Class Levels and Dragons.

[Ysgarran]

I'm working on the final encounter for my campaign which will be a battle with a Ancient Red Dragon. After this the campaign will be going into semi-retirement and have a very good chance of not being played again.

Now the question I have is what is the correct way to add class levels to a dragon? Is this covered in the Dracomicon book or am I missing something in the MM?

My first thought would be to add +1 the ECL for each class level I add to the dragon.

thanks for any input,
Ysgarran.

 

[Grazzt]

I'm working on the final encounter for my campaign which will be a battle with a Ancient Red Dragon. After this the campaign will be going into semi-retirement and have a very good chance of not being played again.

Now the question I have is what is the correct way to add class levels to a dragon? Is this covered in the Dracomicon book or am I missing something in the MM?

My first thought would be to add +1 the ECL for each class level I add to the dragon.

thanks for any input,
Ysgarran.

When you say ECL, do you mean CR? ECL is "Equivalent Character Level" and is basically used to for monsters as player characters.

If in fact you meant CR...when you add class levels to a monster, its CR increases by +1 for each class level added. An ancient red dragon is CR 23. Add 10 levels of sorcerer to it and its now a CR 33 monster.

As for adding class levels to a dragon (or any monster) simply work it the same way multiclassing works. Think of the monster's HD as its "monster class levels" and go from there.

 

[Ysgarran]

Yes, I was confusing the two. Thanks for the input. The party will be running into some of Dragons 'sons' so I can gauge just how tough to make the final encounter.

Ysgarran.

When you say ECL, do you mean CR? ECL is "Equivalent Character Level" and is basically used to for monsters as player characters.

If in fact you meant CR...when you add class levels to a monster, its CR increases by +1 for each class level added. An ancient red dragon is CR 23. Add 10 levels of sorcerer to it and its now a CR 33 monster.

As for adding class levels to a dragon (or any monster) simply work it the same way multiclassing works. Think of the monster's HD as its "monster class levels" and go from there.

 

[Caliban]

It kinda depends.

In 3.0 one PC class level is +1 CR.
In 3.5 one PC class level may be +.5 CR or +1 CR, depending on whether it plays to the base monsters strengths or not. For a dragon, Sorcerer, Barbarian, or Fighter levels would be +1 CR because they enchance it's already potent magical and melee abilities. Levels of cleric, druid, bard, or rogue would be only +.5 CR per level because they don't enhance it's existing strengths, and 1st level spells really don't have much impact on an ancient Red Dragons combat abilities, and it can't use most of the rogue abilities due to it's size.