So my group's resident munchkin ran out to gobble up this book as soon as it hit the stores (I think he offered to drive in the shipment for them from the distributor). Has anyone taken a look at the dragonborn? This seems really out of whack. Admittedly, he made it up yesterday for a one-shot side trek adventure while I make time to prep the next adventure for the "real" characters, so I didn't look at it too in-depth.
Am I the only one who thinks that a character with a breath weapon, increased abilities and various resistances should have some sort of level adjustment?! Personally, I don't like the race in the first place, but there are plenty of races and classes that I dislike but allow because they're at least somewhat balanced. This one just seems to be over the top...why the hell WOULDN'T you take it?
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I don't own the book (and probably will never buy it!), but your last sentence should make the thing totally clear:
As soon as I am asking myself/my players why wouldn't you take this or that? something is wrong with it, no matter what it is. Keep it away from your campaign unless you know exactly how it works!
That's what I would do!
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Dryder has the jist of it, I would say that the point is that if your allowing one player to start as a Dragonborn then the entire campaign should have all the PCs and some NPCs being Dragonborn as well, barring that give players who don't go the munchkin route "incentives" to playing more balanced races.
ok, on reading this thread, i looked again at the race, because when i read it, i didnt see it as all that powerful. this is what i came up with:
ability scores: con +2, dex -2 (reversed elf, if you will)
+2 dodge bonus vs. dragons
immunity to dragon frightful presence
choice of 1 of these 3: breath weapon, enhanced senses, or wings
>breath weapon: 1d4 round waiting period, 1d8+1d8/3hd for damage, 5'/hd line (max 100'), damage may be acid, cold, electricity or fire on a whim (this last bit is the part that sort of unbalances this choice)
>enhanced senses: grants bonus to sensory skills, low-light vision (to x4), darkvision (to 120') and blindsense over the hit dice range
>wings: grants the ability to fly over the range of hit dice (much like the raptoran from races of the wild)
for this, however, you lose most of your racial traits. only size, racial hit dice, favored class, and racial ability scores stay in place. and, most importantly, humans are not immune to this limitation.
just my observation,
tog
Just the idea of a PC with a breath weapon gives me hives.
I can appreciate that some people want to play a dragon - I get that but I would discourage it. But the whole idea of lesser dragon, dragon blooded, half dragon, PCs just seems so off to me that I can't even get my words together.
A drop of dragon blood from the long distant past I can sort of accept as a "Once upon a time" type deal, but all this diluted dragon blood stuff - to me diminishes dragons. To me dragons are almost sacred, they are forces of nature, the physical manifestation of magic.
I am one of those guys that love the game.
I think 3.5 is an improvement.
I am not afraid to buy books, and thinks its important to do so to support the folks that develop new material.
That said I think the concept of this book is totally broken the excerpts I read really turned me off and I wouldn't allow it my campaign world.
Just the idea of a PC with a breath weapon gives me hives.
Yes!
I don't have the book, but it sounds like you get +2 Con/-2 Dex (slightly weak tradeoff, but only slightly) and a whole list of advantages.
No level adjustment? Munchkins of the world, buy this book!
Regards,
Jack
PS: Let's just stick with half-dragons and draconic feats, thank you; this is just WotC looking to sell more books.
As you can see I like dragons. There were some dragons in the draconomicon that were cool like the Pyroclastic and Tarterian dragons. Now it is books and races like this that make me angry. The best part of the Draconomicon for me was the history of the dragons and descriptions they give for many of the dragons.
P.S. Is there even a story on how this race came about?
As you can see I like dragons. There were some dragons in the draconomicon that were cool like the Pyroclastic and Tarterian dragons. Now it is books and races like this that make me angry. The best part of the Draconomicon for me was the history of the dragons and descriptions they give for many of the dragons.
P.S. Is there even a story on how this race came about?
I'm challenging this... sometimes you need to read the fluff to understand the why behind the crunch.
Not only is the fluff there, it is well presented and doesn't represent a dilution of dragons at all.
I'm not saying the dragonborn aren't powerful... but rather that like a paladin, there are demands placed upon the race for its strengths.
- Ashavan
I haven't seen the book yet, but based on the comments here, I may not have to. I begrudgingly allow all WOTC supplements at the game table (save that of setting specific material); I have players that buy the books and with it is a strange form of obligation on behalf of the DM to allow such new expansions.
I am in the middle of AoW and it really makes me want to keep my players alive so I don't have to contend with this nonsense. My next campaign in core rulebooks all the way.
It harkens back to an old argument I have with our resident power-gamer about an "arms race" of sorts. To get the players to continue to purchase product, the new books and accessories must trump the old. Very "Magic: The Gathering-ish".
I haven't seen the book yet, but based on the comments here, I may not have to. I begrudgingly allow all WOTC supplements at the game table (save that of setting specific material); I have players that buy the books and with it is a strange form of obligation on behalf of the DM to allow such new expansions.
