Hi all, may be some have seen my post on main forums, about 3.5 council of wyrms file i stumbled on. After much work managed to take out all copywrite details of file to make it downloadable. To those don't know what council of Wyrms was, it was an old 2e campaign setting where players got to take up role of a dragon! setting took place on an island full of dragons! Not sure if person who orginally did this is still around, but i intend to make own modifications to the work they started and hopefully have a nice homebrew pathfinderized version of CoW!
Original File: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YYW27O8S
this is file in its orginal content with certain images and such removed caused it to break ogl agreement, be forewarned all i have is open office so if your using word may not come out properly formated... anyone would like to give input or ideas for viable changes or CoW PrC's are welcome to post them here =D
So curious on some people's opinions, because as i go through to start a small campaign with a few friends to test this CoW set out i come accross something i disagree with original writer.
they believed that cross classing as a dragon would be same as old kits, for example a dragon could take wizard levels if wanted and level up as a wizard, or a fighter and would be same as a dragon priest or dragon mage from old 2e setting however, here is my own thoughts on that.
In 2e setting when you chose a dragon priest or mage basically continued to gain your dragon racial abilities, while increasing AC and SR ect but gained spell progression as a wizard or mage ect. Now in 3.5 dragons can't use armor, or weapons for most part not like they need it but does create a rather interesting little issue.
That issue is! if i as a dragon decide to cross class into a wizard, i effectivly CANT use most gear(amulants, rings as far as armor goes, probably could wield a rod,wand or staff easily enough) so i basically stop progressing in AC, and stats, effectively means that i can't use 90% of gear a normal player would be wielding of same level and while i DO start out a bit better(ok alot better) seems as if picking up a normal profession(and what dragons do in CoW) is more a hindrance then anything else.Typical feral dragon(dragons using racial class) going to have, better AC, better hp, more skills, and decent sorc spell levels and all those nice spell like abilities.
So question is... should dragon mage, fighter, priest, psionicist ect be a special PRC lets them retain or gain stats to some extent from there racial class, while losing there special abilities or is it fine that there losing so much to gain PC classes? i want some opinions my friends and i are on side that... seems like dragons NEED there racial Ac at very least, what are your thoughts?
Going by memory here:
Doesn't the 3.0+ Draconomicon list the slots that dragons have? I do believe they can wear rings, bracers, boots, and all that jazz. You could even craft actual armor for a dragon if you wanted (though for what price? yeouch lol).
The book had some types of armors for them. Wing protectors and whatnot.
As for "how to level them" and such- I would say that you just need to pick a method. Whatever method you use for the dragons just apply it equally. You might even want to make them all pick a class just to keep it even. (the draconomicon even has some decent dragon-only classes in it)
-S
Going by memory here:
Doesn't the 3.0+ Draconomicon list the slots that dragons have? I do believe they can wear rings, bracers, boots, and all that jazz. You could even craft actual armor for a dragon if you wanted (though for what price? yeouch lol).
The book had some types of armors for them. Wing protectors and whatnot.
As for "how to level them" and such- I would say that you just need to pick a method. Whatever method you use for the dragons just apply it equally. You might even want to make them all pick a class just to keep it even. (the draconomicon even has some decent dragon-only classes in it)
-S
Things noticing as we plan our small group, things like... fly speed, natural armor, ect that the racial dragon class gets seems like it should keep advancing. What i did and we are still working on balancing them is create a dragon racial class for each of base classes from old 2e setting(fighter, mage, priest, psionicist) each with own little flair. Big thing working on is ability to " continue " progressing in racial class stats, AC, movement speed sort of natural things expect a dragon to keep gaining, with own little twists once we figure how to get all balanced post them up for critique. As for wearing armor and such don't like that idea personally... seems weird to have a dragon wearing barding or something of sort, so i've decided this route probably works best. Bracers, wing gaurds, rings and such do work nicely but not gonna compensate for massive amounts of AC lost.
Example say a blue dragon cross classes at level 5 so 6-15 they take a prc. here is what they lose
+8 natural armor
+4 strength
+50 fly speed
So can see thats a massive amount of AC, that they drop strength as well, and even fly speed for size loss. To me and my group, seems a big hit and makes PRCs not even a viable option, so our solution has been a prc based around the classes allow them to continue stat, ac, natural skill progression but losing out on special abilities. we may start campaign soon gonna be testing how it works out, but should keep them in line with there racial class.
We have one player keeping to racial class so we can use him to compare to others are using prc's. So hopefully have some data to report as well as revised Pathfiner CoW up soon =)
I bless you with the foresight on doing this.
Thank you.
(same theme but also total threadjack, read wall of text at your own risk lol)
I was myself pondering this kind of campaign not long ago. The two biggest issues i came across were how to handle "character levels" with Dragon age advancement, and how to treat the different dragon size types.
Dragons basically have 4 broad size categories that are arranged from weakest to most powerful.
White dragons of any given age category do not compare at ALL to gold or red or silvers of an equivalent age, for example. Rather than stick LA's onto them or try to contrive some other such equivalency though I envisioned (but never got around to actually writing) a method of changing each color into its base size and then applying to each size each color.
So, you would have "weak" "moderate" "powerful" and "very powerful" dragons of each color.
(so that even though you meet a white or gold dragon for example you may not know which of the four categories it fell into.. not until it was too late, anyway).
That method would allow you as the DM to simply assign a "size category" to the PC's while allowing THEM the freedom to choose any color they wanted.
Want a white, a bronze, a green and a gold in one party? no problem. DM just picks a size and there yuo go.
Size controls ability scores, armor ratings, flight speeds and ratings as well as SR and spell casting.
Dragon type does breath weapon type, shape, and general immunity as well as SLA's and domains for arcane spells (if any).
Secondly:
In order to allow some form of "normal" adventures even with the dragons, I pondered having each PC also roll up a regular ole joe PC. Elf, dwarf or what have you. Each would be a dragon rider.
Depending on whim and the group, each PC could control a dragon and its rider or the PC's could ride dragons they don't necessarily control. (adds realizm but also adds combat complication).
This setup would allow several good things. For one: The PC's can effectively do two things "at once". (lil guys over there in the crypt trying to find the X while the dragons are scouring a nearby mountain of the oncoming undead horde, or whatever). Ot also allows for a lil more Pc interaction and just for some fun synergy. as well as good RP overall. It Is more complicated however.
I never could figure a method to handle PC advancement by level in conjunction with the Age advancements except perhaps to do an age advancement very X levels and just make sure the PC's stay the same relative "character class level". That, and Force the PC's into taking some class or other even if its just fighter. (or monk. Monk, rogue, or druid could potentially be the most awesome PC classes for dragons, ever.).
Just my ramblings.
-S