Third Dragon.

Quote Originally Posted by Mad Bat Dead
Ladies, gentlemen, miscellaneous options! The builds around me may have armor like tenfold shields, teeth like swords, claws like spears, a breath weapon that shakes nations, casting enough to make the gods weep - but it does not matter. Traditional optimization, in this round, is its own undoing.

Playing a dragon isn't about teeth or claws or fiery breath, playing a dragon isn't about sorcerer casting or frightful presence. One trait of dragons trumps all those, one thing is immediately called to mind when someone says they want to play one, one question comes before all others:

"What about all the LA?"

So I alone, in keeping with the spirit of playable true dragons, am bold enough to give you...

Spoiler
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Mad Bat Dead

CE Shade Nycter (3 RHD, +6 LA) Feign Death Bonus Feat Poison Use Rogue 2 / Siren 9

If at first you don't succeed, die again.

Spoiler: Build Table
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Starting array: 10 STR / 12 DEX / 16 CON / 12 INT / 10 WIS / 16 CHA
Racial: +4 Dexterity, –2 Strength, +2 Wisdom, –2 Charisma
ASIs: +3 charisma
Shade: +2 charisma, +2 constitution
Siren: +5 charisma
Final: 8 STR / 16 DEX / 18 CON / 12 INT / 12 WIS / 24 CHA

ECL Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
5th Nycter +3 +1 +3 +3 Bluff +2cc (1), Craft (Poisonmaking) +6 (6), Intimidate +2cc (1), Listen +6 (6), Perform (Ballad) +2cc (1) Hidden Talent (Control Light), Shape Soulmeld (Dissolving Spittle) Blindsense 60 ft., Darkvision 60 ft., Vulnerability to Sonic, Hunting Cry
6th Poison Use Bonus Feat Rogue 1 +3 +1 +5 +3 Bluff +3 (4), Craft (Poisonmaking) 6, Intimidate +3 (4), Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) +3 (4) Constant GuardianB Poison Use
7th Feign Death Bonus Feat Rogue 2 +4 +1 +6 +3 Bluff +2 (6), Craft (Poisonmaking) +1 (7), Intimidate +2 (6), Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) +4 (8) Martial Study (Moment of Perfect Mind)B Feign Death
8th Siren 1 +4 +1 +6 +5 Concentration +5 (5), Bluff 6, Craft (Poisonmaking) 7, Intimidate 7, Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) 8 Psycarnum Infusion, ReverberationB
9th Siren 2 +5 +1 +6 +6 Concentration +5 (10), Bluff 6, Craft (Poisonmaking) 7, Intimidate 7, Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) 8 - Song of Despair
10th Siren 3 +6 +2 +7 +6 Concentration +1 (11), Bluff +2 (8), Craft (Poisonmaking) +1 (8), Intimidate 7, Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) 8, Sense Motive +1 (1) - +2 charisma
11th Siren 4 +7 +2 +7 +7 Concentration +1 (12), Bluff +1 (9), Craft (Poisonmaking) +1 (9), Intimidate 7, Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) 8, Sense Motive +2 (3) Dutiful Guardian Song of Nightmare
15th Shade template +7 +2 +7 +7 - - +2 Constitution, +2 Charisma, Speed Increase, +4 Deflection to AC, +4 to all saving throws, +2 to attack and damage rolls, +4 to Listen and Spot, +8 to Hide and Move Silently, Fast Healing 2, Control Light, Invisibility, Shadesight, Shadow Image, Shadow Stride, Shadow Travel, SR 11+level
16th Siren 5 +7 +2 +7 +7 Concentration +1 (14), Bluff +1 (10), Craft (Poisonmaking) +1 (11), Intimidate 7, Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) 8, Sense Motive +2 (5) - Song of Idiocy
17th Siren 6 +8 +3 +8 +8 Skills - +4 Charisma
18th Siren 7 +9 +3 +8 +8 Concentration +1 (15), Bluff +1 (11), Craft (Poisonmaking) +1 (12), Intimidate 7, Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) 8, Sense Motive +2 (7) Open Lesser Chakra (Shoulders) Song of Weakness
19th Siren 8 +10 +3 +8 +9 Concentration +1 (16), Bluff +1 (12), Craft (Poisonmaking) +1 (13), Intimidate 7, Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) 8, Sense Motive +2 (9) - +5 Charisma
20th Siren 9 +10 +4 +9 +9 Concentration +1 (17), Bluff +1 (13), Craft (Poisonmaking) +1 (14), Intimidate 7, Listen 6, Perform (Ballad) 8, Sense Motive +2 (11) - Song of Stone


