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This was inspired by the SDN-Dragons-thread.
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

Shouldn't you be able to have magic items in your horde of treasure? What's a dragon going to do with a +3 short sword, except horde it?

Feil wrote:Shouldn't you be able to have magic items in your horde of treasure? What's a dragon going to do with a +3 short sword, except horde it?

Well, the Draconomicon says that magic items only count half when dragons compare their hoards, so this rule is supposed to reflect that.
Also, there are very few items a dragon can not use at all. Even a +3 Sword has potential uses, since all dragons under these rules can transform into humanoids, and there are ways to make them quite capable in that form to boot.
I wanted to represent the draconic tendency to hoard treasure somehow, but if i don't limit it like this almost all of that treasure will consist of magic items, not of huge piles of gold, gems and artwork like a proper dragon hoard.


Which reminds me, yet another rule:

All Dragons have the Alternate Form feat from Dragons of Eberron:

ALTERNATE FORM
You have unlocked the power to move unseen within the human world.
Benefit: You gain the alternate form supernatural ability (Medium or smaller animal or humanoid only) and can use it three times per day. If you already have the alternate form ability, you gain access to the alternate forms given in parentheses above and can use the ability three additional times per day.

They automatically qualify for the following feats:

HALF-DRAGON FORM
You can assume a half-dragon form, allowing you to retain some of the physical prowess of your true form while still being able to move among humans.
Benefit: You can expend a use of your alternate form ability to take the form of a Medium or smaller humanoid with the half-dragon template. You also gain the following abilities:
• +4 natural armor.
• Size: based on humanoid kind.
• Natural weapons: two claws (1d4 for a Medium creature, 1d3 for Small) and one bite (1d6 for a Medium creature, 1d4 for Small).
• Breath weapon: You can use your usual breath weapon. However, the area of the effect is determined as if you were a dragon of your current size, and damage is limited to a maximum of 12 dice.
• Physical abilities are set to Strength 18, Dexterity 10, Constitution 12. These are modified by the standard racial modifiers of the apparent race.
Normal: The alternate form ability cannot be used to take the shape of templated creatures.

HIDDEN STRENGTH
When you assume a humanoid form, you retain some of your draconic strength.
Benefit: When using alternate form, you receive up to a +8 bonus to Strength and a +4 bonus to Constitution; these bonuses cannot provide you with a Strength or Constitution score greater than what you possess in dragon form.
Normal: When a dragon is in an alternate form, its physical ability scores are average for its shape.

I don't... mind these rules, though I'm kinda wondering why the rule regarding total number of HD is necessary, honestly. If I were to run a SDN-Dragons game, I'd want a disparity in power levels that forces people to bargain with Q for power (hint, people: you can offer things to Q that aren't just statistics, which he honestly finds quite boring) or play things differently (less "magic and powah is the answer to everything" vs. learning to leverage the power you do have).

Why are you using D&D 3.5 for this? I can think of a number of different systems all much more suited for playing a dragon that also aren't mechanically nightmares.

Bakustra wrote:Why are you using D&D 3.5 for this? I can think of a number of different systems all much more suited for playing a dragon that also aren't mechanically nightmares.

I started the RAR using D&D dragons because, honestly, they're the type I'm most familiar with in a game system and I like the way that they're presented. It snowballed from there.

Forgothrax wrote:

Bakustra wrote:Why are you using D&D 3.5 for this? I can think of a number of different systems all much more suited for playing a dragon that also aren't mechanically nightmares.

I started the RAR using D&D dragons because, honestly, they're the type I'm most familiar with in a game system and I like the way that they're presented. It snowballed from there.

I'm talking about the rules system though- all the fluff or whatever for the thirty, forty types of dragon D&D has accumulated over the years can be used regardless of system, essentially.

I agree, as someone who never got into 3.5, I can say trying to follow what's been going on in that thread has been a nightmare, so confusing D:

(Of course I don't have a leg to stand on being an Exalted player, but hey, for the games I play in we slim down the rules dramatically to cope!)

We could probably do it a lot better in GURPs or Mutants & Masterminds or other such games much easier.

Forgothrax wrote:I don't... mind these rules, though I'm kinda wondering why the rule regarding total number of HD is necessary, honestly. If I were to run a SDN-Dragons game, I'd want a disparity in power levels that forces people to bargain with Q for power (hint, people: you can offer things to Q that aren't just statistics, which he honestly finds quite boring) or play things differently (less "magic and powah is the answer to everything" vs. learning to leverage the power you do have).

The rules weren't really intended for the RAR - it just gave me the idea of a D&D-group composed solely out of dragon player characters. I then looked into the rules, and while the standard rules provide ways to play very young dragons, that's only possible via the ever-so-annoying level adjustment system, and i was looking for an alternative. Hence, this.

I suppose one could simply alter the HD-allowance and the age groups of the dragons, though the balance would be quite difference at the low end of the age spectrum (since you wouldn't loose caster levels from getting younger at that point).

I don't like D&D very much myself, but it's probably muuuuch easier to get players for it than for other games, simply because so many people play it.

Serafina, regarding hordes (which is pretty much the only part of the above that I really understand, not being very knowledgeable about D&D), what if you just say that magic items in the horde simply don't count? That way if somebody wants to keep a +4 vorpal sword of snickersnacking on top of their huge pile of gold, they can do so, but they can add it to their actual inventory only if their horde is big enough? Obviously you don't want people using their horde as an extension of their inventory, but there are plenty of ways that a DM can enforce that easily enough without resorting to strict limits. After all, if /you/ can teleport in and out of your horde at will, what's to say that some horrible /adventurers/ can't do the same, and MAKE OFF WITH YOUR HARD-STOLEN TREASURE!

Speaking of not understanding it, maybe you should make some quick-play rules that would enable somebody to play without any resources and understanding but the player's handbook. So that somebody could put together a basic 0-level dragon using only information available from your post, then take however many character levels they're supposed to take in their chosen class. I know that for a lot of people, part of the fun of an rpg - especially one as hugely sourcebooked as 3.5 - is putting together characters from a dozen esoteric sources. But for every 3.5 expert, there are probably thirty people who have played 3.5 a handful of times, and don't have any knowledge beyond the standard warrior/caster/rogue, but might still be interested in burninating the countryside.