Think the topic kinda covers it. I'm going to run a Epic level game where the PC's are basically liberating a continent from the vampire scourge with the help of a small kingdom + some army enforcement's. That's the plot in a nut shell. Everyone thus far is running a PC class, but one of my players asked to play an Ancient Gold Dragon. I thought about it and said I would be willing to let him run an Old Gold Dragon (HD 22) if he really wants to play a dragon. I know the main reason he wanted to play Ancient Gold was because of the At Will Sunburst, and I wasn't about to let that fly. He seems chill with it, but wanting to know what others might think. This is kinda what I'l winging it thus far for all PC's...
Stats are rolled
New Characters that are rolled get 800k gold
Characters that are continuing from another game get all their gear + 400k gold to spend (They were plane shifted to this world knowing it's plight.)
All PF books are good to use + traits + archtypes
Characters are level 20
22 HD dragon seems to be kinda on par with a level 20 character. I'm going to run a few "test" adventures before they go on the main story to get a feel of party balance. About 5-7 person party + npc's if they want.
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You might check out some 3.5 stuff to give you ideas about how to swing it. As I recall, there were rules somewhere for dragons as pc's, and I'm sure another person around here will remember the details that elude me at the moment.
One thing to consider is whether a cr 18 dragon wearing 800k worth of gear would be an equal match to a level 20 character. I think the gear would push the dragon a bit (a lot)above the 20 class levels, myself.
22 HD dragon with book standard stats *might* be equal to a 20th level character ...
Excepting that the dragon will definitely be target numero uno for almost everything they encounter. I highly recommend you compare a "naked" dragon to one of the equipped PCs [especially a fighter/paladin or ideally an eldritch knight based on sorcerer] and see what the differences are. The 2 extra racial HD are not to be discounted lightly.
CR does not equal Level, not as a PC.
22d12 racial hit dice - better than all the other characters: +22 base attack bonus, +13 base saves bonus for all saving throws.
Senses: blindsense 60 ft, darkvision 120 ft, enhanced low-light vision.
Aura: frightful presence 240 ft w/ "book standard" DC of 27. Great for starting the ball rolling - as an added bonus, the universal monster rules stipulate "opponents", so there's no worrying about his buddies!
* Last I checked, the best a regular PC can do as a full-round action is an Intimidate check with an "aura" of 30 feet ... this ability happens for free and is save-based, not skill-based. It would STACK with the other PCs' Intimdate-based stuff though, so be aware of this.
Speed: 250 ft fly (clumsy), 60 ft land speed, 60 ft swim speed. No other PC can match this without the most powerful of magic.
Gargantuan size - MUCH bigger than the rest. Brings with it 250 ft fly speed & (as pointed out) a whopping 6 natural weapons during a full attack plus the options of crush and tail sweep.
+28 natural armor bonus = AC of 33 "book standard".
* Touch AC will be in the tank at a 5, but that's par for the course when you're as big as a cottage. Even if you are mobile.
SR 29 for free (17 points over 12 in a magic item is priced at 170,000 gp by itself - and this SR is "built in", not sunderable/stealable/targetable...) Against ~CR 19-23 foes, maybe not worth much, but every bit helps, figure it stops 25 - 35 % of effects to which SR is applicable.
Immune to fire, paralysis and sleep
* Vulnerability to cold offsets the fire immune. Being a nonhumanoid helps a lot too. CL vs HD-based effects are skewed in the dragon's favor as it has those 2 extra dragon HD compared to the rest of the group.
DR 10/magic is almost a non-issue at this level. It's pretty much a non-issue when dragons get the ability at DR 10/magic ...
16d10 60 ft cone of fire breath weapon - plus weakening gas option to deal 8 Strength damage instead. "Book standard" DC 28 Reflex or Fort respectively to halve/negate.
"Book standard" stats are 35 Str, 8 Dex, 25 Con, 22 Int, 23 Wis, 22 Cha without magic items. Not counting feats and gear, that's a ranged attack bonus of +17 on ranged attacks [meh] and a +30 on all melee attacks [not bad, considering]. Saves are Fort +20, Reflex +12, Will +19 not counting feats and gear. The only thing the dragon is hurting on is initiative with the -1 penalty from Dex.
Spell-like Abilities (CL 22nd, DC 16+SL, concentration bonus +28):
3/day - detect gems
1/day - luck <-- awesome hand out to his buddies btw.
At Will - detect evil, bless, daylight, geas/quest
Change Shape - nondispellable, very nice, makes fitting in with the meat snacks very easy. Comes with the added bonus of simple weapons proficiency for free, permitting Gargantuan weapons usage. Gargantuan Heavy Crossbow ... Gargantuan Longspear ... this could get ugly ...
Fire Aura is negligible except in melee with trolls or the like - but, it is supernatural and non-dispellable, so it's always around unless the dragon suppresses it.
11th level arcane spell casting as sorcerer (DC 16+SL, concentration bonus +17, can select cleric spells as known spells in addition to sor/wiz spells) is built-in self-buffing and at least modest condition removal capacity. On top of full melee capability...
With the addition of Ultimate Combat, even with "paltry" 11th level sorcerer abilities I would expect this dragon to pick up most or all of the dimension door based feats ... can we say "full round attack plus teleporting into and back out of melee a bunch of x/day" ? I thought we could.
The feats and skills ranks are what they are - that is, the full BAB all Good saves 22d12 HD character has 12 skills at 22 ranks each.
This might not go as well as expected when the dragon plunks most of his 800k gp on the full suite of books. +5 Str & Con, +3 Wis, +4 Dex, Int & Cha tally up to 687.5k - setting his ability scores at 40 Str, 12 Dex, 30 Con, 26 Int, 26 Wis, 26 Cha with all the attendant bonuses from them (+3 on STR and CON based stuff, +2 on all the rest). This leaves about 170.5k or so to kit out with ...
Assuming "average" hp with that +5 CON book, the dragon-PC will have (without Toughness or any other gear) 363 hit points [143 +220 from CON]. Thanks to the books the dragon has +23 Fort saves (no feats/gear), +14 Reflex saves (no feats/gear), +21 Will saves (no feats/gear), Melee AB +33, Ranged AB +19, Breath Weapon DC 31, Frightful Presence DC 29, Spell DC 18+SL, concentration +30 (Sp) or +19 (spells). CMB +41. CMD 52. Touch AC 7 (6 ff), regular AC 35 (34 ff).
If you are going to keep the dragon in the game, it might be in your best interest to *require* the book assignments above (and "book standard" ability scores). I highly recommend requiring the LG alignment but leaving feat and skill selections to the player (only keeping in mind the dragon's racial skills).
I did take into account of *most* of the dragon abilities, size and money value. I figured money shouldn't be a problem since that could be his *hoard value.* hit points will be 75% of the die, so about 9 a level. This melee, saves and spells are going to be a slight problem. I have mentions to the players if they get too cheesy that as the DM I out cheese everyone to bring things back to order (since epic is going to be pack full of cheese anyways.) The vampires are going to have many different bloodlines so to speak, so none are going to really be generic. Boss fights will be ment to be solo encounters, giving them multiple actions in a given round, high hp and a number of "I planned for this" sudden buffs (they didn't become epic villians for no reason.)
So far good on pointing things out for me to think over