How to play Draconian?

[Lawndart Jedi]

How should you use a Draconian? They don't have a single weapon or spell aptitude with +. They can't wear any armour so that's a hand full of items that can't add to your resistances.

I just can't find anything positive about them or how to build one up to survive. Draconian are listed as easy but I can't figure out how.

[Reptisaurus]

Be a caster with really good armor class and no armor penalties.

[Sprucery]

Don't worry about the aptitudes. Also, the main function of body armour is to provide AC. Draconians get AC naturally. Try DrIE or DrCj. I don't think there's anything specifically different in playing Dr. Just remember to use your breath weapon (if you get one).

[archaeo]

Dr have a lot of decent advantages:

• No armor means no encumbrance; you'll always be able to have spells cheaply, and Dr have a lot of reasons to learn them. This is especially true of low-level defensive buffs, which most Dr should pick up as they show up.
• While they don't have any spectacular apts, they do have uniformly decent apts. Dr can be good for pretty much any kind of playstyle the game has to offer.
• Most colors are useful, and some are outright excellent. Only a couple feel lackluster in actual play. Breath attacks are really good, and the only Dr without one gets a nice AC bonus instead. Some are real game-changing abilities.
• They have adorable, fierce little faces.

I particularly like DrCj, which lets you lean on the excellent Cj book until you get your color, which can help you transition into any convenient elemental school. But they're really good for anything, including all the book starts. I know a lot of people also really like DrTm. If you decide to go melee without transmutation, consider shields and maces.

edit: 2slow!

[Jarlyk]

DrCj is one of my favorite combinations. Their aptitudes are uniformly decent (very flexible), with an HP bonus and a +1 in Fighting (a skill that you'll always want.) I find it helps when looking at aptitudes to mentally add 1. -1 is actually pretty close to neutral, whereas 0 is actually a bit better than usual.

Also, if you wind up Pale, it gives you a great opportunity to practice your LOS management. Having Fog on a breath timer is really powerful.

[WingedEspeon]

Draconians flat atps are actualy good when you consider that they have +1 fighting which is probably the most important skill on the game, and their lack of armour means that they have a bunch of extra Exp form not training armour. They also have +1 in the most important stat:HP. I have found them to make very effective melee characters. (On the other hand, my only deep elf win was a bezerker, soI might be a bit biased to melee.)

[elmdor]

I enjoy playing melee draconians over casters, but they're not so hot in the defense department. To help them survive, I like to go 1-handed and equip shields. (Or invest in Condensation Shield.) Even if you don't intend to be a blaster-caster, Transmutations school is nice as it enables draconians to cast Stoneskin and Statue Form, assuming you can find the right books of course.

If you just want to be an all-out melee machine, worshiping Trog can be a fun option.

[nago]

Well, you can raise dex, and choosing a shield should be always subordinate to the fact you have found a very good 1 hander in time (usually by lair), not the contrary.
Or just learn ozo's armor, which doesn't slow you down, gives lots of ac anyway, let you train one of most useful skill instead of one of the most useless (but generally I guess statue form for Dr is still better than for many other races)

[Sar]

Ehhh, Statue does meld scales. I guess it all comes down to how much you value SF resists and GDR!

[Lawndart Jedi]

... they have +1 fighting which is probably the most important skill on the game, ...

Why would you say fighting is that important? I don't see it. As I see it if your a caster you want to train casting and School. If a melee player weapon and armour skill seem more important so you can hit something.

[Sar]

because when your HP run out the game is over and good Fighting apt and good base HP apt allow dracs to have a lot of HP

[dynast]

Hatchling, if your HP is not above 400 you failed at draconianing.

[WingedEspeon]

... they have +1 fighting which is probably the most important skill on the game, ...

Why would you say fighting is that important? I don't see it. As I see it if your a caster you want to train casting and School. If a melee player weapon and armour skill seem more important so you can hit something.

Except that very frequntly you only need to train your wepon skill to min delay or so and more AC does not reduce a monsters max hit. having more HP means you lose less HP percentage wise so it effectively reduces max hits. Dodging starts to fall off after you hit 30 EV so you don't really need to train more than 18-20.

Fighting also increases damage by almost as much as wepon skill after you hit min delay. You also only need one good wepon apt out of 10 apts. and then only if you aren't primarily a caster.

[duvessa]

0 is an above-average aptitude for most skills.

[ZipZipskins]

0 is an above-average aptitude for most skills.

no matter how many times you say this very true thing it won't stop people from looking at the number 0 and thinking "well since there are negative ones and positive ones 0 must be the baseline" and they certainly aren't remotely out of bounds for feeling that way