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.