100% dragon.

Silver is a possibility, but at ECL 13 it's still a small-sized wyrmling, but can use Alternate Form to assume any animal or humanoid form up to medium. 9d12 HD, fly 100', NA +8, Alternate Form 3/day, cloudwalking, immunity to acid and cold, and a 4d8 breath weapon.

A Steel Dragon (Dragons of Faerun) has Alternate Form early, and you could probably kitbash a Very Young or Young monster progression out to ECL 13, but it's still small or medium size until Adult.

Now if I only had acces to them (I do not expect them to be online and free?), that sounds good as well.


@ all: Please, as fun as the hoopjumpoing and shapeshifting would be if I was to play that, he just wants a simple, yet powerful and cool, Dragon. And yes, large is the absolute Minimum.

Everything doing that, please keep suggesting (unless you alla gree the solutions above are best for that^^), thanks!


Also for those worrying that we are doing this with a new plaer: It was something like that or building a more complicated OP Character for him, as the Game already exists, he is simply joining it, so ...yeah.

[Darrin]

I almost forgot...

Ambush Drake Monster Class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060728a).

This might be everything he wants. It's a 7-level monster class with no LA, ECL 7. So you can throw on 5-6 class levels on top of the 7d12 dragon hit dice. It has bite/claw/claw attacks, poison attack, 30' fly speed, dragon immunities, SR 16, and best of all... large size.

If he wants Alternate Form, you can add that with the Alternate Form feat from Dragons of Eberron and 5th level Sorcerer casting (Sorcerer 1 dip + Practiced Spellcaster if need be). Or go Ambush Drake 7/Dragonfire Adept 6 and take the Humanoid Shape invocation for change shape at will. This also gives him a better breath weapon that he can use every round.

[Metahuman1]

I don't actually agree with all of that: Gestalt is something that has to be specifically asked from DM (and preferably be in play for the entire table), and this build isn't really much subpar without it (of course gestalt makes it better, but gestalt makes everything better), so it's not necessary to be functional (i tried to offer something that is completely legal in a default assumptions game, with no GM catering needed); Water Creature, if i remember correctly, takes away air breathing even if base creature was amphibious (though i might be wrong); and Mineral Warrior either takes away dragonborn wings, or gets mostly negated by dragonborn (and it's LA +1, not LA +0, so not really worth the cost on ECL 12; it mostly rules levels 2-5 or so). I did use Half-Ogre (Half-Minotaur was banned by my DM), but it's norm on GiTP to not assume Dragon material avaiable by default.

Besides, i tried to pitch the short version to see if OP is interested, not to list the full suite. If he is, i'll of course explain how easy it is to get blindsense, scent etc. and offer ways to optimise it for various degrees of optimisation.

The OP is the DM of the game, and is already allowing another player to do it. A Paladin // Warblade. This is also the only party member that doesn't have the potential to have 9th level spells.

Since DFA is low to mid Tier 3, and Fighter isn't that strong a class, I figured that just bumped the build up to high tier 3. Which is a reasonable place to be at at default. All it really does is make sure that "Dragons are dangerous melee combatants." idea is given a pick me up, and that there's enough feats to go around to not feel feat starved.




Mineral Warrior would keep the stat bonuses, the DR, and maybe the Nat Armor. That's really all you care about. As an acquired Template, the LA can be bought off very quickly after gaining it in the character progression. Before play even beings in fact.

Water Creatures don't actually gain Water Breathing that I saw listed on the SRD. They get extra help with there swim speed, some attack bonuses and AC/Save Penalty's related to fire that they would lose in becoming Dragonborn, and an extra +2 Con.

Half Minotaur, I did mention IF there was Dragon Mag access.

Bahumute Touched would be picked up after Dragon Born, and thus not loose anything, and would as mentioned, be a refit of Lolth touched, for a LG god instead of a CE goddess. Mechanically other than alignment stuff nothing need change.




All told you get,

Maybe a boost to your swim speed/swim skill checks.

Maybe Scent.

Maybe a couple of horns you can add to your attack routine sometimes.

Maybe some more natural armor.

A small dex penalty.

Fear Immunity.

