Other than the PHB, DMG and MM I have with me at the moment, most of my other 3e material is presently far away from my current location. So any help anyone can provide for me on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
:D
rules from Savage species u can create a balanced PC race.
But i´m sorry to say that Council of Wyrms is a very old supplement and very hard to find, and is not sold as an ESD.
For example, say your player wanted to be an immature copper dragon. You may decide that the most suitable age category is Young, which is between 16-25 years old, and it's the age at which copper dragons are Medium sized. Right off the bat, a young copper dragon has 11d12 hit dice, 15 Str, 10 Dex, 15 Con, 14 Int, 15 Wis and 14 Cha. Their AC is 20, and they have a breath weapon that does 6d4 acid damage. Not bad, you might think, but 11HD is a lot. In actuality, it's worse than that, since the level adjustment for a young copper dragon is +4. Therefore, a young copper dragon's effective character level for the purposes of determining how many XP it starts with and how it compares to other non-monstrous standard PCs, is 15! And that's before it even takes classes in a prestige class.
Dragons are extraordinarily powerful creatures. If you're allowing one as a PC, ensure that the other players have equally tough monsters to play, with effective character levels of 15.
Cheers,
Cam
Taking into consideration what Cam has already said, how then would I handle the dragon's other special abilities when crafting a PC race from them?.
Originally posted by Bookwyrm
Taking into consideration what Cam has already said, how then would I handle the dragon's other special abilities when crafting a PC race from them?.
A dragon would get all the special abilities it is capable of using at the age category you've allowed the player to take. Young copper dragons don't yet have some of the powerful spell-like abilities or spellcasting that older copper dragons gain, for example.
Monsters are already pre-built as "races" in many ways, they just need to be compared to other characters in order to make sure the monster PC isn't a hundred times better than all the others. They come pre-loaded with a "level" (their HD) and a modifier on top of that (the level adjustment) to determine a final effective level, and all of this includes their special abilities. The ECL of the copper dragon is 15 because he already has 11 "levels" (his Hit Dice) and +4 level adjustment to account for his special abilities and powers. Savage Species offers rules for playing through those racial levels, but in the case of dragons you're never really going to have the archetype you want for the most part. Nobody's ever going to play a mature adult silver dragon, for example.
Perhaps it would be helpful for us to know what other kinds of monsters the players are interested in playing. A comparison could then be set up between those and the dragon the first player wants.
Cheers,
Cam
Perhaps it would be helpful for us to know what other kinds of monsters the players are interested in playing. A comparison could then be set up between those and the dragon the first player wants.
Yes, please do enlighten us as to what the other members of the party are playing.
I can just see it now: a dragon, a hydra, a behir, a balor and a storm giant. :D
1) - A Pit Fiend
2) - A Ulitharid
3) - A Frost Giant
4) - A N'Garri (this last one is a creature of my own creation)
But that would mean the Dragon Mystic PrC would be unusable then, wouldn't it?. I don't have access currently to my copy of Dragon Magazine #296, so I can't check.
Originally posted by Bookwyrm
The character races that the other players have selected are as follows -
1) - A Pit Fiend
Good grief. A pit fiend? They're 18 Hit Dice and are so immensely powerful they didn't even bother to put a level adjustment into the 3.5 Monster Manual.
2) - A Ulitharid
A noble mind flayer? Well, that's not as scary as the pit fiend, but still... even a standard mind flayer has an ECL of 15.
3) - A Frost Giant
This is the weakling of the bunch, and he's still an ECL of 18.
4) - A N'Garri (this last one is a creature of my own creation)
Honestly, I don't know how this is going to work out for you. You may just be best served having the players pick up the monsters as-is and not concern yourself with levels in classes, since there's very little chance any of these will be able to avoid slipping into Epic play after some advancement. The pit fiend especially is incredibly potent, and outclasses the other characters by some distance.
I take it this isn't a Dragonlance campaign, either.
Cheers,
Cam
Still, some suggestions for other monstrous type creatures to populate this party would be nice.
What do you think should run alongside a draconian (besides other draconians of course) in a party of this type?.
I take it this isn't a Dragonlance campaign, either.
No it isn't. Well it starts on Ansalon for a period, but then involves an alternate Planescape campaign that I was crafting. Still I have a new DL campaign starting, so that is why I decided to go along with the draconian instead.
Originally posted by Cam Banks
Good grief. A pit fiend? They're 18 Hit Dice and are so immensely powerful they didn't even bother to put a level adjustment into the 3.5 Monster Manual.
At least it's not a Balor
Originally posted by Halabis
actualy, you do. The 3e draconian stats were published as a web preview on the Wizards site. =)
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