Class Articles: The Dragonfire Adept Conclusion

Section 7: Conclusion

And that's it for the Dragonfire Adept! There's probably more combos and items you could find if you dig around some of the books, but this should be more than enough to get you started on your first Dragonfire Adept. To reiterate, it's a solid class that's effective without being cheesy or broken, and it excels in debuffing enemies, socializing, and miscellaneous utility.

Next time: the Totemist, from Magic of Incarnum. But first, an introduction to Incarnum...

Class Articles: The Dragonfire Adept Part 6

Section 6: Sample Builds

Here are a few sample Dragonfire Adept builds:

The Debuffer:

This build primarily aims to debuff enemies, but since its Charisma is high it can also do some utility with Wands/Scrolls.

Stat Priority, from Highest to Lowest: Charisma, Constitution, Intelligence, Dexterity, Wisdom, Strength

Equipment to shoot for: Charisma boosting items, Constitution boosting items, Wands of Blur, Blinding Breath, Twilight Mithril Chainshirt, items that improve flight maneuverability

Race: Dragonborn Gnome, for +4 to Constitution, Small size, and no penalties to Charisma. I recommend taking the Wings aspect.

Build at Level 6:

Feats:

Level 1: Entangling Exhalation

Level 3: Draconic Aura (Energy (Fire))

Level 6: Ability Focus (Breath Weapon)

Invocations:

Endure Exposure

See the Unseen or Magic Insight

Frightful Presence (render enemies Shaken: -2 to attack rolls, saves, skill checks, ability checks)

Breath Effects:

Sickening Breath

Slow Breath

Priority Skills:

Use Magic Device

Bluff/Intimidate/Diplomacy

Concentration

Tactics:

Hit enemies with Frightful Presence to lower their saves, then hit them with Entangling Exhalation, then with either Sickening or Slow Breath. Switch back and forth between the 3 debuffs as desired. Ability Focus and Draconic Aura (Energy (Fire)) gives you a +3 bonus to the Save DC of your breath weapon. Endure Exposure means you won't hit your allies with your debuffs, See the Unseen will let you do a bit of scouting, and Magic Insight lets you detect magic and Identify stuff. Ranks in Bluff/Intimidate/Diplomacy means you have something to do outside of combat.

Later levels:

As you level up, put points into Charisma and buy wands to taste—debuffing wands if you need more debuff, utility wands if not. Continue to put skill points into Use Magic Device, the Social skills, and Concentration; if you have any left over, put them into the Knowledge Skills, prioritizing Arcana, Nature, Local, Religion, and Planes in no particular order.

Later Invocations should include; Voracious Dispelling, Chilling Fog, Terrifying Roar, Instill Vulnerability. Combined with earlier and later Breath Effects and Entangling Exhalation, this will give a large variety of debuffs to cast—not just for variety's sake, but also allowing you to tailor your debuffs to a given situation. Enemies with good Reflex saves and Evasion can completely negate your breath weapon-based debuffs; for these enemies, try weakening their saves with Terrifying Roar first, or prevent them from moving with Chilling Fog. If you're up against an enemy with lots of magical buffs, you can use Voracious Dispelling to strip them away.

Later Breath Effects should include; Weakening Breath or Sleep Breath, Force Breath (I can't recommend Paralyzing breath: unlike Weakening, Slow, and Sickening breath, Paralyzing is completely negated if the enemy makes the saving throw. Plus, at later levels more enemies start to become immune to Paralysis.)

Later Feats should include;...actually, there aren't any must-have feats I can think of. You could grab Ability Focus for some of your Invocations, or get more Draconic Auras. Steady Concentration (Races of Stone) does let you take 10 on Concentration checks, which will let you cast Invocations defensively all the time (remember that you can cast spell-like abilities defensively), so that might be useful.

The Socializer:

This build is designed to do very well in social encounters, where Bluff, Diplomacy, and/or Intimidate is needed. It can also do some debuffing in combat, and utility with wands/scrolls (though it won't be able to debuff as well as the Debuffer, obviously).

Stat Priority, from Highest to Lowest: Charisma, Intelligence or Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, Strength

Equipment to shoot for: Charisma boosting items, Intelligence or Wisdom boosting items, Wands of Guidance of the Avatar and Glibness, items that give flight

Race: Changeling. Clever use of Disguise goes a long way.

Build at Level 6:

Feats:

Level 1: Entangling Exhalation

Level 3: Whatever

Level 6: Whatever

The Socializer isn't very feat dependent, honestly. Skill Focus on Bluff, Intimidate, Diplomacy, or Use Magic Device is an option.

Invocations:

Beguiling Influence

Endure Exposure or See the Unseen or Magic Insight

Charm

Breath Effects:

Sickening Breath

Slow Breath

Priority Skills:

Bluff/Intimidate/Diplomacy

Use Magic Device

Sense Motive

Tactics: In combat, you will mostly be relegated to the old Entangling Exhalation + Sickening or Slow Breath standby—useful, and reliable. Note, however, that your enemies are more likely to make their saves against your breath weapon since your Constitution won't be as high (not that is matters all that much; now they're debuffed for 1 or 2 rounds instead of 2 or 4). If you're wearing no armor or a Twilight Mithril Chainshirt, you can also spam Charm at enemies to disrupt them. Outside of combat, however, is where you really shine; talk the floor out from under them.

Later levels:

As you level up, put points into Charisma and buy wands that boost your skill checks; Glibness, Guidance of the Avatar. Also consider buying things like Hat of Disguise, which combined with the Changeling ability can really boost your Disguise checks, and in doing so indirectly boost your Bluff/Intimidate/Diplomacy checks. Continue to put skill points into Use Magic Device, the Social skills, and Sense Motive; if you have any left over, put them into Concentration.