Some DR.

A nice Boost to Con.

A nice boost to Str.

A nice boost to BAB.

A Nice boost to Hit Die Size.

Some bonus feats to play with to help with melee options and expanding uses of breath weapons and improving your flight.

All of that seems pretty classically dragony to me, and at most, you have a high Tier 3 character, in a party with a Tier 2 to Tier 1 character depending on spell selection, A Tier 1 character, and another High Tier 3 character.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Ah, the age-old question.

There is the obvious way: to ignore the restrictions WOTC put on playing a non-whelp true dragon. And there is a different, difficult way. The way that will make certain people hate and revile you forever, while others will applaud your ingenuity. It WILL let you use a character build that stays fully within the Rules, but at the cost of entering into a dark, demanding pact with the Rules themselves.

Basically, it's the way of refluffing. If it is Huge like a dragon; fights with its claws and teets and powerful burning breath like a dragon; flies with good maneuverability and great overland endurance (and swims, too); is subject to any effects that specifically affect/target dragons; has superhuman senses, including blindsense and scent, and a fearful presense that makes mortals cover…

Then can you (and your DM, and the players around your table) believe it's a dragon?


Because if you can, you can have it all. You just need to play a Dragonborn Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale* Dragonfire Adept (with maybe a single-level dip into Cloistered Cleric), pick some necessary feats and pay for spellcasting services to get a Caster Level 30 permanencied Enlarge Person effect on you.

Interested?

*It's a completely existing, legal and endorsed-for-being-played PC race in 3.5. Using it to play a dragon is, if anything, probably less whacky than using it as intended in a party with Tordek and Krusk. Look, WOTC authors did the rulebook writing, it's not for us to judge them on the approach they took to our beloved heroic fantasy; our job is to use everything they wrote and printed to enhance our gaming experience as much as we can.


P. S. It took a lot of jumping through hoops to fit everything together in a ECL 5 build, back when i was gonna play that dragon (for example, getting dragonborn flight to work overland when it does not do so until HD 6 took dipping Divine Mind to get exhaustion immunity; and my grandfather never thought i'd ever fall so far i'll dip Divine Mind). Luckily for you, in a ECL 12 build, most of the hoops won't be necessary at all: for example, you won't have to deal with level-based limitations on Dragonborn flight, and you won't have to scrounge out bonus feats from being tainted.I'd suggest taking this, fluffing it as a "regular" dragon, and not telling him where you pulled the stats from. He sees a bunch of stuff on the page, thinks, "Ooh, shiny! Dragony!" and doesn't know what the stats originally came from.

All legal. All good.

If he asks where you pulled the stats from and you don't think he would take it well, tell him you'll let him know after he plays a few sessions, first. Then let him in on D&D's biggest secret: fluff and crunch and how to disassociate the two.

[ShurikVch]

Spiked Felldrake (Draconomicon) and Tylor (Bestiary Of Krynn, Revised) are both Large and LA +2 (6 and 7 racial HD)

[ericgrau]

I think faking it is janky and difficult. There is already an LA system in effect for you to use, the only problem is that it doesn't match your group's optimization level. An optimized level is worth more than an unoptimized one. Solution: find a conversion factor. Probably about 3/4 is good from what you described, but use your best judgement to adjust from there.

The dragon should be at minimum young to be away from its nest. You seem to want adult though. Let's see:

Problem
Brass: young (M) ECL 15-16. Adult (L) ECL N/A (>25)
Bronze: young (M) ECL 20-21; Adult (H) ECL N/A
Copper: young (M) ECL 16-17; Adult (L) ECL N/A
Gold: young (L) ECL 21-22; Adult (H) ECL N/A
Silver: Young (M) ECL 19-20; Adult (H) ECL N/A

Gold dragon seems like the best bet for a big dragon. But even 3/4 of that is still a bit high and it's not actually an adult. Let's look at why it's so high, especially compared to the gold dragon's CR of 9 (I'll use gold dragon for now to keep things easy on myself):

