Making a Balanced Half-Dragon

[Daniel Knight]

Okay, so I’m DMing a new campaign and one of my players would like to later on become a half-dragon. This, in itself, I have no problem with because I DMed a half dragon character back in the 2nd Edition days, and it was a lot of fun.

Times, however, have changed – or at least the rules have. I’ve noticed that there doesn’t seem to be an easy way of doing this now without becoming severally unbalanced. The player isn’t interested in the half-dragon prestige classes available (or at least Dragon Disciple) – because it doesn't really fit in with the character concept. Once again, I have no problem with this, because I agree with him. So what does this leave?

Officially there is a Half-Dragon class you can take (link: Half-Dragon Class) but I have strong doubts as to how balanced this is. 6d8 points of dmg at a potential 4th lvl, seems like rather a lot to me – even if the trade off does mean you have a crap hit point and attack bonus total.

So, my question: has any one used this class? What do people think just from reading it off the page? Do people have other ideas?

Cheers & thanks for the help in this dilemma.

 

[mikebr99]

<snip> never mind... must read before posting...

Mike

 

[Darklone]

IMHO the class is too strong, even without the breath weapon... wings so fast... even if you lack hitpoints. The half-dragon won't have that much less hitpoints than a wizard of comparable level so he can survive... and he'll catch up very fast.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I would change the breathe weapon to be one die damage per HD of the Half-Dragon. That way it is not too strong at low level, and still useful at high levels. The damage die should be d4 for 1 level of half dragon, d6 for 2 levels, d10(?) for 3 levels.

 

[Scion]

If you can only take the thing off of savage progressions, say, once you are at least 5th level then the only problem is that it is too weak.

Think about it, at 8th level you have a 1/day ability that does 6d8, oohh.. now that is power (sarcasm running rampant here). An 8th level mage can use an 8d6 fireball, way more times a day than 1.

The loss of the hd, and all of the derivatives thereof, for a few abilities just never seemed like that great of a trade to me. But if the player wants it then go for it.

If you allow this to be taken earlier then you have a massive paper tiger syndrome. The character has a decent 1/day ability, but nothing else going for him at all. You might need to use something like the UA LA buyoff to make it really worthwhile.

So, just dont allow it to be taken until at least level 5, and possibly throw in some buyoff later on so that it doesnt become massively weak.

 

[Daniel Knight]

Okay… new thought:

Was just having a read at the Bloodlines in Unearthed Arcana, and they seem to present a similar thing - but on a much longer time scale, and without being so overly drastic.

Although this way seems far too underpowered now - when in comparison to the one above.

Any one with UA have an opinion?

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I've had half dragons in my games before. We just have them at ECL 3 and use the savage progression type stuff in lower level games.

One house rule for half dragons in my game is that their breath weapon scales it does 1d8 per point of ECL with a constitution based reflex save, it's still only usable once per day. That way it's not overpowered at low levels and still is a potent weapon at high levels.


I wouldn't make being a half dragon cost more than 3-4 character levels otherwise it's just not worth it.

 

[mmu1]

Bloodlines from UA are pathetically weak considering that they ask you to lose class levels in exchange. I'd never take one, or make someone take one, unless I was running a themed game in which everyone got a bloodline for free or something...

Unless you want the character to be extremely underpowered and at constant risk of dying, don't let him start taking those dragon levels until he's at least 4th or 5th level, and has enough HP to surive the loss of hit dice that's to come. That also solves the breath weapon "problem", since by that point, it won't do much more damage on average than a wizard will be able to do with a fireball. If you want to make sure the transition goes as smoothly as possibly, you could always also require him to alternate dragon levels with class levels.

And a couple of things for the record:

1. Half-dragons don't lose out on melee attack bonus because they're ECL+3 and get +8 Str - they actually come out ahead by 1 point of to hit bonus, and massively ahead in damage. The trade-off is in the delay of when you get your next iterative attack.

2. Whoever mentioned wings - You only get them if you're Large or bigger, and they only allow Medium maneuverability - which, if you run aerial combat by the rules, pretty much makes it only useful as an outdoor mode of transportation, because you can't hover and have limited turning ability.

 

[rich]

And a couple of things for the record:

1. Half-dragons don't lose out on melee attack bonus because they're ECL+3 and get +8 Str - they actually come out ahead by 1 point of to hit bonus, and massively ahead in damage. The trade-off is in the delay of when you get your next iterative attack.

if you compare a fighter(4) to a Half-Dragon(ECL +3)/Human Fighter(1), you should assume around a +3 Str bonus for the straight fighter, with a melee hit bonus of 7, vs the Half-dragon's melee hit bonus of 5 (+4 Str bonus). Two more levels and the fighter(6) has 9/4 vs 7/0 for the Half-Dragon...

2. Whoever mentioned wings - You only get them if you're Large or bigger, and they only allow Medium maneuverability - which, if you run aerial combat by the rules, pretty much makes it only useful as an outdoor mode of transportation, because you can't hover and have limited turning ability.

also, any monster character with size Large or more is going to have at least another +2 ECL to worry about... a Half-Dragon/Minotaur will have an ECL 11 with 6d10 HD and a BAB of 6. Of course, with +16 Str bonus and some nice natural armor...

another thing about the breath weapon: I don't think the DC changes with the character's progression, so at higher levels it won't be very effective against opponents with high Ref or evasion...

 

[Darklone]

2. Whoever mentioned wings - You only get them if you're Large or bigger, and they only allow Medium maneuverability - which, if you run aerial combat by the rules, pretty much makes it only useful as an outdoor mode of transportation, because you can't hover and have limited turning ability.

That was me.

Edit: Sorry, didn't read the wings description.

And the guy who used that class... was a half-ogre.