*sigh* One more attempt at a useful dragon disciple [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
JulesCARV
12-24-06, 02:18 AM I've wanted to play a dragon disciple for a while. I'm trying to come up with a build that makes them useful. Here's my latest attempt.

Race: half-orc

Class progression:

hexblade 4/half-orc paragon 3/orc paragon 3/dragon disciple 10

Feats:
1. Power Attack
3. Cleave
6. Improved Bull Rush
9. Shock Trooper
12. Improved Initiative
15. Extra Rage
18. Great Cleave

Strength as high as possible while allowing for reasonable dexterity and constitution. Charisma should be 12 at least. Intelligence and wisdom are basically irrelevant.
Surreal
12-24-06, 05:05 AM Drop cleave and great cleave.

I would replace Orc Paragon with Blackguard 3 and pump more points into Cha. This will net you vastly better saves, a few second level spells, and Rebuke Undead which you will now want to burn for Divine Might for big charge attacks. Improved Flyby might be a nice idea too if you have a reach weapon.
ChristopherGroves
12-24-06, 09:24 AM Blackguard has 2 feats as entry requirements and you're kinda feat starved already. One of the variant paladins may work ... so that if you drop Cleave and Great Cleave you can pick up Divine Might and then something else.

I'd probably do STR>CON or CHA>DEX>INT>WIS
WombleHunter
12-24-06, 11:04 AM Heh, assuming you start out with an 18 in Strength, with all your racial modifiers, +5 from levels, +5 from a tome, and +6 from a Belt, you've got Strength 48. That's MORE than a Great Red Wyrm.

Nice. It's just a shame you have to wait so long for the Disciple transformation to kick in.

Why not try and get Improved Sunder and Combat Brute in there too? Drop Cleave and Great Cleave, as mentioned.

You could also use Duskblade 4, or Hexblade 3/Duskblade 1, for the lead-in.
Trix_Dracos
12-24-06, 05:46 PM Based on my understanding of your feats, you want a high damage melee combatant and you want to utilize the extra strength from the dragon disciple prestige class. If the spells are not important, I would suggest using the half dragon racial progression in the Races of the Dragon supplement. With this racial progression, you get all the half dragon racial atributes that Dragon Disciple gives you, but you get the benefits in three levels. If the spells are important, use the racial progression and increase your caster class.

Trix_Dracos
jstorrie
12-24-06, 07:01 PM The best way to do Dragon Disciple, in my opinion, is to add it to a prestige class that has its own spellcasting progression, so you can pick up more of the capstone spells. For example, you could do a Hexblade 4 / Fighter 2 / Barbarian 1 / Divine Crusader 10 / Dragon Disciple, or a Barbarian 1 / Hexblade 4 / Pious Templar 8 / Dragon Disciple. This sort of thing doesn't really kick in until the high levels, though.
DaveTheMagicWeasel
12-24-06, 07:30 PM Imho, you really want to get 2nd leve spells before entering Dragon Disciple, that way you can use all the bonus slots for more uses of Wraithstrike.

Abjurant Champion is the greatest thing to happen to subpar character builds ever:

Paladin 4 / Sorcerer 1 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Dragon Disciple 10

Gets BAB +16, CL 16 (3rd level spells), Fort +12, Ref +5, Will +14, Divine Grace, Turn Undead, Swift Abjuration spells, Dragon Disciple bonuses, etc
pflame5000
12-25-06, 01:46 AM Dragon Disciple is a cool class. I tried to make some attempt at it and ended up using karmic strike.
The levels turned out as:
Human
Hexblade 4 / Fighter 1 / Dragon Disciple 10 / War Hulk 5 (Minitures Handbook)

this is based off big hits, high health, and low ac.

It seems to work pretty well, but you need a cleric for it.
FriendlyFrog
12-25-06, 12:23 PM Human
Hexblade 4 / Fighter 1 / Dragon Disciple 10 / War Hulk 5 (Minitures Handbook)
That build doesn't qualify for War hulk, which requires large size.

