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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scurvy_Platypus" data-source="post: 3842897" data-attributes="member: 43283">I played a couple of 'em...First one was a DS Kobold, and I used Races of the Dragon and the RotD web enhancement to basically make the kobold a mini dragon.It was a bit on the fragile side, but not a huge surprise considering it was a kobold. Still managed to be useful. Th DM said playing a kobold was fine (it was an Eberron game), and then proceed to punish me for having the character every game session. So I retired the character, and made a warforged DS instead.People don't seem to get that it's a _support_ class, and it really does mean "support". People seem to approach it as a Fighter that can do some buffing, and it's really a Buffing type that can do some fighting. Trying to run it as an alternate frontline is just not going to work, unless you multiclass a bit with Fighter. My opinion of course.The warforged DS had some fighter levels since I expected to be a backup fighter to the primary fighter in the group. It worked out well. The warforged had a 19 Con and the Adamantine Body so it had decent DCs for it's special abilities, and the DR was nice too. Pick the auras that were appropriate for the situation, and away we went. As a side benefit, the healing aura helped keep the warforged repaired as well, it just took twice as long on the warforge as it did for everyone else (since the healing magic was 1/2 as effective).If I were to play in a game that allowed me to play the DS, I'd do it again in a hearbeat. Some levels here and there of Fighter just to zero in on some feats to focus and augment the combat abilities, and the majority of levels as a DS. There's a variety of auras that are useful both in and out of combat, with a bit of jiggering you can get a character that's dragon blooded in some fashion which means access to dragon aura/breath weapon feats, and best of all (in my opinion) there's minimal book keeping. "I'm using [whatever] aura." No muss or fuss with tokens shifted around, stances, spells per day, spell/power points, whatever. Buffing/Support for players that don't like to micromanage.The totems are kinda lame though. Just about every !@#$% DS ability is "water breathing". Pretty underwhelming. A bit more variety would have made it a lot more fun I think.They make a great "poor man's healer", and can even remove conditions at higher levels. If the groups doesn't have a cleric, or you're wanting to restrict clerics/healing in the game, it's a pretty good alternative. The DS healing only takes a character up to half hit points, so after that it's either potions, rest, or a real cleric. And of course the DS healing aura can be clicked on to stabilize a character that's bleeding to death, allowing the DM to avoid (or reduce) the chance of an outright character kill without having to really fudge things. Even if the group does have a cleric, it takes a lot of pressure off the cleric, and allows the cleric to be something more than a mobile healing station. The DS can fix _everyone_ all the way up to half, and then the cleric can do specific healing from there.It also kinda means that the group can go for a longer period of time before having to rest.If you're looking for a "powerhouse" kind of character (instead of a support type), you should probably skip on the DS. I see Dragon Disciples offered up as a better alternative.It's not a class for everyone, but I have some serious love for it.</blockquote>

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