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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 1429836" data-attributes="member: 3051">Why restrict this discussion to Dragons, when the same logic applies elsewhere?Heydricus is a Human Ftr 9/Sor 5.  He's CR 14.  He gains a level, and chooses to gain a Sorcerer level, making him a Ftr 9/Sor 6.  Are you saying that he won't be CR 15 now, because he's only gained a few measly low-level spell slots?  (If you start doing that, you need to compensate players who choose a suboptimal multiclass, and you end up with the AD&D system, where a Fighter 7/Mage 7/Cleric 7 equals a Fighter 10.  Ick.)Besides, he'll probably use his third-level slots for things like Haste, which doesn't need to scale so much, instead of Fireball.  For first-level slots, he can use Expeditious Retreat, Shield, and True Strike.  So, he'll still get plenty of use out of them, and some of those spells (True Strike, for example) are substantially more valuable to a fighter-type than they are to a pure caster.  More importantly, he can use scrolls and wands and such, and the ability to purchase those scales with character level, not class level.Okay, so having mixed levels like that probably isn't the most powerful way to do things.  He'd probably be better off finding some useful PrC.  (Hmmm... a Dragon taking Eldritch Knight levels?)  But, it's still +1 CR by the book, unless you want to rework the entire CR system to "adjust" the multiclassed NPCs out there.The Dragon in the previous discussion is in exactly the same situation.  In fact, he gets MORE out of the single Sorcerer level than Heydricus would, because he can now gain a Familiar, and he may or may not have the Dragon's expanded spell list.  Also, I'm not sure how the "class spell list" thing would work, but he might now have better ability to use scrolls and wands.Finally, if I have a Dragon PC, what other option is there?  I gain a level.  (DING!)What are my advancement options?  Dragon "class level" HD are based on age, not experience, in the same way that the HD "advancement" rules for other creatures are meant to show variation within a species, not some sort of career path for a single creature.  So, by a strict reading of the rules, the DM shouldn't ALLOW me to increase my Dragon's HD, which means I need to add class levels.  So, I have three options:1> Add a level of Sorcerer, which expands my (admittedly somewhat limited) spellcasting ability, allowing me to use magic to shore up the Dragon's few weaknesses2> Add a level of Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue/Ranger/etc, which improve my BAB/feats/skillsor3> Add a level of Wizard/Druid/etc, where I'm starting from scratchClearly option #3 is suboptimal, in the same way that a multiclassed Fighter/Sorcerer shouldn't add a level of Druid.  But is #1 worse than #2?  Depends on the creature, I suppose, but if a Dragon with a level of Barbarian should increase its ECL by 1, then why not Sorcerer?</blockquote>

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