Half-dragon as a class

[Rampant]

What does that have to do with anything? I already know about the different types of natural weapons. As for shifting I just don't see that as being relevant.

 

[Rampant]

Hmmm if I go with Emoplato's idea I can reduce the number of natural armament, maybe even ditch it entire in favor of a fixed progression.

 

[irdeggman]

What does that have to do with anything? I already know about the different types of natural weapons. As for shifting I just don't see that as being relevant.

Have you read the shifters and the things I was talking about?

It is more than merely different "types of nat weapons".

Shifters each a particular "type" that they are based upon.

One is based on "fangs", another on "horns", another on "wings" another on "claws" and so on.

The reason I mentioned the shifting mechanic was that you were looking for a way to handle natural weaponry (and progressing in damage/effectiveness) especially at low levels (well that is one of the things I read into the posts) for "balance" with other classes.

You are trying to insert racial abilities into a class structure without going to a racial class progression (which is by far the simpliest thing). This makes it a difficult task to handle in the first place.

So I suggested looking at the shifting mechanics for a way to insert increases (at low levels) and the shifting feats as a means to supplement it. The feats add to shifting duration and the number of times a day the character can shift. The number of feats a character can have is intrinsically tied into the number of class levels a character has - so there is a tie to level and feats, which means a tie to level and power of the natural attacks By adding "bonus feats" as a class ability (which must be chosen from racial or draconic feats) could aid in this task.

 

[Rampant]

The bite attack does 1d10 damage! it doesn't need any more help! Just the standard amulet of mighty fist/necklace of natural weapons/ individual enchantment.

Seriously why does everyone keep pushing damage upgrades? is the class that underpowered?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

The bite attack does 1d10 damage! it doesn't need any more help! Just the standard amulet of mighty fist/necklace of natural weapons/ individual enchantment.

Seriously why does everyone keep pushing damage upgrades? is the class that underpowered?

Mostly because all melee combatants pale in damage comparison to spellcasters, and so it is by that standard all melee characters are measured. At least by some people.
I'm typically one of those people, but to each his own.

 

[Rampant]

Makes sense (though it says more about the imbalance between casters and non-casters than i'd like) But keep in mind I am trying to avoid the whole start at 1d6, and end at 4d8 bit. I wanna include things like threat ranges, higher crit multipliers and reach instead of just generic natural attack x.

 

[cjosephs1s]

Well melee vs casting damage should be about the same at the max for the classes. Most of your top spells do 20d6 damage. Fighters are usually doing about 8d6+80 so its pretty even. Casters have empower, fighters can crit. Anywho that's a side note.

I think the point is at your final attack progression you should be doing around 120-150 points of damage if you max out the dice rolls and STR modifiers(no crits). Since most of your attacks only get 1/2 STR bonus, to compensate most of us think its really easy to just add more dice to the initial damage output. Try it out and find a good dice combo that works at 20th level.

Ok so you want to do the things all us fighters wish we had available. Look at the Weapon Master PRC from Tome and Blood. Basically this PRC takes your fighter and then makes him really good with one weapon and gives him things to up damage, increase threat range, crit mulitpier and a few other cool fighter things. I'd say that's a good place to start for stuff like what you're talking about.

 

[Rampant]

Forget it, it's moot anyway until I decide whether or not to try the draconic form idea.

On the one hand it's more work to finalize the class, but on the other I don't have to make PrCs.

I think I'd have to determine what every form should have in common and then use that as the base. Then the form abilities could be applied on top.

Breath
Natural weapons
fear abilities
nat armor
flight
elemental resist/immune
dragon-spawn


I think spawn and the elemental resist/immune are fine as part of the core class structure. It's the other stuff that'll need playing around with.

 

[Rampant]

I guess the real issue is whether or not to include the armor, breath, fear, or wings, and if so to what extent.

Hmmm what if I paired it up?

Coiling dragon: Tail focus + extra natural armor

dragon Rampant: claw focused + extra fear powers

Ravenous dragon: Bite focused + extra breath powers

Winged warrior: something? + extra flight powers

hmmmmm

Maybe restrict it to focus the variation on the natural weapon and let secondary customization come from feats (there's a lot of good feats for flyers already).

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Perhapos a Swallow Whole ability for any creatures 2 sizes smaller than you? That would be cool.