What spells would you choose if you were playing a dragon?

[Aesmael]

Methinks Gate and Wish might be popular for the older ones, for their versatility, although afer reading some recent threads I find myself partial to the idea of Foresight.
For something a little more, ah, practical, Mage Armour seems like a no-brainer. Something you can keep up all day with little effort.

 

[Scion]

how high of a dragon are we talking here?

Definately contingency. No doubts about it.

Guards and wards is also a very good one.

Righteous might if available.

Mindblank = good.

There are a few others, although personally I prefer gem dragons.

 

[Aesmael]

Any age dragon you care to respond about would be helpful . If it matters, specifying would help. I fall into the extremely inexperienced category of person myself, so mostly I am trying to get a feel for dragons in general.
Guards and Wards, that certainly seems useful given that dragon = lair.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If you can get a chance to peak at the Draconomicon, it has all the MM dragons by various age categories statted out with spells, etc. There are also some particularly good draconic spells that boost their natural attacks and breath weapons in interesting ways.

 

[Methos of Aundair]

Bear's Endurance is an obvious one. With their amount of HD it's an obvious choice.

 

[Victim]

Buffs for melee. Mage Armor, Shield, and the like are all nice at all levels. Pulling other buff spells from wizard and cleric lists can really help. Dragons are already good at melee and have great ACs. Buffing up can make them essentially unhittable, and they'll be able to tear things to shreds. Darkness effects work with Blindsight, help against normal attacks, and provide a strong defense against touch attack and ray spells. Some form of elemental protection is a must, since many dragons are vulernable to an element. Dragons that can cast cleric spells should always get Heal when available.

One or two cross elemental attack spells are nice. Many groups will try to prepare against the dragon's breath weapon, so secondary attack spells are good for alternate forms of ranged damage. Enervation is another strong spell.

The Draconomicon has some good spell ideas.

Spells with XP costs aren't so useful. A dragon is going to have a hard time gaining XP, so he can only use those spells sparingly. Since they don't get many 9th level spells known, but still have good spells/day, why would they want to have a bunch of spells they can't use?

 

[Evilhalfling]

Gotta go with
Lets see you have medium caster level - and terrible sv mod - compared to PC),
Chances are damage spells are not going to stack up to your physical attacks
and all your skills will be maxed to amazing levels -
You will want mostly long range stuff - for flying passes

Mage Armor, Shield, Identify
Invisiblity, Detect Thoughts
Protection from energy
Dispel magic, stone shape - (why not hide your best suff inside rock?)

Pounce - psionic, druid, self created? the ultimate killspell for a dragon.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Expeditious Retreat (double fly speeds, no one outraces you), Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile, Hold Person. Detect Scrying, Nondetection.
Teleport tracing spells---even better, Teleport Warning spells. *

Also Contingency and Guards and Wards, Foresight, and similar spells.

*Mental Note: Wonder why no one thought of these before.

 

[MichaelH]

The old BADD website still has a decent spell list for dragons. It lists the best spells for a dragon at each spell level, including cleric spells for dragons that can choose them. Here's the link.

Note that this list was compiled by many individuals over a long period of time, with no small amount of debate. It has not been updated since the 3.5 revision, however. Most of the spells are still good choices.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Teleport tracing spells---even better, Teleport Warning spells. *

*Mental Note: Wonder why no one thought of these before.

There are some in the CBoEM. I might just be remembering the anti-scry spells, though. CBoEM has a passel of dragon-themed spells.