Tips for Dragon Disciple build?

I was thinking about trying to play a Sor1/Monk5/Dragon DiscipleX.

The Sorcerer level could give me True Strike & Enlarge Person, the Monk levels would give me flurry, wis armor & Improved grapple, and DD would be sweet for the increase in hitpoints & nat armor, the added strength and the sheer coolness factor. (And flight at high levels of course!)

I'm not particularly trying to build a grappler per se, just trying to find out how to play to the DD PrC strengths. Do you guys have any advice? Like feat selections? Classes picked? Draconic name generators?

btw: This character would be playing solo or with 1 or 2 random companions a lot, and would usually only face 1 encounter on a day (so would get to rest/sleep/heal/etc. after an encounter).

In general you did it right, DD is a fighting class, not a spellcasting class, so it's probably best to keep spellcasting low and rather improve on one's fighting capabilities.

In our current adventuring party, our "combat brute" is a barbarian/fighter/sorcerer/dragon disciple. The high strength is quite good for Improved Trip and evens out the loss in BAB, which comes with the class.

Not sure how well the monk would fit in there, however, since most monk class benefits will be fairly weak (speed, AC, better unarmed attacks, etc).

Bye
Thanee

Thanee's right. DD's are better fighters than they are casters but their are work arounds (sorta). I've got two versions I'd like to try in game

One a Fighter/Bard with the Education and Combat Reflexes and weilding a Glaive or Lucern Hammer (the latter if using the weapon group rules). It is somewhat amusing to have a Bard with around 10 0-Lvl spells a day (read & detect magic anyone?)

The other is more recent design and I'm curious how well it would work out is a straight sorcerer. Likly a human using the Draconic Heritage feats from Complete Arcane. Making use of Arcane strike and the Draconic Heritage Feats as a way of burning the spells up. However several of the heritage feats would eventually be pointless once appothesis is attained.

Going as a monk is a great way of doing it (I think the revised version exectually expects/prefers that route). Shield makes a good spell and true strike is often a goody too.

The new Warmage alternate class could make for a great Dragon Disciple as well and gives a much more vertsitle range of spells to work with. Combined with a Good Intellegence (and Half Dragon eventually gives you a boost to INT) Warmage Edge will help your damage potential. Cast in light armor and upto Medium Armor with Battlecaster, even potentially upto heavy with enough levels in Warmage and Battlecaster feat.

As basically a 10-Level Half Dragon Class (plus some) a melee fighter would likly be best as you'll maximize the strength benefits. Armor is likly going to be your biggest problem because of arcane spell failure so Warmage, Bard or Monk make good work arounds. Monk however is still limited to your wisdom bonus and relies on having exceptional scores which as it stands your gonna want several! Great DEX for AC, Good STR for damage and accuracy in melee, Decent CON for survivability, A minimum CHA to cast your spells or a high CHA to make your save DC's better. Decent INT for skill points and if a Monk a Great WIS as well.

okay I think I rambled a bit much. Anways that should give you plenty of food for thought.

I kinda wondered what his class was for.. it seemed to get a lot of love
- d12 hd +4 str, +2 con, blindsense - the claws and breath looked sub par -
but there are enough advantages to make up.

It would be nicer if the bonus spells added to spells known in addtion to spells per day - but really there are enough advantages.

So my build advice would just be sor1/ ftr4 /ddX
I wonder if DD's can draconic breath feats from draconomicon - clinging breath! maximize breath ! wheee! or the improve natural attack, & natural armor feats.

Would a monk/dragon disciple's claws do 1d6 each instead of 1d4?
It seems ki strike might help those natural attacks be more effective....
as a fighter could you bite and swing a weapon as a full attack instead of claws?

im having a hard time understanding what so great about this class other than the HD and saves.. i mean the breath weapon is maxed at 1/day the natural attack damage never increases. i guess the ability boosts are nice. it just seems kinda divided as to what the class is about... taking 10 levels to flesh out the abilities. it seems its designed as a sorcerer prestige class but it doesnt boost caster level at all...

i guess the only way to understand why it works, is to try it out myself

I have been playing a SOR6/DD3 for a few months and have really enjoyed it. He is not the primary arcanist in the party but can hold his own. I tend to focus on style over maximum efficiency. We use a house rule that sorcerers cast their spells with unique visual effects. Sort of like the Spell Thematics feat without any special bonus. (I never really saw the point of that feat anyway) For example, his Magic Missiles look like small dragons that fly from his hands to explode against the target. I use several spells from the Relics & Rituals books as well as Book of Eldritch Might. I love the Downdraft spell and then tear into the blind, deaf , & prone enemies with my claws and bite.

I tend to favour either a bard 4/barb 1/dd x build (then barb to 20 after dd is maxed) which has the advantage of getting that 4th iterative attack eventually as well as 2nd level spells (and lots of them with the DD bonus spells) such as cure moderate wounds, glitterdust, heroism...

Or you can take it up to bard 7 to get access to haste, which may be more advantageous if you don't have other access to it (via magic items, or casters in your party or whatever).

Fighter is of course a viable alternative to barbarian, but 1 level of barbarian is often more useful than 1 level of fighter.. you don't get weapon specialization til fighter 4th. Plus the bard/barbarian combo gets lots of skill points + a few extra hp, fast movement boosts flight speed etc...

Weapon-wise a glaive or the like would work pretty well.. you still threaten at the 5ft range with your bite (as a secondary attack at a -5 penalty). Bard song gives you +1 attack/damage on all hits which can be handy (doesn't stack with heroism, but they don't entirely overlap so..)

Ps: bard 4/barb 1 has +4 BAB at level 5 so its not like you give up a whole lot.. very handy for a melee fighter design, plus you can still cast spells in light armour.

I have seen a Fighter 1 / Hexblade 4 / DD x do very well running around in heavy armor with full BAB and hp before entering the class gives a very strong tank fighter that had almost no spell casting.