Races of the Dragon [Hardcover]

The bad news: The two new races, the dragonborn and the spellscales are just awful. Apparently, someone out there thought that the default dwarf race wasn't serious or grim enough, and gave us the dragonborn. Likewise, if you've ever thought that elves weren't flighty and magical enough, the spellscale are for you. *gag*

The good news? Those only take up 31 pages of a 158 page book, making Races of the Dragon a very good 127 page book.

Kobolds, who are the stars of the book, get a lot of believable fleshing out, boosting both their links to dragons (but in a low-key way) and their status as underground low level menaces. (It turns out there's a perfectly valid reason for them being cannon fodder in so many games.) The core kobold is also mildly tweaked to be a more playable race, and by burning a feat, there's a mild variant kobold race that's even better.

Half-dragons and the draconic template from the Draconomicon (reprinted here) get a chapter, including a monster class that allows a character to turn draconic and then eventually into a half-dragon without having to wait for the Dragon Disciple prestige class. The book also discusses the issue of exactly how, and why, there are so many draconic and half-dragon creatures running around. (Dragons are less kinky than you might have feared.)

The prestige classes aren't as flavorful as the ones in the Draconomicon, there's a counterpart to the Dragon Disciple, turning the character into a draconic character instead of a half-dragon (and more quickly). There are also prestige classes for most classes, although some of them are a bit quirky, like the Singer of Concordance, which is a plane-shifting hotel clerk of Io, or near enough.

Then follows a bevy of feats, which especially ones that boost sorcerers, kobolds, and other "dragon-blooded" characters.

There are also the now-obligatory substitution levels, with kobolds getting access to four of them (including the dragon-blooded sorcerer levels).

There are more spells than in the other races books, although Power Word: Pain is an overly powerful first level spell that you'll likely see fixed in errata on the official Wizards of the Coast Web site very soon.

The new items and magic items are fairly nice, and include new-to-me draconic grafts.

The book is rounded out with more words in Draconic and a slightly different take on the Draconic pantheon (Kurtulmak is also detailed earlier in the kobold section).

While it's not equal to the wonderful Draconomicon, Races of the Dragon finally makes kobolds a viable player race, makes them a really interesting foe and adds a lot of nice new stuff for sorcerers.

This is obviously a very targeted book, and if you're not in the audience for what it's got to offer, the book will offer little value. If you are interested in more draconic content or especially are interested in kobolds (as all right-thinking people are), Races of the Dragon is a home-run and a must-buy.

As the other reviewers have stated, there are a number of parallels between this book and some of the others. The obvious reference is Draconomicon. However, while Draco focuses on dragons and the way "normal" characters might interact with them, it doesn't really do much for those influenced by dragons. That's where this book shines.

Obviously, the two groups who are the loudest advocates of draconic influence are sorcerers and kobolds. Sorcerers get quite a bit of exposure in other resources, so kobolds are given a chance to take the limelight, and they do it well. I won't repeat the details on feats and spells that have already been covered, but they definitely favor these two groups, as they should.

Yes, there are two new races as well as a little more info on the half-dragon and those with the dragon template. While someone can make parallels to dwarves or elves, that can essentially be true of just about any of the "new" races. As someone who is in a game with a strong dragon feel (though without the actual dragons so far), these new additions add quite a bit to the story and playability.

The PrC's all remain focused on topic, which is sorcerers and the other races covered. Yes, some can be used by other races or classes, but really, do we need more PrCs?

This book was the first 'Races of ...' that I actually purchased. I gave it five stars because I am running a Dragon heavy campaign with a Half-Dragon character, and a Kobold NPC, so this book really seemed worth the money.

The other reviewers are correct about the first two races, the Spellscales and Dragon Born, but I decided to use most of the chapter on them as a recurring myth in the background. The feats will be fairly usefull, especially for the half-dragon character. The section on kobolds alone is probably worth Amazon's price for this book. Most characters approach the Kobold as, as a previous reviewer put it, cannon fodder, but with this book a DM can continue to challenge a party with them all the way up to level 8 to 10. The look on the players faces the first time a battle with Kobolds goes longer than 5 or 6 rounds is worth the price of this book.

As for the Prestige classes, well the Dracolexi is fascinating, but the others are sort of hit or miss.

Most of the spells are good, but Power Word Pain is outstanding if unbalanced, although I had to change it slightly for my game, and so far only the Kobold NPC can cast it. It only has a Verbal component, so I tweaked it and decided that a character has to be able to speak Draconic to cast it and made it a level 3 spell. In fact most of the Power Word spells should be a different level than they actually are.

Ultimately the final point I would make is that for DMs who use the books for ideas this book is great, if it used by DMs who don't modify things and use the rules as they are written, all of this books flaws make it harder to recomend, and as for players, well if Munchkinism is your thing, then by all means let your characters read this book and use it as written.

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