About how much would a sort of dragon partial gestalt inflate power levels?

[Evoker]

I had an idea for a campaign of all dragon player characters, with the concept of advancement being taking everything from your class as far as BAB, saving throws, hit dice, etc, but inheriting ability score modifiers and flight, breath attack, etc from the dragon type.
Everyone would start as wyrmlings, and grow age categories at the appropriate number of hit dice(IE, a player playing a black dragon would become Very Young at level 8, young at level 11, etc).

Does anyone have an idea of approximately about how much this would inflate player power level? Would it too heavily discourage any playstyles to be fun?

It's just an idea I have kicking around in the back of my head and I wanted to get some more experienced eyes on it. Thanks!

[Crake]

Inflating power levels is irrelevant, as long as everyone at the table is on the same power level. The problem is when people get left behind.

Thing is, not all true dragons are created equal, some are just flat out weaker than others.

Also, how are you planning on reconciling the fact that these characters will age several decades over the course of just a few months?

[Anthrowhale]

Thing is, not all true dragons are created equal, some are just flat out weaker than others.

Since the balance would be by HD rather than age levels, I suspect it would work out somewhat better than a balance by age levels at higher character level. I also expect that it wouldn't matter to much for overall character power at advanced character level. For example, at character level 20 a 12d4 acid breath weapon every 1d4 rounds is fairly comparable to eldritch blast.

At ECL 1 though the ability to fly is amazing, and the variation in ability modifiers of different wyrmlings is quite significant. White Wyrmling is Con+2, Int-4, Cha-4 while Gold Wyrmling is Str+6, Con+4, Int+4, Wis+4, Cha+4.

[Crake]

Since the balance would be by HD rather than age levels, I suspect it would work out somewhat better than a balance by age levels at higher character level. I also expect that it wouldn't matter to much for overall character power at advanced character level. For example, at character level 20 a 12d4 acid breath weapon every 1d4 rounds is fairly comparable to eldritch blast.

At ECL 1 though the ability to fly is amazing, and the variation in ability modifiers of different wyrmlings is quite significant. White Wyrmling is Con+2, Int-4, Cha-4 while Gold Wyrmling is Str+6, Con+4, Int+4, Wis+4, Cha+4.

Yeah, thing is a good chunk of the levels will be in that wyrmling range, and even post wyrmling, dragons by HD still have vastly different power levels

[RandomPeasant]

Just have the people play Dragon + Class instead of Dragon//Class (maybe with a generalized "you can trade in your Sorcerer casting from being a dragon for whatever sort of casting you want" option). That will mean them getting more of their power from being a dragon, but I submit that in a campaign where you have made everyone dragons that is what you want. And it fairly neatly solves the uneven progression problem, because you can just give whoever gets less dragon when they go up an age category more class levels to compensate.


Also, how are you planning on reconciling the fact that these characters will age several decades over the course of just a few months?

That strikes me as the harder problem, TBH. "Everyone is a dragon" does a half-decent job of resolving a lot of the typical issues with monster PCs. But if your dragon campaign is going to feel like the PCs are really dragons, you need to figure out some way to make a campaign that lasts several orders of magnitude more in-game time than most campaigns do work. If you do go with the Gestalt thing, the big issue you will need to address is not power imbalance but that the PCs are likely to be gaining levels much faster than they are gaining dragon HD.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Dragons get a lot of their power from large piles of excellent hit dice, but their special abilities are nothing, well, special for their HD. After all, a great wyrm gold dragon has 41 hit dice but only 19th-level spellcasting, and that 24d10 breath weapon averages less than 1d6 damage/HD.

So I think that overall, adding dragon benefits wouldn't do that much. In a low-optimization game, you should probably add ~2 to the party's level when designing encounters, but keeping in mind that the PCs do not have access to higher-level abilities and effects--they only have bigger numbers. In a mid-to-high-optimization game, the ability to (draconic) polymorph into more powerful forms already exists; actually being a dragon wouldn't add much to that.

If you allow characters to gain draconic spellcasting, you're encouraging everyone to play steel dragons and tome dragons--the extra 4-6 levels of spellcasting are really useful. Depending on how the dragon spellcasting stacks with class-derived spellcasting, some half-casting prestige classes might end up being quite good, but other than that, it's the same spellcasting game, just with ~+8 to Charisma on top.

