Dragon Shaman + Rust Dragon

[Yogibear41]

Using the adaptation for the Dragon shaman, and allowing them to choose the Rust Dragon. Would giving them the rust breath (and not the damage dealing breath) be too good?


Looking for a LN or LE dragon choice that would give me acid immunity, but Not an Acid Breath weapon. Thought about the Axial dragon's force breath too, but thought the Rust breath idea was pretty cool.

Also curious what the shadow dragon shaman's breath weapon would do, since the adaptation example specifically mentions the shadow dragon.

[The Viscount]

Power wise I don't think it would be too strong as long as you restrict it to objects and don't say it instantly destroys metal creatures like iron golems or warforged. If it did it would be too strong, especially since there's no scaling and it's full effect at level 4. Without that it's maybe a little weaker than the damage because for some foes it won't do anything.

For shadow dragon I can only imagine having the breath weapon deal negative energy damage. It wouldn't be balanced to deal negative levels that early, the resistance wouldn't scale well, and the energy shield aura would also be way too strong. This way would mean weirdness with undead/Tomb Tainted Soul, but so be it.

[zfs]

Not that Druid is a great balance point or anything, but a 13th level Druid can get a Shadow Dragon breath that does 2 negative levels. I would say, if they pick Shadow Dragon, have the energy related abilities be Cold (fits themetically with Shadow, to me at least), and bake 2 or 3 negative levels into the breath weapon in exchange for damage die. So if it eventually does 2 negative levels, it caps at 8d6. If you want to make it a bit weaker, you can have the negative levels be save for none instead of save for half.

Since they need to re-charge their breath like true dragons, I wouldn't worry that much about negative level stacking. Besides, Dragon Shaman could use a boost.

[Buufreak]

For the rust breath, why not do something like deals damage to metallic objects/creatures, ignoring hardness? Roughly what rusting grasp does, yea?

[NigelWalmsley]

I think rust breath is probably just not a good idea for PCs in general. Its value is heavily polarized based on expected opposition, as it's potentially crippling against humanoid physical combatants, but relatively useless against casters or monsters. It also will likely cause friction with the party if it's used to destroy enemy gear, as that denies other characters their loot (though this can be tweaked). A tool that's either useless, or pisses off the rest of the group, is probably not a good tool. I would probably fudge the rules and give them a decay breath that inflicted untyped damage and some stat penalties. It's on-theme, but doesn't have the issues that rust breath does.

[Troacctid]

I would recommend looking at the breath weapons that they gave to half-dragons of that type. I think they're in Draconomicon, or maybe Races of the Dragon?

EDIT: It's in both books. Rust half-dragons have a line of acid as their breath weapon. Shadow half-dragons have a cone of energy drain (inflicts 1 negative level on a failed save).

[Thurbane]

I would recommend looking at the breath weapons that they gave to half-dragons of that type. I think they're in Draconomicon, or maybe Races of the Dragon?

EDIT: It's in both books. Rust half-dragons have a line of acid as their breath weapon. Shadow half-dragons have a cone of energy drain (inflicts 1 negative level on a failed save).

Here's a few additional half-dragon ideas other than those in RotD: [3.5] List of Half-Dragons (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?598094)