Alright, I've been invited back into an old gaming group of mine's regular game sessions, and they very much live by the Rule of Cool set of rules when it comes to gaming, and for that I have intention of doing something fun, but cheesy.
I've been looking at old 3.5 Level Adjustments for monsters, and I'm trying to determine how to best port some of them over to PFRPG. My goal is to play a wyrmling Silver Dragon, and advance it as a Sage Sorcerer with VMC bard thrown in. Since silver dragons cast cleric spells as Divine Spells, I also want to cherry pick from that list.
But I'm having trouble figuring out the effective level adjustment in the PF system. In 3.5 the silver wyrmling had LA +4, but the CR system in Pathfinder and the race system is different. Since basically all the level adjusted races were offset by 1 (aasimar, tiefling, etc) I am initially thinking LA+3 would be appropriate. I was also considering LA= 1/2(CR), which would also be +3. Since I'm going to be in humanoid form the whole time, I will lose most of my dragon abilities like the breath weapon.
As for the character, they are playing Emerald Spire, and are 13th level. I wanna work with the DM to say my character is some sort of Mystic Theurge/wizard/sorcerer/cleric/bard/fighter and the running joke will be that no one knows what my character does, but he can do a little bit of everything. I wanna take Student of Philosophy, and ironically bluff my way through the game using my Change Shape ability to masquerade as a young humanoid (most likely elf, half-elf, or human), and RP wise I will be a young silver dragon learning the ropes of dragonning (which is to say, learn why not to meddle in the affairs of humans directly) the hard way (since this group nonchalantly refers to themselves as the Murderhobos).
Is my LA adjustment appropriate? Should I keep the LA +4 from old editions?
First problem; silver dragons don't get any casting to advance until they reach the young age category.
Next, monsters as characters rules in PF are vague. Their equivalent level starts at =CR, then gets fudged up in most cases by the GM to be at least equal to HD, usually more. A wyrmling silver dragon has CR 6 and 7 HD and I could see anything from 9-11 being the final equivalent level. LA +3 sounds about right, but don't call it that here, there is a belief that PF has removed LA because of some insane rule about penalising the rest of the party instead. LA's often bad but that's worse.
With all that out of the way are you sure about doing this? A sorcerer 2-4 with 7 dragon HD is going to be pretty weak at 13th level. Even with LA +2 and so 4 sorcerer levels your casting would barely be noticed.
Silver Wyrmling has CR 6, so at level 13, that's Dragon+ 7 class levels, but with the level-up reduction, it's 10 class levels and 3 levels adjustment (final). This is all from the bestiary.
First problem; silver dragons don't get any casting to advance until they reach the young age category.
Next, monsters as characters rules in PF are vague. Their equivalent level starts at =CR, then gets fudged up in most cases by the GM to be at least equal to HD, usually more. A wyrmling silver dragon has CR 6 and 7 HD and I could see anything from 9-11 being the final equivalent level. LA +3 sounds about right, but don't call it that here, there is a belief that PF has removed LA because of some insane rule about penalising the rest of the party instead. LA's often bad but that's worse.
With all that out of the way are you sure about doing this? A sorcerer 2-4 with 7 dragon HD is going to be pretty weak at 13th level. Even with LA +2 and so 4 sorcerer levels your casting would barely be noticed.
Racial HD typically don't equal class levels, this is why LA existed in the first place.
Advancing dragons through sorcerer levels actually advances their natural spellcasting like a prestige class so there's no hiccups there.
I want to RP this character as a child genius in disguise, who maxes bluff and constantly lies about his past. Saying he went to "ummmm... human college for..... Philosophy"
and other such roles.
He's meant to be a fun character, who is also fairly competent, but never shows his true strength or intelligence but in sparing moments, and says "um um ummmm" a lot like a little kid.
Everything he does will be awkward.