My favourite Dragon disciple build is Paladin 4/Fighter 2/Dragon devotee 4/Dragon disciple 10. It's not that bad at all, makes a great tank with some extra tricks up his sleeves.
Eela6
12-25-06, 01:50 PM I'd eliminate the fourth level of Hexblade entirely, picking up a level of Duskblade instead. Summon Familiar is dead weight, and a level of Duskblade gives you the Arcane Casting you need while preserving your BAB - and more importantly, gives a badly-needed +1 to will saves and +2 to fortitude saves over the previous build.

Alternatively, you could go Hex2/Duskblade1/Barbarian 1 to pick up rage, or drop Hexblade entirely [though Arcane Resistance is such a nice ability it's a shame to miss.]
Surreal
12-25-06, 02:21 PM But the dark companion variant (PHB2) makes Hex4 quite enticing.
Blue23
12-25-06, 02:22 PM If you're going for high melee damage through strength, how about a level of Exotic Weapon Master (CW) for the Uncanny Blow stunt. Takes 2 of your sparse feats (EWP + WF), but it gives you *2 Str damage instead of *1.5. With the 48 Strength mentioned before, that's 11 HP extra per hit.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)
Telemon_Ajax
12-25-06, 02:23 PM Isn't 4th level when the Hexblade gets spells? You kinda need spells for Dragon Disciple...
bahamuthian guard
12-25-06, 03:46 PM hmm dragon disciple,
I think its a pretty funny prestige class becouse it gives you allot of stat boosts. since i dont know on wich lvl your going to start playing but if this lvl is pretty high I like the idea of getting a tremendous ammount of str, and a real cool munchkin factor. make your race stonechild/halfdragon(stonechild is from races of stone) the cool thing about stonechild is that it already gives you a +8 on str so does the halfdragon template. that makes a +16 without gear and lvls. but now i hear everybody shouting cant be done becouse your already a dragon type so you cant enter dragon disciple, but you can becouse stonechild is a outsider so its creature type does not change. so you can actually, after 10 lvls dragon disciple be two dragon types at the same time. this makes for an extreme ammount of str. and if you stil have some lvls to spare go something like reaping mouler and focus on the grapple ;)
Endarire
12-25-06, 09:33 PM Dragon disciple10 disqualifying you for the class is a sample of bad editing.

-EE
FallFromGrace
12-25-06, 09:43 PM hmm dragon disciple,
I think its a pretty funny prestige class becouse it gives you allot of stat boosts. since i dont know on wich lvl your going to start playing but if this lvl is pretty high I like the idea of getting a tremendous ammount of str, and a real cool munchkin factor. make your race stonechild/halfdragon(stonechild is from races of stone) the cool thing about stonechild is that it already gives you a +8 on str so does the halfdragon template. that makes a +16 without gear and lvls. but now i hear everybody shouting cant be done becouse your already a dragon type so you cant enter dragon disciple, but you can becouse stonechild is a outsider so its creature type does not change. so you can actually, after 10 lvls dragon disciple be two dragon types at the same time. this makes for an extreme ammount of str. and if you stil have some lvls to spare go something like reaping mouler and focus on the grapple ;)
Are outsiders considered "living creatures" for the purpose of templates?

:)
JulesCARV
12-25-06, 10:47 PM Being a half-orc hexblade 3/duskblade 1, of course, would lead to experience penalties, and lead to some MAD (requiring intelligence of 10 or higher). Charisma, of course, could be dumped, making Arcane Resistance obsolete. At this point, I'm thinking that Duskblade 4, or even Duskblade 5 (for level 2 spells), is the best bet.

Maybe switch race from half-orc to full-orc, to get rid of the half-orc paragon levels?