Great HP, BAB and saves. Plenty high for gold dragon's 14 HD/level 14 and the party is only level 12-13.
+14 str, +6 con, +6 int, +6 wis, + 6 cha. These on top of the good stats from dragon HD make quite a difference.
Having 6 attacks is pretty darn good, especially with multi-attack.
Breath weapon is so-so for the level. Not a major factor.
Spellcasting is only 1st level. Nice because it opens up minor spells and staffs, but not a major factor.
SLAs, special abilities (water breathing, alternate form, luck bonus, etc.), frightful presence, immunities, blindsense 60', flight, large size. Very handy abilities but at high level, high op and plenty of magic they're not a huge factor.
PC ability scores. This is part of what makes the ECL higher than the CR.
WBL. This is the biggest thing that makes ECL higher than the CR.

So there are some options to play with. The easiest one seems to be PC ability scores. Dragons are already special enough without having elite array. Ditch that and it's an easy -1 to the ECL. Instead roll 3d6 for all ability scores, or use a point buy similar to the nonelite array(13,12,11,10,9,8) or slightly lower. We can probably tack on -1 because some of their abilities aren't a big deal to a high level high op group; even on top of the 3/4 level value.

The biggest problem bumping up the ECL is PC WBL. Ditch that and you could drop ECL a lot. The problem is how you explain the dragon having low treasure and not taking a full share of treasure in an adventuring party. It seems extremely contrary to their character. Requiring the player to dedicate a portion of his treasure to his horde is one solution I've seen before. I don't like the idea of dragons doing nothing with their hoarde. I think they should at least be investing it in minions or something to make even more wealth. And an adventuring dragon would probably see magic items as a worthy investment. But this solution does work really well for dropping ECL. Instead of 3/4 ECL you could use half ECL. And then you can even allow adult dragons.

Solutions
So with 3d6 ability scores / NPC point buy (plus racial bonuses) and a forced horde (little usable WBL), the ECL formula would be (HD+LA-2)*50%. I'd make the adult dragon LA 1 higher than the young dragon LA (before multiplying everything by 50%). You may adjust the 50% based on what you know about your groups optimization and/or how the game goes.

The other solution would be to allow a young gold dragon with full PC WBL. The formula for that would be (HD+LA-2)*75%. Again adjust the 75% based on your knowledge of your group's optimization. That yields a starting ECL of (15+7-2)*3/4=15. Still a bit high. You could say he has 1/3-1/2 WBL because backstory and that will keep things fair until the party can catch up. Triple standard monster treasure for him is only 13,500 gp anyway, whereas PC WBL is 66,000-88,000 gp. If anything 1/3-1/2 WBL is more than the average dragon.

Advancement: Dragon advancement by HD is by age, so advancement by class probably makes more sense. For optimization purposes remember that all that dragon HD gives a lot of feats. Help him pick his feats since he's inexperienced.

So there's an easy way to play a true big dragon without settling for a lesser dragon.

[GrayDeath]

Hmmm, that might fit very well.

He loves fluffy explanations, so I might go with 3d6 for stats and close to no wbl aside from a few Items to start, explaining it as "you were driven out of your Hoard by....". He`ll get normal loot from then on, but needs to rebuild his hoard, ergo half goes into that.

Lets say this puts an adult GOld Dragon at around our entry level, no?


Yes, I think I like this solution a LOT. lets see what he says. :) THanks a lot!

[ericgrau]

Hmmm, that might fit very well.

He loves fluffy explanations, so I might go with 3d6 for stats and close to no wbl aside from a few Items to start, explaining it as "you were driven out of your Hoard by....". He`ll get normal loot from then on, but needs to rebuild his hoard, ergo half goes into that.

Lets say this puts an adult GOld Dragon at around our entry level, no?


Yes, I think I like this solution a LOT. lets see what he says. :) THanks a lot!
Cool glad to help.

Using the formula I posted adult gold dragon is (24+7-2)*50% = ECL 14. But I was assuming 90+% WBL into horde from there to keep it at 50%. At half WBL maybe it'll be around 65%. And 50% or 65% is just an estimate, you may want to tweak that based on your knowledge of your group. So adult gold dragon is in the right ballpark at least, though maybe a little strong.

