Hi there.

 In another thread I mentioned that I wound up in a 4th edition DUNGEONS & DRAGONS by accident this past Saturday. They liked the way I played enough to ask me to keep on with the group.

The Pre-generated character I played was a Dragonborn. Thats a newer race that I'm not totally familiar with. Did the best I could with what little I know about them.


Any of you guys been running 4/e D&D this past summer?

 If so, do you have any advice on playing a Dragonborn?


- Ed C.

This is a link to the Ecology of the Dragonborn article from Dragon at the WotC site:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dreo/20080709

This might be of some assistance.

Appropriately enough, their default style is Klingonesque, with honour and bravery as cardinal virtues. So just do whatever you'd do normally for a Klingon PC.

Quote from: Koltar;250351Hi there.

 In another thread I mentioned that I wound up in a 4th edition DUNGEONS & DRAGONS by accident this past Saturday. They liked the way I played enough to ask me to keep on with the group.

The Pre-generated character I played was a Dragonborn. Thats a newer race that I'm not totally familiar with. Did the best I could with what little I know about them.


Any of you guys been running 4/e D&D this past summer?

 If so, do you have any advice on playing a Dragonborn?


- Ed C.

When I first read about the Dragonborn, my first thought was "Draconian" from Dragonlance.  After some time of perusing the manuals, they are definitely Klingonesque, so they're right up your alley Q.

--Mike L.

Quote from: Koltar;250351If so, do you have any advice on playing a Dragonborn?

I use Reptile Men from Fantasy Folk as a source of inspiration. They were in my Majestic Wilderlands since the early 90s so it was a easy fit.

Dress all in purple, the color of kings.  Sing heroic tales of love and harmony.  Bob your head rhythmically from side to side whenever you speak.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;250415Dress all in purple, the color of kings.  Sing heroic tales of love and harmony.  Bob your head rhythmically from side to side whenever you speak.

!i!

And don't forget to re-grow your tail when it gets cut off.  See if you can land a few insurance policies with your fellow players, too.

I like to play up the "only child" aspect of the Dragonborn.  Don't treat anyone as your brother.  Rather, categorize everyone (subtly) as either your parent or your child.  Be uncomfortable when confronted with egalitarianism.  Share nuggets of wisdom with those you perceive as your children, and start to slightly imitate whoever the party leader is (if it's not you).

i just played one abit like t'ealc from stargate mixed with abit of klingon for the badass side of his persona it works fairly well then again the game i played in had them as wanderers from a desert land who were all former slaves to some empire they overthrew hense the jaffa side of his persona.

SO,....like I said to a friend  - doing a voice or accent that is halfway beteen in T'ealc and Worf in tone and style works for playing a Dragonborn?
  He said yes.

Also, WotC goes and promotes "Dragonborn" as a player character race - yet all their prepainted minis of Dragonborn are 'rares'.

Well I found a solution to that problem!

 The company REAPER miniatures makes a figure called a HALF-DRAGON, its number is 03022 in the REAPER catalog - he looks pretty darn close to a Drangonborn. When my manager saw that i was thinking about buying him to use in the game as my character - he offered to clean up the flash and seamlines on him and attach the weapon arm
 Thats not all he did - my manager also added a shield to the figure when he saw the character had a shield.  

 I used the fig unpainted ...but put together this past Saturday during the combat encounter. Now I just got to prime it  and paint him up. (any advice on that part?)


- Ed C.

Okay, first on the roleplaying end.  I'd play one as a monster with a thin, civilized venear.  He'd love the finer things in life but only for the impression it made and he'd really lack any proper appreciation for them.  He'd be very willing to kill and prone to eating his kills.  But, to give him a heroic angle I'd make him insanely protective of children, prone to beating people within an inch of their lives for as little as delivering a well deserved spanking.  I'd also try hard to make his thinking alien and somewhat unsettling.

As for painting minis.  I'd suggest starting with a black primer.  Then wet brush him up in white this will help to make the details clear and give you some shading and highlighting.  Start blocking with the skin and work your way up and out through clothing to armour, to decorations.  I'd generally suggest GW's foundation paints because they're nice and thick and opaque.

Don't put your base coat on with anything smaller than a #3 brush.  Paint with the tip, not the edge of the brush.  Never get paint up in the metal part that holds the tip to the wood.  Really, never let the paint get farther than halfway up the brush.  Avoid using bright colours as they can really make a figure look ugly in a hurry.  Limit your pallet to three colours, plus black, grey (avoid painting things white if you're an inexperienced painter).  Don't worry if you make a mistake, just let it dry and then go back and touch it up.  Sometimes you can use a damp brush to "erase" a mistake but sometimes you can also rub the primer right off and have bare metal sticking out.  While on that matter, a little black wash over armour and weapons looks pretty nice and saves you from buying and applying metalics.  If you want a shinier weapon you can burnish the armour with the end of the paint brush handle.