How to make a Dragon Ascendant worth their HDs?

[47948201]

Let's throw LA out the window for the moment. The lowest level you can become a quasi-deity via Dragon Ascendant is 42, with your choice of 30 HDs or full-BAB class levels (probably some combination of the two)

The problem is, Dragon Ascendant has a hefty feat tax and doesn't really give you useful features. It makes you more resilient, sure, but I feel like a Great Wyrm Red Dragon (40 RHDs) is a lot more effective than a Very Old Red Dragon (31 RHDs) with 12 levels in Dragon Ascendant, thanks to its superior ability scores and spellcasting, and the fact it can choose to grab more Metabreath, Metamagic, and melee-combat feats. Waiting until Great Wyrm to ascend is in the dragon's best interest in-world, but by that level a benefit like SR33 or DR+5 is less relevant than ever.

But maybe I'm overlooking something? Let's open up the possibility space a bit and say our target total for HDs is 50. Without templates, can you make a Red Dragon Ascendant (with the full 12 levels) that would be more helpful to an ECL 35 party than a simple Great Wyrm Red Dragon epic-casting gish with 10 Warblade levels? Let's say they're fighting CR43 threats, and the PCs are SRD-only fighter+rogue+wizard+cleric, though the dragon obviously need not be. If so, how few class levels can you do it with?

[Arcanist]

The Dragon Ascendant is not alone in sucking as far as the Dragon prestige classes go. A Great Wyrm Dragon at 40 HD is probably better because it hasn't delayed its casting progression more than anything else. Access to high level spells is kind of important if you want to remain a threat to people who very likely have access to that sort of stuff. So I think if you wanted to make Dragon Ascendant (and all other Dragon prestige classes) not suck, you would make it advance the dragons spellcasting 11 times and require a base class as well. Probably a level in Sorcerer or Cleric or something like how Sacred Warder, Unholy Ravager, and Dispassionate Watcher require. And then probably make the capstone ability actually give them a Divine Rank 0 and direct the reader to Deities and Demigods for what exactly that entails.

Out of any of the Dragon prestige classes, Sacred Warder, Unholy Ravager, and Dispassionate Watcher are probably the best you can ask for and they're still only okay-ish so starting with them as a basis sounds about right.

[Darg]

The power of a dragon ascendant is that they can live forever. They can gain levels into infinity as long as they aren't slain. What's more powerful, a dragon ascendant with 150+ levels who's lived for 50,000 years or the red at 5,000 with 1 constitution and 70 levels? It's a give up power now for power later class.

Also, Dragons too old aren't mean for PCs. A dragon PC with enough BAB to qualify for dragon ascendant at the bare minimum of 30 HD is one that literally gained 12-17 class levels while 0-2 years old and only level themselves up once every few years to only improve their dragon HD. That's metagaming really hard with the character building. Normally a dragon ascendant wouldn't be a PC just because of how much metagaming it requires if they aren't just a straight dragon NPC. And if it happens naturally, the player is already high enough level that 12 "wasted" levels literally change almost nothing.

[Rebel7284]

There are a few ways to enter early which might help a bit.

War chanter has Inspire Legion as the capstone


When the war chanter begins singing, determine the best base attack bonus among all the affected characters. All affected characters use this base attack bonus or the war chanter's character level as their base attack bonus for the duration of the effect.

A war chanter that doesn't sleep could conceivably keep the party's BAB at 30 forever by level 15, allowing a Dragonwraught Kobold ally to enter assuming they qualify as true dragons.
Non-DWK entry is also possible, but needs to wait until level 21 to qualify for Fast Healing.

I am envisioning something like:
X 5/Ur Priest 10/Dragon Ascendant 12 = ECL27, full divine casting

ECL 20 is probably possible with a similar approach, but harder to also stick in 9th level spells.

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Loredrake steel dragon wurmling would be my go-to for an ECL 21 entry.

Note that Inspire Greatness Optimization can provide 9 HD, so Inspire Greatness + Divine Power is an option for ECL 21.

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Dusk Giant (HoH p. 147) and such also provide temporary HD so may be usable with or without Divine Power. Only goes to 24HD, but that's Inspire Greatness range.

