Start with a sorcerer. Mix in Draconic Breath feat from Complete. Combine with the Metabreath feats from the Draconomicon. Voila! Good from both a power and flavor standpoint. Bonus: cuts down on the sorc's need for direct damage spells known.
Arcane Casting Draconic PC
- Thread starter mattcolville
- Start date
szilard
First Post
Another thought:
Sorcerer X/Dragon Disciple 2/Dragonheart Mage X
pick up Practiced Spellcaster and you won't be behind in terms of caster level.
Two levels of Dragon Disciple will give you:
claw and bite attacks, +2 Str, +1 natural armor, 2 bonus spells, good Fort and Will saves, Medium BAB, and d12HD.
The Dragonheart Mage will give you an effective breath weapon.
-Stuart
Sorcerer X/Dragon Disciple 2/Dragonheart Mage X
pick up Practiced Spellcaster and you won't be behind in terms of caster level.
Two levels of Dragon Disciple will give you:
claw and bite attacks, +2 Str, +1 natural armor, 2 bonus spells, good Fort and Will saves, Medium BAB, and d12HD.
The Dragonheart Mage will give you an effective breath weapon.
-Stuart
Evilhalfling
Adventurer
Or play a dragon with class levels.
the LA means you have less levels, but you get full BAB, 3 good saves, d12 hd for the ones you do have.
This sets you up as a secondary melee character, with great mobility and senses.
a dragon in a party works best as scout, or breathweapon straffer. Take 1 level in a class with armor, or go for the feat - barding is a easy ac bonus .
minium level for wyrmling is 6 (brass) to 12 (gold) there are also Dragon magazines that provides a full 20 level advancement.
I also set up a draconic sorcerer who was trying to use draconic breath as a primary attack
a small cone is a terrible shape for a caster - atleast until you have easy acess to fly.
the Draconic heritage flying feat works only after casting .... hm an immediate spell, a quick flight and a breath... this might work.
the LA means you have less levels, but you get full BAB, 3 good saves, d12 hd for the ones you do have.
This sets you up as a secondary melee character, with great mobility and senses.
a dragon in a party works best as scout, or breathweapon straffer. Take 1 level in a class with armor, or go for the feat - barding is a easy ac bonus .
minium level for wyrmling is 6 (brass) to 12 (gold) there are also Dragon magazines that provides a full 20 level advancement.
I also set up a draconic sorcerer who was trying to use draconic breath as a primary attack
a small cone is a terrible shape for a caster - atleast until you have easy acess to fly.
the Draconic heritage flying feat works only after casting .... hm an immediate spell, a quick flight and a breath... this might work.
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Evilhalfling said:
On a slightly related note, exactly what does a cone look like on a grid. I know it starts at an intersection and expands from there, but what would, say, a 15 ft. cone look like? I know it's a quarter circle, but is it like a line that affects all squares it passes through?
Pinotage
guardianfallenangel
First Post
I'd go Dragon Shaman from PH2. It's a good class, you get breath weapon, and become more draconic as time passes. If the player want's a really dragon like character be a Spellscale Dragon Shaman, or throw the Draconic template on a standard race, could also be reborn as Dragonborn of Bahumat. All of these are just ideas.
mattcolville
Adventurer
He has my Races of the Dragon right now and is pouring over it.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to see what's the best way to make a Half-Dragon fighting Sorcerer. Specifically I'm looking at making a 12th level dude, which in this case means 9 class levels, that A: takes advantage of the Half-Dragon's natural attacks to be really nasty in unarmed combat, B: can cast lots of arcane spells like a sorcerer.
Now, as a fighting spellcaster, he has to have either a really high AC or really high HP and given that there's only 9 class levels to play with, and most of them should be sorcerer, I'm guessing high AC is the way to go. What type of armor should a Half-Dragon Sorcerer get? Magic items?
His natural attacks confuse me somewhat. How does he use his Claw/Claw/Bite as a full attack? Does he automatically get to attack 3 times since he has 3 natural weapons? And, I presume, that the second and third attacks are 5 less than his highest attack. Yet I look in the MM and I see creatures like the Rast that get 4 attacks as a full attack action and as far as I can tell, that's at no penalty and with no special feats. ??? Why doesn't the Rast need Multiattack? I can't figure this out. I'm going to presume that, as a Full Attack, he'd get three attacks, 2 claws at his full attack bonus, and -5 with his bite. -2 if he takes Multiattack, -0 with Improved Multiattack. The reason this confuses me is that I thought if a vanilla human fighter tried to make two attacks, of any kind including unarmed, he takes a penalty on all those attacks. I guess that's only with weapons?