I am in the middle of AoW and it really makes me want to keep my players alive so I don't have to contend with this nonsense. My next campaign in core rulebooks all the way.
It harkens back to an old argument I have with our resident power-gamer about an "arms race" of sorts. To get the players to continue to purchase product, the new books and accessories must trump the old. Very "Magic: The Gathering-ish".
Don't be so sure.... The dragonborn race is made, via a character's rebirth into the new race. It's an interesting concept, but not having played with it yet I can't say if it seems to work or not.
Of course, coming up with an acceptable justification for a character to get the "call" and become dragonborn may be difficult, depending on events in your campaign.
- Ashavan
I picked this book up - which is a bit of an exception for me as I tend to play with just the core and complete books (plus all the monster manuals). But I love Kobolds so I decided to take the plunge.
I'll say that I was not at all completely happy with the book but I think I'll get just enough use out of it to justify the purchase.
I'm not particularly interested in each of the possible PC races. These just kind of stick in my craw - fortunately for me I started my campaign by stating that this campaign took place in my home brew and what is and is not allowed in my campaign will be made known to the players and not so much the other way around - I'll let a player ask that I take a second look at a race, class or PRC but if I decide its not existent then thats the final word - usually I slot it in with restrictions. So I allowed the War Priest - but only for Dwarven PCs where I felt that the class fit my fluff.
I'm really torn on the whole Half-Dragon as a PC. I like the concept and I really like the concept for some of my monsters (Half-Dragon Kobolds might be really cool) but this whole concept of Dragons mating with all sorts of creatures rubs me the wrong way. I'll probably create 'Ancient Orders' for Halflings and Gnomes and allow them access to some of some metallic half-dragons when the average level of the party rises a little more and hook this into the fluff.
I liked much of what was offered in the feats and classes for the Kobolds but U absolutely hated the fluff background. It seemed to totally ignore any kind of the cannon on Kobolds that had been established. Kobolds as the Littlest Dragons was a cool idea in 3.X but whats been written about them here just seems to ignore most of everything that has gone before.
I had to swallow hard when I read that kobolds where richer then the richest Dwarves and that they had disguised merchants running a huge invisible consortium world wide. Its just so over the friggen top. Also their Lawful Evil God isn't. Hell the entire race does not come off as Lawful Evil at all but the God particularly struck me wrong. What was evil about his actions? Is it a hard work ethic? having the Gnome God drop his hard to make mine on top of him, sacrificing himself for his people? What? Every action Kurtlumak apparently took was honorable and good - I've seen Lawful Good Gods with a more blemished resume then this guy.
The old mythology surrounding Grumash One Eye with him ordering his followers to gain revenge for the other Gods attempt to cheat him out of a place for his followers is a really good example of an evil Humanoids Mythos - it both ties in their behavior and explains their evil while in some sense providing them justification for their world view. Hence Orcs are evil but its justified evil in their minds. Kobolds just seem to be hard working - nothing evil about them - and that bugs me. Their sneaky, cunning, evil little dragonfolk, why was that not built into their fluff?
I can use the feats and such as I want to update The Dragon of Firetop Mountain to 3.5 and make it a challenge for 10th level PCs so my Kobolds are going to need every advantage they can possibly glean from this and other books but I can't use this back ground. I'm really down to adapting the kobold background from that supplement and trying to tie it into these feats and powers. I was hoping they would have done that work for me but apparently no.
I will say that I don't think the Dragonborn race is really all that potent. The fluff makes the PC into a kind of anti evil dragon Paladin. So make sure the PC is good and working against evil dragonkind. He's just enlisted into a kind of order and there are those that have the right to demand that he do as they say. Beyond that the benefits are not exactly top notch. What the race really gives one is either really good dark vision, the ability to glide or, maybe most contraversal, Dragon Breath.
The Dragon breath just ain't that hot. Its got some range but does a mere 1d8 damage save for half presuming you can't evade once every d4 rounds. Its not exactly a stunning sum of damage - and it becomes 2d8 at 3rd level and 3d8 at 6th. But this is actually really probably falling rapidly behind the curve. almost any character abilities the PC might take are going to be better options by 6th level. If he's a spell caster he probably has better spells, a fighter is going to dish out more hurt the old fashioned way, a thief wants to flank and sneak attack etc. It just gets worse when it goes to 4d8 at 9th as 4d8 is no longer that relevant a sum of damage.
I'd say the human bonus feats better - it'll still probably be relevant at 10th level - especially compared to an ability that will do 18 points except when the opponet saves (say roughly half teh time) in which case it does a whopping 9 points of damage. I expect when your dancing with a couple of Illithids your not thinking - cool I can breath on them and do 9 points of Damage! That will shake them right down to their baby booties.