Dragon Disciple... Worth it?

[Zadam]

Is the prestige class "Dragon Disciple" actually worth it? At first glance I thought to myself "wow, breath weapon, cool!", but then noticed its only once per day. The boost to AC is ok, but still a melee charcter will out AC you severely. The natural attacks are pretty cool as well, but nothing spectacular. The bonus spells are ok, but consider how many spells you are giving up to be a Dragon Disciple. Having wings is cool, but then again why not just cast "Fly"? The BAB is only on par with Clerics, although the 1d12 HP is very nice.

It seems to me that a Dragon Disciple is a bit of an attempt to make an arcane caster / melee combatant hybrid, but it seems that he would be pretty sub-par at both. Closer inspection of this class to me makes it seem like its not worth it... Am I missing something?

 

[Sigdel]

NO! I made a sorcerer who ended up a dragon deciple and it turned out to be a horrible choice. I lost seven levels worth of spell casting for nothing worth mentioning. If you do feel compelled to pick it up here is a suggestion: Take up ranks in Craft (firearms), make a flintlock pistol, put it against your temple, pull trigger. Repete as many time as needed to kill your character.
FYI, my character was a 11 sorc/7 DD. He turned out to be such a tool, I am turning him evil next time my group plays these characters. Yeah, thats the plot. He attempts to become a god because he has compensation issues. He is not a good spellcaster and he still sucks at combat. But it's also worth mentioning that he was my first character for 3rd ed.
Please, think of your character...

 

[Banshee16]

Stick with the version in Tome and Blood then. It still gains spellcaster levels, but I think at half-progression. I'd have to review. I was noticing it in the 3.5 SRD, and suspect it's one of several elements of the game that were broken by the move from 3.0 to 3.5.

Banshee

 

[Diirk]

The problem you're having is you're looking at it as a 'caster with some melee power'. Its not. It gives up basically all casting power. You'll find its much more a melee class, and you'll just need to take a level of sorceror, bard, hexblade or the like to qualify.

I quite like Bard 4/Barbarian 1/DD x as a build... gets you 2nd level spells, rage, a decent chunk of skills etc... you lose 1 BAB from the bard levels, then some more from the DD, but the boost to strength makes up for the attack bonus in that regard.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Is the prestige class "Dragon Disciple" actually worth it? At first glance I thought to myself "wow, breath weapon, cool!", but then noticed its only once per day. The boost to AC is ok, but still a melee charcter will out AC you severely. The natural attacks are pretty cool as well, but nothing spectacular. The bonus spells are ok, but consider how many spells you are giving up to be a Dragon Disciple. Having wings is cool, but then again why not just cast "Fly"? The BAB is only on par with Clerics, although the 1d12 HP is very nice.

It seems to me that a Dragon Disciple is a bit of an attempt to make an arcane caster / melee combatant hybrid, but it seems that he would be pretty sub-par at both. Closer inspection of this class to me makes it seem like its not worth it... Am I missing something?

Dragon disciple is best used NOT to make a spellcaster. Use it to make a melee combatant.

Lots of hitpoints (the class effectively gets a d14 hit dice thanks to the con increase), +11 to hit in 10 levels, +4 (or 6) to damage. Extra low-level spells (so you can cast enlarge person 8 times a day for instance... Or true strike). Flight always-on is a lot better for a fighter than the fly spell. Adding a bite attack after your full-attack greatsword routine is neat too. The breath weapon can be useful for clearing out the mooks or softening up for cleaves etc. Blindsense is awesome for a character that normally doesn't get great spot/listen checks.

The best build is 1 or 2 levels of sorceror, then 3 or 4 of barbarian or fighter (or both), then DD all the way to 15. Choose combat boosting spells with sorceror (as before: enlarge person, true strike, shield, that sort of stuff: things that don't need caster level much).

 

[Sigdel]

Stick with the version in Tome and Blood then. It still gains spellcaster levels, but I think at half-progression. I'd have to review. I was noticing it in the 3.5 SRD, and suspect it's one of several elements of the game that were broken by the move from 3.0 to 3.5.

Banshee

You just get bonus spells as if it was from a high stat. If it was at half progression, it would be worth it. Although it might be worth it if you were a Hexblade. But in that case, I would be more inclined to take the Dragon Samurai from the Miniatures Handbook.

 

[Jack Simth]

Well, there are ways to use it:
1) It adds spell slots - at epic levels, it's one of the very few ways to add spell slots - but that's not very useful until you are wondering what to do with your 21st level. Honestly, however, I'd much prefer that each of those +1's were a +1 to an arcane spell progression, as most magical prestige classes are.

2) It's NATURAL armor; which means it stacks with your +5 Full Plate and your +5 Tower Shield, and your +1 Luck bonus, and your Dodge bonuses, and many others. Moreover, many of the spells that add natural armor add an enchancement to natural armor, and so stack.

3) The extra +2 strength each at levels 2 and 4 mean that your Attack Bonus (though not your BAB) is up by +6 at 4th (for most melee weapons, anyway) as well as increasing damage, which is a benny compared to most classes with full BAB. However, those are the only str boosts, so it evens out with a full BAB class at 5th - for attack rolls - the damage increase stays.

4) The requirements are slight - you need Knoweledge(Arcana) 8, sure - but it's a class skill for virtually any spellcasting class, and a single level of Bard or Sorceror will cover the casting requirements. Draconic is just a language (1 skill point).

5) The blindsense (5th and 10th) is useful in many circumstances - mostly against invisible opponents, of course - but also handy in dark areas when you are trying to sneak, if you have a lot of stealth.

6) The natural weapons (2nd) mean you can never really be fully disarmed - you always have a way to deal leathal damage - and you can benefit from a Druid's Magic Fang spell.

7) Yeah, the breath weapon is only 1/day - but it's still a fun surprise to pull on someone.

8) Wings (9th) give you a method of flight that is very, very difficult to interrupt.

For some builds, and some circumstances, it's very useful. It has it's place with a tank (AC, d12 HD, Str and Con boosts). With others, especially the spellcasting classes, it's rather useless until epic levels where it's a lot harder to gain more spell slots.

 

[Zadam]

Ahhh now I get it! I misunderstood how you were meant to make a Dragon Disciple... I assumed you keep taking levels in Bard or Sorcerer until you qualify for DD... I get it now... Might be ok I guess (although mediocre BAB is still a bit unsettling).

 

[Bad Paper]

Well, for one thing, it doesn't seem to me like sorcerer is a good choice for Dragon Disciple. It looks to me like the class was tailor-made for bards in a two levels of bard to one level of dragon disciple ratio.

 

[LeifVignirsson]

I love my Dragon Disicple, I had it planned since the day I started off... Of course, I had three levels in Rogue and three in Sorcerer before I took it and now he is at a 25/3/3 and I haven't looked back... It was a pain for a while but well worth it once I got to BE a dragon (kept the old rules from 3.0 when it was geared towards evolving into a dragon).