That is my question, i'm looking at buying some of the genius guides and I have always been a fan of the Dragonriders of pern and so I was wondering if anyone has used this class in their campaign and whether it was worthwhile?
When we start our new game I have 3 players wanting SGG products one Godling, one Time Thief , and one Dragon Rider and another thinking about playing the Vanguard so yeah there is much love for the Geniuses in my game group.
A player in my group started as a dragonrider and did so for ... 3 levels, approximately. This would be lvl 6-9.
The dragonrider, in my opinion, really only works in one of two scenarios:
1. All of your players are also dragonriders
2. You have one player take the rider and another take the dragon
The reasons for this are: Until you reach high levels, it takes a full round to establish a link between the rider and dragon. That puts the party a a serious disadvantage for the first two rounds of combat. Further, the dragon's breath weapon is so indiscriminate, you will spend a LOT of time lining up the dragon JUST SO so that he can damage the enemy without fragging the rest of the party, too.
The dragonrider in my game had a gold dragon. Due to the way he rolled up the stats, the dragon was WAY smarter than the rider. It is VERY difficult to roleplay both the dragon AND rider, since they are really very different personalities.
If the entire party is dragonriders, you are all starting with the same handicap when it comes to combat and are thus on equal footing. If you are fighting OTHER dragonriders, you can dispense with the link time altogether since it will be an effective zero.
Our experience was that having a standard party with a dragonrider added only weakened the party, added too many questions regarding roleplay, and generally muddied the waters too much for our enjoyment.
That player is now playing a paladin and loving it.