Starting a mostly lady Drow campaign but I need a Draconic ally

[SuperSabre]

One of their Houses main allies is going to be a Dragon while one of the players is going to play as a Halfdragon of that species.

The group will have a wyrmling with wing issues (no flight).

What Im wondering is what do you think would be an interesting Draconic ally for their House?

Im a bit torn.

A Black dragon. Their house would have a large moat etc and the bottom level could be flooded to provide protection. Would also be able to have some interesting story as to why a Black or Fang dragon would be in the Underdark thus making sense for alliances.

A Fang dragon with their House perched on the side of the cavern providing a sort of Underdark mountainside.

A Deep Dragon. This would be the easiest choice I suppose.  They naturally live in the Underdark. They often have alliances with Drow and even gain the ability to change form into a winged snake or humanoid.

What do you guys think? This will be a strongly "Drow" inspired family campaign. Meaning they wont back stab each other (much) but will gladly do it to others.

[Captnq]

Check out my sig, get the EVD. Check under familiarity. Look up how to get a dragon familiar.

[Jackinthegreen]

Downloading and looking through the EVD is perhaps more work than the OP wants to do.

Will the wyrmling be a character on its own?  The Draconomicon page 141 has details about having a wyrmling be a spellcaster's familiar, which is probably part of what Cap is getting at.



Are any characters Deepwyrm Drow from Dragon Magic pages 6 and 7?  That might tie in and be interesting though the mechanical changes are a bit blah.

As far as the half-dragon goes, the LA for that template is too high and annoying.  Perhaps the Draconic template from Draconomicon page 149 would work out better?  Only +1 LA and still has plenty of flavor.  The hald-dragon template class could also work since the character isn't required by the rules to finish the progression.  Just take the first level so the character has the fluff of being half-dragon while still having actual levels instead of LA.  It's a bit of advice for the player and character to make things a little more playable.


As far as the ally goes, a deep dragon would indeed be the easiest.  A fang dragon is always chaotic neutral, so alignment stuff might be a problem if indeed the campaign is evil too.  Black and deep are always chaotic evil so that would work better.  Do you have any other story stuff to go along with all this that might help figure out the setting a bit?

[SuperSabre]

Thanks guys,

This is the angle Im leaning towards.

The players will be part of a lesser house. The Matron had a relationship with a Dragon and thus the half breed. She hid the fact of his birth from the other family members and outsisders and rasied him in secret adding a 3rd son to the house (technically). Because she did this so well etc Lolth is pleased with the matrons deviousness. I think the elder male will be murdered thus leaving only the two male players as House males.

There is talk of a rival House gathering power to attack her House. The Matron is now ready to make a move so she has introduced the half breed to her family (not admitting to him being a sibling) and is sending them to make a pact with the Dragon for aid.
The Dragon will offer aid if proper preparations are made (I havent figured that all out yet).
I thought part of the prearations would be to clear an Underdark route to their Houses compound from a tunnel near the Dragons lair. I thought a Black Dragon may be a good choice as a moat type defence for the House may be interesting. Also having the compound of the House being floodable would be interesting. Also the tunnel that they are clearing out could be partially submerged thus aiding to the Dragons aquatic natuture and making life more difficult for others.

I am open to other Dragon ideas though. I thought a Deep Dragon would be a good choice too. having humanoid forms plus swim and burrow skills is very versatile. I know a Fang Dragon is CN in alignment but I thought given good reasons of self preservation (and a Fang not normally being in the Underdark) might be a good enough reason for careful cooperation.

Oh, the wyrmling will be more of a NpC. It will cause trouble but also help. It is the runt of the litter and thus has damaged wings. The wyrmling is actually extremely powerful and once its wings heal could be a powerful asset for the House in the centuries to come. In truth starting out it will be more of an annoyance for the players but will test their patience and obedience to their Matron. It will also repeat (often) how anything he sees that he doesnt like will be reported to the matron. Whether he does this or not will reply on how well he is adored by those around him.

This will be a fresh campaign in one of the cities of Undrek'Thoz.

Im also looking at making a varient monk class suitabe for Drow. In the Underdark book they say Undrek'Thoz actually have an assasination order of Monks called the Black Fist (they coat their right hands in something dark). For this class I was thinking of a mix of Blackgruard, Monks of the Long Death. I also thought a shadow form ability with them actually becoming Shades at lvl 20 would be very Drow. I see them inadvertantly worshiping Bane or even Bhaal though they dont know it.

I also just looked up Deepwyrm Drow. I think the Nobles will be Deepwyrm Drow if they so choose. The Deep Dragon idea is starting to grab my interest more and more lol

Well, what do you think?

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

A Hex Dragon (D#343) Can be cool as well and tend to live underground.

[SuperSabre]

I saw a pic of the Hex Draagon and I think he looks sweet but alas I cant find any information on it. 

[Jackinthegreen]

How effective do you want the monks to be?  Chances are you'd be better off with the unarmed swordsage variant in Tome of Battle since they can access Shadow Hand maneuvers for some fun and interesting combat options.  A monk without ACFs won't work so well mechanically.  If you're inclined, take a look at the ACF index and see if anything jumps out at you.  The Dragon Mag ACF index might also be relevant.  Drow have several ACF options thanks to Drow of the Underdark, so a variety of things can be done if you want.

You can legally look up the hex dragon at http://www.scribd.com/doc/108557234/Dragon-Magazine-343#scribd.  Go to page 24 of 81 and it's right there.

[SuperSabre]

I looked up the sword sage and he does look pretty close to what I was thinking of.

A couple things.

1) rather than light armor and melee weapons
--no melee weapons or armor but get monks ua attacks (includinf flurry), ac bonus and movement?

2)change the sense magic to only sensing items that he can use

3) change the lvl 20 specials to lvl 18 so a Drow can get them (no lvl 20 due to +2 la)

Sound reasonable?

[Jackinthegreen]

1:  The unarmed variant does almost exactly this.  Look a little further past the rules stuff into the more fluffy text to find the adaptation section.  It's on page 20.

2:  Sense Magic simply reveals the properties of an item like the Identify spell does.  It does not function like the spell Detect Magic, if that's how you're thinking it works.  It does not need a change.  The character should already know what kinds of armor and weapons they can use anyway.

2a: If identifying items is a thing that needs to be done, the Dragonfire Adept class in Dragon Magic gets an invocation called Magic Insight that does it automatically.

3:  I'm more inclined to go with the LA reduction rules myself.  That way it allows the character to get a full 20 class levels instead of being stuck with 2 LA and only 18 class levels.  I don't have the exact math worked out for it right now but it wouldn't take too long to do.

[SuperSabre]

Im going to use the swordsage UA option just as you suggest but I think Im going to limit them to the Shadow Discipline.
The Shadow discipline seems to work perfect for Drow and Im going to use the no LA thing. I mean let them advance a touch slower but gain all their lvls seems much more fun and even handed.

[Unbeliever]

You don't want to restrict someone to a single discipline.  All TOB classes are meant to pick from multiple disciplines -- none of them are really "complete" in that way.  This is especially true for a Swordsage, whose claim to fame is the number of maneuvers they get.  I haven't looked at the chart, but restricting them that way -- assuming these are characters with full sheets at some point -- I'm pretty sure they'd end up with more maneuvers known than are in the entire Shadow Hand discipline.

[Jackinthegreen]

Unbeliever is right, if you just restrict them to Shadow Hand then there aren't enough maneuvers in the entire discipline to choose from for a swordsage.  There is no reason to limit them so much, especially since they are the weakest ToB class.