Half-dragon campaign

[GM and the Holograms]

If I wanted to apply the half dragon template to the PCs using PC races and classes, how should I handle HD and APL?

For HD I'm mostly looking at the breath weapon, it grows based on racial HD, which the PCs won't have. Should I allow the breath weapon to scale with class level, considering it's a once per day ability?

I'm concerned with balancing encounters also, should I consider my party as having a +1 or +2 to APL?

[Diachronos]

GM and the Holograms wrote:

For HD I'm mostly looking at the breath weapon, it grows based on racial HD, which the PCs won't have. Should I allow the breath weapon to scale with class level, considering it's a once per day ability?

That's how I'd work it if you want to give the PCs the half-dragon's breath weapon.

GM and the Holograms wrote:

I'm concerned with balancing encounters also, should I consider my party as having a +1 or +2 to APL?

That's a tougher call because it's hard to gauge what the party can handle without knowing what they're going to be playing. On one hand, half-dragons are intended to have a CR equal to the base creature's CR +2 because of all the big increases to their stats. On the other, most non-martial classes don't get much out of it aside from extra HP and AC (which is still nice), and part of the party's strength comes from equipment that their half-dragon templates aren't going to be affecting at all.

I'd probably go with increasing their APL by 1 for now, then increasing it to 2 later on if the encounters are still proving to be too easy.

[Deighton Thrane]

It's not just the stat increases though. Every party member can now fly, meaning land based enemies aren't a threat unless they can effectively use ranged attack or you move to engage them in melee. And receiving immunity to one energy type can mean that the wizard/sorcerer/arcanist can fling fireballs at enemies without having to worry about ever hurting teammates.

I'd say make it +2 to APL. Their hit points might be a little low in the early levels, but flight is incredibly handy at that point of the game.

[Charon's Little Helper]

Deighton Thrane wrote:

It's not just the stat increases though. Every party member can now fly, meaning land based enemies aren't a threat unless they can effectively use ranged attack or you move to engage them in melee.

I might house-rule in the 3.5 version here - where only half-dragons which were large size or larger gained the wings.

[Azten]

Honestly? That part made the least sense of 3.5 half-dragon. A big problem I foresee is non-martial characters(like wizards) dropping strength down to 7 in point buys.

The energy immunity can be a big deal, yeah, but on the other hand... let them revel in it. A rogue pyromancer is committing arson? Send in the red and gold to shut him down.

This is a fun game idea I'd love to be in, by the way.

[GM and the Holograms]

Azten wrote:

Honestly? That part made the least sense of 3.5 half-dragon. A big problem I foresee is non-martial characters(like wizards) dropping strength down to 7 in point buys.

The energy immunity can be a big deal, yeah, but on the other hand... let them revel in it. A rogue pyromancer is committing arson? Send in the red and gold to shut him down.

This is a fun game idea I'd love to be in, by the way.

Thanks, I'm hoping it comes to fruition, I'm laying the ground work for this along side a couple other ideas for when our current campaign is over, I offered to take over for our current GM since he wants to play on the other side of the screen.

I'm not too concerned with the flight, there are ways to make flying dangerous with a low fly skill, and when it's not dangerous any more they probably would have had flight anyway.

Thanks for all the help so far, you've all given me points to consider.

[Lady-J]

GM and the Holograms wrote:

If I wanted to apply the half dragon template to the PCs using PC races and classes, how should I handle HD and APL?

For HD I'm mostly looking at the breath weapon, it grows based on racial HD, which the PCs won't have. Should I allow the breath weapon to scale with class level, considering it's a once per day ability?

I'm concerned with balancing encounters also, should I consider my party as having a +1 or +2 to APL?

breath weapon based on class lvls and +2 apl for all races exept kobolds which i would say a +0 cuz they such a bad race