What is wrong with the dragon samurai and can it be fixed?

[ngilop]

Hey guys, what are some shortcomings of the Dragon Samurai prestige class and what would be some ways to make it do what it is suppose to do? like a small list of it needs this, this should be at an earlier level and such along those lines.

I feel that at 3rd level and every 3 after should get a bonus to Natural AC

AT 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th get some spells casting lite.

Like at 1st pick a 0-level spell and cast it it once per day, 4th pick a 1st level spell, 7th pick a 2nd level spell and an additional 0-level spell to cast once a day, and finally at 10th pick a 3rd level spell and an additional 1st level spell to cast once a day. Call it something like.. Dragon Magic?

Capstone be something like gain immunity to paralysis, sleep, and can use your breath weapon an additional number of times per day equal to constituion modifier?

[Condé]

I made a thread about that class some times ago.
What you could do is to use the breath damage stacking feature and improved it.

A general improvement could be to make the class full bab progression.

For example let a dragon samurai breath stacks with the breath attack of a dragonborn.

Or maybe you could make it a prestige class for a dragonfire adept that would like to be more martial.
As I said make the class full bab, give it a feature allowing the dragonfire adept invocations to ignore spell failure while armored, let their breath stacks with each other and be usable as often as the one of the dragonfire adept.
Then you could apply a slower progression invocation like 8/10 or something. One less AT first level and one less at 10 for its capstone. You would have to gives the class a real capstone tho. Look at the talon of tiamat. They can dominate a dragon or maybe give the class a good frightful presence. I think that would be a cool feature.

(Sorry for the spelling mistakes or poor grammar, my phone's autocorrect doesn't like english...)

[pabelfly]

Hey guys, what are some shortcomings of the Dragon Samurai prestige class and what would be some ways to make it do what it is suppose to do? like a small list of it needs this, this should be at an earlier level and such along those lines.

I feel that at 3rd level and every 3 after should get a bonus to Natural AC

AT 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th get some spells casting lite.

Like at 1st pick a 0-level spell and cast it it once per day, 4th pick a 1st level spell, 7th pick a 2nd level spell and an additional 0-level spell to cast once a day, and finally at 10th pick a 3rd level spell and an additional 1st level spell to cast once a day. Call it something like.. Dragon Magic?

Capstone be something like gain immunity to paralysis, sleep, and can use your breath weapon an additional number of times per day equal to constituion modifier?

My first question would be, is there another dragon-themed class that is closer to what you want? It's not as if there's a shortage of them. Dragonfire Adept is a pretty solid class, for example, and can combine martial utility with breath weapon use and Invocation usage, and can take Draconic feats thanks to the Dragontouched feat.

Anyway, let's say we're going to "fix" the class. What I'd do:

Breath weapon works every 1d4 rounds from level 1. Not that a 10d8 breath weapon is OP every round at level 15, but dragonbreath is typically every 1d4 rounds. It also allows you to add metabreath feats to the character easily.

I'd combine this with Dragon Disciple, so you get the class features of Dragon Disciple at each level you take Dragon Samurai, as well as Dragon Samurai's normal class features.

Lastly, from your suggestions, I feel like independent casting is too far from the original design intent of the class. There's enough prestige classes that grant spellcasting, this doesn't have to be one of them.

[Darg]

Make it full BAB and 6 skill points per level. The blind-fight feat should be gotten at level 2. Otherwise I think it's fine as is. It even has a breath weapon that stacks with the half-dragon's breath which would qualify for the Dragon Breath feat from RotD for a 1d4 breath weapon.

It's really not a bad class as written.

[loky1109]

Its breath weapon is very poorly written. It's not clear with what it stacks and with what it doesn't and how it stacks.

[Darg]

Its breath weapon is very poorly written. It's not clear with what it stacks and with what it doesn't and how it stacks.

What do you mean?


If a dragon samurai already has a breath weapon of the same type, the damage stacks. For example, if a half-dragon character has a breath weapon dealing 6d8 points of damage once per day, and gains a breath weapon of the same type that deals 2d8 points of damage for being a 2nd-level dragon samurai, her damage increases to 8d8. She still gets to use her breath weapon only once per day.

Seems pretty clear to me that it works just like sneak attack. Just because you have sneak attack from multiple sources that stack together, doesn't mean you individually add the bonuses to each instance and then add them together. 2d6 + 2d6 + 2d6 is 6d6, not 10d6. You don't get a second use per day of a different dragon breath.