[Beni-Kujaku]

You can check the Negative LA assignment thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629100-Negative-LA-Assignment-Resurrection-but-no-diamond-here/page6) for an approximate equivalence of power level between dragons and a regular character, not taking into account the official level adjustment. Check the DLA in each category. For example, the Young Green Dragon has a DLA-2, hence a power level equivalent of a level 9 character (11 RHD-2). If you use a gestalt of Young Green Dragon 11/other class 11, it will be a bit lower level than an equivalent gestalt character.

A quick and dirty fix that you can do is simply add this many levels of either sorcerer or warblade class features to your dragon.

In the case of our Young Green Dragon, it would now cast as a 2nd level sorcerer (instead of not having casting), and gain a familiar, but nothing else (the "dragon" part of the gestalt would still only have 11 HD), or gain maneuvers equivalent to a 2nd level warblade as well as battle clarity, weapon aptitude and uncanny dodge. Prefer to use a subsystem that doesn't appear on the other part of the gestalt, so an Improved Green Dragon 11/Warblade 11 would make more sense gaining sorcerer casting rather than warblade maneuvers.

The gestalt Improved Young Green Dragon 11//other class 11 would then be equivalent to a regular gestalt of two level 11 characters, and you can adjust your monsters like Unearthed Arcana said about regular gestalt (basically, reduce all CRs by 1, or by 2 if they rely excessively on Save-or-Suck actions).


Another example, an adult Copper Dragon has DLA-4, and would gain 4 levels of sorcerer, for a total of 11th level casting at level 20. Exotic dragons are not rated here, and you should infer their power level accordingly (the more powerful the dragon compared to its number of RHD, the lower the corresponding number of sorcerer levels to add). Do note that dragons other than the regular 10 are often more powerful as gestalts. For example, the Steel Dragons and Tome Dragons are both extremely powerful magic-users while having low numbers of Racial Hit Dice. In those cases, you probably shouldn't add sorcerer levels, or even reduce it for the Steel Wyrmling and Very Young categories.

[Crake]

You can check the Negative LA assignment thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629100-Negative-LA-Assignment-Resurrection-but-no-diamond-here/page6) for an approximate equivalence of power level between dragons and a regular character, not taking into account the official level adjustment. Check the DLA in each category. For example, the Young Green Dragon has a DLA-2, hence a power level equivalent of a level 9 character (11 RHD-2). If you use a gestalt of Young Green Dragon 11/other class 11, it will be a bit lower level than an equivalent gestalt character.

A quick and dirty fix that you can do is simply add this many levels of either sorcerer or warblade class features to your dragon.

In the case of our Young Green Dragon, it would now cast as a 2nd level sorcerer (instead of not having casting), and gain a familiar, but nothing else (the "dragon" part of the gestalt would still only have 11 HD), or gain maneuvers equivalent to a 2nd level warblade as well as battle clarity, weapon aptitude and uncanny dodge. Prefer to use a subsystem that doesn't appear on the other part of the gestalt, so an Improved Green Dragon 11/Warblade 11 would make more sense gaining sorcerer casting rather than warblade maneuvers.

The gestalt Improved Young Green Dragon 11//other class 11 would then be equivalent to a regular gestalt of two level 11 characters, and you can adjust your monsters like Unearthed Arcana said about regular gestalt (basically, reduce all CRs by 1, or by 2 if they rely excessively on Save-or-Suck actions).


Another example, an adult Copper Dragon has DLA-4, and would gain 4 levels of sorcerer, for a total of 11th level casting at level 20. Exotic dragons are not rated here, and you should infer their power level accordingly (the more powerful the dragon compared to its number of RHD, the lower the corresponding number of sorcerer levels to add). Do note that dragons other than the regular 10 are often more powerful as gestalts. For example, the Steel Dragons and Tome Dragons are both extremely powerful magic-users while having low numbers of Racial Hit Dice. In those cases, you probably shouldn't add sorcerer levels, or even reduce it for the Steel Wyrmling and Very Young categories.

You're making something that's already gonna be quite complicated even more so, far beyond the value that the complexity is providing.

Just give everyone D12 HD, 6+int skills minimum, good saves across the board, slap them with some ability score bonuses that they can assign as they please, and give them a race-appropriate breath weapon, then call it quits, everyone's normalized, you don't have to answer the question of why one character is getting stronger faster than the other, or why some characters are aging and others aren't. The characters without spellcasting can easily be explained away as not having reached the maturity to unlock their innate spellcasting, while the ones who pick caster classes can fluff that as their racial casting. Done and done.