Later Invocations should include; Humanoid Shape, Chilling Fog, Baleful Geas, Energy Immunity or Instill Vulnerability. Humanoid Shape lets you gain a lot of the physical attributes of the Humanoid creature you turn into—you don't get things like racial stat boosts, but other things like flight, the ability to breathe water, natural weapons, and land speed are preserved. Check out the Varag race from Monster Manual IV; they have a base land speed of 60 ft. per round, which means if you use the Flight Invocation(s) your flight speed is also 60 ft. Chilling Fog gives you another reliable combat option, and Baleful Geas lets you mind control people.

(Note on Baleful Geas: it's controversial as to whether the casting time for Baleful Geas is 10 minutes or 1 standard action—Invocations are all universally supposed to take 1 standard action to cast, but the spell Baleful Geas takes 10 minutes. Ask your DM about this.)

Later Breath Effects should include; Weakening Breath or Sleep Breath, Force Breath. The old debuffing standbys. See the Debuffer for tactics on how to use these.

Later Feats should include;...yeah, still no essential feats to take. The world is your oyster.

Maximum Firepower:

The Maximum Firepower build is designed to absolutely blow the crap out of stuff with a breath weapon. Despite the sort of damage you can do, it takes a very long time for the build to hit its apex—level 18, to be precise. If your campaign is unlikely to get that high, you may want to give this build a pass.

Stat Priority, from Highest to Lowest: Constitution, Charisma, Intelligence, Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom

Equipment to shoot for: Constitution boosting items, Charisma and Intelligence boosting items, Wands/Scrolls of Blinding Breath, Breath Weapon Admixture, Enervating Breath, Deafening Breath, Dragon Cincture

Race: Dragonborn Dwarf (to avoid the penalty to Intelligence), or Dragonborn Mongrelfolk (for maximum Constitution). Take the Heart aspect for the breath weapon. If you're planning on sticking to this build until at least level 15, you'll also need to be Evil to pick up the Fivefold Breath of Tiamat.

Build at Level 6:

Feats:

Level 1: Entangling Exhalation

Level 3: Quicken Breath

Level 6: Maximize Breath

Invocations:

Endure Exposure

See the Unseen or Magic Insight

Voracious Dispelling or Draconic Flight

Breath Effects:

Frost or Lightning Breath

Sickening Breath or Slow Breath

Priority Skills:

Use Magic Device

Anything else

Tactics: Hit them hard, hit them fast. Try to one-shot as many enemies as possible by hitting them with both your Dragonfire Adept breath weapon and your Dragonborn breath weapon in the same round—you can do this by applying Quicken Breath and Maximize Breath to your Dragonborn breath weapon to use it as a swift action and have it deal full damage rather than Xd8 damage (remember that you can't apply Metabreath Feats like Quicken Breath to your Dragonfire Adept breath weapon). Keep in mind that applying Quicken Breath to your Dragonborn breath weapon adds 4 rounds to its recharge time, and Maximize adds another 3 rounds, for a total of 1d4+7 rounds of recharge time. This basically means you can only use your Dragonborn breath weapon once per combat, so use it wisely, and use it to maximum effect. To help prevent enemies from succeeding on their Reflex saves, feel free to hit them with Sickening or Slow Breath first to lower their saves. You can also use Voracious Dispelling to strip them of any magical defenses they might have like energy resistances. Once you've expended your Dragonborn breath weapon, you'll be relegated back to using Entangling Exhalation + Sickening/Slow Breath.

Later levels:

As you level up, put points into Constitution and buy items that boost your Intelligence (for more skill points to put into Use Magic Device) and/or Charisma (to boost Use Magic Device). Seriously, Use Magic Device will be your most important skill. You also need to pick up Metabreath Spell scrolls and wands to boost your firepower.

Later Invocations should include; Energy Resistance, Chilling Fog, Draconic Toughness, Energy Immunity or Greater Draconic Flight, Instill Vulnerability. Chilling Fog gives you another thing to do after you've expended your Dragonborn breath weapon, while everything else is self-buffs.

Later Breath Effects should include; Weakening Breath or Sleep Breath, Fivefold Breath of Tiamat.

Later Feats should include; Heighten Breath (adds +X to the Save DC on your breath weapon, where X is your Constituton Bonus), Clinging Breath (enemies who take damage from your breath weapon take half that damage again next round), Shape Breath (change Dragonborn breath weapon into a cone), Enlarge Breath (increases length of breath weapon by 50%).

Once you hit Level 20, this is what you do to apply maximum firepower:

As a swift action, use your Dragonborn breath weapon on the enemy, applying the following Metabreath Feats: Quicken Breath, Maximize Breath, Heighten Breath, Heighten Breath (remember that you can apply as many Metabreath effects to a breath weapon as you want, including the same Metabreath effect), Shape Breath, Enlarge Breath, Clinging Breath, Clinging Breath, Clinging Breath. Your Breath Weapon will deal 56 damage in a 150 foot cone pretty much guaranteed unless the enemy has fire resistance, then half of that the next round, then half of that next round, then half of that again next round; 105 damage over the course of 4 rounds.

Then, in the same turn as you use your Dragonborn breath weapon, as a standard action use Use Magic Device on a scroll of Deafening Breath. As part of the casting of the Deafening Breath spell, use your Dragonfire Adept breath weapon with the Fivefold Breath of Tiamat Breath Effect attached. Your breath weapon will do 18d6 acid damage, 9d6 cold damage, 9d6 fire damage, and 45d6 sonic damage, for a total of 90d6 damage (average 225 damage, maximum 360 damage).

With the two breath weapons combined, that's a maximum of 416 damage on any enemy in a 60 ft. line from you (less if they're positioned elsewhere).

(As an aside, your Dragonborn breath weapon will require 1d4 + 14 rounds to recharge.)