Spoiler: Writeup
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ECL 5
Just a plain unadorned nycter here. We're actually solid compared to 5th-level tier 3/4 PCs; at-will flight solves a lot of issues at these levels, and Hunting Cry is a remarkably nasty DC 14 AoE save-or-lose. Twice per day you can plunge a room in darkness to screw over any enemies that lack darkvision - kind of like the old No Light trick, except we make the darkness appear in discrete cubes rather than an untargeted spread, so we can even try and pull this trick if some of our allies are boring humans.

Dissolving Spittle isn't the most powerful attack, but it'll break through any barrier and gives you something to do while Hunting Cry recharges. Remember, if your first turn takes out several foes in one go, it doesn't really matter that your second and third are going to be a bit lackluster.

ECL 10
Feign Death is up and running, doing what it does best: giving us immediate-speed immunity against most things that aren't damage. Poison, mind-affecting, stuns, ability drain, death effects, paralysis, sleep? We're immune to all of it if we need be! Our base fortitude and will are, I admit, not great right now, so it's nice to have something backing them up.

Dutiful Guardian lets us help out the party a little by giving +2 AC to whoever needs it most, and the -2 penalty to our own attack rolls is almost irrelevant. Moment of Perfect Mind is another tool to shore up our Will, and Psycarnum Infusion lets us supercharge our . This is going to be our main tool against undead and other creatures immune to the debuffs and poisons we can throw out, and though it'll take some time we'll eventually get it to a respectable level of damage.

Now, the fun thing about Hunting Cry is that it's one of the few 'innate sonic mind-affecting' abilities in the game, and by far the cheapest one to obtain as a PC. This gets us into Siren, which is the only reason this build can function with all this LA - siren is incredibly powerful and also doesn't synergize with anything but itself, which kind of removes the point in avoiding LA as long as we can squeeze in all the siren levels we want.

ECL 15
The nice thing about Siren is that it doesn't prevent you from stacking multiple effects on your Hunting Cry at once - we're now starting combat with a save-or-lose Hunting Cry (DC 16) that also comes with a Crushing Despair and a Phantasmal Killer (both DC 20) attached. That's a big opener to throw at every foe in the encounter, and it's only going to get nastier as we advance in level.

First, though, we take a bit of a detour to become a Shade, giving us utility and mobility that's going to mesh really well with our strategy. At-will Invisibility allows us to let ourselves and our allies enter each combat cloaked, SR helps protect us from enemy casters, and Fast Healing tops us up between bouts. We also get +2 to attack and damage rolls, which presumably boosts Hunting Cry and definitely boosts Dissolving Spittle.

Most importantly, we can move-action teleport 300 feet every two turns, letting us pop into an encounter, target some foes with a Hunting Cry (presumably killing or disabling some), bamf away, and then return once our hunting cry has recharged and we can use it all over again.

(some semantics: hunting cry says 'a creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by
the same nycter’s hunting cry for 24 hours', but most of the Siren abilities say 'she can overlay [an effect] on her sonic attack' which affects 'all creatures within range of the siren's sonic attack'. The way I read this, if we target someone with a hunting cry and then later with a Hunting Cry Of Weakness And Nightmare And Idiocy, they'll be immune to the hunting cry in the second case but not to all the add-ons, because they are still 'within range' of Hunting Cry even if they are not 'affected' by it)

Even if our enemies can regain the lost HP, the effects that Siren inflicts are very difficult to heal, with few monsters having on-demand access to Raise Dead, Stone to Flesh or Heal. Raw damage would have to drain our entire health bar in one turn - otherwise we just zap away and heal it all back within a few minutes, and nearly all instant-death or ability damage/drain effects are blocked by Feign Death (emerging from this feigned death is a standard action, so you can do it and port out on the same turn).

