Gestalt hellp

[shadowseve]

So, everyone at some point has dreamed of playing a dragon. It is def on my bucket list. Now that I'm experience neurological issues and potential early onset of Alzheimer or other form of dementia, that time might as well be now. I have access to basically all the 3.5 books, including Draconomicon. I'm in the middle of converting the lunar dragon from pathfinder into 3.5. The draconomicon is a tad confusing at best. I get combining the dragon hd with the class to get the ecl, however is there a way to age the dragon along with the class levels so you're not a 20th level whatever and a Wyrmling because you leveled in the campain before your birthday? I'm sure this would def work better as a gestalt and shoving the dragon on the other side. It's the advancement that is breaking my brain. Like I said, some cog issues has slowed the brain down a bit. It's def not what it used to be. I've not decided what's going to be the character class yet. Just curious if there is a way to make the gestalt work.

[Remuko]

So, everyone at some point has dreamed of playing a dragon. It is def on my bucket list. Now that I'm experience neurological issues and potential early onset of Alzheimer or other form of dementia, that time might as well be now. I have access to basically all the 3.5 books, including Draconomicon. I'm in the middle of converting the lunar dragon from pathfinder into 3.5. The draconomicon is a tad confusing at best. I get combining the dragon hd with the class to get the ecl, however is there a way to age the dragon along with the class levels so you're not a 20th level whatever and a Wyrmling because you leveled in the campain before your birthday? I'm sure this would def work better as a gestalt and shoving the dragon on the other side. It's the advancement that is breaking my brain. Like I said, some cog issues has slowed the brain down a bit. It's def not what it used to be. I've not decided what's going to be the character class yet. Just curious if there is a way to make the gestalt work.

not that i know of no. dragon HD are based on age. if you want more HD you need to gain enough years of life, which for dragons is usually a lot.

[shadowseve]

not that i know of no. dragon HD are based on age. if you want more HD you need to gain enough years of life, which for dragons is usually a lot.

So, here’s another question. Player characters, imo, are too harshly penalized for playing monster races. Adding hd+level adjustment can severely gimp a character making it not worth it. Especially in the case of a dragon who often has a ton of hd. A young gold dragon has an ecl of 20, yet a cr of 9. A 20th level character could wipe the floor with a young dragon, but it would be a much better challenge for a pc around 9th level, depending on build and so on…

Wouldn’t a more appropriate way of handling the dragon as a pc would be to treat it as a 9th level character based on its stats? Maybe reduce hd and give an rp reason in game why he’s lost the hit points?

[vasilidor]

Level adjustments were designed to gimp monster characters and drive away players from the idea. Ignoring them and going by either the monsters HD or their CR is going to get you closer to what power level they actually are for a balanced party. If you can convince your DM of this, you will have a better time playing a dragon.

[shadowseve]

Level adjustments were designed to gimp monster characters and drive away players from the idea. Ignoring them and going by either the monsters HD or their CR is going to get you closer to what power level they actually are for a balanced party. If you can convince your DM of this, you will have a better time playing a dragon.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks is ridiculous. My wife is the dm so, it should not be too hard.

[vasilidor]

Another thing to consider is since dragons do not get extra hit die until they increase in age, build your character into a dragon prestige class on the dragon side. Just to keep the dragon flavor of things, not that the prestige classes are actually any good from what I think of them. You might like them though.

[Jack_Simth]

Wouldn’t a more appropriate way of handling the dragon as a pc would be to treat it as a 9th level character based on its stats? Maybe reduce hd and give an rp reason in game why he’s lost the hit points?
Like with many things, the answer is "Yes, but..."

OK, so... monsters aren't intended to be players. If the monster is "built well," then at CR X, it will be a reasonably even match for a PC of level X that is "built well" by the same definitions: It should be a toss up which wins in a one-on-one conflict. It's how the game is intended to be balanced (and the PCs are supposed to outnumber the beasties, usually).

Note: "If" and "should". Also note that it's looking at a single conflict.

There's a couple of big issues:
1) A lot of monsters are built with different levels of player optimization in mind (if I'm being generous), or with no idea of what makes a fair fight (if I'm not).
2) A lot of monsters have abilities that are more story-oriented in use, and cause problems in player hands due to how much they can change the story.
3) A lot of monsters have at-will abilities that are fine in a single battle, but cause problems when they can be spammed in an unlimited manner.

