Dragon Disciple build suggestion

[Pwncakeroflsauce]

i am really struggling here on how to build my DD, i followed the in game description of the DD to build a fighter/sorcerer but having a heavy armor give me a 35% arcane failure so i can just forget that... and going monk/sorcerer would make me split my stat in Str/Dex/Const/Wis/Cha and having AT LEAST 12 INT or i wont be able to get draconic language... soooooo... what do you guys think?

[PrimeSonic]

The Dragon Disciple is one of the first, and perhaps worst designed prestige classes of 3rd edition.
The requirements suggest magic but the actual features you get suggest melee.
It's honestly all over the place.

The best I could do with this class was such:
Take Barbarian as your melee class and pair it with either Sorcerer or Bard, taking only the most utility of spells you can find.
Don't bother with evocation spells but instead take useful buff spells like Shield or Expeditious Retreat.

Once you've reached Dragon Disciple, you'll want to lean in heavily into a melee combat role with some (very) light magic support to enhance a few things.

The arcane spell failure is a shame, which is why you might want to try sticking to medium armor and (hopefully) your Dex and Natural Armor bonuses help compensate.
Either way, you should (also hopefully) have a lot of HP with that d12 hit die to be able to tank a few more hits than a Fighter might.

---

This is just my personal journey trying to make sense out of a prestige class that seems like it had no play testing whatsoever.
I'm certain if you scour the wider web for old D&D forum posts, you'll find lots of discussions around the Dragon Disciple and what exactly players are expected to do with it.

[Pwncakeroflsauce]

Thank you for the lengthy answer, i did try to look in 3.5 forum but they were either suggesting class that doesnt exist in this game or saying that arcane failure isnt a thing in 3.5 anymore... maybe from an errata or something else.

[fpAlexandra]

I think bards do no longer suffer arcane spell failure from light armors. But I never used one in LMA so I don't know if that translates.
Also spells without somatic components should not suffer from Arcane spell failure, but again I don't know if LMA is already there and there are only a precious few of them in the rulebook.

[PrimeSonic]

引用自 Pwncakeroflsauce：

Thank you for the lengthy answer, i did try to look in 3.5 forum but they were either suggesting class that doesnt exist in this game or saying that arcane failure isnt a thing in 3.5 anymore... maybe from an errata or something else.

Well I can tell you for certain that it does exist.
It's the first prestige class in the original Dungeon Master's Guide.

IIRC, it didn't really show up again in any other books that provided better prestige classes at the time, so I wouldn't be surprised if some folks just forgot about it.
But it's definitely there.

It's a weird kind of class where it seems like the whole design was based around giving the character more and more dragon-like abilities, hence the breath weapon, the claws, and wings.
But the magical requirements, with the non-existent magical advancement, makes this class a bit weaker than you could have done with a single-class barbarian.
A case of a design being all flavor with little function.

Still, if you're up for creating a brawler that has extra options than your typical barbarian, it can work.

I found it useful to take the minimal amount of Charisma needed for 1st level spellcasting and beyond that going all in on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.
Hope you can make it work!

[timlagor]

I think he meant they were suggesting builds that use D&D3.5 classes that are non-SRD

The key to Dragon Disciples is to go melee and use your limited spellcasting for non-somatic (swift) spells and/or long term buffs. Might also work with Mage Armour bur probably not best.

Bard is also an option.

Use the high Strength to grapple enemy casters.

It's still not a strong PrC but it's OK