Also, with how Races of Faerun presents shades, you'd be forgiven to assume it's a race, but careful reading will reveal it's a template - lines like 'speed increases by 20 ft.' are dead giveaways, and there's some sample NPCs that keep human racial traits as well (not all, but it's WotC sample NPCs so that's to be expected). It's a bit unclear who this template can be applied to, but Lords of Darkness page 86 helpfully tells us that 'it is well within [the High Prince]'s power to transform any living creature into a shade'.

Shade powers don't work in bright light, but that's what we got Hidden Talent for - it lets you blanket an entire area in darkness as a standard action, letting you teleport away with your move. Note that Control Light is a [Light] power, not a [Darkness] one, so RAW you could even negate high-level light spells with it without the dispel clause kicking in.

We also grab Dutiful Guardian, so if a nearby ally is ever hit while you've got your Mirror Image or Invisibility up, switching places with them to take the hit instead isn't the worst thing you could do. It's minor, but this build is very front-loaded in combat, and it's nice to have things to do while your Hunting Cry isn't back yet.

ECL 20
More effects to throw onto our hunting cry - Feeblemind (with a -4 save penalty to arcane casters) will completely annihilate some of the most dangerous foes in the game, Enervation lowers saves for your next pass, and Flesh to Stone is a solid save-or-die when all else fails. Nine times per day, we can let loose a hunting cry with a save-or-die, a two-saves-or-die, two save-or-loses, and two save-or-sucks - most, if not all enemies, in that AoE will most likely fail one of those.

Open Lesser Chakra gives us the shoulder bind for Dissolving Spittle, so every time we hit we're going to roll for damage again next turn (getting Shade's +2 to damage a second time). It also gives us +1 reflex, which isn't our weakest save but -is- the one where we can't easily become immune to most results.

To be clear, against most enemies we simply dart in and out of combat, using our enemies' inability to heal the status conditions we can inflict to spam repeated save-or-dies while teleporting safely away to heal and recharge, and using Feign Death to leave ourselves immune to most non-damaging debuffs and instakill effects.

If we cannot fight this way, we instead spend turns between recharges protecting allies with Invisibility and Mirror Image + Dutiful Guardian, as well as using our power over light to cloak our allies in shadow.

Against undead foes, we rely on Dissolving Spittle, which deals a solid 10d6+4 damage with a single attack. Again, against foes that cannot heal we simply teleport in and out of combat to slowly wear them down, regaining our psionic focus while we do so.

Out of combat, we help out as taxicab, poison creator, scout, and door melter, as well as half-decent face



Spoiler: Justification of LA
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The presence of only 14 HD in the final build should raise some red flags, but we compare just fine to other ECL 20 PCs. Remember, we dislike LA because it takes away skill ranks, saving throw bonuses, HP, BAB, feats, and class features - these are everything you could get from having levels instead of LA. But on all these metrics, we either don't care or are ahead of similar PCs!

Limited skill ranks are a genuine problem, but Shade buys us a lot of general utility, so I'm tempted to say it's a win on net. We don't have any -super- critical skills that always have to be maxed, except perhaps concentration which our huge constitution modifier helps compensate for.

Our saves get a +4 bonus across the board thanks to Shade, so our modifiers before items are +12 fort, +17 reflex, +14 will. That's again quite impressive - better than most PCs could manage for sure, and without a notable weak point.

Our HP is 8+9+7+22+14*4 = 102, which is on the frail side even when compared to a rogue, but note that being a nycter shade comes with a +8 AC bonus (+1 size, +3 natural, +4 deflection), we can fly to avoid many foes, we're almost constantly invisible (and when we become visible, we usually immediately teleport away), and we have fast healing 2. Something like a Greater Shout or Meteor Swarm will still take off most of our health, but being able to teleport away afterwards really helps (plus, most people capable of using such spells are arcane casters, and thus extra-vulnerable to our Feeblemind cry).