True Dragons fall easily into the first issue category: They're under-CR'd, in general. They're also significant switch hitters (full BAB, d12 hit dice; 6+Int skill points and monk-perfect saves; Sorcerer casting, often with Cleric access). A true dragon, especially at higher levels, is basically a party in a box.

Now, there is a way to handle this:
If everyone in the party has the same basic bonuses, then the party is balanced, and the DM can adjust to the party's power level by simply adjusting the difficulty (as dragons are extra tough, that's more monsters and/or higher CR monsters). So if you're cool with an all-dragon party (and all the other folks at the table are buying in), then you're good to go with level=CR and Gestalt.

And of course, they're all using the same aging tables, so you can do time skips when levels and keeping the CR and class levels the same would push you up into the next age category.

[shadowseve]

Like with many things, the answer is "Yes, but..."

OK, so... monsters aren't intended to be players. If the monster is "built well," then at CR X, it will be a reasonably even match for a PC of level X that is "built well" by the same definitions: It should be a toss up which wins in a one-on-one conflict. It's how the game is intended to be balanced (and the PCs are supposed to outnumber the beasties, usually).

Note: "If" and "should". Also note that it's looking at a single conflict.

There's a couple of big issues:
1) A lot of monsters are built with different levels of player optimization in mind (if I'm being generous), or with no idea of what makes a fair fight (if I'm not).
2) A lot of monsters have abilities that are more story-oriented in use, and cause problems in player hands due to how much they can change the story.
3) A lot of monsters have at-will abilities that are fine in a single battle, but cause problems when they can be spammed in an unlimited manner.

True Dragons fall easily into the first issue category: They're under-CR'd, in general. They're also significant switch hitters (full BAB, d12 hit dice; 6+Int skill points and monk-perfect saves; Sorcerer casting, often with Cleric access). A true dragon, especially at higher levels, is basically a party in a box.

Now, there is a way to handle this:
If everyone in the party has the same basic bonuses, then the party is balanced, and the DM can adjust to the party's power level by simply adjusting the difficulty (as dragons are extra tough, that's more monsters and/or higher CR monsters). So if you're cool with an all-dragon party (and all the other folks at the table are buying in), then you're good to go with level=CR and Gestalt.

And of course, they're all using the same aging tables, so you can do time skips when levels and keeping the CR and class levels the same would push you up into the next age category.

Very good points. Thank you.

[Remuko]

So, here’s another question. Player characters, imo, are too harshly penalized for playing monster races. Adding hd+level adjustment can severely gimp a character making it not worth it. Especially in the case of a dragon who often has a ton of hd. A young gold dragon has an ecl of 20, yet a cr of 9. A 20th level character could wipe the floor with a young dragon, but it would be a much better challenge for a pc around 9th level, depending on build and so on…

Wouldn’t a more appropriate way of handling the dragon as a pc would be to treat it as a 9th level character based on its stats? Maybe reduce hd and give an rp reason in game why he’s lost the hit points?

you might want to check out the Level Adjustment Reassignment Thread (or its archives) on here! the community saw this problem and has been going thru and rerating all the LA's of published monsters, and that included dragons, to be more in line with their actual power level. So if you wanted to save yourself/your wife (the GM) work, you could definitely make something work more effectively using those adjustments!

[shadowseve]

you might want to check out the Level Adjustment Reassignment Thread (or its archives) on here! the community saw this problem and has been going thru and rerating all the LA's of published monsters, and that included dragons, to be more in line with their actual power level. So if you wanted to save yourself/your wife (the GM) work, you could definitely make something work more effectively using those adjustments!
Just did. Huge help. Thanks!!!

[Jack_Simth]

Very good points. Thank you.

Do keep in mind: If the campaign is built that way (if everyone's playing a dragon of about the same CR), it's not a big deal: It's a relatively simple matter for the DM to adjust the campaign difficulty to match player character abilities if all the player characters have close to the same abilities. It's only when there's a significant difference in player power that this becomes difficult for the DM.

