Indecision over a Dragon Disciple build.


Advice


Hello, advice forum. You guys are always great, so I figure you might be able to help me work out what I want from a character I have hashed out in my head. I've been inspired by reading Oterisk's wonderful guide to the DD, and there are just so many ways to go with it. Now, I'd play a Paladin 2/ Caster x/ DD x, but I know the people I play with and playing a Paladin is going to be hard around the way they usually play their characters, and inttraparty conflict isn't all that interesting to me. So first let me convey a little bit what I'm looking for and not looking for. I'm not looking for a TOTALLY optimized character, even though I'm fine with being powerful. I don't want penalties to any save stat (since I'm already taking -2 Will from Crossblooded anyways) I Am looking for one with a mythic feel, versatility in combat and out of it, and the idea of intimidating the heck out of anything I come across really appeals to me. So here's a rough draft of my build, I'd very much appreciate suggestions / audits / criticisms / cheers / boos.

Avaranest
Race : Half - Elf
AL : N

20 pt buy
Str 15 (+1 at 4, 8, 12)
Dex 10
Con 13 (+1 at 16)
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 16 (+1 at 20)

Ranger 1 - Skill Focus (Knowledge : Planes), Improved Initiative
Ranger 2 - Aspect of the Beast (claws)
Sorcerer 1(Crossblooded, Draconic / Arcane) 1 - Arcane bond (familiar, greensting scorpion), Eldritch Heritage (abyssal)
Sorcerer 2
Sorcerer 3 - Intimidating Prowess
Dragon Disciple 1
DD 2 - Craft Wondrous Item, Power Attack
DD 3
DD 4 - Improved Eldritch Heritage (abyssal)
DD 5 - Quicken Spell
DD 6 - Improved Familiar
DD 7
DD 8 - Blind Fight, Cornugon Smash
DD 9
DD 10 - Improved natural Attack (claws)
Then maxing out on sorcerer 16-20.

Skills for Ranger levels will be Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft, Perception, Intimidate, Survival, and Linguistics at level 1. Favored class bonus will probably go to another Knowledge skill or a hit point.

Basically I plan to max Intimidate and alternate Perception and Spellcraft. I'd like to fit Use Magic Device in there somewhere to make good use of an Imp familiar, I'm just not sure how to go about it... stupid low Int, 2 skill point classes!

Things I wanted to fit in but just couldn't were Weapon Focus (claws), Dazzling Display, and I'm interested in the Dragon Style feats but those seem really taxed, and more for a pure "brute". Anyways, I really would appreciate your guys' input. especially on my stat distribution and feat choices. He's going to use a Glaive-Guisarme for reach, and at least at level 1 carry some kind of close weapon. I'm thinking about getting him a belt of mighty hurling so he has a decent ranged attack later as well. Well, thanks in advance everyone!

Scarab Sages

If you are really looking to add dragon style, I would swap the ranger levels for a Master of Many Styles monk. MoMS will give you evasion and two free style feats that bypass the requirements, and improved unarmed strike to replace the aspect of the beast claws. Since you don't have Flurry with MoMS, you can unarmed strike and use your bloodline claw attacks in the same round.

If you don't care about evasion you could instead go Unarmed Fighter 1 / MoMS 1. You would gain proficiency in a vast number of exotic weapons (some of which have reach), light armor, and have a higher bab.


^ great advice Imbicatus - Im building a MoMS/Sorcerer headed towards DD now and plan on coupling Dragon Style with Snake style.

Id recommend Snake Style to Nuclearsunburn but not with that Wis score.

Im curious why take the Ranger/Aspect of the Beast for the Claw attacks when you get them with Sorceror?

Dark Archive

A reach weapon is less useful without combat reflexes and some dex, you will actually have to lower some stats to get your stats up to the point you want them at.

You are also losing one of the bonuses of being a dragon disciple which is a high base AC with very little expenditure (losing a free +2 from dex is a big loss)

Focusing Charisma on a person who is not a primary caster is probably not the best idea as you are spending a large amount of your point buy on +1 DC's and an extra 3rd level spell (which you wont even get till CL6, which for you is character level 9 by which time you have a +2 cha item, meaning you wont have to worry till character level 12 for 4th level spells by which time you buy a +4 cha item etc).

Consider possibly

ST 15 + 2 HE (+ 1 at 4,8,12)
DX 14
Con 13 (+1 at level 16, 20 with an odd inherent bonus +1,+3 or +5)
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 14 (get headband and an even inherent bonus +2 or +4)

What armor do you plan to wear?, why do you have quicken at level 10 you require 5th level spells to even use the feat (at level 10 you have 3rd level spells) Bring blind fight forward (if that is your other bloodline feat choice).

