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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7021877" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Since you're asking me, I just hand out between 1 and 19 levels of Dragon Sorcerer on a case-by-case basis to pretty much any dragon older than Wyrmling. (Except I don't hand out ASIs--I just handwave/assume those are already factored into dragon age categories.) It's 100% thematic. If having a little bit of dragon blood turns you into a magical spellcaster, having 100% dragon blood sure ought to turn you into a magical spellcaster too.The problem with "Innate Spellcasting", assuming you're referring to the MM variant, is that the dragon (inexplicably) can't cast any spell more than once. So you can't, for example, combine Darkness with Shield spells, because you can't get more than one Shield spell by MM rules. I find this bizarre and unaesthetic, and it's one of the reasons I wouldn't go down that road. But if you insist, you could get a little bit of mileage out of just Darkness (or Greater Invisibility), a single Counterspell, and a single Shield spell. Dimension Door isn't bad either, although it's better for a Dragon Sorc who can Quicken it.I favor spellcasting over brute force (upping the stats to match Tiamat) because there's more room for counterplay. If the dragon is tough because it has ten thousand HP, there's not much the players can do in terms of counterplay to the stat inflation--they just have to chew through the HP the hard way. But if the dragon is tough due to Darkness/Greater Invisibility and Shield spells, then they can Dispel or True Seeing the Darkness, and then Counterspell the Shield, leading to a much softer dragon. It gives the dragon an interesting vulnerability that you don't get out of pure stat inflation, which always rewards planning and reconnaissance. I find that cool. I don't know how you and your players feel about play/counterplay, but it's something to think about anyway.</blockquote>

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