Races of the Dragon (Dungeons & Dragons Supplement) 
asked by anton584 on November 11, 2006 7:36 AM
The Blood of Dragons Flows through Your Veins
In ages past, dragons ruled supreme. Now their distant scions, the races and individuals who carry their blood, live among the great empires of the world, where they forge their own glorious legacies. You can be among them. Embrace your draconic heritage, and the spoils of the world can be yours!
This supplement for the D&D® game provides detailed information on the psychology, society, culture, behavior, religion, and folklore of the dragonblooded races, including kobolds and half-dragons. This book introduces two new player character races: the dragonborn (existing characters reborn in a new draconic form to combat and destroy the spawn of Tiamat) and the spellscales (artistic, philosophical beings with a penchant for sorcery and a thirst for new experiences). It also provides new prestige classes, feats, spells, magic items, equipment, and guidelines for crafting adventures and campaigns involving dragonblooded races.
For use with these Dungeons & Dragons® core books
Player’s Handbook™ Dungeon Master’s Guide™ Monster Manual™
In ages past, dragons ruled supreme. Now their distant scions, the races and individuals who carry their blood, live among the great empires of the world, where they forge their own glorious legacies. You can be among them. Embrace your draconic heritage, and the spoils of the world can be yours!
This supplement for the D&D® game provides detailed information on the psychology, society, culture, behavior, religion, and folklore of the dragonblooded races, including kobolds and half-dragons. This book introduces two new player character races: the dragonborn (existing characters reborn in a new draconic form to combat and destroy the spawn of Tiamat) and the spellscales (artistic, philosophical beings with a penchant for sorcery and a thirst for new experiences). It also provides new prestige classes, feats, spells, magic items, equipment, and guidelines for crafting adventures and campaigns involving dragonblooded races.
For use with these Dungeons & Dragons® core books
Player’s Handbook™ Dungeon Master’s Guide™ Monster Manual™
Reviews
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The highlight in this work is the nice elaboration of kobold culture. It helps show why the scaly, little munchkins are so interesting.
The rest of the book is fairly lackluster.
The rest of the book is fairly lackluster.
reviewed by mike on November 24, 2006 6:39 PM
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This is a great supplement on dragonic characters. While not too impressed with the spellscales and reborn dragon like creatures, I really enjoyed the handling of kobolds and their options. All in all, if you are an avid collector like me you will want this book for your collection. If you are not avid, then I would suggest hoarding your money :)
reviewed by localhost on November 27, 2006 5:21 AM
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Remember how freakin' cool Lords of Madness was? The aboleth, the illithids, the FLESHWARPER? Even had "Innsmouth look"-style feats, so you could get your Call of Cthulu on with your 7th level druid what with the tentacles and the pseudonatural wild shape and all! MAN, it was COOL! Well, I felt great about finally getting Races of the Dragon, all hoping it would be half as awesome as Libris Mortis or Complete Adventurer and everything.... And... about half-way through this book I felt like I had just found a turd in my green salad.
Everything magical is devoted to the Sword-of-Shanarra ripoff sorceror class, (and not a thing for wizards, HELLO???), the fleshgrafting rules contradict the rules in EVERY other book with Flesh grafting (Fiend Folio, Libris Mortis and Lords of Madness if you're counting), and the new races are just plain STUPID. And I do mean STUPID: "Hey, look at me, I'm a 'spellscale,' I LOOK like a freackin' purple elf with some painted junk on my face." But you know, for those of you who always wanted to play a kobold, now you get your shot, 'cause hey, they rack up in here, man, let me tell you. Oh yeah, and the art's not worth much, either. Don't even bother with the feats, they reek, too; MAYBE the spellcaster tactical feat that lets you do the really obvious "This time for sure!" spell-casting to hit a critter or overcome SR. It doesn't take a whole lotta brainpower to make the sorceror even dumber, and they did that much right.
One good thing, an EXCELLENT thing, in fact: 7 new Power Word Spells. Of course, there are problems here, too. "Power Word: Pain" is, technically speaking, broken as hell: 1st level wizard spell that does 1d6 + 1d6 / round to one target; up to 4d4 rounds depending on current HP much like all Power Word spells. That's only first level if the damage is nonlethal, buddy; 2nd or 3rd at least.
