Does this Dragon Disciple variant idea sound fun?
Calgacus
Member Posts: 273
Imagine you, the player, only gradually discovers your character's draconic abilities rather than always getting the same ones by the book.
For example, before 10th level your DD instead of a Fire breath weapon gets a breath weapon that deals a bit of acid damage and some weak Dragon Bile poison (deals a strength penalty). Then at tenth level the breath weapon changes into one of the main types (acid, or fire etc) and the damage immunity gained is something that matches.
As the character goes up in epic levels it gains other random draconic spell like abilities at levels maybe 15, 20, 25 and 30. Abilities should relate to the type of dragon the character turns out to be descended from. There should be a good collection of such abilities so no two PC DDs will likely end up with all the same the same abilities even if they are of the same dragon type.
In part to help keep each DD unique the abilities gained should increase in power not every level but on each level when a new power is gained so for instance if at level 15 your characters gets Cure Wounds then at level 20 the amount healed by that power would dramatically improve and another spell like ability would be gained, but if it first gained the cure power at level 20 it would not improve until level 25 etc.
Such progressions of once-per-day powers might be something roughly like these:
Fire Storm: for (6d6, 9d6, 12d6, 15d6)
Cure Wounds: ( 8d12, 12d12, 16d12, Heal)
Restoration: (Lesser Restoration, Restoration, +Remove Poison/Disease, +Removes Curses and some other effects)
Shadows: Shadow Conjuration, Greater Shadow Conjuration, Shades, Weird
Death: Negative Energy Burst, Enervation, Death Spell, Finger of Death
Alternate Breath Weapon: the DD's breath weapon can have an alternate effect chosen on the fly ( eg instead of Fire Damage it may cause Sleep, Slow, Negative Energy etc depending on the type of dragon)
Paralysis: Hold Person, Dominate Person, Hold Monster, Dominate Monster
Sight: See invisible, +Clairaudience/clairvoyance, True Seeing, +Premonition
Aura of Fear: as per the Draconic Aura of Fear with DD level used instead of Hit Dice for DC and duration
Disjunction : like Mordenkainen's Disjunction but with it's power stepping through 4 levels only reaching the full power of the 9th level spell at level 4 (at 30th level)
Flame Strike: (6d6, 9d6, 12d6, 15d6)
Chromatic: Prismatic Spray effect that increases in power over 4 levels like the Disjunction
Spell Resistance: 20, 24, 28, 32 for a duration of 1,2,3,4 turns
So for example a 30th level DD might end up with Heal spell (the 4th Level Cure Wounds power), Death Spell (the 3rd level Death power), Greater Shadow Conjuration (the 2nd level Shadow power) and a weak FireStorm (6d6 1st level firestorm power). Such a DD would still have its 12d10 breath weapon but it might be some damage other than Fire.
I think it might be fitting too if the wings were gained at 10th level and came with some small use - such as immunity to the Grease spell and maybe maybe something like a small bonus to Tumble and Discipline (the wings might make it harder to knock them down and less likely to slip on the grease or ice, harder to lose balance etc).
Another change might be to let DDs take as epic bonus feats more feats geared towards Mages like the epic spells (assuming of course they otherwise qualify for said feats) since they already get access to auto-meta-magic feats and it might be nice to encourage high level Mage/RDD builds. I could also see adding in some Bard, Monk and Rogue epic feats in the same way to encourage more build diversity.
I think all of this could be done with a bit of scripting and a few 2DA changes.
For example, before 10th level your DD instead of a Fire breath weapon gets a breath weapon that deals a bit of acid damage and some weak Dragon Bile poison (deals a strength penalty). Then at tenth level the breath weapon changes into one of the main types (acid, or fire etc) and the damage immunity gained is something that matches.
As the character goes up in epic levels it gains other random draconic spell like abilities at levels maybe 15, 20, 25 and 30. Abilities should relate to the type of dragon the character turns out to be descended from. There should be a good collection of such abilities so no two PC DDs will likely end up with all the same the same abilities even if they are of the same dragon type.
In part to help keep each DD unique the abilities gained should increase in power not every level but on each level when a new power is gained so for instance if at level 15 your characters gets Cure Wounds then at level 20 the amount healed by that power would dramatically improve and another spell like ability would be gained, but if it first gained the cure power at level 20 it would not improve until level 25 etc.
