Dragonscale Husk Fix

[Ryunosuke]

Because of the poor wording on the variant from Dragon Magic (its not typed and doesn't stack with ANYTHING) here's a rewording to make it better/more useful. And yes, there is still no Arcane Spell Failure.

Dragonscale Husk
Any warrior knows that skill in battle isn't enough; you must also guard against the attacks of your enemies. A well-forged suit of armor can mean the difference between life and death, but a warrior whose very body is his armor has an immediate advantage. Those who have the blood of dragons running in their veins can gain this benefit.
Class: Any standard class that grants proficiency in heavy armor.
Requirement: Proficiency in heavy armor.
Special Requirement: Must have the dragonblood subtype
Replaces: Proficiency in heavy armor is lost by this feature unless it is gained again from some later class or feat.
Benefit: You gain the extraordinary ability to grow a thick, scaly hide that protects you like armor. The scales resemble that of a dragon of your choice (chosen when this ability is gained) and take 10 minutes to fully form over your body.
Your scaled hide grants you an armor bonus to your AC equal to 6 +1/3 your character level. Because it is an armor bonus, it will not stack with any worn armor should you regain proficiency or wear it without being proficient, but it will stack with shield and natural armor bonuses to AC.
In addition, as you attain higher levels, the husk becomes resistant to the elements by granting you resistance 5 against acid, cold, eElectricity, and fFire at level 5, increasing by another 5 points for every 5 levels thereafter.
Your dragonscale husk is treating as medium armor for the purpose of determining your speed and whether you can use class features or other special abilities. It has a maximum Dexterity bonus of +2 and an armor check penalty of -4. This improves over time as the dexterity bonus is increased by 1 at levels 6, 12, and 18. The husk is also treated as light armor at level 9, with the armor check penalty being reduced to only -2, and may be slept in without penalty at this point (penalties before this are as sleeping in medium armor).
Your husk isn't treated as armor for the purpose of being affected by spells or abilities. You can't grant it an enhancement bonus with magic vestment, nor can you imbue it with special properties, as you could a normal suit of armor.
You can't take off your dragonscale husk, but you can choose to shed it. Doing so requires 10 minutes of concentration and results in you soughing off a pile of scales that crumble to dust if handled.

[Ryunosuke]

For anyone unfamiliar with the variant, the loss of proficiency is the same, however the boost is only 6 + 1/3 the class levels that gave said proficiency unless multi-classing with classes that also gave heavy armor proficiency. The Dex limit stated at +2, and the husk stayed as medium armor with a -4 check penalty. It also took 8 hours to grow before, was an un-typed bonus and stated it couldn't stack with ANY feat, special ability or feature that boosted armor class. The energy resistances were the same, but you could sleep in it without a drawback from the getgo

[nonsi]

.
You didn't specify what the armor check penalty is once you hit 9th level.
Also, I believe that the feature's popularity never took off the ground because of total armor proficiency loss. It's both unfair and doesn't make sense. There's no reason in the world why any ability would make you unable to learn something ever again (and a feat eating up its prerequisite feat is unheard of anywhere else in 3e AFAIK).


As far as your proposed feat goes, I see no reason why it should take 10 minutes to shed the husk. I'd make it a 1-round of concentration option.

I'd also remove the "Proficiency in heavy armor is lost" clause.
Motivation: It takes 10 minutes to grow and you can't use them both (plus it doesn't make sense).
If it's too good in your opinion w/o any loss, add Endurance as prereq or something.

[Ryunosuke]

.
You didn't specify what the armor check penalty is once you hit 9th level.
Also, I believe that the feature's popularity never took off the ground because of total armor proficiency loss. It's both unfair and doesn't make sense. There's no reason in the world why any ability would make you unable to learn something ever again (and a feat eating up its prerequisite feat is unheard of anywhere else in 3e AFAIK).


As far as your proposed feat goes, I see no reason why it should take 10 minutes to shed the husk. I'd make it a 1-round of concentration option.