[Prime32]

you might want to check out the Level Adjustment Reassignment Thread (or its archives) on here! the community saw this problem and has been going thru and rerating all the LA's of published monsters, and that included dragons, to be more in line with their actual power level. So if you wanted to save yourself/your wife (the GM) work, you could definitely make something work more effectively using those adjustments!
Yeah, the highest any Core dragon gets in those threads (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?624825) is LA +1 for white, brass and silver wyrmlings, with everything else being weaker than a regular PC of the same Hit Dice.

There's some species in Dragons of Faerun (and its updates for 3.0 Faerun dragons) which are powerful enough for their HD that they can still keep up with PCs of equivalent ECL, there's the Sovereign Archetypes from Dragons of Eberron which can give you +2 levels of sorcerer casting, and there's the Tome Dragon from Dragon Magazine which everyone seems to agree is overpowered at its official ECL.

[shadowseve]

Yeah, the highest any Core dragon gets in those threads (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?624825) is LA +1 for white, brass and silver wyrmlings, with everything else being weaker than a regular PC of the same Hit Dice.

There's some species in Dragons of Faerun (and its updates for 3.0 Faerun dragons) which are powerful enough for their HD that they can still keep up with PCs of equivalent ECL, there's the Sovereign Archetypes from Dragons of Eberron which can give you +2 levels of sorcerer casting, and there's the Tome Dragon from Dragon Magazine which everyone seems to agree is overpowered at its official ECL.
I noticed. That’s why I think if you took off some of the hd to equal the cr rating it would be better. Or beef up the dragon a bit. Shadows are one of my fave. The breath weapon is nasty and they’re just a cool concept. Though, I’ve not seen anyone do a la adjustment on them.

[Remuko]

I noticed. That’s why I think if you took off some of the hd to equal the cr rating it would be better. Or beef up the dragon a bit. Shadows are one of my fave. The breath weapon is nasty and they’re just a cool concept. Though, I’ve not seen anyone do a la adjustment on them.

it might be worth checking out the NEGATIVE LA Assignment threads by beni-kujaku. hes reviewed the creatures the LA Reassignment threat marked as "-0" and has come up with lower HD amounts or negative LA values to apply to them to make them more in line with normal playable races.

[shadowseve]

it might be worth checking out the NEGATIVE LA Assignment threads by beni-kujaku. hes reviewed the creatures the LA Reassignment threat marked as "-0" and has come up with lower HD amounts or negative LA values to apply to them to make them more in line with normal playable races.
I saw that this morning. So, I’m glad others have the same idea. Will look this over in detail. Thanks.

Alt you could start their caster progression sooner as well. I know if having there spell progression equal their hd would def give them an LA adjustment but at least it would keep them up as a dangerous foe or ally on up.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I saw that this morning. So, I’m glad others have the same idea. Will look this over in detail. Thanks.

Alt you could start their caster progression sooner as well. I know if having there spell progression equal their hd would def give them an LA adjustment but at least it would keep them up as a dangerous foe or ally on up.

Giving them caster level=HD would very definitely make them need a level adjustment. They would be much much stronger than an equal level sorcerer (since they cast the same spells, but have better HP, better natural weapons, better AC, SR, SLAs, and can fly.). As a very very rough approximation, increasing the casting by one level without changing the number of racial HD of the dragon should be equivalent to about +1/2 to +2/3 of a level adjustment. So a Silver Dragon wyrmling (7 RHD, reassigned LA +1) with full 7th level sorcerer casting would probably be LA+5. A young Red Dragon (14 RHD, LA-0 but direct LA -2 in the negative LA thread) would gain 13 levels of sorcerer and +7 LA, for a total of LA+5.

I personally advise to use the RHD reduction method in the Negative LA thread in my signature. So playing a Young Red Dragon (reassigned 9 RHD) would be LA+0 but only with 9 RHD instead of 14, and the rest of its stats unchanged.


I noticed. That’s why I think if you took off some of the hd to equal the cr rating it would be better. Or beef up the dragon a bit. Shadows are one of my fave. The breath weapon is nasty and they’re just a cool concept. Though, I’ve not seen anyone do a la adjustment on them.

