Author Topic: Steel Dragon Gish  (Read 6300 times)

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Flay Crimsonwind

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #20 on: July 12, 2010, 03:52:35 AM »
What are the restrictions on your Alternate Form ability? If it works like the one gold and silver dragons have, turn into a half-dragon legendary ape for Str 38 Dex 17 Con 18, +10 natural armor, claw attacks with rend, 40ft land speed and 20ft climb speed. You're still Medium and humanoid in shape, so you can use standard equipment.


It was banned the moment i uttered "legen-"
*insert Barney Stinson remark here*
That was awesome.  :P There, got that for you.

Dictum Mortuum

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #21 on: July 12, 2010, 09:25:37 AM »
"-dary!"

Seriously now, i picked up Power Attack, Versatile Spellcaster, Combat Casting (Damn AbjCh prereqs), Master of Poisons (Because i was feeling dirty) and Half-Dragon Form. My stats look like this when in half-dragon flind form: 24/12/16/14/12/22.

I've got maxed intimidate, good diplomacy, some alchemy ranks, 1 rank in every knowledge, good UMD.

I grabbed a ring of wizardy I and a fearsome armor. Belt of battle, armbands of might and ghost shroud.

My spells are pretty boring: shield, silent image, nerveskitter, nightshield, wraithstrike, whirling blade, haste.

Anything i missed :P?
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SorO_Lost

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #22 on: July 12, 2010, 10:44:09 AM »
You must have River's Ravages as one of your 2nd level spells known (dl:legend of the twins).
A temporary aging effect = more HD = more hp/bab/saves & more spellcasting. It's the single greatest buff ever.

It's not super useful now, but later on you may want Clinging Breath. Stunning Breath (draco) is a 4th level spell that adds on a save vs stun effect to your breath weapon. Apply Clinging a few times to turn it into a multiround save or suck. See if you can nab it as your 9th level feat or so.
Tiers explained in 8 sentences. With examples!
[spoiler]Tiers break down into who has spellcasting more than anything else due to spells being better than anything else in the game.
6: Skill based. Commoner, Expert, Samurai.
5: Mundane warrior. Barbarian, Fighter, Monk.
4: Partial casters. Adapt, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Spelltheif.
3: Focused casters. Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, Warmage.
2: Full casters. Favored Soul, Psion, Sorcerer, Wu Jen.
1: Elitists. Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard.
0: Gods. StP Erudite, Illthid Savant, Pun-Pun, Rocks fall & you die.
[/spoiler]

Tshern

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #23 on: July 12, 2010, 10:51:22 AM »
This River's Ravages intrigues me, need to give it a look.

How's Steel Dragons natural armour? If high, consider Scintillating scales.

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SorO_Lost

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #24 on: July 12, 2010, 11:14:59 AM »
Quote from: The True Dragon Handbook I'm too lazy to finish
True Dragons gain numerous abilities based on their age. Size increases, more breath weapon damage, and bonuses to their abilities scores are just the start of things. Upon hitting the Young Adult stage they gain the Frightful Presence ability, normally gain some form of Damage Reduction (typically DR 5/Magic) and Spell Resistance and both improve later on. Dragons that have Innate Spellcasting further enhance their ability to cast spells and also gain racial hit dice which in turn gives bab/saves/feats.

Using a spell to temporally age your self can be used either as a combat boost or an out of combat spell enhancer. For instance a two year old Steel Dragon with a caster level of fourteen can cast River's Ravages aging him/her self twenty eight years and into the Juvenile age category granting them enough HD (+9) and spellcasting(+6) to have the Epic Spellcasting & Improved Spell Capacity feats for 14 rounds. Even dragons geared for combat will love the additional hp/bab/saves/feats gained from the extra HD.

River's Ravages (dragonlance, legends of the twins)
Age 2 years per caster level for 1 round per caster level.
Quick and easy. Weighes in at a 2nd level spell meaning really early access.

Bestow Curse (phb/srd, bovd)
Ages you into your next age category
Duration of permanent but doesn't stack with it's self. As a DM I'd penalize your XP gains as your ECL has "permanently" changed but your DM may not.

Greater Bestow Curse (spc, bovd)
Ages you into your next age category, again
Duration of "till you complete a miniquest" and stacks with the nongreater version since it's a different spell. Fair call to say you age your self two categories with it.

Hasten The End (dragonlance, holy orders of the stars)
Bestows a negative level and ages you 10 years per round
The duration is concentration. Combine with either feats, skill tricks, shapechanging for extra actions or whatever else and you can access your Ancient Wrym stage outside, or even inside a well timed, battle.
Tiers explained in 8 sentences. With examples!
[spoiler]Tiers break down into who has spellcasting more than anything else due to spells being better than anything else in the game.
6: Skill based. Commoner, Expert, Samurai.
5: Mundane warrior. Barbarian, Fighter, Monk.
4: Partial casters. Adapt, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Spelltheif.
3: Focused casters. Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, Warmage.
2: Full casters. Favored Soul, Psion, Sorcerer, Wu Jen.
1: Elitists. Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard.
0: Gods. StP Erudite, Illthid Savant, Pun-Pun, Rocks fall & you die.
[/spoiler]

Rebel7284

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #25 on: July 12, 2010, 11:29:27 AM »
"-dary!"

Seriously now, i picked up Power Attack, Versatile Spellcaster, Combat Casting (Damn AbjCh prereqs), Master of Poisons (Because i was feeling dirty) and Half-Dragon Form. My stats look like this when in half-dragon flind form: 24/12/16/14/12/22.

I've got maxed intimidate, good diplomacy, some alchemy ranks, 1 rank in every knowledge, good UMD.