When building a dragon disciple you should always keep track of your effective sorcerer level (it will help you with making decisions on which casting feats to take).

Why did you cross blood Draconic and arcane? What benefits are you obtaining by trading your claws for a familiar?, you are also aware you are not eligible for certain dragon disciple abilities by making this choice? Dragon bite does not work without the Claws bloodline power from the draconic bloodline.


@Imbicatus Yeah, that's really solid. I like that. Going monk for those two feats is a great plan. I could crossblood Empyreal then I guess, instead of Arcane. Could definitely work. I really like the idea of having a better Will save, and WIS to AC. Would that make dragon claws 3+WIS times per day or still 3+CHA? Hmm.

@ Syndir , well, I went with Ranger / Aspect because it gives permanent claws. I'm replacing my claws from Draconic with arcane bond from Crossblooded Arcane, since I want a familiar. I'm sure it's probably not the optimum choice though.

@Caderyn - thank you for pointing that out, I missed it, that I would bypass my bite if I trade claws for a familiar. Well darn. I really wanted a familiar. And I'm not willing to trade any of the other draconic powers for it.. I'm not sure what I would GAIN, besides a wand monkey. that's some solid advice on my point distribution, I'm not planning to wear armor at all honestly. Swapping blind fight and quicken is the best plan, you're right... I'll do that. And yes those were both bloodline feat choices. Wow, awesome advice, thank you very much :) I honestly think Quicken is the only meta spell I want.

Is Craft Wondrous worth keeping? It looks like I'll want to make a lot of custom items (Robes of Arcane Heritage being the main one to start). I'm just not totally sure it's worth a feat.

Guys thank you so much for your help, anything else you think of keep it coming. Also what color dragon should I choose? both for mechanics and for flavor?


I was working on a Dragon Disciple myself a good while back.

The general build that I went with was first 2 levels into Master of Many Styles Monk, followed by two levels into ranger to get permanent claws. After that, one level in sorcerer for the bloodline followed by dragon disciple.

This said though, from a min/maxing perspective, 2 levels ranger and then 2 levels monk would be better. Reason I did the other way around was more for flavor (a monk in distress as his instincts begin to take over due to his draconic bloodline). Why would that make a huge difference?

The reason is that with ranger first then monk, you could get Feral Combat Training a little earlier (At level 5 instead of level 7, when taking Weapon Focus (Claws) at level 3). Additionally, these bonuses for dragon style from the master of many styles monk levels as well as the small weapon focus bonus would be applied when in your dragon form.

This method, however, does come at a VERY hefty cost, your not going to be much of a caster, and what casting you will likely be doing will be more utility than anything else, do not expect any sort of damage output or for the most part combat oriented usefulness beyond buff spells.

Weather or not you keep craft wondrous item in my opinion is really dependent on who your GM is. Is he the kind of guy to toss things that the players really desire their way at what would likely be a proper level, or is he the guy who uses the random table? Is he the guy that actually has magicmart, where if you have the coin, you get the item, or does the GM actually use the surroundings, the town/city you are in, and try and determine what kind of goods they may have from there?

If you are looking for usefulness in the dragon's color, definitely NOT the red dragon, as the red dragon is fire (most resisted element), and also makes you weak to cold while in dragon form. The dragon that has spider climb (I think it was bronze?) can be silly, and provide some interesting occasions. Green is typically considered extremely good, as A. It doesn't have a weakness, and B. It has the least resisted of the four main elements.

Dark Archive

You have to consider both sides of the color debate, on one hand you want your energy type to be resisted less often if you are a primary caster (for damage spells), however you also want to be resistant to the most common enemy damage types (fire or cold).

The better choice is actually a Silver Dragon (does cold damage that is quite rare to be resisted except by undead), and yet provides defense against alot of common high level spells like cone of cold, and you are not prone to fire damage.

Permanent claws are not worth the number of feats you sink into them to make them useful, as you do not get your dragon bite with them. It is 5 feats for permanent claws, aspect of the beast, weapon focus claw, feral combat training claw, dragon style, dragon ferocity.

None of the claw feats are useful to a standard dragon disciple (because at CL6 you cast fly and at level 11 with a robe you are flying all day so difficult terrain is irrelevant)

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

Burning class levels to get claws is a tough sell for me. Tieflings and catfolk (& others) can get claws in exchange for less valuable resources.