The shadow dragon is generally stronger at the same number of RHD than any MM1 dragon. You may want to use the ratings for the Brass Dragon, then increase its LA by +1 or its number of RHD by +2 to have the rating for a shadow dragon. So for example, if a Young Brass Dragon is worth 8 RHD or DLA-1 in the negative LA thread, a Young Shadow Dragon would be worth 10 RHD and DLA-0 (so basically LA+0). A Shadow Wyrmling would be LA+2, and a Young Adult Shadow Dragon would be 13 RHD, or negative LA-1.

[Gnaeus]

I played a blue dragon from Dreamscarred Press' dragon supplement. It is PF, not 3.5, but not too many issues there. It has dragon characters gain age categories at certain levels.

You may need to dial it back a notch though. We had a lot of DSP material in that game, and that tends to fall on the strong side of T3. It is certainly weaker than well played T1-2 casters. But it was at least a match for pretty optimized Path of War initiators, which themselves are stronger than 3.5 Tome of Battle counterparts. Still, if you wanted to look at how some professional designers did the level breakdowns, it might be a good start.

[shadowseve]

Giving them caster level=HD would very definitely make them need a level adjustment. They would be much much stronger than an equal level sorcerer (since they cast the same spells, but have better HP, better natural weapons, better AC, SR, SLAs, and can fly.). As a very very rough approximation, increasing the casting by one level without changing the number of racial HD of the dragon should be equivalent to about +1/2 to +2/3 of a level adjustment. So a Silver Dragon wyrmling (7 RHD, reassigned LA +1) with full 7th level sorcerer casting would probably be LA+5. A young Red Dragon (14 RHD, LA-0 but direct LA -2 in the negative LA thread) would gain 13 levels of sorcerer and +7 LA, for a total of LA+5.

I personally advise to use the RHD reduction method in the Negative LA thread in my signature. So playing a Young Red Dragon (reassigned 9 RHD) would be LA+0 but only with 9 RHD instead of 14, and the rest of its stats unchanged.



The shadow dragon is generally stronger at the same number of RHD than any MM1 dragon. You may want to use the ratings for the Brass Dragon, then increase its LA by +1 or its number of RHD by +2 to have the rating for a shadow dragon. So for example, if a Young Brass Dragon is worth 8 RHD or DLA-1 in the negative LA thread, a Young Shadow Dragon would be worth 10 RHD and DLA-0 (so basically LA+0). A Shadow Wyrmling would be LA+2, and a Young Adult Shadow Dragon would be 13 RHD, or negative LA-1.

Thanks for replying back. So, now I’m torn between playing the shadow, gold, or trying to port over the lunar dragon from pf. All would be starting at wyrmling. Lunar would be cool. But that’s a lot of work.

Any advice on a good gestalt side?

[Chronos]

Quoth vasilidor:

Level adjustments were designed to gimp monster characters and drive away players from the idea. Ignoring them and going by either the monsters HD or their CR is going to get you closer to what power level they actually are for a balanced party.
The problem is that LA and CR measure two different things. Sure, they're both measures of "power", but not all kinds of power are equal. It's generally assumed that the PCs will win most encounters, and so any given monster will only survive for one combat. So the relevant measure for a monster's power is how much it can do in one combat, which is what CR attempts to measure. For PCs, though, you're going to keep going for combat after combat, day after day, so that's the sort of power that LA is meant to measure.

As an illustration, suppose we have two abilities, both with the same save and save DC, and both with the same set of relevant immunities, and so on. Ability A is usable once per minute, and renders its target unconscious for one minute. Ability B is usable once per week, and kills its target. Which one is more powerful? Well, that depends: To a PC, the first one is much better. A minute is probably long enough to end the combat and coup-de-grace the unconscious enemy, and you can do it in every encounter. On the other hand, though, you'd much rather not face the second one in a monster, because it's likely to kill you, as opposed to just taking you out of one fight, after which your allies can wait for you to wake up. Ability A would be associated with a high LA but lower CR, while ability B would be associated with a high CR but a lower LA.

[Bphill561]

Thanks for replying back. So, now I’m torn between playing the shadow, gold, or trying to port over the lunar dragon from pf. All would be starting at wyrmling. Lunar would be cool. But that’s a lot of work.

Any advice on a good gestalt side?

