My Half-Dragons

[Scion]

I'd have to agree with camarath. 12 character levels is just so huge its nearly impossible to make a very viable comparison in a useful fashion.

He does have some good stuff though, but as with most of the ones I looked through on there they generally need a little help. If it was me I'd cut most of their LA's in half, and use the other half to give them dragon HD. The force dragon in particular I'd probably put at 5 dragon hd and +5 LA. This makes all of them a bit tougher without increasing their abilities in a huge way. Basically it puts them somewhat more on par with the goal imo.

Not sure if that is what you are looking for but perhaps something to think about.

Edit: oh camarath, why did you have to bring in epic stuff? it burns!

 

[Camarath]

What about an initial LA of +8 (or +6) with an additional +1 per 4 levels to a max LA of +12 for the Half-Force Dragon.

 

[Camarath]

Edit: oh camarath, why did you have to bring in epic stuff? it burns!

Well the force dragon is from the Epic Handbook and stat adjustments get better as your level increases IMO.

 

[Buddha the DM]

I'd have to agree with camarath. 12 character levels is just so huge its nearly impossible to make a very viable comparison in a useful fashion.

He does have some good stuff though, but as with most of the ones I looked through on there they generally need a little help. If it was me I'd cut most of their LA's in half, and use the other half to give them dragon HD. The force dragon in particular I'd probably put at 5 dragon hd and +5 LA. This makes all of them a bit tougher without increasing their abilities in a huge way. Basically it puts them somewhat more on par with the goal imo.

Not sure if that is what you are looking for but perhaps something to think about.

Edit: oh camarath, why did you have to bring in epic stuff? it burns!

I hadn't considered giving them a few dragon hit dice before... Any special reason beyond what you've already said for this suggestion?

 

[Scion]

I hadn't considered giving them a few dragon hit dice before... Any special reason beyond what you've already said for this suggestion?

I always feel better with hd being advanced at least somewhat with any template that has a big LA. Otherwise it is much much harder to balance properly. If you have an incredibly dangerous awe inspiring ability, but you have almost no hp then you are effectively a paper tiger. Incredible offensive capability, no defensive capability. For pc's you really want to stay away from this as it will usually only help to frustrate people. You are either the end all and be all, or you are out of the battle without doing anything.

Now epic stuff may be like this most of the time anyway, I dont know. But in any event if it was me I'd still rather give them the hd and LA. It just makes the overall feel much better. It is also a lot easier to do this then try to give them a pile of special abilities to make up for what was lost, while at the same time keeping things more online with the power for the level that is being moved up to.

Paragon is a huge template, I dont really know what it gives but I'll assume it is something like +15 LA, gives no hd, but has a ton of special abilities. This template is incredibly different in power and scope depending on the base creature. If you put it on a 1 hd goon or on a 3 hd goon there is a power difference that just cant be reconciled easily (and that isnt in line with only being 2 levels off). Now if it gave +10 LA and +5 of some hd the difference in power would be closer to what it should be, if it was +5 LA and +10 hd it might push it too far, its hard to tell.

All in all, having the extra hd count as part of the LA makes the creature come more on line with where it should be given the powers of the template. With the extra Dragon hd in this case they would gain a bit back of what they are losing, would gain the special powers, and at the same time be a much more even template over all of the various races you could put it on. The overall balance of power is what I like to go for.

 

[Buddha the DM]

But wouldn't adding Dragon HD to the template be turning it more into a creature than a template?

 

[Camarath]

But wouldn't adding Dragon HD to the template be turning it more into a creature than a template?

There are other templates that add HD. I do not believe that adding additional HD to an inherited template would be odd conceptually or mechanically.

 

[Buddha the DM]

There are other templates that add HD. I do not believe that adding additional HD to an inherited template would be odd conceptually or mechanically.

I'm not sure that adding HD and reducing the LA mods on my template would be such a wise idea... I'm leary of just adding even a few HD to the template.

 

[Camarath]

What do you think about a scaling LA as I suggested earlier?

 

[Buddha the DM]

I'm even less comfortable with that idea.. Sorry.