Dragon Rangers

[PacMan41000]

Alright so, I want to make the Mighty Morphing Dragon Rangers and I want help in refining them to be as Power Rangery as possible. So far, All I have is a few levels of Monk, then a minimum of 12 level Sorcerer for Lesser Dragon Shape(6th level spell) or 11 level wizard for the same. If anyone has better ideas, I'm all ears, I just want to keep it in 3rd and 3.5 edition. Mainly 3.5 with no homebrew

[Zaq]

Are these PCs meant to survive a campaign and keep growing? NPCs who are meant to burn brightly for a single encounter? Something else?

What’s your intended power/optimization level? How do you feel about relying on items? What’s non-negotiable in terms of what you want the characters to actually do?

[PacMan41000]

Are these PCs meant to survive a campaign and keep growing? NPCs who are meant to burn brightly for a single encounter? Something else?

What’s your intended power/optimization level? How do you feel about relying on items? What’s non-negotiable in terms of what you want the characters to actually do?

Excellent Questions, I don't mind relying on Items, I prefer them to be PCs but NPCs work too. For PCs, I want them to be able to survive a campaign, and for NPCs, I want them to be reoccurring. Level 15 seems to be good but I will go higher or lower as necessary, and I want them to be able to turn into Dragons, which is where lesser Dragon Shape comes in

[Temotei]

Polymorph and draconic polymorph are lower-level options for turning into dragons if you need them.

You could even have a war weaver in the group cast polymorph on everyone to turn them all into dragons with one casting to allow more build diversity.

[Uncle Pine]

Calling armors (MIC) give your rangers a transformation sequence. Unarmed swordsage can be used in place of monk to get monk abilities while wearing armor.

[Ruethgar]

Shapeshift Druids can be fluffed however you like. Avian form could shift you into a dragon with ease. Or if you’re a stickler on staying animal, a Drakkensteed is pretty awesome.

If you wanted to keep the melee, you could go with the Tippy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?324826-Druid-variant-question) druid option, though it’s homebrew it should be fine with most anyone, a Druid giving up spells is a pretty big hit to their power.

Edit: You could also grab a Construct Familiar Dragon and Familiar Form into them. Then you’re going into an up to medium size dragon mech.

It is significantly easier to be a dragon to begin with via Hatchling rules and add in the Improved Dragon Wings, Dragonhide Husk(free woot), and Alternate Form feats and option. Only requires Sorc 5, so their “transformation” would actually be their true form. Not much more powerful, but can follow it up with half-dragon form if you wanted and it leaves a good chunk of ECL to play with. Also you are undoubtedly a true dragon so Ravening War Wyrm it up.

[thoroughlyS]

After doing some research and tooling with some concepts, I have some recommendations for your build. The wild monk alternate class (Dragon 324 p.97) grants Wild Shape at 6th level. By taking Tashalatora (Secrets of Sarlona p.119), you could switch out to psychic warrior after that and still advance most of your monk features. At 12th level, you could take Dragon Wild Shape (Draconomicon p.105).

With just these features, you'd have most of the goodies of a monk, a fair amount of psychic powers, and could transform into a Medium dragon for up to six hours at a time. Taking the Soulbound Weapon ACF (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a) for psychic warrior would give you a signature weapon to use while in your human form. Taking Extra Wild Shape (Complete Divine p.81) lets you transform three times a day. Thanks to expansion (Expanded Psionics Handbook p.105) you can also be Large (or Huge after 13th level). For 18,000 gp, you could also get a mantle of the beast (Complete Champion p.140) which lets you wild shape as a swift action.

This build is pretty feat heavy, requiring Monastic Training, Tashalatora, Extra Wild Shape, and Dragon Wild Shape to be functional. However, these can be gained at a very reasonable pace and don't require any tricks to get on-time. It also comes online a little bit earlier than your original idea, while staying truer to the Power Ranger theme (in my opinion).

[Draconi Redfir]

Draconic Druid archetype maybe? (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/archetypes/paizo-druid-archetypes/draconic-druid-druid-archetype/)

[animewatcha]

There any chance of an invisible bard with subsonics ( so no one can 'identify' where coming from ) for power ranger music?