And of course, give them all a physical true dragon form, probably large size, and give everyone change shape for a humanoid form.

[Anthrowhale]

Yeah, thing is a good chunk of the levels will be in that wyrmling range, and even post wyrmling, dragons by HD still have vastly different power levels

Let's compare the extremes at 20HD.

White Dragon: L, Str+12, Con+8, Cha+2, 6d6 cold cone, Frightful Presence 20, Move 60', Burrow 30', Fly 200'(poor), Swim 60', NA+17, Gust of Wind, Fog Cloud, Icewalking, [cold], DR 5/magic, SR 18.
Gold Dragon: H, Str+20, Con+10, Int+8, Wis+8, Cha+8, 10d10 fire cone or weakening gas, Frightful presence 24, Move 60', Fly 200'(poor), Swim 60', NA+19, Bless, Alternate Form, [fire], DR 5/magic, SR 21.

It does look like the gold dragon has a substantial advantage even when comparing HD. The parts that really stand out to me are bold. The stats for the Gold Dragon skew most classes substantially. Alternate form implies persistent strength of the true form is in play as well. The natural armor is shared with all the dragons and can easily be used to skew AC into 'no' territory. The high fly is shared by all dragons and even at 20 HD can skew things to heavy tactical advantage vs monsters.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Just give everyone D12 HD, 6+int skills minimum, good saves across the board, slap them with some ability score bonuses that they can assign as they please, and give them a race-appropriate breath weapon, then call it quits, everyone's normalized, you don't have to answer the question of why one character is getting stronger faster than the other, or why some characters are aging and others aren't. The characters without spellcasting can easily be explained away as not having reached the maturity to unlock their innate spellcasting, while the ones who pick caster classes can fluff that as their racial casting. Done and done.

And of course, give them all a physical true dragon form, probably large size, and give everyone change shape for a humanoid form.

No, no, you missed my points there. There were two main points:
1) to estimate how strong these creatures would become compared to a regular gestalt, to allow the DM to easily calculate the CR of creatures that they should face
2) to ensure that people in the party would get similar power boosts regardless of the age category and color they choose. I wouldn't like to be shafted for choosing to play a black dragon rather than a copper one.

2) is solved by giving players using weaker "colors" a boost to their caster level (it could be anything, I just feel like this is both the most straightforward and the easiest to implement, you basically just have to change the "caster level" column in the dragon's statblock), which solves 1) quite readily, since they become equivalent to a regular gestalt.

Using your method would require much more "choices" from the players, and increase imbalance even more, while not feeling like dragons anymore. A creature with 12/18/12/28/8/16 as its stats doesn't feel like a dragon, it feels like an ethergaunt. I thought the point of the OP was for the players to play dragons, not to play "generic outsider with incredible stats". Giving everyone the same bonuses to stats, flight and a breath weapon may be good for a high-powered campaign, but it's not dragons, it denies the differences between each kind of dragons, and it denies what makes true dragons unique compared to magical beasts or other creatures with the dragon type: their SLAs, spellcasting, Frightful Presence, SR, their scaling, how White is different from Gold, how Silver can walk on cloud and Green can breathe underwater, how Tome uses free Quicken spontaneously, and gem dragons can take refuge in the Plane of Air with a thought. Basically, reducing dragons to their stats removes what makes dragons awesome, and how important colors are for dragons around the Forgotten Realms.
Furthermore, your technique would require to estimate what is an "appropriate" breath weapon for a 12th level character, or how much stats should a dragon with 16 RHD get, and that for every level if you want to allow aging, which the OP does. That seems a lot more complicated than simply reading a dragon's statblock and maybe adding a few levels of casting.

[Darg]

Let's compare the extremes at 20HD.

White Dragon: L, Str+12, Con+8, Cha+2, 6d6 cold cone, Frightful Presence 20, Move 60', Burrow 30', Fly 200'(poor), Swim 60', NA+17, Gust of Wind, Fog Cloud, Icewalking, [cold], DR 5/magic, SR 18.
Gold Dragon: H, Str+20, Con+10, Int+8, Wis+8, Cha+8, 10d10 fire cone or weakening gas, Frightful presence 24, Move 60', Fly 200'(poor), Swim 60', NA+19, Bless, Alternate Form, [fire], DR 5/magic, SR 21.