With low WBL other types of adult dragons are viable options too. With more WBL young gold dragon is still an option, and it's still large size. Young is the lowest age at which dragons live solitary lives btw.

[GrayDeath]

Yep, gonna tweak it a bit, once (as I am sure he will) he agrees.

Half was only an estimate, as Is aid he is a fluff before crunch player, so hell probably insist on more towards the hoard anyway.

Really, that is a great way to mod them fairly, once someone wants to paly a dragon more than optimize, and the group is strong enough.

heck, might do it myself some time :smallcool:

[ericgrau]

Hmm and since advancement will probably be by class level and not HD & dragon abilities, actually he should keep some portion of treasure. And the class levels would likewise be counted 100% towards ECL not 50-75%. 50% to hoard is probably about right for this, then close to regular treasure around ECL 18-22ish if the campaign even goes past 18. You just need to deal with his initial power possibly being a little high if he's an adult gold dragon. Other types of adult dragons would have a lower ECL by the formula, for example.

[GrayDeath]

GTrue, the initial massive adantage in HP, Attack Bnus and Damage looks to be the only problem for me.

However sinc ethe only other Meleeist is highly optimzied AND played by the most skilled player, it should be doable.

So about 10% of WBL to use until we reach Level 16-17 and around 50% from then on sound good?


Also, he positively squeeled when I gave him the gist of this version, so you made a player very very happy today. Thanks. :)

[ericgrau]

Awesomesauce.

Yeah that could be close enough for adult gold dragon.

For an adult dragon of a different metal you could do ~0% WBL to start, then around 50% treasure right from the start until level ~18. Then if the campaign isn't over declare his hoard pretty good after that and let him keep more treasure. Assuming advancement by class levels. Or adjust from that ballpark if you think the power is too low/high.

[Jormengand]

Most dragons are strictly mediocre for their HD, which is why their CR is almost universally lower (and why the level adjustment assignment thread assigns them LA "Minus zero", as in "This is zero but if negative level adjustment existed this would have one." With 10 hit dice, a breath weapon that went out of fashion four levels ago, a +10 strength, +6 constitution and +2 to each mental ability score and +9 natural armour (at the expense of not being able to wear full plate +1, for example), the very young red is neck-and-neck with the very young gold (+6 to those mentals instead, one more natural armour, and a superfluously faster but still not combat viable fly speed all for one extra hit die probably gives the gold an edge) for "Least awful Large dragon". Of course, both red and gold also reach huge pre-epic.

Now, dragon hit dice aren't necessarily awful (What do you get if you take the best BAB, saves and HD size and add the second-best number of skill points? A dragon!) and with your strength, bite-claw-claw-wing-wing-tail might actually do enough damage to make you, uh, relevant at your own job (27+STR*3.5 could be 62 if you max out strength and hit with everything, which is... not enough to take out monsters with CR equal to your level (like dragons who are twice your CR for example.)) But it is enough to make a dent, at least

Diagnosis: mediocre. Your player will be fine doing dragon things as a dragon. They'll have some skills too. But mostly they'll just hit things and only even be okay at it.

[ExLibrisMortis]

How about a steel (Dragons of Faerûn) wyrmling of war (Dragons of Eberron) warblade 1/sorcerer 1/jade phoenix mage 6 with LA buyoff (at 9 and 12) and age cursing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16018007&postcount=7) or size increases for however many categories is appropriate?

Without age cursing or size increases, you're a Small dragon. You get Firebird Stance straight away, you're a Jade Phoenix Reborn Dragon Master straight away, you have 6th-level casting, full base attack, and a decent selection of maneuvers. Between Tiger Claw and Jade Phoenix Mage, you are very predatory and fiery, which is just what a dragon needs. Plus you're a true dragon with racial casting, SR, Alternate Form--the works. The only problem is: you're still Small, and that looks a bit funny.

Of the three ways to get bigger, one is cheesy and absurdly powerful (age cursing), one is homebrew (size increases), and one involves simply picking a bigger dragon, which I'm not talking about in this post :smalltongue: (it's a decent option with steels, but you get only 2/3 casting and no class features).

