The idea is to create a balanced system where all players would play as dragons, without using shoddy mechanics like level adjustment. Obviously it is based on Dungeons and Dragons 3.5
Here are the rules i have created so far. Please discuss their virtue, and if you are good at those things look free to look for loopholes that would break them by making one character much more powerful than the others
And all those who just want to have some fun are free to just build any character they like if he follows these rules.
All characters start with 25 hit dice.
All characters belong to a dragon race of their choice. They start out as either Young Adults or Adults, depending on their choice. That determines their racial hit dice, the other hit dice are filled with class levels. Players might not play as any dragon race that has a higher challenge rating than a Gold Dragon of their age category.
Note that characters can NOT take any epic feats, unless they have more than 20 character levels or their age category advances to old.
Dragons can advance an age category by a special ritual. This ritual requires that the dragon has a certain amount of treasure (yet to be determined). In effect, the dragon buys "dragon levels" to make up the difference between his current racial HD and his new racial HD.
For example, an Adult Gold Dragon (23 racial HD) with 5 character levels wants to advance into the Mature Adult Age Category (26 racial HD). To do this, he needs the XP he would need to advance to character level 8. For purposes of XP-determination (yet to be determined) and such, he would then count as an 8th-level character.
Dragons are not bound by their natural alignment and can be of any alignment of the players choice. Alignment-restrictions due to class still affect dragons, and if any template changes their alignment it still applies.
Dragons also get the alternate form ability, but only dragons that receive it naturally can take more than one humanoid form.
Dragon races of lower challenge rating than a gold wyrm of their age category can take a template to fill the gap. For example, if you are an adult copper dragon (CR 14) instead of an adult gold dragon (CR 16), you can take any template that adds +2 challenge rating. You can take no more than one template and templates are subject to the gms discretion.
All Dragons can take a Draconic Archetype (inspired by Dragons of Eberron):
A Dragon that takes an Draconic Archetype looses the ability to cast Cleric and Domain spells as Arcane spells. An Arcane Archetype will grant several of the following things:
- The Dragon might gain skills to his class list. This only affects his racial hit die, not any class levels he has.
- The Dragon might gain one or more feats.
- The Dragon might gain bonus feats depending on his caster level. Only caster levels gained from his age category count, if they are advanced by some other means he does not gain further bonus feats.
- The Dragon might gain a class ability, as if he had levels in that class equal to his caster level. Only Caster levels gained from his age category count, if they are advanced by some other means his archetype-abilities will not improve. The Dragon can take alternate class levels that relate to this ability (for example a Dragon could replace his Rage archetype-ability with Berserker Strenght for PHB2 as if he were a barbarian). Prestige classes and feats interact with this ability normally
- The Dragon might gain the ability to learn spells of a certain class or domain. For example, an archetype might grant the ability to learn Ranger-spells or spells of the Water-domain. Those spells count against his known Sorcerer-spells and are cast as arcane spells. This works like the normal dragon ability to cast Cleric- and Domain-spells.
- The Dragon might replace his ability to cast spells as a Sorcerer with the ability to cast spells as some other type of class. His Caster Level remains unaffected by this. His spellcasting works as if he were a member of the class that replaced his Sorcerer-casting, including bonus-spells from attributes, known spells and spell preparation and whether he is an arcane or divine caster. This also qualifies him for prestige classes. Like his normal spellcasting ability, the dragon does not require material components, but foci are still required.
Dragons might take one of the following archetypes:
Keeper of the Voice: Gain Bluff, Diplomacy and Perform as class skills. Gain Bardic Music as an archetype-ability. Add Bard spells to spell list.
Wyrm of War): The Dragon is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all armor and shields (note that armor suffers from increased cost based on size like barding and that you can not fly in armor heavier than light without feats). The Dragon gains one bonus feat for every three caster-levels he has, chosen from the fighter bonus feat list or from dragon-specific combat-related feats. The Dragon can select maneuvers and stances from one school from Tome of Battle, counting his natural caster level as his initiator level. To learn a maneuver or stance he has to sacrifice a natural spell slot of the same level. He regains his maneuvers like a Warblade. Maneuvers that refer to weapons can be used with either the dragons bite or his claws. The Dragon can also ignore any arcane spell failure chance from light armor as long as he is in his natural form, this can be improved as if it was received from being a bard or similar class.
Loredrake: Gain Spellcraft as a class skill. Replace Sorcerer-casting with Wizard-casting.
Primal Drake: Gain Handle Animal and Survival as class skills. Learn to speak Druidic. Gain Wild Empathy as an archetype-ability. Add Druid spells to spell list.
Lightkeeper: Gain Turn Undead as an archetype-ability. Replace Sorcerer-casting with Cleric-casting. Gain one Cleric domain of your choice, including it's domain effects.
Flame of the Forge: Gain Appraise, Craft, Profession and Use Magic Device as class skills. Gain Item Creation and Retain Essence (like an Artificer) as archetype-abilities. Gain a bonus feat for every four caster levels, chosen from Item Creation feats.
Wyrm of Rage: Gain Jump as Class Skill. Gain Barbarian Rage as an archetype-ability. The Dragon can select maneuvers and stances from one school from Tome of Battle, counting his natural caster level as his initiator level. To learn a maneuver or stance he has to sacrifice a natural spell slot of the same level. He regains his maneuvers like a Warblade. Maneuvers that refer to weapons can be used with either the dragons bite or his claws.
Stalking Wyrm: Gain Hide, Move Silently and Survival as Class Skills. Gain Track as a bonus feat. Gain Rangers Favored enemy as an archetype-ability. Add Ranger-spells to spell list, add Air, Animal and Earth domain to spell list.
Dragons automatically qualify for any feat, class etc. that requires any draconic heritage feat, sorcerer levels or similar ability (GMs call).
Dragons may NOT take any prestige class has it's own spell list (as opposed to advancing their spellcasting) if that spell list does not start with 1st-level spells. For example, a Dragon might take the Assassin prestige class, but not the Sublime Chord Prestige class.
All characters start with 80000 GP of wealth. All dragons must have a hoard of treasure (in the form of coin, gems or art and trade objects) equal or greater to the total worth of their equipment (weapons, armor and magic items). This rule also applies at character creation (so the dragon can only spend 40000 gp on items). If a dragon ever has less treasure than magic items, he can not buy any more magic items. If his magic items have more than twice the value of his treasure, he must sell his magic items if he is offered at least market value until the situation is rectified.
Dragons can not take the Vow of Poverty
Kobolds do NOT count as True Dragons, and thus can not be played in this campaign
