LuYangShih said:
I personally think using a younger Dragon and giving him class levels is much more interesting than just using an older Dragon.
This was my thought as well.
Partially because I like recurring villains who change over time. The PCs can meet a juvenile dragon at lower levels, and it could be a foil for some time, growing in power as it becomes obsessed with stopping them, getting revenge, whatever.
Unless your game is long or the Dragon got stuck on another plane with a increased flow of time it'd hard to "upsize" the dragon naturally.
tleilaxu said:
Thanks. Kind of an inside joke run amok.
Balsamic Dragon said:
Try this:
Lawful Dragon + Monk levels
With just a few levels you have a nice bonus to AC and Saves, a stunning attack, evasion, and you get Deflect Arrows which dragons generally couldn't get because of low Dex.
Monk is just about everyone's favorite class to add to monsters with natural attacks and any sort of wisdom bonus. A young adult gold would get +5 insight to AC while a great wyrm would get +11 to AC for a single level!!! + Evasion, etc.
I have trouble with the idea (more of a story reason than anything else). Humans tend to neglect their natural abilities in favor of tools/weapons --> the monk is someone who eshues that instinct to focus on honing their body.
Dragons already eshue tools to focus on their natural combat abilities so what is it about a dragon monk that they can become that much more bad-ass than their regular kin so easily?
Balsamic Dragon said:
Lawful Good Dragon + Paladin levels 
I really like this too.... The idea that paladins are called (so it's less of a choice and more of something you feel compelled to do) makes it fit together nicely.
Might be interesting if it were a normally non-lawful dragon like a copper or non-good like a gem or even chromatic.
Ravellion said:
Duelist levels are also nice for the INT to AC and some other weird stuff...
This never occured to me (despite the Monk/dualist currently in my game). Would be best for the high mental stat'd gold & silvers.
takyris said:
As such, a draconic shadowdancer is the next logical step. 
"Naw, he's not here, but dang this place is dark, all these rock formations cast shadows on the walls, it looks kinda like YAAAAAARGCHOMPCLAWCLAWWINGWINGTAIL..."
-Tacky
Kind of like the shadow dragon in FR. (My players wouldn't stand for a dragon that had a negative energy breath weapon though.... let alone as many as that one does)
Azure Trance said:
I think that's an idea worth looking into, not to mention the coolness factor of describing a dragon encased in a 1 foot thick iron shell. I would assume it should give DR instead of AC, though.
I know that the MM says "natural" but (IMHO of course) big honking armor plates are basically like an armor bonus.
It's kind of an unwritten D&D rule that just because a breast plate gives you +5 to AC putting on two breastplates won"t give you +10.
The DR thing might work nicely though.
I imagine that you'd want equipment that enhances a dragon's natural abilities.... grafting on more armor to their plates or adding mithril tips to their claws; sounds more like a template than anything else to me.
What happens when they grow to their next size catagory?
[edits: typos, grammar, clairifications, no spelling problems though
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