With a single-category age curse, you're still Small, but now with three extra base attack and two levels of sorcerer casting, and you get Minor Arcane Shield, taking your SR up to 28 for low-level spells (1st- and 2nd-level, I guess--it's on the table, but only Moderate Arcane Shield is in the text, and that works against spells up to 4th level). This is probably a bit too strong, since you're actually getting +15 base attack at ECL 12, but it's quite reasonable at higher levels (+19 base attack at ECL 16+ is fine), when spells become more and more powerful.

With a two-category age curse, you're Medium, with Moderate Arcane Shield, +18 base attack, and 10th-level sorcerer casting. I think that's probably too strong, even at ECL 16+.

A single-category size increase would also take you to Medium, with +4 strength, -2 dexterity, and +2 constitution, making for a fairly nice gish stat loadout (+4/-2/+4/+0/+0/+2). You can do this without really affecting balance; with the lost +1 to-hit and +1 AC, this probably isn't even worth any LA on its own.

A two-category size increase would take you to Large, with +12 strength, -4 dexterity, and +6 constitution. That's already a lot closer to being a full dragon. You can assign this +1 LA, which would affect the buyoff scheme above, and change the build to wyrmling 4/warblade 1/sorcerer 1/JPM 4/LA 2 with one LA already bought off and the next buyoff at ECL 15 and 18.


On balance, I'd recommend the two-category size increase, with or without LA. It's not too powerful, and provides the real draconic feeling of Large Strong Predator + Fiery Flying Lizard + Jump On Things To Make Them Die.

[Fouredged Sword]

Another fun thing is that many dragon abilities are tied into their size. This makes a dragon Psiwar with expansion fun. You get more natural weapons the bigger you get.

If your player wants to fit into small spaces the AAEG has a collar that will turn any creature small without changing their stats. You expressly keep your high strength. Fun for the great wyrm gold dragpm who likes to pretend he is a wyrmling.

[ericgrau]

Most dragons are strictly mediocre for their HD, which is why their CR is almost universally lower (and why the level adjustment assignment thread assigns them LA "Minus zero", as in "This is zero but if negative level adjustment existed this would have one."
Yeah, CR is part of how I estimated ECL when taking away the dragon's PC WBL & stats, plus a little lower due to fellow PC optimization. With PC WBL, ECL is quite a bit higher.

[Tvtyrant]

Hello Y`all!


An old friend, but new D&D (and almost ceompletely new RPG) player, has decided to join an upcoming higher Level game.

He is at the moment absolutely fascinated with Dragons and really REALLY wants to play one. Since he is very much not an optimizer (heck he played once or twice at most^^) and I am the DM, we decided to allow it, IF we can get it done within the following limits (and since I expect it: No, transforming into a Dragon or being a Halfdragon are declined^^):


Achieve "useful and powerful feeling" play without too much handwaving/homebrewing
Allow them all to be more or less "equal" (the Druid Player is the least optimizing) within the expected Range until the end of the game at level 19-20ish
Not make the Dragon complicated to play.
Have fun.


Party is at Level 12-13 when he joins (using medium to slightly above OP, consists of a Druid, a Bard (with some extra goodies and Sublime Chord) and a Paladin/Warblade Gestalt).



I have so far found no even remotely RAW way to do this. I am open to Homebrewing/modifications as long as they fulfill the above and are not COMPLETELY out of whack.

Now my thoughts, if going homebrew/mod-heavy at the moment where kicking any LA and allowing him to play an adult or so that starts without casting and would gain that within the next few levels, but even that would need lots of work.....


Thanks in advance for your help.
I have done this before: no class levels, advances by dragon HD and then ages up when the HD matches the next age. The dragon gets bigger and more dragonlike over time, and is a tier 3 character.

We justified it by having dragon powet be based on their hoard, so their magic items and money literally make them stronger.

[The_Snark]

It's a little above your starting level, but the abyssal drake is a monster found in Draconomicon that can be played at ECL 15. It's actually closer to a wyvern, which might bug some people... but it's still a Huge-sized flying monster with a breath weapon, which is pretty good. It won't be especially optimized next to a spellcaster of that level, but it holds up pretty well as a smashy-type.