Post by Kitsune on Jan 20, 2015 22:16:48 GMT
This is a rather ambitious work in progress on my behalf, wrought from some ideas that came to mind whilst I've been working on and thinking on Kaldakaczil. It may be overly ambitious and thrown out, but at the very least I'll have some feed back on these ideas and can take it elsewhere to be refined, even if it can't be used for Kal or the other dragon that is going to run with him.
Essentially, I love the book Draconomicon, probably one of my favorite 3.0-3.5 splat books. My one problem with it, however, is that the for dragons side of things was obviously intended for DMs to use with NPCs, which can have racial hit dice well and above the party's ECL to make their feats actually... well... useful. And the prestige classes for the most part, follow the same mindset, being sub-parcompared to what character classes can get (especially tier 3 ones), although they are very flavorful, and very 'draconic'. Compounding this is the very problem with playing dragons. While playing a dragon is awesome, and I love it, you really don't start to 'feel' like a dragon until the very end of a 20th level progression, or reach epic levels (at which point, you're a fire breathing lizard of joy. Be happy with your life!), and while yes, Monster Classes for them do exist, I've never found one that didn't leave something wanting - they always cut something off of a dragon package which is distinctly there's (specifically, the high intelligence and skillful nature of them, in one well known series of Dragon Character Classes I saw). And, partially because of this, every dragon of the same breed is almost identical, with nothing that would differentiate one form another like is common with humans, with only a few feats and some skill point selections to have one 'be' different from another of the same age and kind.
So, while thinking on this, I had a crazy idea to try to solve most of the problems (I'm remaking some of the Dragon Prestige Classes as well, but the other problems first). How about a series of feats, expected to take one to two feats (the 1st and 3rd ones), which represents a young dragon taking a certain interest in some area, or having developed abnormally fast/potently in an area before schedule (these are heroic dragons we're talking about, unusual strengths go with the territory!). Something along the line of a Dragon Focus feat, which will allow access to older dragon abilities and flavor earlier (for example, a gold wyrmling being a prodigy of magic, allowing him access to his racial spellcasting earlier), but unlike the Awaken X line of feats from Draconomicon, actually continue to level with the dragon's racial hit dice, allowing a bit of early 'abilities' that'll scale with the dragon (something they're notably lacking until the high levels/epic levels when their older abilities kick in and start scaling). Of course, these Dragon Focus feats will be quite potent and powerful compared to the other feats, but by limiting them to True Dragon's only (which are rather subpar class options), combining it with scaling with racial hit dice (so the class retraining options here won't potentially bump a dragon up further than intended), and only one Dragon Focus feat each, I'm hoping that they'll act more like a 'patch', making dragons fun, and interesting, to play, while reflecting a cost that comes with so much of a young dragon's attention being devoted to cultivating these skills or awakening something in his bloodline.
I'll also be remaking a few of the Awaken X dragon feats to be actually useful for player character's as well. So we'll see how that goes! Sorry ahead of time for the moderator's, who'll have to search through the diatribe that I'm making here out of unfocused creativity - hopefully you guys will like it, maybe even take advantage of it for the Year of Rogue Dragons event going on in the next world year.
Essentially, I love the book Draconomicon, probably one of my favorite 3.0-3.5 splat books. My one problem with it, however, is that the for dragons side of things was obviously intended for DMs to use with NPCs, which can have racial hit dice well and above the party's ECL to make their feats actually... well... useful. And the prestige classes for the most part, follow the same mindset, being sub-parcompared to what character classes can get (especially tier 3 ones), although they are very flavorful, and very 'draconic'. Compounding this is the very problem with playing dragons. While playing a dragon is awesome, and I love it, you really don't start to 'feel' like a dragon until the very end of a 20th level progression, or reach epic levels (at which point, you're a fire breathing lizard of joy. Be happy with your life!), and while yes, Monster Classes for them do exist, I've never found one that didn't leave something wanting - they always cut something off of a dragon package which is distinctly there's (specifically, the high intelligence and skillful nature of them, in one well known series of Dragon Character Classes I saw). And, partially because of this, every dragon of the same breed is almost identical, with nothing that would differentiate one form another like is common with humans, with only a few feats and some skill point selections to have one 'be' different from another of the same age and kind.
So, while thinking on this, I had a crazy idea to try to solve most of the problems (I'm remaking some of the Dragon Prestige Classes as well, but the other problems first). How about a series of feats, expected to take one to two feats (the 1st and 3rd ones), which represents a young dragon taking a certain interest in some area, or having developed abnormally fast/potently in an area before schedule (these are heroic dragons we're talking about, unusual strengths go with the territory!). Something along the line of a Dragon Focus feat, which will allow access to older dragon abilities and flavor earlier (for example, a gold wyrmling being a prodigy of magic, allowing him access to his racial spellcasting earlier), but unlike the Awaken X line of feats from Draconomicon, actually continue to level with the dragon's racial hit dice, allowing a bit of early 'abilities' that'll scale with the dragon (something they're notably lacking until the high levels/epic levels when their older abilities kick in and start scaling). Of course, these Dragon Focus feats will be quite potent and powerful compared to the other feats, but by limiting them to True Dragon's only (which are rather subpar class options), combining it with scaling with racial hit dice (so the class retraining options here won't potentially bump a dragon up further than intended), and only one Dragon Focus feat each, I'm hoping that they'll act more like a 'patch', making dragons fun, and interesting, to play, while reflecting a cost that comes with so much of a young dragon's attention being devoted to cultivating these skills or awakening something in his bloodline.
I'll also be remaking a few of the Awaken X dragon feats to be actually useful for player character's as well. So we'll see how that goes! Sorry ahead of time for the moderator's, who'll have to search through the diatribe that I'm making here out of unfocused creativity - hopefully you guys will like it, maybe even take advantage of it for the Year of Rogue Dragons event going on in the next world year.