If you really want to use intimidate a lot, a level of Rogue (Thug) is indispensable, because it makes you Frightening!

Frightening
Whenever a thug successfully uses Intimidate to demoralize a creature, the duration of the shaken condition is increased by 1 round. In addition, if the target is shaken for 4 or more rounds, the thug can instead decide to make the target frightened for 1 round.

Spending character resources to make people shaken is a waste at high levels. Who cares if an enemy with +25 attack gets a -2 on it's roll. On the other hand, any enemy who stops fighting and flees for even a single round is just asking for one of your companions to finish it off.


Sorry if someone already posted this but technically if you have Monk unarmed strike, you can use it alongside your full clawing and biting. The natural attacks take a penalty, but then again, a monk kick at high levels has iterative attacks. Also, for a single attack action its quite handy - especially when its getting a damage boost from Dragon Style. A monk's robe later on will add to your damage with it as well as giving a point of 'free' AC. Dragon Style is, after all, all about beating someone ridiculously badly with strength and unarmed.

EDIT - I was going to say you could also flurry, but flurry doesnt work with natural attacks.

Scarab Sages

BadBird wrote:


As another option, taking a dip of Monk that has flurry of blows instead of something like MoMS will give you an extra full attack at a -1 net penalty with unarmed, so you could be using a kick/kick/claw/claw/bite full attack action, with one of the kicks getting iterative attacks (though some GMs apparently say flurry wont give iteratives with higher bab).

You cannot use flurry of blows with natural attacks. It's explicitly forbidden by the description of flurry of blows. Master of Many Styles if a very good choice for a Dragon Disciple because of that fact. As a work around, you can take two-weapon fighting feats, and use TWF with unarmed strikes, and then make claw/claw/bite as secondary natural attacks. Of course, you need to fit in the TWF feats then.

If you really want to make the monk levels pay off, if you take Feral Combat training, you can use your monk unarmed damage in place of the damage dice of the claws and bite. If you then take monastic legacy feat, half of the non-monk levels will add to unarmed strike damage, including natural weapon damage.

Most home DMs should allow you to take aspect of the beast once you gain form of the dragon (if not the draconic claws from your bloodline), since it is an equivalent power to wild shape.

Speaking of form of the dragon, being able to use Unarmed Strike and the dragons natural attacks, all with monk unarmed strike damage boosted by size increases will be devastating.


Edit Ninja'd, yep, Flurry won't work, brain slip.

Imbicatus wrote:
BadBird wrote:
If you really want to make the monk levels pay off, if you take Feral Combat training, you can use your monk unarmed damage in place of the damage dice of the claws and bite. If you then take monastic legacy feat, half of the non-monk levels will add to unarmed strike damage, including natural weapon damage.

Feral Combat Training is great, though it has the drawback that you need to take weapon focus and feral combat with each natural weapon. Depending on interpretation, I'm not sure you'd be allowed to substitute the damage dice, though you'd get all other 'effects' like dragon style strength bonus. The unarmed + natural attacks option I was mentioning would really beg for 'multiattack' feat - once your base attack bonus reaches 6, you'd basically have unarmed / unarmed -5 / bite -2 / claw -2 / claw -2.

Either way, monk bonuses can stack up nicely - with 3 levels and a monk robe, unarmed strike hits d10 and ac is +2, though monastic legacy alters the unarmed; you get monk fast movement as well, and still mind (or archetype substitutes). At 4 monk levels, you get Ki strike effects and potentially barkskin from Qinggong. With archetypes, there's a whole ton of options for doing weird, wonderful things with monk. Maneuver Master gives you a free maneuver with full attack - its weak, but free is free.

Dark Archive

You are dropping the damage on your natural attacks though by making them secondaries.

you go from 3d6 + 4.5xST (all at full BaB) With 5 feats

to 2d8+3d6 + 6.5xST (one at full BaB the rest at BaB -5 unless you get multiattack) using unarmed attacks as well as 5 feats

to 2d10+3d6 + 6.5xST (same to hit) requires 7 feats now (including monastic legacy) and 4 monk levels

Compared to 3d6 + 3.5xST (with no feats and no monk levels)

Once again you are trading alot of class features and feats including improved casting for a small increase to damage on a class that is fine at doing damage without spending resources beyond 1 bonus feat on power attack.

The better dragon disciple builds have as few non sorcerer levels as possible (I prefer 1 full BaB + 4 sorc as it gives you BaB 3 on entry and only costs 1 caster level).