This is honestly more of a thought exercise or a silly build than a serious party member for a legitimate campaign—nuking an area for up to 416 damage in a round is hilarious, but you can basically only do it once per combat, and DMs won't like it if you one-shot their monsters. Plus, the build doesn't really get going until you get to the very high levels, which many campaigns don't even get to.

The Scholar:

Knowledge is power, and the Scholar has plenty of it. Rolling high on your Knowledge checks can be very useful, since it lets you pinpoint potential enemy weaknesses (“Hey, everyone! Trolls are weak against fire!”) and give you clues on what you're supposed to do. That said, the Scholar is more of a sub-build that you tack on to a Socializer or Debuffer build to give them more flexibility; just Knowledge checks by themselves don't make for much of a character.

Stat Priority, from Highest to Lowest: Intelligence, Charisma, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, Strength

Equipment to shoot for: Intelligence boosting items, Charisma or Wisdom boosting items, Wands of Guidance of the Avatar, Comprehend Languages, and Locate Object, Dorje of Call to Mind (+4 bonus to a Knowledge check), items that give flight

Race: Gnome.

Build at Level 6:

Feats:

Level 1: Entangling Exhalation

Level 3: Trivial Knowledge

Level 6: Draconic Knowledge

Trivial Knowledge is the reason why you went Gnome, despite the overall silliness of Gnomes—whenever you make a Knowledge (or Bardic Knowledge) check, you roll twice and pick the better result. Meanwhile, Draconic Knowledge gives you a +1 bonus to all Knowledge checks for each Draconic feat you have—Draconinc Knowledge is a Draconic Feat.

Invocations:

Beguiling Influence

Draconic Knowledge

Charm or Endure Exposure

Breath Effects:

Sickening Breath

Slow Breath

Priority Skills:

Knowledge skills, prioritizing Arcana, Nature, Local, Dungeoneering, Planes, Religion

Bluff/Intimidate/Diplomacy

Use Magic Device

Tactics: See tactics for the Socializer build. Remember to make Knowledge checks against enemies!

Later levels:

As you level up, put points into Intelligence, but don't forget to pump your Charisma—you still need to socialize when you're not making Knowledge checks! Buy wands/dorjes that boost your skill checks; Glibness, Guidance of the Avatar, Call to Mind. Continue to put skill points into Use Magic Device, the Social skills, and Knowledge skills.

Later Invocations should include; same as the Socializer.

Later Breath Effects should include; same as the Socializer.

Later Feats should include; possibly more Draconic Feats to bump your Knowledge checks. I suggest grabbing Draconic Resistance and Draconic Skin.

Class Articles: The Dragonfire Adept Part 5

Section 5: What are some of the usual options for the class?

As with any class in D&D 3.5, there are a lot of options out there for Dragonfire Adepts. Here are some of the more obvious feats, class features options, races, and equipment.

Feats:

Entangling Exhalation (Races of the Dragon): very useful for debuffing. There's space for this in just about every Dragonfire Adept build. See the Debuffing part in Section 4 for what this does.

Extra Invocation: You don't get very many Invocations, unfortunately, only 8 by level 20; this gets you more. The caveat is that you have to pick an Invocation of the level below the highest level you can normally pick. So for example, if you're level 6, the highest level of Invocations you can pick is Lesser; therefore, if you take Extra Invocation at level 6, you can only pick Least Invocations.

Draconic Auras: Like the Dragon Shaman's class feature, you generate an aura that gives a small bonus to a thing to all allies within a certain distance from you. It's like being a Dragon Shaman without having to be one, because Dragon Shamans suck!

Steady Concentration: Lets you take 10 on Concentration checks wherever, whenever. This is very useful if you find yourself within melee range of an enemy and you need to cast an Invocation; taking 10 on that Cast Defensively check ensures that you'll never provoke an attack of opportunity ever again for casting Invocations.

Breath Effects:

Frost/Lightning Breath: Can be useful for switching up your fire breath. However, you do only get 1 Breath Effect every 5 levels, so if you're focused on debuffing you might want to save up for something else.

Sickening Breath: -2 penalty on enemies to attack rolls, weapon damage, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks.

Acid Breath: Handy for melting your way through walls and doors. Plus, fewer creatures are resistant to acid than they are to fire/cold/lightning.

Slow Breath: As mentioned in Section 4, Slow Breath is good at level 5 and only gets better. Remember that enemies are still debuffed even if they make the Fortitude save against your breath weapon!

Thunder Breath: Blast walls and doors open—remember that sonic damage ignores object hardness and deals full damage to objects. Also, if only a few enemies resist acid damage, almost no enemies resist sonic damage.

Force Breath: Hit ghosts with your breath weapon. Basically nothing has resistance to force damage.

Fivefold Breath of Tiamat: 45d6 damage at level 20, in the form of a 9d6 fire cone, a 9d6 cold cone, a 9d6 acid line, a 9d6 lightning line, and a 9d6 acid cone. If you're evil, you deal 2x your class level in damage to yourself (4x if you're neutral). If you're good, you can't use this Breath Effect. Powergamers like to use this Breath Effect in conjunction with other stuff to do hilarious amounts of damage.

Invocations:

Aquatic Adaptation: Lets you breathe water, and get a swim speed. If you're in an aquatic campaign, this can be really useful (though a combination of magic items can eventually replicate the effects).

Beguiling Influence: Very useful for a social Dragonfire Adept. Check it out in Section 4.

Draconic Knowledge: If you're going for an Intelligence-based scholar build, this is also very useful. You get a +6 bonus to all Knowledge checks for 24 hours.

Endure Exposure: Practically a must-have for Dragonfire Adepts. Not only does it let you withstand cold and hot weather, people affected by this Invocation are immune to your breath weapon. Friendly fire? What friendly fire?

Magic Insight: Detect Magic and Identify that you can spam. Given that each casting of Identify otherwise costs 100 gp, takes 1 hour to cast, and can be rather pricy as wands (5,375 gp for a wand), it can be worth taking this Invocation to save your party time and money.