I'll let people take any of them, though, if they also spend spell slots on "Mighty Wallop" and "Greater Mighty Wallop", though -- I kid you not there are spells with those names in there. If you can cast either of them without laughing, you DESERVE "Power Word: Maladroit", too. I guess these guys wanted to make up for the purple painted elves by using a fancy word for "Clumsy." All in all, the weakest effort I've seen out of WotC so far, even worse than Weapons of Legacy. If you want to spend money on a D&D book, get Lords of Madness or Sandstorm, instead.
Everything magical is devoted to the Sword-of-Shanarra ripoff sorceror class, (and not a thing for wizards, HELLO???), the fleshgrafting rules contradict the rules in EVERY other book with Flesh grafting (Fiend Folio, Libris Mortis and Lords of Madness if you're counting), and the new races are just plain STUPID. And I do mean STUPID: "Hey, look at me, I'm a 'spellscale,' I LOOK like a freackin' purple elf with some painted junk on my face." But you know, for those of you who always wanted to play a kobold, now you get your shot, 'cause hey, they rack up in here, man, let me tell you. Oh yeah, and the art's not worth much, either. Don't even bother with the feats, they reek, too; MAYBE the spellcaster tactical feat that lets you do the really obvious "This time for sure!" spell-casting to hit a critter or overcome SR. It doesn't take a whole lotta brainpower to make the sorceror even dumber, and they did that much right.
One good thing, an EXCELLENT thing, in fact: 7 new Power Word Spells. Of course, there are problems here, too. "Power Word: Pain" is, technically speaking, broken as hell: 1st level wizard spell that does 1d6 + 1d6 / round to one target; up to 4d4 rounds depending on current HP much like all Power Word spells. That's only first level if the damage is nonlethal, buddy; 2nd or 3rd at least.
I'll let people take any of them, though, if they also spend spell slots on "Mighty Wallop" and "Greater Mighty Wallop", though -- I kid you not there are spells with those names in there. If you can cast either of them without laughing, you DESERVE "Power Word: Maladroit", too. I guess these guys wanted to make up for the purple painted elves by using a fancy word for "Clumsy." All in all, the weakest effort I've seen out of WotC so far, even worse than Weapons of Legacy. If you want to spend money on a D&D book, get Lords of Madness or Sandstorm, instead.
reviewed by ragtop on November 29, 2006 2:12 PM
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Races of the dragon had some great content. The Dragonborn of Bahamut were great. Great information on kobolds, although if you have dragon or dungeon magazine all of this information kind of feels like it has been covered before. The book is great as a player resource if a DM allows the books use in thier campaign. Overall, it was a great resource for WotC's 'Year of the Dragon' releases.
reviewed by work on November 29, 2006 6:23 PM
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As far as style goes, I found this pretty boring from what I saw in the bookstore. Glad I never bought it, Races of Eberron is much better, as it has three great races (fourth isn't so hot) including one Living Construct type.
In fact, from Races of Eberron I made one Changeling Druid who has near complete Cold Adaptation and Heat Adaptation (from environment series), and a Warforged Monk which was effective against lycanthropes.
What can Races of the Dragon possibly give you? Flying creatures? Firebreathing creatures? You could be better off with weaked-down angel or better yet just a birdfolk race (like Raptorans in Races of the Wild, which by the way also has more variety with its Catfolk). As for firebreathing, a feat could probably give you the whole fire-eating/fire-blowing act and save you the whole freakish thing of having weird blood.
In fact, from Races of Eberron I made one Changeling Druid who has near complete Cold Adaptation and Heat Adaptation (from environment series), and a Warforged Monk which was effective against lycanthropes.
What can Races of the Dragon possibly give you? Flying creatures? Firebreathing creatures? You could be better off with weaked-down angel or better yet just a birdfolk race (like Raptorans in Races of the Wild, which by the way also has more variety with its Catfolk). As for firebreathing, a feat could probably give you the whole fire-eating/fire-blowing act and save you the whole freakish thing of having weird blood.
reviewed by imtheboss on November 29, 2006 6:44 PM