Maybe Barbarian 2/Duskblade 5/Orc Paragon 3/Dragon Disciple 10?
PhoenixInferno
12-25-06, 11:24 PM No way! Go Hexblade - with the Dark Companion alternate class feature (PHBII) you get a much better flanking partner than your familiar was likely to be.
neilthrun
12-25-06, 11:31 PM I don't want to hijack the thread, but if you had the choice would you use the 3.0 or 3.5 dragon disciple. 3.0 gets large size, but 3.5 gets d12 hd for all 10 levels.
JulesCARV
12-26-06, 11:48 AM I'm going with the 3.5 Dragon Disciple.
bahamuthian guard
12-26-06, 01:27 PM Are outsiders considered "living creatures" for the purpose of templates?

:)

jup they are:D
Wyrd
12-31-06, 08:26 AM You could go the divine way :)

Start with Sorcerer (or duskblade or whatever non-preparing class) 1 / Cleric 5 (or Favored Soul 6).

The point is that the bonus spells don't have to be arcane ;) ... its always nice to have lots of mid-level spells. Alternate DD and cleric levels to get the most out of your 3rd, 4th and higher level spells. If you start at high level, get the maximum cleric level you can before you get into DD.
Tleilaxu_Ghola
12-31-06, 02:02 PM Drop cleave and great cleave.

I would replace Orc Paragon with Blackguard 3 and pump more points into Cha. This will net you vastly better saves, a few second level spells, and Rebuke Undead which you will now want to burn for Divine Might for big charge attacks. Improved Flyby might be a nice idea too if you have a reach weapon.
You know... actually I've just had some really great experiences with cleave and great cleave. Mixed with reach and a crowd of low CR creatures and it's a bucket of fun!

Encounters tend to come in two flavors: 1 big scary BBEG and a bunch of low level minions, or a small group of mid-level minions. If you can crank your damage high enough (as this uber STR build probably can), cleave starts kickin' in pretty well. It just takes a little planning and careful placement.
Tleilaxu_Ghola
12-31-06, 02:03 PM No way! Go Hexblade - with the Dark Companion alternate class feature (PHBII) you get a much better flanking partner than your familiar was likely to be.
Wait a sec... I thought it specifically said you couldn't flank with your dark companion... can someone verify that?
vylikas
12-31-06, 02:17 PM A dark companion can't create flanking situations, nor does it provoke attack of opportunities from movement, because enemies immediately recognize it as an illusion.

-Page 47, Player's Handbook II
PhoenixInferno
12-31-06, 02:23 PM Wait a sec... I thought it specifically said you couldn't flank with your dark companion... can someone verify that?Yeah, you're right - no flanking. But it does the same thing, roughly.
Tleilaxu_Ghola
12-31-06, 02:23 PM -Page 47, Player's Handbook II
Yeah, that's what I thought. Good to see my memory is in working order.
vylikas
12-31-06, 02:28 PM Yeah, you're right - no flanking. But it does the same thing, roughly.

No sneak attack
Surreal
12-31-06, 02:43 PM You know... actually I've just had some really great experiences with cleave and great cleave. Mixed with reach and a crowd of low CR creatures and it's a bucket of fun!

Encounters tend to come in two flavors: 1 big scary BBEG and a bunch of low level minions, or a small group of mid-level minions. If you can crank your damage high enough (as this uber STR build probably can), cleave starts kickin' in pretty well. It just takes a little planning and careful placement.

True, though cleave can trigger with reasonable regularity, I find great cleave too situational to be worth the feat. But like you said, if you tend to face a lot of low CR mooks and don't have a blaster on your party, great cleave may be worthwhile. I've seen interesting things with cleave/great cleave mixed in with Warmind 5 (sweeping strike) though.
PhaedrusXY
12-31-06, 03:06 PM If you had Wraithstrike and Power Attack in a Dragon Disciple build with Shock Trooper... that Great Cleave might come in pretty handy. :D Just call him The Bowling Ball.
Endarire
12-31-06, 03:37 PM Dragon disciple is a nice cap to ur-priest.

-EE
PhoenixInferno
12-31-06, 04:21 PM Something snarky.
androcles
12-31-06, 04:29 PM Something snarky.