If I'm right about that, then he could take Multiattack, Improved Multiattack, and Improved Natural Attack X2 for Claw and Bite. Then he's claws would do 1d6 and his bite 1d8. Are dragon claws and bite automatically lethal, or does he have to take Improved Unarmed Strike?
The question is; how to get his attack bonus up. Obviously, fighter levels would do it. Those sacrifice sorcerer levels. Maybe some mix of the two? I think that's a bad idea given that I only have 9 class levels to play around with. High STR would improve his attack bonus, but I fear not enough. An 18 STR, easy to get with the +8 from Half-Dragon, is only +4 and a 9th level Sorc is +4 for a total of +8. Not a whole lot at 12th level. In fact, very very bad. Magic?
Ok, so maybe it's a bad idea. I've considered dropping the spellcasting and just going pure unarmed fighter with nasty dragon stuff, but even then...weird to be an unarmed fighter and not a Monk, A half-dragon Monk? Mmm...UNKNOWN.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to see what's the best way to make a Half-Dragon fighting Sorcerer. Specifically I'm looking at making a 12th level dude, which in this case means 9 class levels, that A: takes advantage of the Half-Dragon's natural attacks to be really nasty in unarmed combat, B: can cast lots of arcane spells like a sorcerer.
Now, as a fighting spellcaster, he has to have either a really high AC or really high HP and given that there's only 9 class levels to play with, and most of them should be sorcerer, I'm guessing high AC is the way to go. What type of armor should a Half-Dragon Sorcerer get? Magic items?
His natural attacks confuse me somewhat. How does he use his Claw/Claw/Bite as a full attack? Does he automatically get to attack 3 times since he has 3 natural weapons? And, I presume, that the second and third attacks are 5 less than his highest attack. Yet I look in the MM and I see creatures like the Rast that get 4 attacks as a full attack action and as far as I can tell, that's at no penalty and with no special feats. ??? Why doesn't the Rast need Multiattack? I can't figure this out. I'm going to presume that, as a Full Attack, he'd get three attacks, 2 claws at his full attack bonus, and -5 with his bite. -2 if he takes Multiattack, -0 with Improved Multiattack. The reason this confuses me is that I thought if a vanilla human fighter tried to make two attacks, of any kind including unarmed, he takes a penalty on all those attacks. I guess that's only with weapons?
If I'm right about that, then he could take Multiattack, Improved Multiattack, and Improved Natural Attack X2 for Claw and Bite. Then he's claws would do 1d6 and his bite 1d8. Are dragon claws and bite automatically lethal, or does he have to take Improved Unarmed Strike?
The question is; how to get his attack bonus up. Obviously, fighter levels would do it. Those sacrifice sorcerer levels. Maybe some mix of the two? I think that's a bad idea given that I only have 9 class levels to play around with. High STR would improve his attack bonus, but I fear not enough. An 18 STR, easy to get with the +8 from Half-Dragon, is only +4 and a 9th level Sorc is +4 for a total of +8. Not a whole lot at 12th level. In fact, very very bad. Magic?
Ok, so maybe it's a bad idea. I've considered dropping the spellcasting and just going pure unarmed fighter with nasty dragon stuff, but even then...weird to be an unarmed fighter and not a Monk, A half-dragon Monk? Mmm...UNKNOWN.
mattcolville
Adventurer
Ok, so, what about a Half-Dragon Sorcerer (say, 6 so 3rd level spells) Monk 3?
I know, you're all reading this thinking this is just folly. But it's a good learning experience for me.
Hit points are suck, but I can handle that. What confuses me is how...you can guess what I'm going to say, yes? How flurry of blows works with claw/claw/bite. I'm going to guess it becomes claw/claw/claw/bite? Maybe the FAQ has something to say about this.
EDIT: Well poop. That was a short-lived build, the FAQ explicitly states a Monk's Flurry of Blows cannot be used with natural attacks.
EDIT: It's interesting that creatures using natural attacks never gain multiple attacks as a result of a high BAB. That's unexpected.
I know, you're all reading this thinking this is just folly. But it's a good learning experience for me.
Hit points are suck, but I can handle that. What confuses me is how...you can guess what I'm going to say, yes? How flurry of blows works with claw/claw/bite. I'm going to guess it becomes claw/claw/claw/bite? Maybe the FAQ has something to say about this.
EDIT: Well poop. That was a short-lived build, the FAQ explicitly states a Monk's Flurry of Blows cannot be used with natural attacks.
EDIT: It's interesting that creatures using natural attacks never gain multiple attacks as a result of a high BAB. That's unexpected.
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