Drake rider

[Dahawi]

So I'm actually playing a drake rider in our new campaign, and have no idea what feats I should be looking at for him. Anyone got any good suggestions?

We're playing a mythic campaign, and my cavalier will be fighting with a Longsword and shield. He's order of the Sword, so will get bonuses for riding the drake, which will eventually fly.

I'm always a fan of flavour of optimisation, but if I can get both then that would be ace!

[avr]

The drakerider cavalier archetype is famously weak. One account had another player saying they'd have been better to not have the drakerider in their party at all, he contributed so little and soaked up so much healing keeping him & his drake alive. I don't suppose I could get you to look at a normal cavalier whose mount has the draconic companion archetype?

Assuming the answer's no, no, I must play a drakerider -

Bear in mind drakes refuse to allow you to ride them until they're a size larger than the PC and they have the mount 'power'. Undersized mount etc. have no bearing on this. If you're willing to play a small character this means the minimum level to ride the drake is 9th, if medium then the minimum is 13th.

Also longsword & shield suffers from weak damage without a lot of feat investment, which a cavalier will take a while to get going. Mythic power attack could help a bit here. So could taking the legendary item power to get a particularly impressive sword.

[Name Violation]

avr wrote:

The drakerider cavalier archetype is famously weak. One account had another player saying they'd have been better to not have the drakerider in their party at all, he contributed so little and soaked up so much healing keeping him & his drake alive. I don't suppose I could get you to look at a normal cavalier whose mount has the draconic companion archetype?

Assuming the answer's no, no, I must play a drakerider -

Bear in mind drakes refuse to allow you to ride them until they're a size larger than the PC and they have the mount 'power'. Undersized mount etc. have no bearing on this. If you're willing to play a small character this means the minimum level to ride the drake is 9th, if medium then the minimum is 13th.

Also longsword & shield suffers from weak damage without a lot of feat investment, which a cavalier will take a while to get going. Mythic power attack could help a bit here. So could taking the legendary item power to get a particularly impressive sword.

+1

If you want RP flavor drake rider is good....

Mechanically it's not the best thing. It's overly complicated to make actually work

[Dahawi]

Name Violation wrote:

avr wrote:

The drakerider cavalier archetype is famously weak. One account had another player saying they'd have been better to not have the drakerider in their party at all, he contributed so little and soaked up so much healing keeping him & his drake alive. I don't suppose I could get you to look at a normal cavalier whose mount has the draconic companion archetype?

Assuming the answer's no, no, I must play a drakerider -

Bear in mind drakes refuse to allow you to ride them until they're a size larger than the PC and they have the mount 'power'. Undersized mount etc. have no bearing on this. If you're willing to play a small character this means the minimum level to ride the drake is 9th, if medium then the minimum is 13th.

Also longsword & shield suffers from weak damage without a lot of feat investment, which a cavalier will take a while to get going. Mythic power attack could help a bit here. So could taking the legendary item power to get a particularly impressive sword.

+1

If you want RP flavor drake rider is good....

Mechanically it's not the best thing. It's overly complicated to make actually work

Thanks for the feedback guys. I did look into a lot of discussions on the class and know it has a lot to be desired, but I'm going to go ahead with it anyway. While sword and shield isn't a great fit for this class either it's a fighting style I've really wanted to employ in a character for ages, and with 2nd edition coming this might be my last chance.

Overall, this isn't going to win any character building prizes, but the theme and idea for the character is one I'm really happy with and want to pursue. While I hope I will contribute a net gain to the party (scary to hear one party found the character to be a drain!) I don't mind if it's smaller than the rest and I'm a bit under par.

That said, no need to hamstring myself! I've never built any sort of monstrous character before, actually I have never had a character companion at all, so am a bit out of my depth. The drake is going to start of at small rather than tiny, so I will get to ride it at 9th if that makes a difference. What feats should I be looking for for a drake companion?

[Dragonborn3]

Perhaps ask if you can use the third-party Dragonrider class. It is actually balanced.

[Dahawi]

Thanks for this guys. I'll stick with It for now and see how we find it, as we're playing mythic I'm going to have a bunch of other abilities to make use of that may help bridge the gap. If we really start to struggle, I will definitely point my DM in the directions you guys have outlined here :)

In the mean time, I have 2 feats to pick for my drake and have no idea where to even start! Any ideas?

[Dragonborn3]

Dodge(or armor proficiency?) and Toughness. Endurance and Diehard. Power Attack and Furious Focus.

[avr]

Drakes refuse to wear armor Dragonborn. As it gets larger it will lose dexterity and eventually stop qualifying for dodge so it'd lose the effect of the feat, and it doesn't yet have the strength for power attack. Name Violation wasn't kidding about them being complicated to make work.

Currently you're looking at Str 12, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 4 (8 if it takes the intellect power), Wis 10, Cha 7, with the feats gained at BAB +1 & +3. There are a couple of styles which could work - taking improved unarmed strike and either shark style (for +1d6 bleed damage on a bite) or snake style (for a chance to dodge attacks using sense motive) would be worthwhile. Alternately it might go for teamwork feats to work with you, or for the dirty fighting feat and an improved combat maneuver, or it might like weapon focus & dazzling display.

[Dahawi]

Toughness and die hard are good shouts, we don't want to be falling out of the sky because he took a few too many hits!

I was considering style feats, but wasn't sure which ones to look at, will look those up now!

Teamwork feats are a definite consider action, especially the ones that allow us to flank while both threatening. The only issue there is my feats are all spoken for up to 13th level :p