Hey guys, I have a buddy who is going to be a part of a new campaign I'm going to run and he wants to play a swashbuckler who has a dragon father and ended up passing one (and only one) gift to him: a breath weapon. He's okay with it being piddly at the start, but wants it to ramp up to something useful eventually. My question to you guys is, how do I handle this? If he gets a beath weapon at level 1 what damage should it do / what range? How can I keep it from becoming OP compared to the legitimately regular sorcerer in the group who has draconic blood and will get a legit breath weapon at level 9? So, in general... advice?
What race? If Human, you can pick up Racial Heritage (Kobold), Draconic Aspect, and then Draconic Breath. At level 10, Draconic Paragon will up the damage. You could probably give Racial Heritage for free without it being broken.
What race? If Human, you can pick up Racial Heritage (Kobold), Draconic Aspect, and then Draconic Breath. At level 10, Draconic Paragon will up the damage. You could probably give Racial Heritage for free without it being broken.
They initially wanted to be a Fetchling, but might be open to changing...
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An important point to think of first, what is he giving up for this?
A good starting point is probably the Kobold feat 'Draconic Breath'. This would usually cost 2 feats (incl. prereqs) or 3 for a non kobold (via Racial Heritage).
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/draconic-breath-kobold
You don't want it to be able to one shot stuff to begin so perhaps charge him a feat and start it out with 1d6 damage, same saves/uses/range as the kobold feat, at perhaps 5th allow it to advance to 2d6. Then give him the option of spending another feat at 10th, if he does so it advances to 3d6 and one more use then at 15th 4d6.
It may seem weak, but it's better than the actual feat kobolds get as he's getting it cheaper and has an option to make it more powerful at 10th. Anything more than that and frankly, you should be requiring a significantly larger sacrifice from him to balance things out. It's good to give players fun and unique abilities, but not to the extent they'll overshadow others who are actually getting similar things via their class/race 'properly' imo.
His ability should be strictly and notably weaker than the Draconic bloodline sorcerer I'd say. If he really wants a more powerful version, Eldritch Heritage w. the Draconic Bloodline will eventually get him the same as the sorcerer has.
What I recommended was purely rules based. As Suthainn recommended, you can base new feats off the ones I listed and remove the Kobold requirement
I talked it over more with the player, and we are going to go a different route. Thanks for all the thoughts though guys!