See the Unseen: Lets you see Invisibility, and gain Darkvision. Darkvision can be handy, while Invisibility can be fatal to your party if an enemy Rogue is using it.

Charm: You can spam Charm. This is obviously excellent for social Dragonfire Adepts, but as long as your Charisma is high you can also use it on enemies who might otherwise be hard to hit with your breath weapon...like Rogues with Evasion. You look cold, buddy, stand still for a sec while I light a fire...

Energy Resistance: Gain Fire/Cold/Lightning/Acid/Sonic Resistance 10 for 24 hours. Every time you reuse the Invocation, you pick a new energy type. Energy Resistance is quite nice; flexible, spammable Energy Resistance is even better.

Voracious Dispelling: Spam Dispel Magic. Take out buffs, take out magic items, and when you dispel something from an enemy they take damage.

Walk Unseen: Spammable Invisibility. 'Nough said.

Chilling Fog: The one weakness of your Breath Effect debuffs is that an enemy with a good Reflex Save and Evasion can be completely immune to them. This fixes that; plant a Chilling Fog on them, and there is pretty much nothing they can do to about it except prevent you from casting Chilling Fog in the first place. Enemies stuck in Chilling Fog probably won't be getting out any time soon, unless they have a teleport ability that doesn't need line of sight (which is very rare).

Draconic Toughness: Cast it to gain a bunch of Temporary Hitpoints. This plus your potentially high Constitution means you can take a surprisingly large amount of hits, despite otherwise playing like a caster.

Draconic Flight: 24 hour flying. Flying is a HUGE tactical advantage against non-flying melee enemies, and there are a lot of those in D&D. This also means you'll pretty much never need to make another Climb check ever again.

Races:

So, we've seen that the Dragonfire Adept primarily needs Constitution and Charisma, and you can easily build Dragonfire Adepts that need only one or the other. This means that Race isn't quite as critical for Dragonfire Adepts as it is for some other classes, but here are some recommendations:

Dwarf (Player's Handbook): The Constitution bonus is nice, and it's right there in the PHB. The Charisma penalty might hurt, though. Pick this if you want a breath-weapon focused Dragonfire Adept.

Mongrelfolk (Races of Destiny): +4 to Constitution (!), -2 to Intelligence and Charisma, plus some other racial features that let Mongrelfolk mimic other races for activating items, disguising themselves, and some other stuff. You can combine this with...

Dragonborn of Bahamut (Races of the Dragon): ...for a whopping total of +6 (!!) bonus to Constitution, though you also get a -2 penalty to Dexterity. After that, you can pick one of three Aspects (Mind, Heart, Wings) which increase as you gain more HD (aka go up in levels).

(The Dragonborn race is a bit odd; it kind of works like a Template, in that you have to apply it to a creature that's already of another race. Racial bonuses to stats stack, but pretty much everything else from the original race is overridden by the Aspects you have to choose. This means that races that mostly have stat boosts are ideal for Dragonborn; races whose main draws are their special abilities might want to look elsewhere.)

Each Aspect can be pretty handy for a Dragonfire Adept. Mind boosts your Listen and Spot, and eventually gives you Darkvision and Blindsense—handy for scouting and detection. Heart gives you a second breath weapon. Wings give you, well, wings; until 6 HD they only let you glide, but afterwards you can fly for a few rounds a day. At 12 HD, you fly permanently.

Human (Player's Handbook): Can't go wrong with Humans—that extra feat is tasty.

Gnomes (Player's Handbook): Yes, yes, I know that Gnomes are pretty lame. That said, they get a bonus to a stat you care about (Constitution), a penalty to a stat you don't care about (Strength), and some other handy stuff like being Small (makes you slightly harder to hit and more accurate), some racial spell-like abilities, and so forth.

Whisper Gnome (Races of Stone): I recommend the Whisper Gnome not so much because it synergizes all that well with Dragonfire Adepts (Dragonfire Adepts aren't designed for sneaking, while Whisper Gnomes are), but because Whisper Gnomes are just so overpowered as a race. They're Small, so they get bonuses to AC, Hide, and attack rolls; they get even more racial bonuses to Hide and Move Silently; they get +2 to Dexterity and +2 to Constitution (-2 to Strength and -2 to Charisma); despite being Small they still move 30 ft. per round; and they get a smattering of once-per-day spell-like abilities that can be handy. Again, Dragonfire Adepts aren't the best at sneaking, but combined with the brokenness of Whisper Gnomes a stealthy Dragonfire Adept just might work.

Changelings (Eberron Campaign Setting): Changelings are a race from the Eberron campaign setting that has minor shapeshifting abilities; at will, they can basically use the Disguise Self spell on themselves (but not their clothes or possessions). The upshot of this is that it gives a +10 bonus to your disguise check. This is fantastic for social Dragonfire Adepts since clever usage of Disguise can easily give bonuses to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate. Disguise yourself as an enemy guard more easily to lure them away; pretend to be Earl Fontlebottom, Protector of the Realm to better use Diplomacy on the enemy; turn yourself into a horrifyingly ugly humanoid thing to better Intimidate your foes. Changelings also get some bonuses to Bluff/Intimidate/Sense Motive, and have bonuses against Sleep and Charm effects.

Equipment:

Constitution and/or Charisma boosting items: Duh. Constitution and Charisma are your most important stats, though again, it's quite possible to build a decent to good Dragonfire Adept that pumps only one, or even none, of those stats.

Dragon Cincture (Magic Item Compendium): for 2000 gold, add 1d6 to your breath weapon damage. If you're also holding a weapon that does the same type of damage as your breath weapon, the save DC for your breath weapon also goes up by one. Pretty cheap and pretty useful.