Our BAB is low (only +10) but we don't really need it.

And lastly, our feats and class features. As stated before, Siren doesn't really synergize with any other class, so losing out on a few more levels doesn't hurt it all that much. And as for the feats, well, obviously we'd like to have two more feats, but I'd argue that a shade's innate magic is worth much more.

Overall, becoming a shade doesn't really cost us anything except feats and skills - and we become a more well-rounded, powerful, and dragon-like character because of it, so that's a trade worth making.


Spoiler: Draconic Comparison
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We are, obviously, emulating a shadow dragon here. I challenged myself to use nothing with an explicitly draconic flavor - no dragon disciple, no swift wing, no draconic heritage, no dragonfire adet, etc, and I think I managed to approximate the goal quite well.

Dragons in general have the following abilities:
Flight - Nycter and shade combine to give us a fly speed of 60 ft.

Natural weapons - Like small dragons, we're not much of a melee force, but our bite notably helps us deliver poison (applying poison in-combat is hard, and retrieving poisoned sheathed weapons is both implausible and action-hungry, so being able to simply poison our own teeth is quite useful).

Natural Armor - We possess a few points of innate natural armor.

Spell Resistance - The shade template gives us level-scaling SR.

Magical sleep and paralysis immunity - Feign Death lets us become immune to those effects the moment they come our way.

Blindsense 60 ft. - Courtesy of Nycter.

Frightful Presence - We don't have this, but then again the dragons that do (young adults and up) are almost universally outside of PC range anyway.

Casting - We don't have this, though we do have access to quite a few spell effects through indirect means.

Tactics - An all-time favorite trick of dragons is to swoop in, deploy a breath weapon, fly away, wait for the recharge, and come back around. We refine this strategy by replacing the clumsy flight with smooth teleportation and layering the 'breath' with all sorts of dangerous and difficult-to-heal effects.

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The abilities specifically possessed by shadow dragons are:
High land speed - It's easy to miss this one, but while nearly all dragons walk at a rate of 40 or 60 feet, shadow dragons move at 80 ft. We perfectly mirror this by moving at 40 feet where other small humanoids move at 20 or 30.

Shadow Blend - At-will Invisibility that can be used whenever we're not in bright light functionally duplicates the effects of this ability.

Create Shadows - Both the Control Light ability from Shade and the Control Light power duplicate this, with our at-will invisibility covering the total concealment portion.

Energy Drain Immunity - Feign Death gives us immunity to negative levels, which includes energy drain.

SLAs (Mirror Image 3/day, Nondetection 3/day, Dimension Door 2/day, Shadow Walk 1/day) - Mirror Image is castable 3/day thanks to the shade template, and the Dimension Door-like Shadow Stride is usable every two rounds (as a move action, to boot). All functions of shadow walk (accessing the plane of shadow, traversing the material plane quickly, reaching other planes) are duplicated by our 1/day Greater Teleport or Plane Shift, which additionally boasts superior accuracy, safety and speed.

Only Nondetection is missing here, but Feign Death can foil divinations ('spells and other effects that assess your current condition, such as status and deathwatch, indicate that you are dead') and we have regular SR.

Breath Weapon - Once we obtain Song of Weakness, we can reliably inflict negative levels in a cone, which is as close to a shadow dragon's breath weapon as you're going to get without the 9th-level Enervating Breath (trust me - I looked).

Alignment
Like shadow dragons, we're chaotic evil.



Spoiler: Sources
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Nycter - Monster Manual III
Shade - Races of Faerun

Rogue - Player's Handbook
Bonus Feat rogue - Unearthed Arcana
Feign Death - Exemplars of Evil

Siren - Savage Species

Constant + Dutiful Guardian - Drow of the Underdark
Shape Soulmeld + Psicarnum Infusion + Open Lesser Chakra - Magic of Incarnum
Hidden Talent - Expanded Psionics Handbook
Martial Study - Tome of Battle

SHADOW DRAGON - draconomicon