I'd also remove the "Proficiency in heavy armor is lost" clause.
Motivation: It takes 10 minutes to grow and you can't use them both (plus it doesn't make sense).
If it's too good in your opinion w/o any loss, add Endurance as prereq or something.

The original of the ability doesn't bar you from gaining proficiency later and neither does this. Though generally, the husk is like wearing armor so I always figured it's like trying to wear armor on top of your armor, which just doesn't work. I have no problems dropping the shed time to like 1 full round or two (i mean it is your entire body coated in thick scale plates).

It originally didn't take off though not for loss of proficiency but because it was so restrictive on armor class bonuses of nearly any kind and it was in and of itself without a bonus type. Also I made the armor check penalty only minus 2 for when it is considered light armor now.

[nonsi]

The original of the ability doesn't bar you from gaining proficiency later and neither does this.

Read again - Dragon Magic; p.12; bottom-left corner.

[Ryunosuke]

Read again - Dragon Magic; p.12; bottom-left corner.

hm ok so the original bars you. this version doesn't though. I mostly wanted to know if this seemed fairly ok. It basically costs a feat (dragontouched) or an unusual race (kobold) or to do the dragon rebirth ritual from races of dragon to get the subtype. They basically lose normal armor, the ability to enchant it or use unusual materials in use (cant have adamantine, mithril, etc) but it kind of mithril's itself over time and gets energy resistance across the board at an ok rate for applying to them all. It's kind of op in low magic settings but as a huge ebberon/forgotten realms fan that's no issue for most games I run personally.

[nonsi]

. . .
Level: 1st, unless proficiency in heavy armor is gained later on.
. . .
Replaces: Proficiency in heavy armor is lost by this feature unless it is gained again from some later class or feat.
. . .

Just add proficiency in heavy armor to the prerequisites and call it a day.

[Ryunosuke]

Changed the 'level' thing to just be the 'requirements' and listed proficiency in heavy armor for it. With that all finished, does the ability overall seem ok for a mid level campaign or just general use? Or is it too good for what it is? I ask not just for this but also because I'm trying to make a Dragon Shaman redux that's more actual dragon (claws and all that) and less random magical healing and auras that true dragons don't even have normally, and I was thinking of making this the basis of their natural armor bonus and growth rate.

[nonsi]

Changed the 'level' thing to just be the 'requirements' and listed proficiency in heavy armor for it. With that all finished, does the ability overall seem ok for a mid level campaign or just general use? Or is it too good for what it is? I ask not just for this but also because I'm trying to make a Dragon Shaman redux that's more actual dragon (claws and all that) and less random magical healing and auras that true dragons don't even have normally, and I was thinking of making this the basis of their natural armor bonus and growth rate.

I believe there's a reasonable chance that this could help you in figuring your class' abilities.

[Ryunosuke]

I believe there's a reasonable chance that this could help you in figuring your class' abilities.

While I really like teh concept of that class...some of it's abilities seem really strong...like upper tier 2 in terms of combat ability almost? I'm aiming for tier 3 as it's my understanding that tier 3 is the ideal power scope for a typical character class/build to avoid gamebreaking or them feeling useless.

[nonsi]

While I really like teh concept of that class...some of it's abilities seem really strong...like upper tier 2 in terms of combat ability almost? I'm aiming for tier 3 as it's my understanding that tier 3 is the ideal power scope for a typical character class/build to avoid gamebreaking or them feeling useless.

I'm not sure you understand what T2 means. It means that you have access to NOVA and environment changing effects, and the ability to control the flow of time and to summon creatures of godly powers to serve you.

No, the DFD is in no way shape or form T2. It's definitely more dragon-oriented than any other class I've ever seen, but non of its options outclasses other, more dedicated, decently designed classes at their game.
Unlike the DFA, the DFD's breath weapon is usable only once per 1d4 rounds (and resistances and Evasion are frequently an element in the equation).
Its natural attack is inferior to any decently designed melee class I've seen.
Its invocations repertoire is smaller and less effective than that of the Warlock's (even the official Warlock).
Its enhanced senses and mobility are easily mimicked via magical gear.