+1 Twilight Mithril Chainshirt: Hey look! Armor with no Armor Check Penalties or Arcane Spell Failure! This plus the Natural Armor you automatically get means you're surprisingly tanky for what's basically a casting class.

Wands of metabreath spells: One unfortunate thing about the Dragonfire Adept is that its breath weapon doesn't have a recharge time like a regular dragon's. While this is normally very good, the downside is that you oddly don't qualify for Metabreath Feats, since Meatabreath Feats can only be taken if your breath weapon has a recharge time measured in rounds. 

But! In Draconomicon, there are a bunch of spells that modify your Breath Weapon, and some of them can be put on wands and all of them can be put on scrolls, and all the only prerequisites they need is that you have a breath weapon. How lucky that Use Magical Device is a class skill for you, eh? The choice ones are: Blinding Breath (permanent Blindness, which is a heft debuff—how about that 50% miss chance on all attacks if you're blind?), Rebuking Breath (rebuke undead with your breath weapon), Breath Weapon Substitution (switch out energy types on your breath weapon), Animate Breath (turns your breath weapon into an energy golem), Enervating Breath (slap 2d4 Negative Levels on enemies hit with your breath weapon), Breath Weapon Admixture (deal double damage with your breath weapon, half of it one energy type and the other half another energy type), and Deafening Breath (the same as Admixture, except you can use Sonic energy and also permanently deafen enemies who fail the save). Enervating, Animate, Admixture, and Deafening need to be put on scrolls, unfortunately.

Other wands and scrolls: Use Magic Device is, once again, the best skill in the game. I highly recommend you take advantage of it unless you're dumping Charisma. Pay attention to what spells your party casters are taking, then buy wands and scrolls to fill in the gaps. Some good ones:

Identify (Player's Handbook): It can be bit of a waste for the Wizard to keep having to prepare Identify, so give him a hand. It can also save you an Invocation by letting you Identify stuff without the Magic Insight invocation, but remember that Identify wands will likely be more expensive than regular wands—wand creation factors in material components when calculating the price of the wand, and it costs 100 gp to cast Identify. At higher levels, an Eternal Wand of Identify might be better (more expensive, and you can only use the wand 2 times per day, but the charges never run out).

Lesser Vigor (Complete Divine): Out of combat, Wand of Lesser Vigor heals you 11 hp for 15 gold (750 gold for a level 1 spell wand, 50 charges on the wand); on a gold-per-hitpoint basis, this is one of the most efficient healing items in the game.

Summon Monster 1 (Player's Handbook): No, not for the combat abilities; Celestial Monkeys are cool, but not terribly good at fighting. Instead, think of it this way; if you need to check for traps, and the party Rogue is dead/missing/sucks at his job, who would you rather have spring the trap—you, or an entirely expendable summoned monster?

Expeditious Retreat (Player's Handbook): Buffs your movement speed. Handy for repositioning yourself, or getting the hell away.

Blur (Player's Handbook): Attacks targeting you have a 20% miss chance. This stacks with AC as well, which combined with armor and Natural Armor can make you very tanky.

Glibness (Player's Handbook): This is a Bard spell that gives you +20(!) to your Bluff checks when trying to get someone to believe something (you can't use it for Feinting in combat). I shouldn't have to tell you that this is excellent for a socializing Dragonfire Adept.

Guidance of the Avatar: This is a Cleric spell that only appears on the Wizards of the Coast official website, in particular their Spellbook online supplement. This is official material, so your DM ought to allow you to use it. This spell gives you a +20(!) bonus on a single skill check within 1 minute of casting. Very handy if you really need to make that Knowledge check, or Bluff your way past the guards.

If you're lucky, your DM might also count Psionic wands and scrolls (aka Dorjes and Power Stones) as Magic items, and therefore let you use Use Magic Device to activate them as you would any other Wand or Scroll. If that's the case...

Hustle: As a swift action, you gain another move action. Very handy for getting away, or if you need to pop another potion, or draw another wand, etc.

Synesthete: Lets you use your skin to hear noises or see stuff. Might be better as a power stone rather than a dorje, but nonetheless it can come in handy for situations when you want to see without using your eyes—for example, Synesthete makes you basically immune to gaze attacks...like a Medusa's petrifying gaze attack.

Psionic Minor Creation: Lets you create an object up to 1 cubic foot in volume, made out of “non-living, vegetable matter”. This might not seem like much, but the nebulousness of the term “non-living vegetable matter” means you can do all sorts of craaazy things with this power with some creativity and knowledge. Here are some good substances to consider with this dorje:

Bronzewood: wood that's as strong as steel but 90% lighter. If you have enough ranks in Craft, you can make weapons and armor for your buddies. I happen to prefer making other utility objects such as manacles and spiked floors (think of a large, flat, thin panel with spikes jutting out on one side, then lay that flat on the floor).

Amber: Good for making easily breakable containers. You can make an amber jar, put stuff in it (like flammable oil), seal it up, then toss it at someone—if you made the jar right, it'll break on the enemy and cover them with whatever you put inside. One thing you could put in your amber jars is...

Flammable Pitch: highly flammable stuff. How convenient that you can breathe fire at will!

Serrenwood: objects made of Serrenwood can interact with ghosts. Remember that incorporeal stuff is completely unaffected by mundane weapons, and magic weapons only have a 50% chance of hitting incorporeal stuff. If you foresee having to fight ghosts and your party is unprepared, some Serrenwood weapons might save your bacon.

Poison: Some poisons are made of plant extract. If your DM lets you make poisons with this dorje, then consider making stuff like Black Lotus Extract, one of the deadliest poisons in the game—3d6 Constitution damage on a failed save, plus another 3d6 Constitution damage 1 minute later if they fail another save. Assuming 1 dose = 1 ounce, you can make 996 doses of a given poison per use of the dorje. That's a lot of poison. Just be careful not to poison yourself!