[loky1109]

What is "the same type"? If I have line of acid from DS and cone of acid from other source will them stack? If both are cones, but different size cones? Stack or not? If yes which size will have result
How many times I could use my BW if another weapon has different limitation? If I Black Dragon Black Dragon Dragon Samurai shall I be limited in one use of BW per day because of DS wording? I could read it in this way.

[Darg]

If your previous dragon breath weapon and your clan color breath are the same type they stack while sharing the single use per day. If your clan color is different from, say, your half-dragon heritage then you have two separate breath weapons that are both usable once per day.

Part of the benefit of the feature is that your breath weapon is improved. So instead of having to spend two actions for breaths that add up to the same thing anyways, you use one action to basically use them both at the same time.

[Saintheart]

What is "the same type"? If I have line of acid from DS and cone of acid from other source will them stack? If both are cones, but different size cones? Stack or not? If yes which size will have result
How many times I could use my BW if another weapon has different limitation? If I Black Dragon Black Dragon Dragon Samurai shall I be limited in one use of BW per day because of DS wording? I could read it in this way.

"The same type" is very likely referring to damage type, i.e. [fire], [cold], [electricity] and the rest given all the other references are to the amount of dice produced. Damage comes in 3 categories (lethal, nonlethal, ability) and then types (fire, cold, sonic, etc) when resistance or immunity is relevant, as the PHB glossary on "damage" says.

[Chronos]

OK, so let's say we have a character with one level in Dragonfire Adept, and one level in Red Dragon Samurai (and enough other levels in non-breath-weapon classes). A level one Dragonfire Adept gets an at-will breath weapon that's either a 30' line or a 15' cone, for 1d6 fire damage. A level one Red Dragon Shaman gets a 1/day breath weapon that's a 30' cone, for 1d8 fire damage. It's clear that one thing that this character can do at least sometimes is a breath weapon that does 1d8+1d6 fire damage. Beyond that, though, nothing is clear. Is that combined breath a line or a cone? Is it 15' or 30'? Can she use her combined breath at will, like a dragonfire adept breath weapon, or only 1/day, like a dragon shaman breath weapon? After she uses her dragon shaman breath weapon, can she even use her dragonfire adept breath weapon at all that day?

[Darg]

OK, so let's say we have a character with one level in Dragonfire Adept, and one level in Red Dragon Samurai (and enough other levels in non-breath-weapon classes). A level one Dragonfire Adept gets an at-will breath weapon that's either a 30' line or a 15' cone, for 1d6 fire damage. A level one Red Dragon Shaman gets a 1/day breath weapon that's a 30' cone, for 1d8 fire damage. It's clear that one thing that this character can do at least sometimes is a breath weapon that does 1d8+1d6 fire damage. Beyond that, though, nothing is clear. Is that combined breath a line or a cone? Is it 15' or 30'? Can she use her combined breath at will, like a dragonfire adept breath weapon, or only 1/day, like a dragon shaman breath weapon? After she uses her dragon shaman breath weapon, can she even use her dragonfire adept breath weapon at all that day?

Dragon Samurai was created at a time when the only dragon breath weapons were 1d4 or 1/day and worked exactly the same way. 3 years later PHBII and DM came out with breath weapons with different rules and different sizes. I personally don't see a problem with either stacking with the PRC feature as they both give up a lot of features and weapon size progression to gain raw damage.

[pabelfly]

Dragon Samurai was created at a time when the only dragon breath weapons were 1d4 or 1/day and worked exactly the same way. 3 years later PHBII and DM came out with breath weapons with different rules and different sizes. I personally don't see a problem with either stacking with the PRC feature as they both give up a lot of features and weapon size progression to gain raw damage.

It's also a 1/day option that needs a lot of resources to be reasonably effective. I personally wouldn't mind doing a fairly favourable reading of a 1/day option.

[Chronos]

OK, but even if we're only combining it with a once-every-1d4-rounds breath weapon, there's still the question of how often it can be used. To restrict ourselves to just core and MiniHB, what if we have a half-dragon dragon samurai? Can they use a stacked breath every 1d4 rounds, or a half-dragon breath every 1d4 rounds but once per day add samurai damage to it, or only one breath per day total? The RAW is unclear. And it still doesn't answer the question about the shape or size of the breath weapon, either.