The DFD's big advantage is in being a complete package of features and abilities that give it a wide range of immediately available options.
It's the ideal class for a player that just wants to have fun w/o spending a single moment worrying about character resources or char-op strategies.

[Ryunosuke]

I'm not sure you understand what T2 means. It means that you have access to NOVA and environment changing effects, and the ability to control the flow of time and to summon creatures of godly powers to serve you.

No, the DFD is in no way shape or form T2. It's definitely more dragon-oriented than any other class I've ever seen, but non of its options outclasses other, more dedicated, decently designed classes at their game.
Unlike the DFA, the DFD's breath weapon is usable only once per 1d4 rounds (and resistances and Evasion are frequently an element in the equation).
Its natural attack is inferior to any decently designed melee class I've seen.
Its invocations repertoire is smaller and less effective than that of the Warlock's (even the official Warlock).
Its enhanced senses and mobility are easily mimicked via magical gear.

The DFD's big advantage is in being a complete package of features and abilities that give it a wide range of immediately available options.
It's the ideal class for a player that just wants to have fun w/o spending a single moment worrying about character resources or char-op strategies.

The sheer amount of raw and blatant stat boosts with literally no limitations on duration (including con which effectively just equals perma free hp) it easily outclasses a Barbarian any day of the week on head on combat powers, and barring the insanity of martial adepts, it's probably the best plain melee class I've seen (yes your claws are 1d4 and the bite 1d6 instead of the more standard 1d6 and 1d8 respectively, but when you have so much free strength for a guaranteed damage, the possibility of 1-2 more is meaningless).

I admit I may have messed up on saying Tier 2 but that thing is easily higher tier 3 from the way I understand it since you are easilly the best non martial adept melee class there is. Also, I don't see an ability to explain it but you randomly go from average to good BAB at level 4?

[nonsi]

The sheer amount of raw and blatant stat boosts with literally no limitations on duration (including con which effectively just equals perma free hp) it easily outclasses a Barbarian any day of the week on head on combat powers, and barring the insanity of martial adepts, it's probably the best plain melee class I've seen (yes your claws are 1d4 and the bite 1d6 instead of the more standard 1d6 and 1d8 respectively, but when you have so much free strength for a guaranteed damage, the possibility of 1-2 more is meaningless).

I admit I may have messed up on saying Tier 2 but that thing is easily higher tier 3 from the way I understand it since you are easilly the best non martial adept melee class there is. Also, I don't see an ability to explain it but you randomly go from average to good BAB at level 4?

1. The elevated BAB is only for using the class' granted natural attack.
2. Natural weapons cannot be enhanced (only the Monk has this clause). That's the same mitigating factor as for Dragonscale Husk. (reminds me to put an appropriate clause regarding the DFD's scales)
3. If you compare 4 attacks with a Greatsword or Great Axe - that's way more than 1-2 more.
4. Any of the character's 7 (or 8) feats invested into promoting melee combat would come at the expense of better options.

Bottom line - the class is very well rounded, but hardly abusable. It's quite powerful out of the box, but it's far from the best option for char-op.


Anyway, you don't have to take it as is. Use whatever you find useful and throw away the rest.

[Debihuman]

I like your changes but it lost it caps for some reason, not that it really matters. Originally, resistances maxed at +20 at level 20 and the AC bonus maxed at +12 at level 18. What was your reason for removing the caps?

Debby

[Ryunosuke]

I like your changes but it lost it caps for some reason, not that it really matters. Originally, resistances maxed at +20 at level 20 and the AC bonus maxed at +12 at level 18. What was your reason for removing the caps?

Debby

Well if you only go to only level 20, those caps are the same, but technically speaking, the husk would continue to get stronger into Epic Levels should you ever go that far and given the insanity of Epic Levels, it is unlikely that a few extra points of energy resistance or AC every couple levels is going to unbalance anything really.