Dragon Campaign

[FlySkyHigh]

Hey Everyone! New to the boards, but a friend of mine apparently came on recently, talking about a campaign he and I are in, and he got some pretty nice responses, so I wanted to try my hand.

We're playing in the world of Faerun, 5th level campaign, starting as Young age category dragons (any dragon race from MM, MM2, or Draconomicon accepted, others with DM permission) with no level adjustment. We're starting with a 92 point 1:1 buy, maximum of 20, or 21 with a level 4 stat increase (so effectively 93 points). We recieve skillpoints from our dragon hit-die as per usual, so dragons with more HD gain more skillpoints, and we also get the 6+int for dragon HD, but we do not recieve the x4 from first character level, so we essentially get 6+int*dragon's HD+3, and then class skill points. All dragons were also given the Alternate Form supernatural ability. We also gain one feat per age category for simplicity and to balance out the power across the characters a little more fairly.

The DM allows the PHB's, the Complete Series, and any other books but only with permission.

The basis of the campaign is that dragons have withdrawn from the world, not for fear, but for the decision to not commit mass genocide and wipe out all humans. The dragonic council has decided to send out "feelers", a small band of young dragons to gauge the state of the world, to see if dragons can indeed return.

We already have several people with set dragon types and classes... For example:
Amethyst Dragon Warblade
(Unknown Dragon) Cloistered Cleric
Fairie Dragon (custom-built age progression) Truespeaker
Radiant Dragon (unknown class)
Red Dragon Sorcerer/Blood Magus
Emerald Dragon Sorcerer/Master of Shadow (Adapted to Earth element)
Emerald dragon Spellthief/Wizard/Daggerspell mage

So yeah, we have a big party, but unfortunately it seems most of my party has taken the "I want to do damage" step. I've been looking around, and I realized my party also didn't have an effective "Tank". For a while I was harboring thoughts of a Pyroclastic Fighter/War Hulk, but I realized to roleplay it properly I'd pretty much have to play the part of a simpleton or just an angry guy, which I'm not completely sure I'm okay with.

Then I switched over to a Shadow Dragon Rogue/Assassin, but realized I couldn't be a skill-monkey and a damage dealer, so regular rogue... then just started thinking.

I finally started looking at some of the handbooks, and was thinking about a Gold Dragon Wizard, since it would fit the basis of the dragon's usual personality, using the basis of the Battlefield Controller idealism Treantmonklvl20 set forth in one of his guides. I'm not really sure which would suit the party best, so I came for both build ideas and opinions on what role you think I need to fill. Would really appreciate some help.

[Thaosyr23]

see if you can pull a steel dragon (dragons of faerun) they have nice sorcerer casting, especially if you can pull loredrake( dragons of eberron)

if you can be a wyrming do that too, if not go straight into abjurant champion then some of the other awesome gish classes

[Nunkuruji]

On the Steel Dragon, I would not take Loredrake, and simply retain access to the cleric list.

Or, go Tome Dragon, with the Loredrake archetype as mentioned. All conjuration spells at your disposal spontaneously is pretty handy.


This is a useful thread, perhaps
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3070.0

[CantripN]

Also good to check would be Force or Prismatic Dragons. Would need a BIT of house-ruling, though...

[FlySkyHigh]

I got the words letters F-O-R out in the word force before I was told no force or prismatic dragons. I'll have to look into the others.

@Thao, would you mind specifying the "Gish" classes a bit more please? I'm afraid even with a few hours of reading handbooks I still haven't quite gotten the hang of everything.

-Another thing I should've mentioned. dragon caster levels do qualify me for prestige classes if I get the appropriate spells, however, they do not stack with sorcerer levels for total effective caster level, but they do stack for determining number of spells per day. For example, if I took 5th level sorcerer and was a Young steel dragon, I would have the first and second level spells per day of a 10th level sorcerer, but i could still only cast up to 2nd level spells.

[Thaosyr23]

that's a little ridiculous. Its says in the dracronomicon that sorc levels stack with innate dragon casting. you also get screwed for spells/day, if you had 2 sets of 5th level spellcasting, you'd have some decent spells/day.

what about prc that add to spells, would that increase your dragon spellcasting?

gish is a catch all term for an arcane fighter type. Dragons excel at this without even trying.

[Agita]

I got the words letters F-O-R out in the word force before I was told no force or prismatic dragons. I'll have to look into the others.

@Thao, would you mind specifying the "Gish" classes a bit more please? I'm afraid even with a few hours of reading handbooks I still haven't quite gotten the hang of everything.

Gish is a term for a spellcaster that wades into melee, most often buffing himself beforehand, or a melee character that can also cast spells (and uses them to buff himself, usually).

Since you want to be a tank, if you can somehow get your DM to allow Sovereign Archetypes (refluff them for Faerun by making them keyed to deities of the Faerunian pantheon instead, or possibly different regions of Dragon Erye, the plane where dragons go when they die), take a look at Wyrm of War. It gives Fighter feats and/or lets you trade sorcerer spells for martial maneuvers.

[FlySkyHigh]

@Thao: Does it? I might have to point that out to my DM, he may not have noticed, I didn't either. And I looked into that, if I did something like take levels in wizard, and took Ultimate Magus, it would indeed increase the dragon casting.

@Agita: Can you specify where those are from? it sounds like a very interesting idea, and my DM tends to love making custom things like that.

[Agita]

@Thao: Does it? I might have to point that out to my DM, he may not have noticed, I didn't either. And I looked into that, if I did something like take levels in wizard, and took Ultimate Magus, it would indeed increase the dragon casting.

@Agita: Can you specify where those are from? it sounds like a very interesting idea, and my DM tends to love making custom things like that.

