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Dragon Disciple rant.

Hello friends, I feel the need to rant about how mad this makes me. I was on the the dragon disciple wiki page to look at how much bonus constitution they got, and I saw one of the comments being:'Dragon Disciple is a class kit you choose when you feel like Sorcerer is too good and you want some kind of a penalty while using it.' In what way is getting 5 ac, IMMUNITY from fire, with admittedly not that useful con bonuses and a nice breath weapon FOR FREE a 'penalty'. 'But-but you lose ONE spell per day' somebody may be saying, and yeah it is a downside of course there would be one, but in my opinion the benefits heavily outweigh the negatives. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Comments

  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,911
    Well ...
    - AC barely matters to a high-level mage. When played well, you don't get targeted very often. And you've got Stoneskin up for any stray hits. And absolute defense spells like PFMW for when that's not enough.
    - Immunity to Fire? Protection from Fire grants that for a level 3 spell slot. With a pretty serious duration.
    - Breath Weapon? OK, that's a nice spell. About as powerful as a Fireball in general, but with some situational differences. So that's equivalent to one of the spell slots you gave up. The rest are still there.

    So I can see where they're coming from. But I disagree.

    I've done a full run with a Dragon Disciple protagonist. The theme was "Kill It With Fire". A full fire-immune party, with none of that dispellable. Well, it was only half the party in BG1. And then I throw fireballs and fire storms and incendiary clouds into melee, with absolutely no worries about hitting my own people. It worked. Extremely well. It was the most powerful party I've ever built, capable of taking on even absurd challenges like the SCS Ust Natha defenses (if you don't leave after the ritual, the drow come after you).
    That would not have worked with an unkitted sorcerer. You don't want to worry about getting your fire immunity dispelled when you're self-targeting triple Incendiary Cloud chain contingencies.
    As for the other bonuses like AC ... by the end of the game, I was keeping a suite of buffs including Spirit Armor up on the entire party. That Dragon Disciple actually had enough AC to be effective against high-level threats, especially when I put up the extra buffs like Mass Invisibility and Blur for big fights.

    And the downside? Fewer spell slots only matter when you actually run out. Which I didn't, once the Project Image/Wish engine came on line.
  • shevy123456shevy123456 Member Posts: 298
    It seems indeed to be a cheap nerf compared to the -1 spells per level. Some items increase spell levels
    so. The AC change, IMO, does not matter that much; some enemies are so powerful that they slice
    through the AC quickly and casters with low HP just die quickly. I don't know how much damage the
    ability does; so I may loosely agree that the boosts are too much. But what would be a balanced change
    according to Swarmkeeper?
  • Swarmkeeper109Swarmkeeper109 Member Posts: 76
    It seems indeed to be a cheap nerf compared to the -1 spells per level. Some items increase spell levels
    so. The AC change, IMO, does not matter that much; some enemies are so powerful that they slice
    through the AC quickly and casters with low HP just die quickly. I don't know how much damage the
    ability does; so I may loosely agree that the boosts are too much. But what would be a balanced change
    according to Swarmkeeper?

    I'm not sure what a good balance would be as I'm awful at trying to balance things, but I just remembered the biggest benefit being their hit die is D6 instead of D4.
  • WisteriasWisterias Member Posts: 128

    I'm not sure what a good balance would be as I'm awful at trying to balance things, but I just remembered the biggest benefit being their hit die is D6 instead of D4.

    For me the biggesf benefit is the non-dissipable 100% fire resist.
  • DinoDinDinoDin Member Posts: 1,604
    Just gonna note that permanent resistances are a great thing in the saga, and definitely a reason to like the Disciple. By "permanent" I mean not given by a spell. And that's because the enemies have almost no capability of breaking or impacting resistance from gear or innate abilities. Many enemies have dispel magic however.

    I've never played a saga run for long with a Disciple. I've tried one for an evil party (as he would fit in well with the evil companions in BG2), but it was so squishy I never made it thru bg1 while running a no death challenge.

    I have played through the black pits 2 with one however. The extra HP, extra AC, etc did make me feel like the character was more powerful than a typical sorceror at super high levels. Admittedly, black pits characters don't benefit from having a large spell repertoire. But frankly, most combats in BG1 and BG2 are often decided within the first two or three rounds. So I've never found large spell books on certain characters to be a huge strength. Being able to do a lot within the first two rounds of combat is more important, generally speaking, than being able to sustain high-level casts for 10 rounds.
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,911
    edited January 16
    DinoDin wrote: »
    And that's because the enemies have almost no capability of breaking or impacting resistance from gear or innate abilities.

    For the record, the only enemies that can directly lower resistances are some dragons, who get a spell that lowers resistance to their breath element on a failed save. I have seen a red dragon kill fire elementals with fire.

