I got in a conversation about this yesterday.
Most of the options you see an almost every Dragon Disciple build are from the ARG, UM, UC, and more. Natural weapon ranger, beast totem barbarian, cross blooded orc bloodline, eldritch heritage feats, MoMS, etc... The only things I can remember seeing consitently from the CRB is power attack and weapon focus. And not all of them had that.
Can you make a decently functional DD for a CRB only campaign?
Sure you won't be as powerful as a umpteen book DD, but neither will all the other PC's. But then I started thinking about it a little more. Most of the other builds I see still use alot of stuff from the CRB. So that got me thinking that maybe he was right, the Dragon Disciple will be hurt more if limited to the CRB than other builds will be.
Did any of you try the Dragon Disciple before all the other books came out or in CRB only campaigns? Did it seem ineffective or was it still awesome at putting out the magical/reptilean hurt?
I believe that you could make a Dragon Disciple mostly from or entirely from the CRB. I recently helped a friend to create a 12th level character who is Sorcerer into Dragon Disciple. This character is practically made entirely out of the Core Rules book save for at least the Sorcerous Bloodstrike feat from Ultimate Magic.
Looking at the attack bonuses and the abilities that a Dragon Disciple gets, its obvious they want to be in melee, but with a sorcerer base that seems hard. The final build had the Toughness Feat, Armor Proficiency: Light, Arcane Armor Training, Combat Casting, and I believe Dodge was in there some where. But essentially his spell choices, feats, and abilities all came from the Core Book.
At 12th level he had 160-something hit points, an AC of 29 (or somewhere around there) and he could fight with a lot of natural attacks or cast spells from afar, all the while flying around and breathing fire on people. So essentially fighting like a dragon. I can see using other classes to help make the character beefier, but I believe that depends on how much of a focus you want on spells vs melee sustainability.
Greetings, fellow travellers.
I am one of the few around these forums, who (still) uses only CRB as GM and player alike for creation of NPCs and PCs.
And I can whole-heartedly agree with Justin Ricobaldi on this issue, it is certainly possible and viable and makes a lot of fun - especially if you count in the fluff and roleplay possibilities.
For my latest DD it went like this:
Usually my feats would include:
Blind FightB, Eschew MaterialsB, Improved InitiativeB, Quicken SpellB, Arcane Strike, Dazzling Display, Extend Spell, Improved Natural Weapon (claw), Iron Will, Toughness, Weapon Focus (claw); B denotes bonus feats.
Sticking to the guides I tried to play him as a beast caster.
What I found hard at times was to keep up with others concerning attack bonus.
At 14th level (we never got higher) I sat at STR 22 (befor items and buffs) and BAB +9/to-hit +15; claws +16.
Since we had a magic-starved world (no shops, no crafting!) +16 is barely enough to hit a typical CR 16 monster (that's what our GM usually used).
Sure it was upped by morale, size, luck, and other bonusses, but that usually took ~2 rounds of preparation giving something like +26 in the end (via magic fang, greater, heroism, greater, stat item, haste).
Usually I would shift into dragon form use fire shield and go to town.
Damage was decent, although I do not see how the DD would profit from Power Attack with its mediocre BAB.
Ruyan.
...
Damage was decent, although I do not see how the DD would profit from Power Attack with its mediocre BAB...
Those are mostly melee builds with only minimal caster levels and 4 ranger or barbarian levels. So there BaB is a bit better and even higher strength.
I can't speak from actual play experiance but one of my backup characters is a DD and probably 95% CRB. From the math and extrapolations she looks like she'd have a rough first 5 or 6 level but after that golden.
something like this
Pal 1-4
Sor 1
DD 1-10
Pal 5-8
the real beauty of this type of build is that you can get buffs that are normaly arcane caster only on a fairly solid melee character. The big one being mirror image. She'll end up with a +16 BaB which certainly seems low till you realise that it's augmented by the 4 free points of strength that a DD gets. also it's power attack pentaly will be on lower than a full BaB character, obviously that also means lower power attack retuns but *shrug* nothings perfect.
Anyway it's a character I'm really excited to try and looks totaly viable. Probably not optimized but viable.
- Torger
Decently functional? It depends on the function.
I think it could still work well, depending on the GM. I wanted to do one right away, but the core only group we started with had two sorcerers in it already. Party balance is important as well.
