We recruited a Very Young Black Dragon recently in a PbP I'm in. I have been given control of the dragon's sheet and his progression.
Another player has been given control of the dragon's combat actions. The party is level 4 at the moment, but it's a very active PbP (less than a month old and we've already gained a level and a half). The power level is about 7 out of 10. So Tier 2/3 average, but without the more abuse-able tricks. Also, nothing involving
too complex because I'm just the supervisor on this and won't be actually running this guy.
Need: 1. A PrC or feat combo that can appropriately boost this NPCs power to help make up for being spell levels behind. The dragon is currently evil, but is
in the process of redemption, so anything
neutral-friendly would be great. Party is good/neutral.
2. Anything you can think of spell/itemwise to synergize with 1. I'm fairly good at optimization if I know what I'm working towards, but this was just sort of thrown on me randomly.
Currently said NPC has the following stats:
[spoiler]
SheetLA+3/Sorcerer* 1 (ECL 4)
Str 16
Dex 14
Con 18
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 20
*Dragon racial HD removed, but for the dragon the Sorcerer has
d8 hit dice and it gets
20 bonus HP to help negate some of the LA.
1st level feat:
Having a hard time choosing this. It depends entirely on his final build.
Spells:
0-Acid Splash, Detect Magic, Message, Touch of Fatigue
1-Lesser Orb of Acid, Mage Armor[/spoiler]
Notes: Other than ability scores and his first level being Sorcerer, nothing is "official" yet and can be changed. For flavor reasons, I would like him to learn an acid spell of each spell level, unless all such spells of that level suck. Also it should be noted, my
actual character in this game is a Dragonfire Inspirationalist(Fire damage...no Flaws :/) and the
DM has ruled weapon-like spells (touch, ranged touched) to qualify for Dragonfire Inspiration. 
Other Relevant Houserules:
[spoiler]-LA buy-off in effect
-
No flaws-two extra skill points/level (multiplied at first)
-Sorcerer spells have no inexpensive material components (basically Eschew Materials for free)
-Sorcerers get bonus feats every 5 levels: must be Heritage, Metamagic or Draconic
-
At every even level a Sorcerer gains an extra spell known of any spell level he can cast. This is a class feature not advanced by PrCs.-Arcane Thesis only reduces the first applied metamagic. It can reduce adjustments to 0, but not below that.
-Versatile Spellcaster does not let you cast higher level spells than normal
-Characters can learn extra feats by finding someone with that feat to train them for 4 hours/day for two weeks(does not need to be consecutive). Can only learn or teach one feat at a time. (We gained a level and a half in a single day, so learning prerequisites in time for a certain level may not be feasible)Full list:
[/spoiler]
The stats and goal are the most important (though if you have an idea, run it through the houserules first). As you can see, there's good reasons for him to stay in sorcerer (hit die, extra spells), but being one/two spell levels behind is a setup for failure unless handled intelligently. Paladin Gish seems out at the moment, since the dragon is going neutral as fast as possible, and may never make it to good.
So, any opinions? Advice? "Good Luck with that"s? What can a sorcerer do best with lower level spells? How can such a character contribute?