THREE CHEERS FOR SNARKY-NESS!!!!!!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JulesCARV 12-24-06, 02:18 AM	I've wanted to play a dragon disciple for a while. I'm trying to come up with a build that makes them useful. Here's my latest attempt. Race: half-orc Class progression: hexblade 4/half-orc paragon 3/orc paragon 3/dragon disciple 10 Feats: 1. Power Attack 3. Cleave 6. Improved Bull Rush 9. Shock Trooper 12. Improved Initiative 15. Extra Rage 18. Great Cleave Strength as high as possible while allowing for reasonable dexterity and constitution. Charisma should be 12 at least. Intelligence and wisdom are basically irrelevant.
Surreal 12-24-06, 05:05 AM	Drop cleave and great cleave. I would replace Orc Paragon with Blackguard 3 and pump more points into Cha. This will net you vastly better saves, a few second level spells, and Rebuke Undead which you will now want to burn for Divine Might for big charge attacks. Improved Flyby might be a nice idea too if you have a reach weapon.
ChristopherGroves 12-24-06, 09:24 AM	Blackguard has 2 feats as entry requirements and you're kinda feat starved already. One of the variant paladins may work ... so that if you drop Cleave and Great Cleave you can pick up Divine Might and then something else. I'd probably do STR>CON or CHA>DEX>INT>WIS
WombleHunter 12-24-06, 11:04 AM	Heh, assuming you start out with an 18 in Strength, with all your racial modifiers, +5 from levels, +5 from a tome, and +6 from a Belt, you've got Strength 48. That's MORE than a Great Red Wyrm. Nice. It's just a shame you have to wait so long for the Disciple transformation to kick in. Why not try and get Improved Sunder and Combat Brute in there too? Drop Cleave and Great Cleave, as mentioned. You could also use Duskblade 4, or Hexblade 3/Duskblade 1, for the lead-in.
Trix_Dracos 12-24-06, 05:46 PM	Based on my understanding of your feats, you want a high damage melee combatant and you want to utilize the extra strength from the dragon disciple prestige class. If the spells are not important, I would suggest using the half dragon racial progression in the Races of the Dragon supplement. With this racial progression, you get all the half dragon racial atributes that Dragon Disciple gives you, but you get the benefits in three levels. If the spells are important, use the racial progression and increase your caster class. Trix_Dracos
jstorrie 12-24-06, 07:01 PM	The best way to do Dragon Disciple, in my opinion, is to add it to a prestige class that has its own spellcasting progression, so you can pick up more of the capstone spells. For example, you could do a Hexblade 4 / Fighter 2 / Barbarian 1 / Divine Crusader 10 / Dragon Disciple, or a Barbarian 1 / Hexblade 4 / Pious Templar 8 / Dragon Disciple. This sort of thing doesn't really kick in until the high levels, though.
DaveTheMagicWeasel 12-24-06, 07:30 PM	Imho, you really want to get 2nd leve spells before entering Dragon Disciple, that way you can use all the bonus slots for more uses of Wraithstrike. Abjurant Champion is the greatest thing to happen to subpar character builds ever: Paladin 4 / Sorcerer 1 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Dragon Disciple 10 Gets BAB +16, CL 16 (3rd level spells), Fort +12, Ref +5, Will +14, Divine Grace, Turn Undead, Swift Abjuration spells, Dragon Disciple bonuses, etc
pflame5000 12-25-06, 01:46 AM	Dragon Disciple is a cool class. I tried to make some attempt at it and ended up using karmic strike. The levels turned out as: Human Hexblade 4 / Fighter 1 / Dragon Disciple 10 / War Hulk 5 (Minitures Handbook) this is based off big hits, high health, and low ac. It seems to work pretty well, but you need a cleric for it.
FriendlyFrog 12-25-06, 12:23 PM	Human Hexblade 4 / Fighter 1 / Dragon Disciple 10 / War Hulk 5 (Minitures Handbook) That build doesn't qualify for War hulk, which requires large size. My favourite Dragon disciple build is Paladin 4/Fighter 2/Dragon devotee 4/Dragon disciple 10. It's not that bad at all, makes a great tank with some extra tricks up his sleeves.
