Post/Author/DateTime	Post
bloatedfirebreathingpengu 11-29-07, 11:18 PM	My friend and I are interested in playing older dragons, although we might never get around to it, and I was wondering what the ECL of any of the higher age categories might be. Any links, answers, or tips to figuring it out myself would be greatly appreciated.
bahamut920 11-30-07, 12:49 AM	Epic. Easily. Combining racial HD with LA on some of the juvenile and young adult dragons puts you up near 15 or 16, any higher and you'd be ECL 20+. Keep in mind that a dragon's HD increase quite a bit each age category; that, more than the LA, is what kills you (and the LA is pretty significant, too). Also, playing a full-grown dragon really limits your options. Despite dragons having effective sorc levels, even with class levels in sorcerer, you won't be able to pull off a dedicated caster build. In fact, I think you'd be limited to fighter or barbarian with those few non-epic class levels you have (you might be able to pull off a ToB build as well, those don't stress your class levels as much, and can synergy OK with most other levels/racial HD). Honestly, I'd suggest not playing true dragons unless it's a true dragon campaign ('cause then everyone else is doing it too, and it isn't so bad of a nightmare for the DM).
runestar 11-30-07, 01:00 AM	The epic leadership feat in the SRD has the ECLs of older dragons (a few), so you could try interpolating/extrapolating them. As a general thumb of rule, it works out to roughly +1LA every 2 age categories, IIRC.
bloatedfirebreathingpengu 11-30-07, 01:08 AM	Thanks very much. I kind of figured the ECL would be huge, but I'll try to convince the DM anyways. Or I could just play a psuedodragon.:D
Derren S. 11-30-07, 07:49 AM	Its best to only play (older) dragons as PCs when everyone in the group does it for example in a Council of Wyrms like campaign. ECL characters will never be balanced with normal PHb characters (most of the time weaker, the higher the ECL get).
Tedronai 11-30-07, 08:05 AM	Its best to only play (older) dragons as PCs when everyone in the group does it for example in a Council of Wyrms like campaign. ECL characters will never be balanced with normal PHb characters (most of the time weaker, the higher the ECL get). And since the ECL system was designed to keep such characters IN LINE with the common races, this just proves that they went a little overboard in judging the value of such abilities (as demonstrated by a distinctive increase in the frequency of 'powerful' templates and playable races in later books, such as the Shadow Creature or Lolth-Touched templates)
Keaerin 11-30-07, 01:29 PM	I must be having a brain fart what is SRD?
bloatedfirebreathingpengu 11-30-07, 02:45 PM	System Reference Document
Derren S. 12-03-07, 04:40 AM	And since the ECL system was designed to keep such characters IN LINE with the common races, this just proves that they went a little overboard in judging the value of such abilities (as demonstrated by a distinctive increase in the frequency of 'powerful' templates and playable races in later books, such as the Shadow Creature or Lolth-Touched templates) Imo the EClsystem wasn't only made to keep monsterous characters "in line" but also to make traditional PC races "more attractive".