Drakken Familiar + Dragon Disciple (And a few feats)

[Malacode]

I'm wondering if you could make both a Familiar and the Dragon Disciple PrC both worth something in one fell swoop. By taking the Drakken Familiar class feature, your familiar gets the Dragonblood subtype (And a breath weapon). The capstone ability of a Dragon Disciple is the whole Half-Dragon thing. Add a few Draconic feats/Lineage feats/feats-with-dragon-ancestry-required and the feat that means you not only share skills with your familiar as normal but feats as well (Don't remember where I saw this one, but it looks ok), and you've increased the cool-factor of your familiar. Sure, you lose a whole heap of spellcasting, but it's got a lot of potential in my eyes. There are probably more efficient ways to do this, but that's why I'm posting here. So, whaddaya think, Posters in the Playground?

[Fizban]

Sadly, Dragon Disciple will never be worth it (as it loses even the benefits of a full fighter type) without massive revision, and the Drakken Familiar's breath weapon is pitiful and can be used too seldom to be good.

To make a familiar good, all you have to do is remember that: you get two rolls for all senses (spot/search/listen/etc) since your familiar is paying attention, two rolls for all of your skills (since the familiar can use them too), and a +2 to most other things from aid another, and the spell Imbue Familier with Spell Ability effectively quickens at least two spells of a minimum of 3rd level, before metamagic.

For a better familiar, take Improved Familiar and get something like a Lantern Archon (teleport at will) or Coure Eladrin (incorporeality at will), or a Hippogriff (flying mount, do not use in combat). For a familiar with a breath weapon, cast or share a Dragonbreath spell on it. For a combat familiar, be a Hex/Dusk-blade with high con and take Improved Familiar for something humanoid-shaped or nifty, and see if you can get Fax's homebrewed Toughen Familar feat to up it's hp to 3/4 your own. That'll cost you 3 feats, but at least it'll stand a chance of surviving combat.

[only1doug]

I'm wondering if you could make both a Familiar and the Dragon Disciple PrC both worth something in one fell swoop. By taking the Drakken Familiar class feature, your familiar gets the Dragonblood subtype (And a breath weapon). The capstone ability of a Dragon Disciple is the whole Half-Dragon thing. Add a few Draconic feats/Lineage feats/feats-with-dragon-ancestry-required and the feat that means you not only share skills with your familiar as normal but feats as well (Don't remember where I saw this one, but it looks ok), and you've increased the cool-factor of your familiar. Sure, you lose a whole heap of spellcasting, but it's got a lot of potential in my eyes. There are probably more efficient ways to do this, but that's why I'm posting here. So, whaddaya think, Posters in the Playground?

if you want a good familiar and a PRC the best plan is to swap out the familiar at 1st level for one of the alternate class features and take the obtain familiar feat which will allow all classes that grant spellcasting improvements to stack for the level based benefits of familiars.

Edit:

For the purpose of determining familiar abilities that depend on your arcane caster class level, your levels in all classes that allow you to cast arcane spells stack.

Dragon disciples gain bonus spells as they gain levels in this prestige class, as if from having a high ability score.

so the DD "allows you to cast arcane spells"

[Person_Man]

He's my homebrew version of a Dragon Disciple base class, for those who might be interested. The Dragon Disciple's problems are a recurrent feature in almost every draconic class and PrC - good class abilities gained at an ECL that's too late to make a difference (Blindsense at ECL 10, Wings at ECL 14, etc)

[Burley]

What I don't understand is this: If you're using the drakken familiar, you obviously have access to the Dragonfire Adept. Why would you try to find ways to make Dragon Disciple useful, when you already have a useful and darn-near identicle flavored Dragonfire Adept?

Being half-dragon in the mid-upper teen levels isn't that great, if you had no fun getting there. Having all those abilities as invocations, with a bit extra... Now that is worth it. Especially if your DM decides that invokers can take the obtain familiar feats. (RAW says no. But, my gut says yes.)

Of course, this is just my opinion.

[Malacode]

I love involing classes too, but the strength of the class isn't what I'm after, I'm trying to make DD a viable choice without homebrew. Sure, by the time it's finished, it'll be pretty restrictive, but that's fine by me. I'll remember that "Obtain Familiar" feat trick, but I'm wondering if it works with Drakken Familiar (Which is the whole point of the build, both you and your familiar have kickass dragon powers). The idea is that you benefit from all these draconic feats, you take Familiar Feat Merge and Drakken Familiar and BAM! So does your litte kitty companion (Or toad, or rat, or hippogriff). I just want to do a decent DD build, not for play, but for the fun of the excercise.