[redking]

I think you've touched on something very important here. Sure, technically speaking you could have an old dragon with 12 levels of dragon ascendant, but is it really something that's going to exist in the campaign world? This is ancillary to optimising the build, but perhaps an important consideration.

[47948201]

The thing about dragons, age, and gaining a bunch of levels is that leveling rules in the DMG don't work well for non-adventurers or dragons, and leveling rules in Draconomicon don't work well at all. It's actually easier to become a Dragon Ascendant at as low an ECL as possible, provided you meet the requirements. If I were a dragon and wanted the best possible shot at ascension using D&D rules, I'd rather do it at very old rather than great wyrm. Conversely, an immortal dragon with dozens of RHDs and 50+ class levels is going to have trouble just finding challenges dire enough that it can gain any experience from them to level up. On the off-chance it does find such a challenge, is its divinity going to help much compared to other things it could have spent that effort on?

Early entry seems promising as a way to make things more reasonable and possibly free up space for other useful levels, and Ur-Priest seems pretty on-brand for an evil Dragon Ascendant.

[Darg]

I think the leveling rules for dragons in the draconomicon work well enough. I just think it requires a gameplay style shift from gaining 20 levels in a month to gaining 20 levels over 20 years or longer to work right. Half of the leveling process for dragons is gaining HD through aging. The rules for PC dragons is that players gain the aging racial HD levels by normal leveling methods instead of being granted them automatically where they could easily overtake other characters. Dragons over the age of 50 aren't meant for PCs. It's unlikely a PC would even see the need for immortality when they still have 99% of their pre-twighlight years ahead of them.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Gestalt with sorcerer? The sorcerer portion of the gestalt levels wouldn't stack with the racial spellcasting, but it would stack with dragon ascendant...

[Chronos]

The other thing with Dragon Ascendant is that divine rank 0 just really doesn't get you all that much. DR 0 is basically "like a mortal, except no dying of old age, and a few of your numbers are higher than normal". It's DR 1 where you start getting the cool features like "even natural 20s can miss you" and "can save on a natural 1" and so on. And I don't think there's any mechanical way laid out in any of the books to get DR 1, without direct help from a higher-rank deity.

[Arcanist]

I think you've touched on something very important here. Sure, technically speaking you could have an old dragon with 12 levels of dragon ascendant, but is it really something that's going to exist in the campaign world? This is ancillary to optimising the build, but perhaps an important consideration.

There are only a few, like 2, Dragon Ascendant NPCs in the Forgotten Realms. Allegedly it is a common pursuit for Dragons in Eberron, but there are no stated NPCs with the prestige class so make of that what you will.

[redking]

There are only a few, like 2, Dragon Ascendant NPCs in the Forgotten Realms. Allegedly it is a common pursuit for Dragons in Eberron, but there are no stated NPCs with the prestige class so make of that what you will.

Both of those would be great wyrms, no? That's what I am getting at. It would be unlikely that there would be a dragon ascendant that isn't a great wyrm.

[Anthrowhale]

Making Dragon Ascendant worthwhile seems nigh-hopeless. Even Green Star Adept seems plausibly better given good immunities and half casting.

One particularly good prestige class for dragons is Abjurant Champion since the capstone pushes the caster level of spells much higher.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Going RAW, yes, a dragon ascendant is worthless. Comparing Dragon Ascendant levels to dragon aging RHD is a bit like comparing sorcerer and barbarian levels. Both increase your ECL, but they are far from equivalent in the power level department.

However, Dragon Ascendant is the only RAW way to gain a divine rank. Divine rank 0, of course, but at least the dragon has a spark of divinity, and the potential to become a minor dragon deity. If they gain enough worshippers (maybe a thousand worshippers, just save a city from a catastrophe and present yourself as a god of retribution), they could potentially gain divine rank 1. And at that point, they're golden. Even if you disregard the salient ability (they're probably taking Gift of Life, since no red dragon has a high enough Cha for Alter reality), your spellcasting improves dramatically. One level in Ur-Priest, one in druid, one in Unholy Ravager of Tiamat, then one in Blighter, and they gain the ability to cast 9th level cleric and druid spells, as well as casting all of them spontaneously due to their divine rank and being able to grant them to their worshippers.
(do note that the "Ur-priest-druid-ravager-blighter" thing is still possible for a non-dragon ascendant, but a DvR 1 dragon ups this to the stratosphere)