Mertoran Leaf (Unearthed Arcana): This substance, when chewed, gives you a +2 Alchemical bonus to Charisma for 1 hour, at the price of 1 Dexterity damage. If your Dexterity score is odd, then this stuff will basically have no effect on you.

Other stuff you could hypothetically make with this dorje is: rope (256 feet of it, assuming the rope's height/width are 1 inch each), a small pulling wagon, clothes, ammo

That's all the equipment I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure you can find plenty more if you dive through a few books.

Class Articles: The Dragonfire Adept Part 4

Section 4: Class Role

As mentioned before, the class is good at three things: debuffing, socializing, and general utility.

Debuff:

Debuffing with the Dragonfire Adept is simple and easy. Several of the Breath Effects are debuffs: Sickening Breath (sickens), Sleep Breath (puts enemies to sleep), Slow Breath (inflicts Slow), Paralyzing Breath (paralyzes), Weakening Breath (-6 to Strength). For Sickening, Slow, and Weakening Breaths, you don't even need to jack up the Save DC—Slow and Weakening Breaths debuff for 2 rounds even if the enemy makes the save (4 rounds if they fail), while Sickening lasts for 1 round if saved and 2 rounds if not. This is why Dragonfire Adepts don't strictly need to pump their Constitutions; if you focus on debuffing, it doesn't matter if the enemy makes the save, they're still debuffed.

Then there's the feat Entangling Exhalation from Races of the Dragon; your breath weapon deals half damage, but everyone caught in its effect are Entangled for 1d4 rounds, and take 1d6 damage at the start of each of your turns for each round they're Entangled. Entangling confers the following penalties: movement speed is halved, cannot run or charge, -2 penalty to attack rolls, -4 penalty to Dexterity (so a -2 penalty to AC, Initiative, ranged attacks, Reflex Saves...), and attempting to cast spells while entangled requires a Concentration check (DC = 15 + level of the spell).

So if you hit someone with a Slow Breath and an Entangling Exhalation back to back, that's at least 1 round where the enemy...

Can only take a move action or a standard action each round, not both; no full round actions allowed.

Total of -3 penalty on melee attack rolls (-5 for ranged attacks).

Total of -3 penalty to AC.

Total of -3 penalty to Reflex Saves (-2 penalty to all other saves).

¼ movement speed (so a creature with 30 ft. movement can only move 5 feet per round).

At lower-to-mid levels, the -3 penalty to AC, attack rolls, and slowed movement can be quite handy. At higher levels, cutting the number of enemy attacks per round down to 1 greatly improves survivability. For example, take a Marilith: CR 17 Demon with 9 sword attacks and a tail slap. If they hit with all of those, they'll do an average of 137 damage per round (max 192). If you limit them to one attack per round, however, they'll do at most 4d6+4 damage per round (average 18, max 28). Quite the drastic damage reduction, eh?

You can also use Invocations like Chilling Fog: make a cloud of fog that deals cold damage over time, limits vision (giving concealment to people beyond the fog), penalizes attack rolls, and limits movement to 5 feet per round, with no chance to save or mitigate the effects. Or use Enthralling Voice to fascinate them into nonaction. Or Voracious Dispelling to spam Dispel Magic. Or creatively spam Charm. Or scare the crap out of your enemies with Frightful Presence and Terrifying Roar. And so forth.

As you can see, the Dragonfire Adept has a lot of debuffing tools and his disposal.

Social:

Socializing with the Dragonfire Adept is also pretty easy. You get Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate as class skills, you have a good incentive to pump Charisma, the only other stat you might really need is Constitution, and you get 4 skillpoints per level. Your socializing invocations include Beguiling Influence (+6 bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate for 24 hours), a spammable Charm, a spammable Fascinate that makes people who fail the save against it improve their attitude towards you, Humanoid Shape to morph into other humanoids (useful for disguising yourself)...if you're creative and the DM is permissive, you could also potentially use the Frightful Presence and Terrifying Roar Invocations to help with your Intimidate. The nice thing about all of this is that you still have debuffing options for combat left; just take the debuffing Breath Effects and Entangling Exhalation and you'll be useful in combat.

Utility:

You won't have the sheer flexibility and power of casters, but you've still got access to Use Magical Device—with it you can cast a good number of utility spells to round out the party. Creative use of your breath weapon can be used for utility purposes as well; set things on fire with your normal breath weapon, blow open doors and walls by using the sonic damage Breath Effect, melt things with the acid damage Breath Effect, etc. Also, your Invocations allow you to spam certain handy effects; invisibility (Walk Unseen), Detect Magic and Identify (Magic Insight), See Invisibility (See the Unseen), Dispel Magic (Voracious Dispelling), Flight (Draconic Flight), elemental resistance (Energy Resistance), and more. Finally, don't forget you have Use Magic Device! If you have the money to buy the right wands and scrolls, you theoretically have access to every single 6^th Level or lower Arcane and Divine spells every printed.

Debuffing, Socializing, and Utility; these are the Dragonfire Adept's strengths, and the Dragonfire Adept does its job well. Simple, easy, but effective.

Class Articles: The Dragonfire Adept Part 3

Section 3: Class Features

The Dragonfire Adept has three primary class features: its breath weapon, Breath Effects, and Invocations. Let's look at each of them in turn.

Breath Weapon:

This is the Dragonfire Adept's signature ability. Starting at level 1, a Dragonfire Adept can breathe fire as a standard action—a15 ft. cone/30 ft. line from level 1 to 9, and a 30 ft. cone/60 ft. line from level 10 to 20. You pick whether it's a cone or a line each time you use it. You can use your breath weapon as many times as you want. It also counts as a Supernatural Ability, meaning that:

It doesn't provoke Attacks of Opportunity when used

Spell Resistance does nothing against it

It's immune to Dispel Magic

Antimagic fields still shut it down, though.