I grabbed a ring of wizardy I and a fearsome armor. Belt of battle, armbands of might and ghost shroud.

My spells are pretty boring: shield, silent image, nerveskitter, nightshield, wraithstrike, whirling blade, haste.

Anything i missed :P?

Isn't ring of wizardy 1 strictly inferior to a bunch of memneto magica?
Negative level on a chicken would make it a wight the next day.  Chicken the other wight meat. -borg286

McPoyo

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #26 on: July 12, 2010, 11:56:54 AM »
"-dary!"

Seriously now, i picked up Power Attack, Versatile Spellcaster, Combat Casting (Damn AbjCh prereqs), Master of Poisons (Because i was feeling dirty) and Half-Dragon Form. My stats look like this when in half-dragon flind form: 24/12/16/14/12/22.

I've got maxed intimidate, good diplomacy, some alchemy ranks, 1 rank in every knowledge, good UMD.

I grabbed a ring of wizardy I and a fearsome armor. Belt of battle, armbands of might and ghost shroud.

My spells are pretty boring: shield, silent image, nerveskitter, nightshield, wraithstrike, whirling blade, haste.

Anything i missed :P?

Isn't ring of wizardy 1 strictly inferior to a bunch of memneto magica?

Pearls of power, yes. Memento Magica, no. Huge cost difference between the two.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #27 on: July 12, 2010, 01:02:49 PM »
"-dary!"

Seriously now, i picked up Power Attack, Versatile Spellcaster, Combat Casting (Damn AbjCh prereqs), Master of Poisons (Because i was feeling dirty) and Half-Dragon Form. My stats look like this when in half-dragon flind form: 24/12/16/14/12/22.

I've got maxed intimidate, good diplomacy, some alchemy ranks, 1 rank in every knowledge, good UMD.

I grabbed a ring of wizardy I and a fearsome armor. Belt of battle, armbands of might and ghost shroud.

My spells are pretty boring: shield, silent image, nerveskitter, nightshield, wraithstrike, whirling blade, haste.

Anything i missed :P?

Isn't ring of wizardy 1 strictly inferior to a bunch of memneto magica?

Well, you can UMD a level 17 duskblade for +10 spells.

Or use a RoW3 to UMD a level 10 vigilante for +33 spells :b
« Last Edit: July 12, 2010, 01:18:21 PM by The_Mad_Linguist »
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Rebel7284

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #28 on: July 12, 2010, 01:11:56 PM »
Pearls of power, yes. Memento Magica, no. Huge cost difference between the two.

Ring of Wizardry 1 = 20000 gp
Pearl of power 1 = 1000 gp
Memento Magica 1 = 1500 gp

So a ring is 20 pearls of power, 13.333 Memento Magica.
A ring also only doubles the BASE slots AND uses an important item slot.
So yeah.
Negative level on a chicken would make it a wight the next day.  Chicken the other wight meat. -borg286

McPoyo

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #29 on: July 12, 2010, 01:41:42 PM »
Pearls of power, yes. Memento Magica, no. Huge cost difference between the two.

Ring of Wizardry 1 = 20000 gp
Pearl of power 1 = 1000 gp
Memento Magica 1 = 1500 gp

So a ring is 20 pearls of power, 13.333 Memento Magica.
A ring also only doubles the BASE slots AND uses an important item slot.
So yeah.

The ring doesn't take a full-round action for each use, either.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

Agita

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #30 on: July 12, 2010, 01:42:49 PM »
And nothing says you can't use both if you find yourself really needing those first-level spells.
It's all about vision and making reality conform to your vision. By dropping a fucking house on it.

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Rebel7284

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #31 on: July 12, 2010, 01:48:43 PM »
The ring doesn't take a full-round action for each use, either.

True, if the DM only gives you a single encounter per day, the memento become a lot less effective.  I have been assuming the default case of 4 encounters per day so you can use the mementos after combat.  YMMV.
Negative level on a chicken would make it a wight the next day.  Chicken the other wight meat. -borg286

Dictum Mortuum

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #32 on: July 12, 2010, 01:52:05 PM »
You must have River's Ravages as one of your 2nd level spells known (dl:legend of the twins).
A temporary aging effect = more HD = more hp/bab/saves & more spellcasting. It's the single greatest buff ever.

It's not super useful now, but later on you may want Clinging Breath. Stunning Breath (draco) is a 4th level spell that adds on a save vs stun effect to your breath weapon. Apply Clinging a few times to turn it into a multiround save or suck. See if you can nab it as your 9th level feat or so.

Unfortunately that was banned :(
Campaign isn't ready for this thing anyway, it's kinda semi-optimized.

About memento magicas - great idea! I completely forgot about them. I mainly took the ring to fuel wraithstrikes with my versatile spellcaster, do they work with it?
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Brainpiercing

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #33 on: July 12, 2010, 04:50:47 PM »
Spellsword only needs 4 BAB IIRC. Unfortunately though it needs all martial weapon profs, which I don't know whether you get them.

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #34 on: July 12, 2010, 04:52:06 PM »
Spellsword only needs 4 BAB IIRC. Unfortunately though it needs all martial weapon profs, which I don't know whether you get them.
And Heavy Armor Proficiency IIC
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Agita

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #35 on: July 12, 2010, 04:55:27 PM »
You could get both of those through Wyrm of War, I think, but then you wouldn't be a Loredrake. etween +2 Sorcerer spellcasting and Spellsword, the former is better.
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ninjarabbit

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Re: Steel Dragon Gish
« Reply #36 on: July 12, 2010, 06:07:57 PM »
Pearls of power only work for prepared spellcasters while rings ofwizardry work for all arcane casters. Plus if you're a duskblade then the ring of wizardy is a lot more spell slots.