    Now that would be a cool spell for a Dragon Disciple to have.
  • DinoDinDinoDin Member Posts: 1,604
    I believe I have seen some enemy wizards cast the lower resistance spell as well in BG2, but cannot totally confirm this, as it's just from memory. But yeah, the key is that you very very rarely encounter this throughout the whole saga (even SoD).
  • WisteriasWisterias Member Posts: 128
    jmerry wrote: »
    DinoDin wrote: »
    And that's because the enemies have almost no capability of breaking or impacting resistance from gear or innate abilities.

    For the record, the only enemies that can directly lower resistances are some dragons, who get a spell that lowers resistance to their breath element on a failed save. I have seen a red dragon kill fire elementals with fire.

    Now that would be a cool spell for a Dragon Disciple to have.

    What would really be great is if they added dragons disciples of other elements, lightning, cold, acid... Not only fire.
  • Swarmkeeper109Swarmkeeper109 Member Posts: 76
    Wisterias wrote: »
    jmerry wrote: »
    DinoDin wrote: »
    And that's because the enemies have almost no capability of breaking or impacting resistance from gear or innate abilities.

    For the record, the only enemies that can directly lower resistances are some dragons, who get a spell that lowers resistance to their breath element on a failed save. I have seen a red dragon kill fire elementals with fire.

    Now that would be a cool spell for a Dragon Disciple to have.

    What would really be great is if they added dragons disciples of other elements, lightning, cold, acid... Not only fire.

    Some mods do that. Like Tome and Blood.
  • WisteriasWisterias Member Posts: 128

    Some mods do that. Like Tome and Blood.

    Nice. Somehow I'm "against" mods for some reason, I'm a bit stubborn in that sense and I prefer to play the purely official thing without mods, but that's okay.

    Nothing wrong with mods, it's a personal thing.
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,911
    DinoDin wrote: »
    I believe I have seen some enemy wizards cast the lower resistance spell as well in BG2, but cannot totally confirm this, as it's just from memory. But yeah, the key is that you very very rarely encounter this throughout the whole saga (even SoD).

    I should have said "elemental resistances" there, or "damage type resistance". Yes, there are mage spells (Lower Resistance, Pierce Magic, Pierce Shield) that lower magic resistance, but that resistance is a chance to completely ignore certain effects, not a resistance to a particular type of damage.
  • Swarmkeeper109Swarmkeeper109 Member Posts: 76
    Wisterias wrote: »

    Some mods do that. Like Tome and Blood.

    Nice. Somehow I'm "against" mods for some reason, I'm a bit stubborn in that sense and I prefer to play the purely official thing without mods, but that's okay.

    Nothing wrong with mods, it's a personal thing.

    That's fine! Everyone should play how they want to.
  • SoidoSoido Member Posts: 362
    Wait how is DD not good ? Maybe as a solo pure sorcerer would be better. But in a party well worth it. Was it mentioned that DD's fire resistance above 100% actually fire damage heals her ? While everyone else boils in fire damage she heals herself ? Who called for a cleric ? Cast fire shield around you so every attacker burns, run around in showers of fire and heal.

    And can augment her fire resistance with other element full resistances from items. Then it is mayhem
  • SoidoSoido Member Posts: 362
    The extra health is very noticeable with DD. Because she can heal from fire, and she can absorb damage while dealing damage, this practically means that if her health drops dangerously all you need is activate one shot of the fire ball wand centered on you and there you get your health returned.
  • SoidoSoido Member Posts: 362
    Yeah just check JMerry above

    "then I throw fireballs and fire storms and incendiary clouds into melee, with absolutely no worries about hitting my own people. It worked. Extremely well. It was the most powerful party I've ever built, capable of taking on even absurd challenges like the SCS"

    The most powerful party he ever built. Period. This all thanks to Dragon Disciple and the way it changes and moves parts around in battles.

    People who say pure sorcerers are better are usually solo players. But that is not a valid argument to say DD sucks. On the contrary is extremely potent and fun
  • WisteriasWisterias Member Posts: 128
    edited January 26
    Soido wrote: »
    Wait how is DD not good ? Maybe as a solo pure sorcerer would be better. But in a party well worth it. Was it mentioned that DD's fire resistance above 100% actually fire damage heals her ? While everyone else boils in fire damage she heals herself ? Who called for a cleric ? Cast fire shield around you so every attacker burns, run around in showers of fire and heal.

    And can augment her fire resistance with other element full resistances from items. Then it is mayhem

    I played IWD1EE in HOF mode with 5 DD (+1 mage/thief with 100+ fire resistance) to benefit from that. Filling the screen with fire spells and healing from them was nice, especially with Incendiary Cloud and Meteor Swarms.
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