Such progressions of once-per-day powers might be something roughly like these:
Fire Storm: for (6d6, 9d6, 12d6, 15d6)
Cure Wounds: ( 8d12, 12d12, 16d12, Heal)
Restoration: (Lesser Restoration, Restoration, +Remove Poison/Disease, +Removes Curses and some other effects)
Shadows: Shadow Conjuration, Greater Shadow Conjuration, Shades, Weird
Death: Negative Energy Burst, Enervation, Death Spell, Finger of Death
Alternate Breath Weapon: the DD's breath weapon can have an alternate effect chosen on the fly ( eg instead of Fire Damage it may cause Sleep, Slow, Negative Energy etc depending on the type of dragon)
Paralysis: Hold Person, Dominate Person, Hold Monster, Dominate Monster
Sight: See invisible, +Clairaudience/clairvoyance, True Seeing, +Premonition
Aura of Fear: as per the Draconic Aura of Fear with DD level used instead of Hit Dice for DC and duration
Disjunction : like Mordenkainen's Disjunction but with it's power stepping through 4 levels only reaching the full power of the 9th level spell at level 4 (at 30th level)
Flame Strike: (6d6, 9d6, 12d6, 15d6)
Chromatic: Prismatic Spray effect that increases in power over 4 levels like the Disjunction
Spell Resistance: 20, 24, 28, 32 for a duration of 1,2,3,4 turns
So for example a 30th level DD might end up with Heal spell (the 4th Level Cure Wounds power), Death Spell (the 3rd level Death power), Greater Shadow Conjuration (the 2nd level Shadow power) and a weak FireStorm (6d6 1st level firestorm power). Such a DD would still have its 12d10 breath weapon but it might be some damage other than Fire.
I think it might be fitting too if the wings were gained at 10th level and came with some small use - such as immunity to the Grease spell and maybe maybe something like a small bonus to Tumble and Discipline (the wings might make it harder to knock them down and less likely to slip on the grease or ice, harder to lose balance etc).
Another change might be to let DDs take as epic bonus feats more feats geared towards Mages like the epic spells (assuming of course they otherwise qualify for said feats) since they already get access to auto-meta-magic feats and it might be nice to encourage high level Mage/RDD builds. I could also see adding in some Bard, Monk and Rogue epic feats in the same way to encourage more build diversity.
I think all of this could be done with a bit of scripting and a few 2DA changes.
Post edited by Calgacus on
2
Comments
I prefer Wizard's now but I think your ideas would work well in a story driven module about Bloodlines & Heritage's.
Depending on your choices your progression is very different from someone else's, learning to shape your heritage bonuses in different ways depending on your class and other factors.
Dragon, Demonic, Celestial and other bloodlines are potentially very interesting but lacking in story & background, I can imagine a storyline revolving around seeking your family heritage and uncovering mysteries.
If a module had a built-in story regarding the class and a characters heritage that would be nice but what I like about this idea is that none is necessary, instead the player needs to discover the characters heritage along with the character which is a story itself. Part of what makes any module interesting is the aspect of discovery, now the characters development is part of that discovery. The player will experience surprise and maybe a sense of mystery or suspence as the character levels up and will later need to adjust battle tactics to suit the character rather than relying on long preconseived tactics.
I'll need to attach new feats, maybe some custom spell-like feats maybe some standard feats, in a way that the player will be able to activate some of them. I was thinking of using a custom object or a player skin. Will I need to edit any 2DAs? I'd rather not if it can be avoided to prevent conflicts with other custom content but there will be new scripts activated from the spell like feats.
Another option would be to use the onPlayerLevelUp script to give the character new undroppable items with the script attached via tag based scripting but that would mean overwriting the modules OnPlayerLevelUp script which is not ideal. I would like to be able to make it so I could put the whole thing in a hak that anyone could use in any module (maybe via userpatch.ini) without any conflicts with other custom content in the module.
Maybe a custom item that can be spawned into any mod. That item would need to be run by the player after a level up. Can I give the player skin new custom feats or spell-like abilities that way? Would I still need to edit some standard 2DAs to make the spell-like abilities selectable via the quick bar slots or radial menus? or maybe I could just give the player the new custom items for each new power, the player could quick slot those I guess but it would be nice to have them on an attack target's radial menu.
Can the RDD standard Fire Immunity be removed via scripting, and if so the other ability-score increases? Also is there a way to account for level up and level down events for passive feats on items - some event besides the OnPlayerLevelUp I can hook into on a per item basis?
hopefully someone can respond to your posts and help you, sorry i wasn't any help.