Eela6 12-25-06, 01:50 PM	I'd eliminate the fourth level of Hexblade entirely, picking up a level of Duskblade instead. Summon Familiar is dead weight, and a level of Duskblade gives you the Arcane Casting you need while preserving your BAB - and more importantly, gives a badly-needed +1 to will saves and +2 to fortitude saves over the previous build. Alternatively, you could go Hex2/Duskblade1/Barbarian 1 to pick up rage, or drop Hexblade entirely [though Arcane Resistance is such a nice ability it's a shame to miss.]
Surreal 12-25-06, 02:21 PM	But the dark companion variant (PHB2) makes Hex4 quite enticing.
Blue23 12-25-06, 02:22 PM	If you're going for high melee damage through strength, how about a level of Exotic Weapon Master (CW) for the Uncanny Blow stunt. Takes 2 of your sparse feats (EWP + WF), but it gives you 2 Str damage instead of 1.5. With the 48 Strength mentioned before, that's 11 HP extra per hit. Cheers, =Blue(23)
Telemon_Ajax 12-25-06, 02:23 PM	Isn't 4th level when the Hexblade gets spells? You kinda need spells for Dragon Disciple...
bahamuthian guard 12-25-06, 03:46 PM	hmm dragon disciple, I think its a pretty funny prestige class becouse it gives you allot of stat boosts. since i dont know on wich lvl your going to start playing but if this lvl is pretty high I like the idea of getting a tremendous ammount of str, and a real cool munchkin factor. make your race stonechild/halfdragon(stonechild is from races of stone) the cool thing about stonechild is that it already gives you a +8 on str so does the halfdragon template. that makes a +16 without gear and lvls. but now i hear everybody shouting cant be done becouse your already a dragon type so you cant enter dragon disciple, but you can becouse stonechild is a outsider so its creature type does not change. so you can actually, after 10 lvls dragon disciple be two dragon types at the same time. this makes for an extreme ammount of str. and if you stil have some lvls to spare go something like reaping mouler and focus on the grapple ;)
Endarire 12-25-06, 09:33 PM	Dragon disciple10 disqualifying you for the class is a sample of bad editing. -EE
FallFromGrace 12-25-06, 09:43 PM	hmm dragon disciple, I think its a pretty funny prestige class becouse it gives you allot of stat boosts. since i dont know on wich lvl your going to start playing but if this lvl is pretty high I like the idea of getting a tremendous ammount of str, and a real cool munchkin factor. make your race stonechild/halfdragon(stonechild is from races of stone) the cool thing about stonechild is that it already gives you a +8 on str so does the halfdragon template. that makes a +16 without gear and lvls. but now i hear everybody shouting cant be done becouse your already a dragon type so you cant enter dragon disciple, but you can becouse stonechild is a outsider so its creature type does not change. so you can actually, after 10 lvls dragon disciple be two dragon types at the same time. this makes for an extreme ammount of str. and if you stil have some lvls to spare go something like reaping mouler and focus on the grapple ;) Are outsiders considered "living creatures" for the purpose of templates? :)
JulesCARV 12-25-06, 10:47 PM	Being a half-orc hexblade 3/duskblade 1, of course, would lead to experience penalties, and lead to some MAD (requiring intelligence of 10 or higher). Charisma, of course, could be dumped, making Arcane Resistance obsolete. At this point, I'm thinking that Duskblade 4, or even Duskblade 5 (for level 2 spells), is the best bet. Maybe switch race from half-orc to full-orc, to get rid of the half-orc paragon levels? Maybe Barbarian 2/Duskblade 5/Orc Paragon 3/Dragon Disciple 10?
PhoenixInferno 12-25-06, 11:24 PM	No way! Go Hexblade - with the Dark Companion alternate class feature (PHBII) you get a much better flanking partner than your familiar was likely to be.
