Falrien's page

No, that reasoning makes quite a bit of sense, thanks guys.
I've made a few characters the last days (been off work sick) and while I take on board your desire for balance, do you think that a Grizzly Bear warrants 6PC levels? They're very tough and hit hard, have reach etc; but a 6th level fighter (should) slaughter one, let alone the things a wizard could do to embarrass it.
Also, bear (ahem.) in mind the weaker class features that a bear with 6-levels less than his contemporary human fighter might have. Is 6 levels still worth the trade-off?

Hi guys, thanks a bunch for this, it's really helpful.
Just wondering - and I'm sorry if I'm repeating questions asked earlier (This thread has got pretty massive) - but why are you doing 1HD/level advancement? Some types are pretty weak to get a single level per HD. The squirrel for instance is a really pathetic 2nd level character and the CR of a Wyrmling Gold Dragon is 7 but you require it to be level 8. Why?

Bump

Just wondering how this campaign went?

I realise that this is an old thread now, but this might be of interest to people.

I'm in the process of running my 3rd Baby-Dragon campaign.
I start the characters off in each campaign in their eggs with various subtle reasons for the nestmates remaining together longer than normal.

In the original campaign, they played Silver Dragons under v3.5 and reached somewhere in the rough region of level 45 as Adults with Draconomicon Prestige classes and more levels than you could shake a stick at.
The second took Red Dragons up to about the same age, but much lower in levels where they adopted a town and crushed it under extremely tyrannical rule before declaring war against an empire which had declared a holy war against all of Dragonkind.
In the current campaign, we have white dragons and it's proving very VERY different. We're only 2 5-hour sessions into it and they're still wyrmlings without class levels and having fun.

The best piece of advice I can give anyone running a Dragon campaign is: Be free and loose with your plans. A dragon's natural freedom to do as they please is not compatible with people who want every single detail of an adventure planned out and regulated. I've not written a single note for the current campaign and it's going really well so far.
In general the majority of rules fall away while you're running a dragon game including things like letting the experience system go. In the Red campaign they chose to have a spell of fifty years go by where they were just enjoying their little empire after which they just levelled up as appropriate for their new age categories.

Any questions or requests for character info that I can answer, please ask.

A few of my players have requested to play ECL characters.

Also, there is no ECL in Pathfinder.it's all based on CRs

A few of my players have requested to play ECL characters.

Example. Player 1: 1/2 Minotaur +1 Level
1/2 Dragon +2 Level
3.5 Feral +1 Level

I am inclined to let the player play his character due to the simple fact that all I really need to do is land one good hit. As the campaign is starting at level 1, he will essentially be stuck with 1 hit die until he hits level 6. His ability scores and natural armor will be off the charts, but magic missile doesn't pay that much attention to armor class.

Perhaps later on he will want to add WereBear for a +4 Level.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Several thoughts :)

1: I don't recommend stacking templates, it just complicates matters and unless you have perfect trust in this player then odds are it'll be abused.
2: Don't allow Feral, it's broken wide open!
3: The character's going to virtually useless because of the lack of HP. Realistically if he's going to be a Barbarian (And what else, other than Ranger?) he'd be stuck with a realistic Max HP of (D)12+1(Favoured class)+6(From con assuming rolled 18+2 from Half drag and +2 from Minotaur)+1 (Toughness) = 20HP... Till level 6, yeah right!
3: Is the character aware that this freak monstrosity will be run out of every town it goes near? This should be a consideration at the VERY least. Unless you don't care about roleplaying or any kind of realism.

The thing with playing Dragon characters is that you need to age them, not just add Dragon HD - it just doesn't make sense. Add class levels instead when it's inappropriate for adding DragHD.

Example.
You want to play a Gold dragon, right?
Cool!
Wyrmling Gold CR: 7 so when the party is level 7 you can make you baba dragon and throw him in with the team, happy days.
That character grows like any other monster character, by adding levels and doing that CR reduction thing from the BEstiary.
Your dragon HD, abilities, size and all that only change when (If it's a baby dragon) 5 IN GAME years pass at which time the next 2 levels (Because Very young is +2 CR)the party gain are, for the dragon gained as Dragon hit dice, gradually upgrading him to Very Young.
ie: Medium Size, +2 HD, +3 Natural armour, x2 Breath weapon, +4 Str, -2 Dex and +2 Con, int, wis and Cha.

Simples.

Also, of course, as these changes happen over 2 levels, it's easy to stagger and you just pop the size increase on the second level.

The Dragon won't change in a Racial HD way until he is 15 years old. When he'll take another 2 levels out and become Young.

The thing with playing Dragon characters is that you need to age them, not just add Dragon HD - it just doesn't make sense. Add class levels instead when it's inappropriate for adding DragHD.

Example.
You want to play a Gold dragon, right?
Cool!
Wyrmling Gold CR: 7 so when the party is level 7 you can make you baba dragon and throw him in with the team, happy days.
That character grows like any other monster character, by adding levels and doing that CR reduction thing from the BEstiary.
Your dragon HD, abilities, size and all that only change when (If it's a baby dragon) 5 IN GAME years pass at which time the next 2 levels (Because Very young is +2 CR)the party gain are, for the dragon gained as Dragon hit dice, gradually upgrading him to Very Young.
ie: Medium Size, +2 HD, +3 Natural armour, x2 Breath weapon, +4 Str, -2 Dex and +2 Con, int, wis and Cha.

Simples.

Hi all,
I've seen a lot of threads regarding the trouble that people have with playing dragons, half-dragons and the implications with regards to level adjustments and epic rules etc and so I'd like to post my experiences and offer advice to GMs and players looking to either run a Council of Wyrms type affair or integrating a dragon character into a normal game.

It all started about 6 years ago during the rule of 3.5 and after a run of distinctly average short-lived campaigns I decided to have a change. I offered the characters the opportunity to do something a bit unusual. they rolled a d10 and it landed on 10 (Silver Dragon) and they rolled stats as basic wyrmlings. The first scene was them hatching from their eggs and the campaign started rolling!
The thing that people seem to get caught up on is desperately clinging onto the "start at first level" thing. You can't do that with creatures that start at mid levels and grown naturally stronger. The level progression has to take a backseat in this kind of game.
I gave roleplaying notes to the characters, but generally let them get on with what they wanted to do in the world. They had to leave their nest very quickly because a group of adventurers decided to hunt them and thus they were thrust into the wider world. After a while of spending time polymorphed in a human city, they imitated certain people and we had level 1 Barbarian, Bard, Paladin and Rogue Wyrmling Silver Dragons. Great times!

The point of a dragon campaign is that it has to be story focused, not the normal trudge of levels. I think that campaign ran till about ECL43 (Ish because of the dragons ending up being Mature Adults)

Any thoughts?