Dragons of Eberron, so it would be cross-setting, unfortunately.

[FlySkyHigh]

He allowed a warforged in faerun our last game, I'm not too terribly worried about cross-setting. I would just have to work up a good backstory for it.

[Agita]

He allowed a warforged in faerun our last game, I'm not too terribly worried about cross-setting. I would just have to work up a good backstory for it.

Definitely look into them, then, and perhaps show them to the rest of your group as well. Some of them a really pretty cool.

[Thaosyr23]

p24, under magic abilities.

Young steel abjurant champion 5/ phantom knight X

[FlySkyHigh]

@Thao- Sweet, I just pointed that out to him, and he seemed a bit confused, but I bet he'll cave with enough pressure. Where is phantom knight from?

@Agita- Ah, one of the few books I don't have, I'll get my hands on it and let you know what I think. Thanks for the heads up.

[Gavinfoxx]

Tome Dragon (Dragon 343) + Loredrake (Dragons of Eberron I think, see if you can get it modified for wizardly casting) + Spellhoarding Psychoses (Dragon 313) + DM said to ignore hit dice and level adjustment so far + Your basic Generalist Wizard build + Your favorite variant of the actual Wizard class = AWESOME.

[FlySkyHigh]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. That's insane! I doubt he'd go for the psychoses, like he might put some more penalties on it or something, I see nothing against playing Tome Dragon since it's "weaker" than most other dragons, but with all that, I'd essentially be coming into the game as a 12th level wizard... o_O; I'm scared.

EDIT: Strike that. 14th level wizard with Loredrake

[Havok4]

For a spellcasting focus that is the best way to go, although the psychosis can be skipped as you can spontaneously cast from all conjuration and divination spells due to the tomb dragons odd casting abilities which give all of those spells for free. Although the riddled dragon psychosis might be a good choice if only to make int your primary stat.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, basically use the stuff to get crazy awesome stats, then, and look at of the "tricks" for spellscale, practiced spellcaster, loredrake, making dragon = wizard, whatever, and write up a progression that doesn't make your actual wizard level higher, but simply makes you a "more awesome wizard" at your given level.  So since you start with three hit dice, write stuff up so you cast spells as a level 3 wizard... one with a lot of very nifty capabilities, like a +4 or a +6 or +12 or whatever to the int stat past what you put in the stat... whatever, but still, mostly, just a "normal" level 3 wizard.  Or are you guys going to start with ONE hit die, for your single class level, and you just derive modifiers and info based on the dragons?  Regardless, try extrapolating a template, and just write up a custom three or four level hit die progression through the wyrmling hit dice, each giving you a level of wizard spellcasting or whatever...

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. That's insane! I doubt he'd go for the psychoses, like he might put some more penalties on it or something, I see nothing against playing Tome Dragon since it's "weaker" than most other dragons, but with all that, I'd essentially be coming into the game as a 12th level wizard... o_O; I'm scared.

EDIT: Strike that. 14th level wizard with Loredrake

[Luckanan]

If one of your initial inspirations was a Pyroclastic dragon I say, go for it.  He needn't be stupid (a young one in the Draconimicon has above average Int), nor a bruiser.  You could play a Pyroclastic that's a...pyro.  

You'd want to max out Con, since that's what your breath weapon's based on.  Your 3 feats should be Ability Focus: Breath Weapon, Recover Breath and Heighten breath.  That means that without class levels or magic items you're throwing a DC 23 Disintegrate area effect every other round that ignores spell resistance.  And for the really tough baddies you could heighten your breath to DC 28.

As far as classes go, you'd want to make the most of your Con.  Martial classes take advantage of your dragon hit die.  I'd recommend Warblade for the concentration-based maneuvers: Action Before Thought, Mind Over Body, etc.  Fist of the Forest gives you Con to AC.  Heck, with enough dipping to up your Will saves, and some natural armor improvement (Amulet of Natural Armor, Skin of the Defender, Improved Binding Dehlver-Nar) you could enter the Hidecarved Dragon prestige class rather easily.  (Though I don't think Hidecarved is as good as most "PC" prestige classes.)

And why not be a gargantuan death-spewing dragon?  With that 92 point-buy, you could easily max Wisdom as well.  Take a few levels of Ardent, the Practiced Manifester feat and Expansion.

(Is that a 92 point-buy in addition to dragon racial modifiers?  Because if so that gets you a DC 26 breath weapon that you can heighten to DC 34!)

[snakeman830]

As far as classes go, you'd want to make the most of your Con.  Martial classes take advantage of your dragon hit die.  I'd recommend Warblade for the concentration-based maneuvers: Action Before Thought, Mind Over Body, etc.  Fist of the Forest gives you Con to AC.  Heck, with enough dipping to up your Will saves, and some natural armor improvement (Amulet of Natural Armor, Skin of the Defender, Improved Binding Dehlver-Nar) you could enter the Hidecarved Dragon prestige class rather easily.  (Though I don't think Hidecarved is as good as most "PC" prestige classes.)

Pyroclastic Dragons get some good mileage out of it as they end up with 4 energy immunities (including to the rarest and most common energy types just by being pyroclastics) and Resistance 20 to whichever energy type you aren't immune to.  Not bad, really.

[FlySkyHigh]

No, it's a 92 point buy from 0 and essentially we are starting as young dragons with the full hit die of our age category dragon, and THEN adding class hit die. So essentially my pyroclastic war-hulk build ended up with the base stats of 20 str, 21 Con, 20 Dex, 10 Int, 10 Wis, and 12 Charisma, then with war hulk increases he had a 26 Str. The reason he was "stupid" was because of the war hulk class, which makes it so that you effectively can't put ranks in any wisdom, intelligence, or charisma based skill with the exception of intimidate.