Unfortunately, as cool as breathing fire into people's faces every round is, the damage isn't fantastic. It's 1d6 damage at level 1, increasing by 1d6 every odd level until after level 11, after which it increases by 1d6 every 3 levels. The maximum is 9d6 at level 20. For some perspective, Rogues get 10d6 Sneak Attack damage at level 20, and can easily make 6 attacks per round for a total of 60d6 damage (average 210 or 245 damage), not factoring in bonus damage from Strength.

On the other hand, you don't even have to make an attack roll with a breath weapon. Can you get an enemy in a 15 or 30 foot cone? If your enemy doesn't have Evasion, then congrats! You're guaranteed to deal at least some damage. The Reflex Save to halve the damage is 10 + ½ your Dragonfire Adept class levels + your Constitution bonus. (The fact that your breath weapon's Save DC is based off of your Constitution is the main reason why you should pump your Constitution. However, you'll later see why you don't necessarily need to do this.)

Breath Effects:

Breath Effects give you more options with your breath weapon aside from just setting stuff on fire. Some Breath Effects switch out the fire damage in your breath weapon for cold/lightning/acid/sonic/force damage. Others slap debuffs on enemies. Two particular Breath Effects boost your damage, one of them dramatically; ever wanted to nuke a place for 45d6 acid, lightning, fire, and cold damage? Every time you use your breath weapon, you can add a Breath Effect you know to it—however, you can't add more than 1 Breath Effect to your breath weapon each round, and you can't use the same Breath Effect in consecutive rounds. You learn a new Breath Effect at levels 2, 5, 10, 12, 15, and 20, for a total of 6. Breath Effects are also locked based on level; for example, until you hit level 5 you can't learn the Slow Breath Breath Effect.

Invocations:

Invocations are basically spells, except you know a lot fewer of them (a level 20 Dragonfire Adept has a paltry 8 invocations to work with). On the other hand, you can spam all of them as many times as you'd like per day. This makes for a lot of tactical flexibility and a lot less bookkeeping—no more having to keep track of a million different spell slots! Just grab some Invocations and let loose It also means you don't have to rest for 8 hours to use your class features.

Keep in mind that Invocations are Spell-Like Abilities, and NOT spells; Feats that interact with spells won't always interact with Invocations, for example. And unlike regular Spell-Like Abilities, you still have Arcane Spell Failure while wearing armor, much like Wizards and Sorcerers casting spells.

That said, there are several good Invocations that last for 24 hours, so if you really want to wear armor you can just cast some 24 hour buff Invocations, put on armor, and go adventuring. Your breath weapon isn't affected by Armor Check Penalties and Arcane Spell Failure, so as long as you don't care about Armor Check Penalties you might come across later on, Dragonfire Adepts can easily function with armor despite not being proficient with it.

The Save DC for an Invocation is 10 + the spell level of the Invocation + your Charisma bonus. This is the reason why some Dragonfire Adepts want to pump their Charisma. However, there are plenty of good Invocations that are buffs or don't allow saves, and therefore don't key off of your Charisma—you can easily make a Dragonfire that has crap for Charisma and be fine.

Invocations are divided into 4 levels: Least, Lesser, Greater, and Dark. You're able to pick Least Invocations at level 1, Lesser Invocations at level 6, Greater Invocations at level 11, and Dark Invocations at level 16.

Other class features:

Dragontouched: You get Dragontouched as a bonus feat. It's not a game changer, but the free +1 to Listen, Search, Spot, and saves vs Sleep and Paralysis effects is nice, and you get to qualify for Draconic feats like a Sorcerer equal to your character level and some other stuff. Bards have a neat trick that requires the Dragontouched feat; dipping Dragonfire Adept is one way to pull it off.

Scales: You gain some natural armor. At level 2, it's a +2 natural armor bonus to AC, increasing to +3 at level 8, +4 at level 13, and +5 at level 18. If you're going unarmored, then you'll only be marginally more armored than your average Wizard or Sorcerer (or less, if they cast Mage Armor and such). If you do go armored, then you'll make for a surprisingly tanky character since Natural Armor stacks with the armor bonus from regular armor. Not game changing, but it's nice.

Dragonkin: You get a +4 bonus to Diplomacy checks when trying to influence Dragons or creatures with the Dragonblooded subtype. You also become immune to the Frightful Presence ability of Dragons. This is nice since failing the Will Save against Frightful Presence slaps you with the Shaken penalty (-2 to attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks), and you don't really want penalties when fighting boss monsters like Dragons.

Damage Reduction: One of these days Wizards will figure out that they scale Damage Reduction pretty badly. You get Damage Reduction 2/Magic at level 6, increasing to 5/Magic at 16. Damage Reduction of 2 at level 6 isn't much, as is Damage Reduction 5 at level 16. For reference, a Hill Giant is CR 7—a party of level 6 characters are expected to take out one or two a day—and these do 2d8+10 damage with their clubs (average 19 damage, maximum 26). A -2 to that damage isn't going to be doing all that much. But again, better than nothing.

Immunities: At level 19, you become immune to paralysis and sleep. Given that either one of those conditions can effectively take you out of the entire fight in one application, this is very nice.

Class Articles: The Dragonfire Adept Part 2

Section 2: Basic Chassis

Let's take a quick look at the basic chassis:

d8 Hit Die

½ BAB

4 + Intelligence bonus skill points per level

Skill list: Appraise, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Decipher Script, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Jump, All Knowledge skills, Listen, Search, Sense Motive, Speak Language, Spellcraft, Spot, Use Magic Device

No armor proficiencies, no shield proficiencies

Proficient only with simple weapons

Good Fortitude, Bad Reflex, Good Will saves

Hit Die:

d8 Hit Die isn't the worst; this, plus the fact that Constitution will be one of your main stats means you'll have a surprising amount of HP for a class that wasn't really designed to tank.

