Can PCs be dragons? If so, how would you do it?

Can PCs be dragons? If so, how would you do it?

...

I had a PC that was literally a straight up dragon in my first ever game of Mutants and Masterminds.

It's really just making sure your GM's setting is okay with it, but that's not too hard considering how many options a good system can give you. A lot of the "complications" of being a dragon would actually play right into some of the mechanics!

Fantasy Craft manages to include Dragons just fine as a balanced core race that can be further specialized and expanded in power by buying species feats. They manage the same with robots, giant tree men, straight up 20 foot tall giants, and filthy halflings.

What system? If 5e, Dragonborn sorc. You're a mere hatchling, explaining why your so weak and don't know how to,fly until lvl 14.

If one of those "narrative" systems made by and for millenial douchebags, wherin the rules are made up and the stats don't matter, you're just a straight up dragon.

I was in a game with a PC who played a dragon that had been transformed into a human or an elf, I can't remember. And my god if he wasn't the whiniest, entitled, dickbag of a player that I've ever played with. He just about had a seizure when his character died.

But it's okay, his backup PC was a drider.

Like this

>Can PCs be dragons?

No. It's not allowed.

>If so,

Not so.

>how would you do it?

I wouldn't because it's not allowed.

Theres a splat for that.

In fact it depends on what edition you want to play.
It also depends on what type of dragon you want to play.
Pic covers 2e, 3.5 requires Savage Species book, 4e and 5e you can be either a dragonborn or homebrew something up, PF has Taninim Dragons (3rd party spalt), Starfinder has Dragonkin.

You start of as an egg. Better hope you don't die. You don't get exp and will have to age to ""level up".

Communicating to the rest of the party and casting spells while in the egg?

Going full Vivec?

No, that's way too OP and donut steel-tier.

>trying this hard to act superior for playing D&D over other systems

Depends on system, setting, and campaign power level.

Depends on system.

...

So long she can shapeshift into human form.

play RIFTS

What's the fun in playing a dragon if you can just magic away your downsides?

Play gurps. It makes beast races fun to play.

I do have a soft spot for 3.5 dragon playable characters. Even if they are stupid unbalanced, and not in the favor of the player.

Fuck yes! My baby Golden was one of my favorite characters; played him for years before retiring him as a god.

This. A dragon's vanity should find comments praising any form other than their true form as insulting.

Making people scramble to accomodate your size is also just plain fun.

you play Rifts, dragon hatchling as a standard RCC, and not even close to the weirdest thing you can play.

This. Council of Wyrms did it over two decades ago.

Dragon Magazine did it with Monster Class Templates for Wyrmlings, you have Council of Wyrms, and shitloads and shitloads of fucking Dragon lore about as fucking saturated as sources needed to contemplate the entirty of the forgotten Realms up to 3.5 at bare mimimum.

I think Council of Wyrms would be better as a board game than an RPG.

You can be a dragon if I can be a giant

From GURPS Banestorm:

"Hatchling
29 points
An infant dragon, perhaps fresh
out of the egg, is around 6’-7’ long, and
weighs 150-200 lbs.
Attribute Modifiers: ST +3 (No Fine Manipulators, -40%; [18]; DX-1 [-20]; HT +2 [20].
Secondary Characteristic Modifiers:
Basic Speed -1 [-20]. Advantages: Dragon [17]; Burning Attack 1d (Costs Fatigue, 2 FP, -10%; Jet, +0%; Reduced Range, 1/5, -20%) [4]; DR 1 (Can’t Wear Armor, -40%) [3]; Nictitating Membrane 1 [1]; Sharp Claws [5]; Sharp Teeth [1]."

Didn't seem that hard.

Most systems/settings have some draconic variants in races or classes, so you can always just go off them and either play that or make some homebrew stuff.

If you're talking about giant dragons and the like, just make sure they can change size into a smaller humanoid-like shape for plot/RP or whatnot.
Or just have them be giant-ass dragons that do giant-ass dragon things.

I loved playing a dragon gambling addict.

Sure.
Last super combatant I played was in a political game. I played the gigantic scorpion that represented the military power of the cabal of priests that ran a city of thieves and murderers.
It had army-like levels of power, which gave it approximately similar levels of clout to the various mercenary guilds in the town.

>You will never go on comfy adventures with your dragoness waifu
That pic shouldn't make me feel things

Give them dragon-scale enemies and challenges or change the scale of dragon from what you're probably thinking, it's easy.

Banestorm?

It's a mediocre fantasy setting for GURPS of "Yrth" or some shit.

There is probably another dragon template out there that works for PC's but I just knew where this was off the top of my head, as I play in a Banestorm game.

Yes, played in a game where one of the characters was a young, crippled dragon.

Sounds like it's pretty painful to play.
How big of a system is it?