[Nihilarian]

The only decent thing dragon samurai's get is energy resistance. The breath weapon would be alright if you could use it more than once, the immunity to frightful presence only works on dragons of your color, and the bonus damage on attacks is too small to be worth the opportunity cost of taking dragon samurai. There's a thousand dragon themed options in 3.5 and i frankly don't see much value in making dragon samurai work. You could almost certainly cobble together a build that does all that the dragon samurai does but better.

[Darg]

OK, but even if we're only combining it with a once-every-1d4-rounds breath weapon, there's still the question of how often it can be used. To restrict ourselves to just core and MiniHB, what if we have a half-dragon dragon samurai? Can they use a stacked breath every 1d4 rounds, or a half-dragon breath every 1d4 rounds but once per day add samurai damage to it, or only one breath per day total? The RAW is unclear. And it still doesn't answer the question about the shape or size of the breath weapon, either.

A half-dragon gets a 1/day breath and explicitly stacks with the class feature while also explicitly is only able to use their breath weapon once per day instead of gaining an extra use from having two sources. Getting the dragon breath feat allows you to use your breath weapon every 1d4 rounds like a true dragon. In this case it would still stack with the class feature.

[loky1109]

Dragon Samurai was created at a time when the only dragon breath weapons were 1d4 or 1/day and worked exactly the same way.
There is also 1 per 10 rounds behir's BW.


Getting the dragon breath feat allows you to use your breath weapon every 1d4 rounds like a true dragon. In this case it would still stack with the class feature.
Could you proof it? I don't see how it comes from DS description.

[Darg]

There is also 1 per 10 rounds behir's BW.


Could you proof it? I don't see how it comes from DS description.

A behir isn't a dragon, nor would its breath be the same type as the dragon samurai's as it emulates the breath weapon of dragons.

You get explicit permission to stack a half-dragon's breath and is exampled in the description. The only thing the feat changes is how often you can the breath weapon.

[loky1109]

A behir isn't a dragon, nor would its breath be the same type as the dragon samurai's as it emulates the breath weapon of dragons.

You get explicit permission to stack a half-dragon's breath and is exampled in the description. The only thing the feat changes is how often you can the breath weapon.

It's electricity line and I don't see any "only dragon breath weapon" restrictions in the DS.
"If a dragon samurai already has a breath weapon of the same type, the damage stacks." You claim that behir's BW isn't" the same type"... Well, say us what "the same type" is?

Feat changes how often I can use half-dragon's BW. But it isn't clear how it interacts with DS's BW. I three options for half-dragon dragon samurai with this feat:
1) it's ok, use stacked BW every 1d4 rounds;
2) you can use stacked BW only once, but after that you could use your half-dragon's BW every 1d4 rounds;
3) sorry, feat is wasted, you could use you BW only 1/day, but hey! It's stacked!
And I see these three options equal.

[Darg]

It's electricity line and I don't see any "only dragon breath weapon" restrictions in the DS.
"If a dragon samurai already has a breath weapon of the same type, the damage stacks." You claim that behir's BW isn't" the same type"... Well, say us what "the same type" is?

Feat changes how often I can use half-dragon's BW. But it isn't clear how it interacts with DS's BW. I three options for half-dragon dragon samurai with this feat:
1) it's ok, use stacked BW every 1d4 rounds;
2) you can use stacked BW only once, but after that you could use your half-dragon's BW every 1d4 rounds;
3) sorry, feat is wasted, you could use you BW only 1/day, but hey! It's stacked!
And I see these three options equal.


*Breath weapon sizes given here are for Medium creatures. For creatures of other sizes, see the Dragon Breath Weapons table on page 69 of the Monster Manual.

It's a dragon breath weapon.

They combine to become the same thing and use the same per day limit. #1 is correct. The very last sentence of the ability description literally tells you that they combine to use the same per day limit.


She still gets to use her breath weapon only once per day.

And because they stack, you can choose to use the half-dragons breath which gains the damage from the dragon breath ability because they were given permission to stack.

[ngilop]

Thanks for all the suggestions.
I gave it a full base attack, all good saves.

Put the breath weapon usable once an encounter, and did the whole dragon disciple half dragon apotheosis thing.
All this while keeping everything from the dragon samurai. In the end, I feel makes it a decent PrC.

[Darg]

did the whole dragon disciple half dragon apotheosis thing.

Oh, that's a neat idea.