You have not really stated what you want to do with your dragon, but lets say we focus on spell casting on a Shadow Dragon Base. I am also going to make the assumption you are not heading into Epic levels. Juvenile is 13HD +4LA and the next age category is 16HD without LA assigned (so it probably drifted up to +5, and wizards does not generally give LA on creatures cresting over 20 ECL). So that leaves you with 16HD+4LA for a Young adult (3 caster levels), or 15HD+5LA and come up short on young adult status (2 caster levels).

If all the HD and LA are on one "side" only in the gestalt, you already have a BAB of 15-16 and 2-3 caster levels. As suggested earlier, loredrake from Dragons of Eberron can drop your racial HD to a d10 for +2 caster levels.

This means you can take any normal caster build for your gestalt side using sorcerer as the base. Also you can manage to lose 2-5 caster levels that will be instead covered by the racial ability from the dragon side of the gestalt. So really any spell casting PrC build that you like would work, as complicated or simple as you want. You even can be forgiven a few spell caster level progression loses using the dragon's racial ability later.

I might suggest a Shadowcraft Mage from Races of the Stone (normally PrC is for Gnomes, but there is an alternative entry through a cabal). They can cast lots of illusions which would be good flavor wise for a shadow dragon, and they can be over the top powerful if you are allowed to emulate Miracle with your shadow illusion ability.

Another class that might be interesting is Eldrich Master from Dragon 280. It does not progress spell casting, but at level 4 it can let you select another classes spell list to choose from. Shadow already allows Cleric and you have Sorcerer, so you could add bard to the list. The class also gives bonus spells known.

But again, any normal caster build would work. I am not going to go through all the possible options because I am not sure what power level your game will support or what kind (if any) casters you like to play.

[rel]

I had someone play a dragon by just building a dragon monster with CR approximately equal to the parties level, adjusting things like age and HD arbitrarily to keep the CR about right as the party leveled up.

If you aren't interested in optimising or fighting the rules, that's an option.

[shadowseve]

You have not really stated what you want to do with your dragon, but lets say we focus on spell casting on a Shadow Dragon Base. I am also going to make the assumption you are not heading into Epic levels. Juvenile is 13HD +4LA and the next age category is 16HD without LA assigned (so it probably drifted up to +5, and wizards does not generally give LA on creatures cresting over 20 ECL). So that leaves you with 16HD+4LA for a Young adult (3 caster levels), or 15HD+5LA and come up short on young adult status (2 caster levels).

If all the HD and LA are on one "side" only in the gestalt, you already have a BAB of 15-16 and 2-3 caster levels. As suggested earlier, loredrake from Dragons of Eberron can drop your racial HD to a d10 for +2 caster levels.

This means you can take any normal caster build for your gestalt side using sorcerer as the base. Also you can manage to lose 2-5 caster levels that will be instead covered by the racial ability from the dragon side of the gestalt. So really any spell casting PrC build that you like would work, as complicated or simple as you want. You even can be forgiven a few spell caster level progression loses using the dragon's racial ability later.

I might suggest a Shadowcraft Mage from Races of the Stone (normally PrC is for Gnomes, but there is an alternative entry through a cabal). They can cast lots of illusions which would be good flavor wise for a shadow dragon, and they can be over the top powerful if you are allowed to emulate Miracle with your shadow illusion ability.

Another class that might be interesting is Eldrich Master from Dragon 280. It does not progress spell casting, but at level 4 it can let you select another classes spell list to choose from. Shadow already allows Cleric and you have Sorcerer, so you could add bard to the list. The class also gives bonus spells known.

But again, any normal caster build would work. I am not going to go through all the possible options because I am not sure what power level your game will support or what kind (if any) casters you like to play.

We’re not going by the traditional way of playing a dragon. It’s way too harsh of an ecl. We’re using the racial hit dice reduction that was mentioned earlier. Using the default method of hd+la adjustment makes no sense. I’m honestly not sure if the dragon will age during the campaign so…haven’t got that far into the campaign details. We have a bard//rogue and one other rogue in the party,

[Frosty]

If you are ok with third party Pathfinder content, use this class. It let's you build any dragon you want, over 20 racial levels.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/rite-publishing/draconic-exemplar/

The class must be used with this dragon base race: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/3rd-party-races/rite-publishing/dragon-taninim