Playing isn't painful at all really, but building characters is very expansive if you allow every option on the table. GURPS lets you make anything, as long as you pay for it and the GM/setting allows it. Anything with magic/fantasy allows quite a bit so you can get into some crazy stuff if you want. Or just be a dude with a sword and few other skills, you're still fairly balanced because it all costs points and you only have so many.

Yes it's possible. In a shit-ton of systems, and a shit-ton of different campaign types.

Really you need to decide what you want out of it first, then decide.

Running a GURPS game with just such a case. My brother is currently playing a low sorcerer-god mucking about in Divine politics who can turn into a 45 ft mature dragon at will in a solo game I'm running for him. His game runs parallel to and overlaps with that of the larger main group (3) synchronously, however I take pains to keep the primary driving arcs of each game separate (letting them affect each other without completely crashing into one another).

Veteran Fire Dragon(4), Intimidating and Threatening Dragon roar(4), keen eye(2)

Fuck you and the dozens of systems that bend over backwards for you, I want a lich PC from the outset of the game.

...

kek

...

Where's that page from an old publication where Gygax himself belittles and patronizes people who want to play dragons/monsters in general in the most humiliating way possible, by giving the DM arguments to reason such a "childish" and "shameless" impulse out of them that will surely convince even the rowdiest toddler to roll up a stolen Hobbit or a tree archer twink

There's a cute storygame called Epyllion where you play as dragon hatchlings on kid-friendly adventures together.

Depends.
So long as they’ve got all their neurosis and negative traits with it, I don’t see any problem with it. In my eyes, It would take the strongest willed dragon to not flip their shit and transform back the moment some presumptuous mortal makes some vaguely disparaging comment.

Not this one, is it?

Same tbqh

Who cares what Gygax thinks, though?

i feel like there should be a RPG system that is about playing as a party of dragons ( other giant monsters could work too).
a D&D mod is not enough because the system has been created for humanoids shaped,powered beings doing human things.

a dragon RPG would need to handle dragon vs giant beast, combat in flight,good wrestling rules,dragon vs army, dragon vs castle, city ruling and production.that would require a well written system to make it satisying.

the real question is...why would dragons band together? they are usually seen as solitaire.

>specifically for dragons
Make it giant monsters in general and you have the making of the game.
And they band together to defend and stabilize their home city.

In this world, dragons are hunted down so a new survival strategy has been adopted: hatchlings band together in a loose alliance, building a collective hoard until such a time as they become adolescent and fight for control of it. The losers must depart and start their hoard from scratch.

>tfw can't read erotic literature with booksmart dragon waifu.
>Tfw she would probably be Veeky Forums personified with her long neck up her own ass saying her shit tastes like gold.

Anyone that claims to not read genre fiction, but who also hails the classics, is dead to me.
So many of the classics are goddamn genre fiction it's crazy.

Hell, chances are the classics are the reason genre fiction exists in the first place.

Those 20 foot giants are no stronger than normal dudes

My mind read this as "Can there be PC dragons" as I was scrolling.

Immediately I thought of crybully otherkin.

The dragons can shapeshift into a human, they tend to become lewd oppai lolis when they do so.

Did you know its actually a legig mental disorder. Clinical lycanthropy covers more than just animals.

They are stronger in every way that counts. Enormous bonuses to resisting all manner of forced movement, grappling, etc. Their ability to use larger weapons means that even though they don't have as many points of str mod to damage, they do more damage due to their sword doing 2d8 instead of 1d12, their carrying capacity is astronomically higher, etc. Much less afraid of critical hits due to better Wound scaling. They can still trample people. The only thing they actually lose out on due to not having a str mod bonus is that they don't get as much weapon accuracy. The secondary/less obvious benefits of being size Large/Pseudo Huge fill in every gap.

And yet, they can't outmatch Jimbob in a contest of strength.

I do have to give the system credit for allowing you to play a cannon-wielding Ogre however.

Massive subtractions for being broken as fuck tho.

What kind of contest of strength? The Giant will win the grapple. The Giant will succeed in bull-rushing Jim. The Giant will be able to lift more weight than Jim. If you are modeling the contest of STR as a raw 1d20+attribute mod vs 1d20+attribute mod, yeah, Jim wins, but the situations that would happen are vanishingly rare, and the ones that are commonly modeled, the giant gets bonuses to due to size. And yeah FC is pretty broken but I find it's more broken in vit scaling and condition grade fishing than anything else.

So what system would be suitable then?

Pleb

i played a dragon PC once. He transformed himself in a smaller dragon and had a human hencegirl.
The rest of the party thought my main character was the girl.

it was a 3.5 game that fell apart after one session.

>Modern doctors don't know what a therianthrope is

I'm laughing my ass off all the way to shaman-town

[Citation Needed]