I was just mentioning options, not saying all that stuff must go into a disciple. It didn't seem like a high-caster DD was what he was necessarily going for. I specifically mentioned above that Feral Combat Training is very feat intensive and was mentioning an alternative. As far as four levels of monk, I was just pointing out benefits to monk levels as opposed to a whole mix-n-match of non-caster levels.

Personally, if I was going to build a Dragon Disciple I'd start out with 4 sorcerer/1monk/4disciple, and take multiattack plus dragon style I and II to make heavy unarmed strikes. I'd add the grown claws and bite in as -2 secondary attacks, with feral combat training being low priority / ignored - and until I had an iterative attack, I'd probably just full-attack without unarmed, depending on the situation. Once I had the ability to be rolling out 2/3 primary, dragon-style buffed unarmed strikes, I'd gladly take the naturals as secondary attacks; the whole show is improved with an amulet of mighty fists anyhow.

That's just me though. Since he said he's not looking for THE optimized build, options are probably more useful than instructions - then he can fit his concept with whatever works.


WOW guys, I'm totally blown away with all the help and ideas I'm getting.

I'm pretty sure I don't want to sacrifice more than two caster levels to a non DD, non sorcerer class. The more I'm thinking on it, the more 2 MoMS levels seem really good, and thematically cool. I guess I can give up on the familiar, that will free up some options.

@Tyranatheus - I'm not really SURE what my DM will end up doing with regards to magic items. He's a fairly new DM, that's usually my role..so he takes a lot of his cues from me on how to run the game. If it were up to me I prefer to have a balance of being able to SOMETIMES buy what you want, but if you want something crazy you better be ready to do some digging for materials. So we'll go with that. The dragon color is a sticky issue for me, I was all set to go with green (and I would if this were a different campaign, for plot reasons.) but now I'm just torn. I'll have to think about it some more.

@Blueluck - now THAT is something interesting. I guess I'd need to go full on with Weapon Focus and Dazzling Display too huh? I just hate not getting a point of BAB with that dip.

@Badbird You're right I'm not specifically going for a high-caster DD, but I 'm not shooting for a pure brute either. I want my save DCs to at least be not awful when I take to the air and rain fireballs down on my enemies. Feral Combat Training is just such a feat taxy- do nothing thing on its own. I hate feats like that..i appreciate you keeping in mind what I said. I'm loving some of the options you guys are showing me.

@Caderyn forgive me, I just got off of a 13 hour day at work (hooray for the service industry on holidays right?) and what you said about feats and damage is just totally blanking for me. Is there any way you can elaborate? What 5 feats are those exactly? those look like some good numbers, i'm interested!!

Thanks again everyone, I'm still interested in seeing what you come up with, or maybe some examples of DD's you have played in game? that would be awesome too, I would very much like to read about your experiences playing a DD.


I'm sure people will have some very good objections / alternate ideas, but for me, Monk is the perfect logical extension of a Dragon Disciple - rather than literally going for permanent claws, you turn your body into a devastating weapon and dragon-slap anyone who makes fun of you for not having 'real' claws. Dragon Style/Ferocity buffing up huge strength damage and inflicting fear on crits speaks for itself. As far as you wanting to be scary, check out Boar Style/Ferocity below - I think its a natural for what you want... "Your flesh-ripping unarmed strikes terrify your victims." Heh.

Using unarmed strike as your 'primary' weapon with dragon style is basically like using a two-handed weapon and then getting all of your dragon stuff on top of it, but with serious penalties that need to be managed. If I remember right, it would go:

Unarmed (2xSTR) / Unarmed (1.5xSTR) -5ab, -10ab for extra attacks / Bite (1.5xSTR?) -5ab / Claw (.5xSTR) -5ab / Claw (.5xSTR) -5ab
? = According to the rules a 'dragon bite' is 'always' 1.5xSTR, but it could be interpreted as anything from 1.5x to .5x as a secondary by a gm in this case. Anyhow, with assorted feat spending:

Multiattack = bite and claws only a -2ab penalty. The feat required for this approach.
weapon focus claws + feral combat training claws = claws now only a -1 penalty, claws now gain .5xSTR from Dragon Ferocity. Nice, but not huge. Depending on the GM, possibly more base damage due to a monk's unarmed strikes as Imbicatus suggested.
Same again with bite, but only one attack now.
weapon focus unarmed strike = +1ab to anything you have feral combat training in, plus of course your unarmed strikes. Another small optional improvement.