It does look like the gold dragon has a substantial advantage even when comparing HD. The parts that really stand out to me are bold. The stats for the Gold Dragon skew most classes substantially. Alternate form implies persistent strength of the true form is in play as well. The natural armor is shared with all the dragons and can easily be used to skew AC into 'no' territory. The high fly is shared by all dragons and even at 20 HD can skew things to heavy tactical advantage vs monsters.

Burrow speed, icewalking, and the class skills a white dragon has are exceptional. White dragons are ambush predators and they are really good at it.

Anyways, the balancing factor here is that white dragons have less HD at a given age category, and they remain playable for far longer than a gold dragon (45ish years vs 16ish). So while a gold dragon might have stronger HD, at any given age category the white can have more class levels.

[Troacctid]

FWIW, Dragon #320 and #332 have 20-level monster classes for the ten core true dragon varieties.

[Crake]

Alternate form implies persistent strength of the true form is in play as well.

Worth noting that Alternate form does NOT actually keep the original form's physical ability scores, that is change shape. Alternate form into a human would give 10/10/10 str/dex/con, however there is a level 1 spell called strength of the true form which, as a swift action, gives you your true ability scores for 1 round.

That's why i suggested change shape into humanoids, not alternate form, that way they could actually benefit from their base stats even in humanoid forms.


Using your method would require much more "choices" from the players, and increase imbalance even more, while not feeling like dragons anymore.

Choices don't seem like a bad thing, though I'm not sure why you think my way INCREASES imbalances, when you're literally normalizing things.


A creature with 12/18/12/28/8/16 as its stats doesn't feel like a dragon, it feels like an ethergaunt.

You're projecting numbers onto my statement. I said give them some ability score bonuses, and let them assign them as they please, I didn't say give them carte blanche massive point buy. As an example, you give them a +10, a +8, two +6s and two +4s, and say that none of them can go into dex.


I thought the point of the OP was for the players to play dragons, not to play "generic outsider with incredible stats".

The features I described are the features of dragon HD. D12, 6+int skills, and good saves across the board. Has nothing to do with outsiders, so dunno where you're getting that from.


Giving everyone the same bonuses to stats, flight and a breath weapon may be good for a high-powered campaign, but it's not dragons, it denies the differences between each kind of dragons, and it denies what makes true dragons unique compared to magical beasts or other creatures with the dragon type: their SLAs, spellcasting, Frightful Presence, SR, their scaling, how White is different from Gold, how Silver can walk on cloud and Green can breathe underwater, how Tome uses free Quicken spontaneously, and gem dragons can take refuge in the Plane of Air with a thought. Basically, reducing dragons to their stats removes what makes dragons awesome, and how important colors are for dragons around the Forgotten Realms.

Correct, but having all those things also means BALANCING all those things. Those were all given to those various types of dragons under the expectation that a) the dragon was a singular entity, not a member of a team, and b) that the dragon was an NPC, not a player. You can still give them other things that all true dragons universally get, like frightful presence, SR, etc, if they all get those, then there's no balance problem, it's about minimizing the differences between different TYPES of true dragons, not cutting them off from what true dragons get. I figured that was all expected from the "give them the physical form of a true dragon". So NA, SR, frightful presence, 120ft darkvision, 4x lowlight vision, appropriate natural attacks, flight, etc.


Furthermore, your technique would require to estimate what is an "appropriate" breath weapon for a 12th level character, or how much stats should a dragon with 16 RHD get, and that for every level if you want to allow aging, which the OP does. That seems a lot more complicated than simply reading a dragon's statblock and maybe adding a few levels of casting.

The answer to that is simple, 1d6/level. As for the stats, it would be a one and done, which solves the issue of hyper-aging. Everyone remains the same age category, some might be older than others, which explains why their stats are normalized, a white dragon might be an adult while the gold dragon is a juvenile.

[Lord Foul]

I once watched along as a group did that. It was a bit weighted towards the dragon side in that game
I had a very young brainsteeler dragon//psion 5
They were very fun to make, though I didn't get in.

[Quertus]

How much would it inflate power levels? They could probably handle more of the same things, but not more advanced concepts, as they don’t get answers any sooner (EDIT: aside from flight).

How much would it create imbalance between PCs? Probably less than Wizard and Monk?

AFB, but I’m curious whether, if one leaned into being a Dragon, taking the Rapid Breath feat and the Multi-Headed template, whether they could make something of being a Dragon, or whether it would still pale in comparison to the other side of their gestalt.