Base Attack Bonus:

...yeah you're about as wimpy as a Wizard in melee. Good thing your breath weapon doesn't need you to make attack rolls!

4 Skill points per level, Skill List:

The Skill List is quite nice, and 4 skill points per level is a good enough amount. It's enough skills and points so that you can easily fill in the gaps for the rest of the party; for example, if the Wizard can't afford to put points into Knowledge (whatever), then you can help him out by putting some points in there. You also have access to the most powerful skill in the game—Use Magic Device. Combine this with the fact that Bluff/Intimidate/Diplomacy are also class skills, and the fact that you have a good incentive to pump Charisma (more on this later), and you've got good synergy between the class and its skills.

Weapons, Armor, Shields:

Yeah, this plus your crappy BAB means you won't be hitting anyone with Greataxes any time soon. However, the lack of armor proficiency doesn't necessarily mean you can't wear armor in campaigns. More on this later.

Saves:

Fortitude and Will saves are arguably the most important saves; Reflex saves will cut down on that Fireball damage, but if you screw up on a Fortitude or Will save your character's pretty much dead. Instant death spell? Better make that Fortitude save! Poison? Fortitude Save. Mind-control spell? Will Save. Since your Constitution score will probably be very high, you've got Fortitude saves pretty much covered.

So that's the basic chassis of the Dragonfire Adept. Not really designed for melee, but a lot of things aren't as limiting as they seem to be. You've got a good skill list, a decent enough skill points per level, two good saves in the right places, and your weapon/armor proficiencies can be worked around.

Class Articles: The Dragonfire Adept Part 1

"Yol...Tor Shool!"

For our first class, let's check out the Dragonfire Adept. This class is honestly one of my all-time favorites; it's pretty unique, it's got neat flavor, it's effective without being overpowered, and it's easy to just pick up and play. This base class is found in Dragon Magic, and is also found online for free at the official Wizards of the Coast website: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060912a&page=2

Section 1: The class in a nutshell

The Dragonfire Adept is a class that breathes fire at people. I think the designers sat down one day and thought, “You know what's cool as hell? Breath weapons. Now let's build a whole class around it.” So that's the Dragonfire Adept; a class where you breathe fire at people, all day every day. It also has a bunch of special abilities you can spam any number of times a day, in the form of Invocations. If you're familiar with the Warlock base class, the Dragonfire Adept is very similar. Some of the Invocations are different, and some of the minor class features are different, and you have a breath weapon rather than an Eldritch Blast, but the Warlock is the class most similar to the Dragonfire Adept mechanically.

As for how it functions in a party: the Dragonfire Adept fills the “5^th party member” slot extremely well. It's not a tank, though it's surprisingly tanky for what it does; it's not a DPS machine, though if you powerbuild one it can pull it off; it can't heal as efficiently as a Cleric, though it can use wands and healing items well; it has abilities that are very much like spells, but it can't compete with a Wizard in that field. It does, however, do the following things very well: debuffing, socializing, and general out of combat utility.

It's also very easy to pick up; it's not easy to build a crappy Dragonfire Adept, and its mechanics are simple to understand. At the same time, it's not overpowered the way some other classes are—you really have to powerbuild a Dragonfire Adept for one to break the game. It's an effective class, and an easy to learn class, but not a broken class.

Class Articles: Introduction

Hello everyone, this Punch Rockgroin. I haven't been playing D&D 3.5 for terribly long, but being the colossal unrepentant geek I am I've been reading about and thinking about the game for quite some time. I've decided to put some of these thoughts down on paper (or at least on Word), and I'm hoping to write one of these about once every other week or so.

One of the D&D 3.5 things I like to think about are the classes. Classes constitute a very large part of the D&D experience, since classes make up a large part of Player Characters, and it's through the PCs that the players interact with the world the Dungeon Master has created. There's also a LOT of classes in D&D 3.5; by my last count, there are something like 59 different base classes, scattered over dozens of books. Not everyone has access to all of these books, and even if you have those books not everyone has the time to look through them all for a class. I think that's a real shame; some of the coolest and most interesting classes are from the more obscure splatbooks. Therefore, since most people don't have the sort of creepy psychotic obsession with D&D the way I do, I will take it upon myself to showcase some of these less-played classes.

I'll be divvying up each article into several sections:

Section 1: The class in a nutshell: Just a quick description of the base class and what it's supposed to do.

Section 2: Basic Chassis: Taking a look at the basics of the class: Hit die, skills list, weapon/armor proficiencies, Base Attack Bonus progression, saves, and how it all ties together.

Section 3: Class Features: Exploring the meat of the class—the class features. Explore what they are, what they mean, and how they help the class achieve what it's supposed to do.

Section 4: Class Role: What sort of encounters and challenges can the class be expected to overcome? What are its shortcomings? How well does the class typically overcome encounters?

Section 5: What are some of the usual options for the class?: What are some recommended feats, equipment, and class features options for the class?

Section 6: Sample Builds: Here we'll take a look at some quick sample builds available to the class—how to build them, tactics to use, and what to do at later levels.

Section 7: Conclusion: Finishing words to tidy up loose ends.

And with that, let's dive in!

The what now?

What on earth is this?

This is a blog set up for a certain Dungeons and Dragons Facebook group. I originally planned on posting some articles on certain D&D 3.5 classes on the Facebook page, but once the first article started hitting 7000+ words I decided that a Facebook page wasn't the best place to post the articles. Hence, this blog.

The majority of these articles are aimed more at newer D&D players, and focused on 3.5 Edition. If you're looking for more advanced material, I might suggest checking out...

Giant in the Playground: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59

Minmax Boards: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?board=15.0

...but anyone and everyone is free to read the silliness we post here.

Welcome to D&D Central!