If nothing else, having improved unarmed strike saves you from having to waste growing claws for a single attack - you'll probably want an amulet of mighty fists anyways so you're already improving unarmed along with your natural attacks. Taking only multiattack will give you the option of going all frenzy of attacks when you feel like it without committing more than one feat.

If you do take Many Styles, timing your Many Styles levels well can get you some really kung-fu prizes since you can cross two styles and don't need prerequisites. Whether its worth a couple feats is a different question, but since its really fun stuff I'll mention a few:
(!)Boar Style = When you hit with two unarmed strikes in a round, tear someone up with 2d6 bleed damage. With feral combat training in claws, you'd be triggering this like MAD, and even better...
(!)+Boar Ferocity = +2 intimidate, intimidate for FREE any time you tear someone up with boar style. Ouch.
++Boar Shred = damned if I know without an errata... intimidate as a move action anyways.
Snake Style = use sense motive check instead of AC vs one attack.
+Snake Fang = attack of opportunity when someone misses you in melee. Without combat reflexes you won't get more than one or two strikes, but getting a dragon-punch or two just for being missed is still pretty sweet.
Tiger Style = slashing unarmed strike, bleed on crit.
+Tiger Pounce = take power attack penalty to your AC instead of your ab; limited ability to chase people as a swift action.
Combat Style Master = start/change style as free action. Go from offensive to defensive styles at will between attacking/defending.

Disclaimer: My apologies if I'm getting any of this wrong, I'm doing it on the fly mostly from memory as work avoidance, I'm sure someone will correct me if needed.


Just a side-note, I didn't (!) Boar Shred, and I should have. Even if as written it doesn't really do much else, intimidate as a move action is very, very sweet on a character who can still use their standard action to cast a spell.

Does anyone else picture a half-dragon with a fu-manchu shouting out in superfast subtitled cantonese: "Haha! My Boar-Dragon wushu is superior to your pathetic kung-fu! I shall tear your flesh and ignobly dissipate your chi!" ... or is it just me?


I have done some thinking about a Monk/DD combination and compiled my ideas here:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pw8z?Enter-the-Dragon-2-Earth-Winter-and-Storm

TL:DR, my idea is that it would be nice if you could have a go-to spell on top of your dragon style enhanced unarmed strike to deal damage with and shocking grasp is perfect. (Low levels use it to close, high levels quicken it). From there your options are threefold:

1. Vanilla shocking grasp, use Wayang spell hunter and Magical Lineage to reduce Metamagic costs and go to town. Start off with empowered, move on to quicken, and finish off with empowered, quickened and maximize.

2. Acid shocking grasp, as above but use elemental spell to convert to acid. Why? Bonus damage for shocking grasp (you start off with the acidic breath weapon) and you take noxious bite to mess with enemies (save or nauseated, basically lose a turn).

3. Cold shocking grasp, elemental spell once again, but this time you combo it with rime spell to entangle enemies every time you hit them with it. Entangle is great, -2 to hit, -4 to dex. Combo with quickened as in 1

Other advice: Tiger style is nice to take the power attack penalty off to hit and deal some extra damage that scales with level.

prototype00


@ Prototype : your build is extremely interesting. Just weak against touch attacks and anything that attacks the reflex save at high levels I guess? And a weak initiative score. Other than that it seems really interesting.
What would you suggest as an alternate trait for Wayang Spellhunter (it's just too cheesy in my mind to take both and WS doesn't really fit my concept). The idea of using Dragon Style just seems to "fit" the character so well. How did you get Huge size at 15? I'm guessing Permanent Enlarge Person?


Nuclearsunburn wrote:

@ Prototype : your build is extremely interesting. Just weak against touch attacks and anything that attacks the reflex save at high levels I guess? And a weak initiative score. Other than that it seems really interesting.

What would you suggest as an alternate trait for Wayang Spellhunter (it's just too cheesy in my mind to take both and WS doesn't really fit my concept). The idea of using Dragon Style just seems to "fit" the character so well. How did you get Huge size at 15? I'm guessing Permanent Enlarge Person?

I'd go for Quain martial artist or Mizu Ki Hikari Rebel for the +1 to unarmed damage.

The huge size is from shapeshifting into an allosaurus with beast shape III. Spells are a bit difficult then (you won't be using shocking grasp for example) but it is a good buff for str.

Later when you get Form of the Dragon III (requires picking expanded arcana as a feat at 19th lvl), you will get all the benefits of huge size but none of the spellcasting drawbacks.

prototype00

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