neilthrun 12-25-06, 11:31 PM	I don't want to hijack the thread, but if you had the choice would you use the 3.0 or 3.5 dragon disciple. 3.0 gets large size, but 3.5 gets d12 hd for all 10 levels.
JulesCARV 12-26-06, 11:48 AM	I'm going with the 3.5 Dragon Disciple.
bahamuthian guard 12-26-06, 01:27 PM	Are outsiders considered "living creatures" for the purpose of templates? :) jup they are:D
Wyrd 12-31-06, 08:26 AM	You could go the divine way :) Start with Sorcerer (or duskblade or whatever non-preparing class) 1 / Cleric 5 (or Favored Soul 6). The point is that the bonus spells don't have to be arcane ;) ... its always nice to have lots of mid-level spells. Alternate DD and cleric levels to get the most out of your 3rd, 4th and higher level spells. If you start at high level, get the maximum cleric level you can before you get into DD.
Tleilaxu_Ghola 12-31-06, 02:02 PM	Drop cleave and great cleave. I would replace Orc Paragon with Blackguard 3 and pump more points into Cha. This will net you vastly better saves, a few second level spells, and Rebuke Undead which you will now want to burn for Divine Might for big charge attacks. Improved Flyby might be a nice idea too if you have a reach weapon. You know... actually I've just had some really great experiences with cleave and great cleave. Mixed with reach and a crowd of low CR creatures and it's a bucket of fun! Encounters tend to come in two flavors: 1 big scary BBEG and a bunch of low level minions, or a small group of mid-level minions. If you can crank your damage high enough (as this uber STR build probably can), cleave starts kickin' in pretty well. It just takes a little planning and careful placement.
Tleilaxu_Ghola 12-31-06, 02:03 PM	No way! Go Hexblade - with the Dark Companion alternate class feature (PHBII) you get a much better flanking partner than your familiar was likely to be. Wait a sec... I thought it specifically said you couldn't flank with your dark companion... can someone verify that?
vylikas 12-31-06, 02:17 PM	A dark companion can't create flanking situations, nor does it provoke attack of opportunities from movement, because enemies immediately recognize it as an illusion. -Page 47, Player's Handbook II
PhoenixInferno 12-31-06, 02:23 PM	Wait a sec... I thought it specifically said you couldn't flank with your dark companion... can someone verify that?Yeah, you're right - no flanking. But it does the same thing, roughly.
Tleilaxu_Ghola 12-31-06, 02:23 PM	-Page 47, Player's Handbook II Yeah, that's what I thought. Good to see my memory is in working order.
vylikas 12-31-06, 02:28 PM	Yeah, you're right - no flanking. But it does the same thing, roughly. No sneak attack
Surreal 12-31-06, 02:43 PM	You know... actually I've just had some really great experiences with cleave and great cleave. Mixed with reach and a crowd of low CR creatures and it's a bucket of fun! Encounters tend to come in two flavors: 1 big scary BBEG and a bunch of low level minions, or a small group of mid-level minions. If you can crank your damage high enough (as this uber STR build probably can), cleave starts kickin' in pretty well. It just takes a little planning and careful placement. True, though cleave can trigger with reasonable regularity, I find great cleave too situational to be worth the feat. But like you said, if you tend to face a lot of low CR mooks and don't have a blaster on your party, great cleave may be worthwhile. I've seen interesting things with cleave/great cleave mixed in with Warmind 5 (sweeping strike) though.
PhaedrusXY 12-31-06, 03:06 PM	If you had Wraithstrike and Power Attack in a Dragon Disciple build with Shock Trooper... that Great Cleave might come in pretty handy. :D Just call him The Bowling Ball.
Endarire 12-31-06, 03:37 PM	Dragon disciple is a nice cap to ur-priest. -EE
PhoenixInferno 12-31-06, 04:21 PM	Something snarky.
androcles 12-31-06, 04:29 PM	Something snarky. THREE CHEERS FOR SNARKY-NESS!!!!!!