I think a core (ranger or rogue)Duelist, (paladin or barbarian)Dragon Disciple, (bard)Pathfinder Chronicler and (wizard/cleric)Mystic Theurge could overcome any AP out there if played right. They would really thrive with all of the other books, but they would do just fine without all the other options. Just like any other balanced party would, unless the GM is a jerk bent on killing you all, in which case it doesn't really matter what you build.
You could also take bard as base class, take it to lvl6 (to avoid yet another dead BAB level), go DD8 and back to bard;
but also
Grab a longspear for reach and have enlarge person as a wand ready.
And actually, while you're at it take the 2 levels left of DD as well - heck, who wouldn't want freakin' WINGS!
Ruyan.
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A couple of the big advantages of the Dragon Disciple are untyped Ability Score increases (neither inherant nor enhancement, so stack away!), and natural attacks. Now, subsequent books have offered a load of other ways for PCs to get natural attacks without being a DD (or a Druid...) but 'core book only' the DD looks very nice in that regards.
Personally I like the class just for the flavour, but to build on its strong points I'd suggest a Barbarian base with maximum Strength, with just the one level dip into Sorcerer to qualify (and for claws... and spells... and wand spamming...). Primary natural attacks all get the full Strength bonus on damage (and are at full BAB too), so a Barbarian 1 / Sorcerer (Draconic) 1 with a base 20 Strength (24 when raging) can dish out two claw attacks, each doing 1d4+7 (average of 9.5 x2 = 19), Vs a more traditional greatsword-using Barbarian with matching stats doing 2d6+10 (average of 17). Throw in that Enlarge Person you're bound to have chosen as one of your Sorcerer spells known and you're doing 1d6+8 twice (average of 23 damage) each round... not bad at level 2. Of course your limited claws & rage durations may be an issue... but you're still a Strength 20 guy even then...
If you go straight into Dragon Disciple as soon as possible you'll be a Barbarian 4 / Sorcerer (Draconic) 1 / Dragon Disciple 'X'. By level 8 (Barbarian 4 / Sorcerer 1 / Dragon Disciple 3), assuming you put your level-based Ability Score increases both into Strength, you'll have a base Strength of 24 (28 while raging), a BAB of +6, and three primary natural attacks: 2x claws at 1d4+9 damage & 1x bite at 1d4+13 damage. If you'd gone straight Barbarian 8 you'd have a full attack at +8/+3 BAB, but since primary natural attacks all get full BAB you've got an attack routine of +6/+6/+6 instead - which is generally better, all told. Also, thanks to your DD levels you'll also have an extra +1 Strength bonus over and above an equivalent straight Barbarian, so in effect you're doing +7/+7/+7 to his +8/+3 (before any other modifiers are figured in). If all your attacks hit you're averaging 38.5 damage (not including Power Attack or other modifiers), whereas a vanilla greatsword Barbarian is doing 2d6+12 twice, for an average of 38... catching you up, but not quite there yet. With Power Attack added in you'll be doing an extra +4 damage on the claws and +6 damage on the bite (at -2 to hit), but the greatsword Barbarian (having hit BAB +8) will be doing +9 twice (at -3 to hit) - so the straight Barbarian is actually starting to do more damage, assuming both of you hit every time. Of course, if hitting the target isn't going to be an issue, you could use a greatsword yourself at 2d6+13 twice (2d6+19 with Power Attack), and throw in a bite attack (at the usual -5 for combining a natural attack with weapon attacks) for extra damage too.
To maximise your Strength you'll want to get to Barbarian 11 (for Greater Rage), so over 20 levels you may end up Barbarian 11/Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 8. With a +5 inherant bonus and a +6 enhancement bonus somewhere along the way, you could end up with (20 starting +5 from levels +4 from Dragon Disciple +5 inherant +6 enhancement =) 40 Strength, 46 when raging (and a nice round 50 - thanks to the size bonus to Strength - when using your dragon form). You'd have a BAB of +17 and cast as a level 7 Sorcerer. Dragon form gives you five natural attacks (three primary, two secondary), when a two-handing straight Barbarian at level 20 is only getting four iterative attacks. So, maybe not completely optimised (you could be a Fighter 5/Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 10 and have BAB +17 and be casting as a level 14 Wizard...), but not too shabby, and decently functional, IMHO...