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RPGs where you are a dragon / can transform into one.

DragoFireheart

all caps, rainbow colors, SOMETHING.
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example of jRPG: Breath of Fire series.

The being the dragon or transforming into one can be a major plot point or just some random, cool spell/ability.
 

Jason Liang

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NWN Red Dragon Discipline and Shaper classes. Also Polymorph/ Shapechange spells in general.

You can recruit a Dragon in Shining Force.

In Wizardry VII/ Elminage, you can create Dracon/ Dragonkin characters.

In Dragon Quest 3, wizards can learn the spell BeDragon.

In Phantasy Star 3, the Layans (for example Lyle) have the ability to change into dragons.
 
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racofer

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Your ignore list.
IzE8i.jpg
 

Black Angel

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Haven't tried the class, but in Tales of Maj'Eyal you can play as a Wyrmic that can mimic a dragon's abilities. Unfortunately, looking at it you can't transform into one (which is disappointing because some other class that tap into demonic powers can transform into an actual demon from what I read) https://te4.org/wiki/Wyrmic
 

Hevnknekt

Educated
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Would you be willing to settle for transforming into a Dragon Snapper?

drachensnapper.jpg


Incidentally, the Red Dragon Disciple PrC in Neverwinter Nights might be of interest.
 

Lazing Dirk

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Divinity 2: the Dragon Knight Saga. Fucking brilliant game too (although some of the combat styles do suck)

Word of warning if you're interested in this game just because of the ability to change into a dragon: when you finally get to turn into a dragon you'll find that your ability to enjoy this faces major obstacles. In many areas of the game there are very low glass ceilings that limit your ability to fly. Some of these are even lower than the thing you're trying to destroy, or lower than the entrance to the area you want to visit (walk in, fucko!). All normal enemies also disappear the moment you transform, so you're limited to breathing fire at turrets or the occasional enemy dragon thing. Most places aren't very large either, so there's not much room to fly around, and the ones that do have space are barren and empty.

I'll admit that there's some games that I've played purely because they had dragons/dinosaurs and/or lizard people in, because I enjoy that sort of thing, but even I couldn't bear to play through that game more than once. Yes, you can turn into a dragon, but if you're only going to play it because that's an option, you're in for crushing disappointment. Also I remember the combat being incredibly boring tedious bullshit with obnoxious levelling mechanics (in that enemies 3+ levels above you are instant death, and 3+ levels below are made of paper and give 1xp) that forces extremely linear progression despite the apparent openness, but that's another thing entirely. Maybe I just had a shit build or something? I don't know or care enough to find out.

Adding to the list, there's an (apparently not very good) MMO called Istaria where you can play as a dragon. 15 years old now (so I guess it can't be that bad, right?). There's also a dragon faction in Battle for Wesnoth. And you can kinda-sorta turn into a dragony thing in Dark Souls, though it's more of an anorexic goat in the third one. Plus 2 or 3 pretty awful games on Steam whose names I forget. There's also Divinity: Dragon Commander where you can turn into a jet-powered dragon (seriously) to help out in the RTS sections for a limited amount of time. Oh, there's also the Guncaster mod for Doom (2) where you play as a dragon dude (which incidentally has possibly the best shotgun of any game ever). The base game is pretty OP and even demolishes horde maps pretty well, but there's an alternate version called Guncaster Vindicated which is more of a challenge.
 
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Roqua

Prospernaut
Dumbfuck Repressed Homosexual In My Safe Space
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YES!
The best rpg of all time where you can play as a dragon according to all the super knowledgeable cool guys on rpg codex would be Pokeman.
 

cruelio

Savant
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
369
Divinity 2: the Dragon Knight Saga. Fucking brilliant game too (although some of the combat styles do suck)

Word of warning if you're interested in this game just because of the ability to change into a dragon: when you finally get to turn into a dragon you'll find that your ability to enjoy this faces major obstacles. In many areas of the game there are very low glass ceilings that limit your ability to fly. Some of these are even lower than the thing you're trying to destroy, or lower than the entrance to the area you want to visit (walk in, fucko!). All normal enemies also disappear the moment you transform, so you're limited to breathing fire at turrets or the occasional enemy dragon thing. Most places aren't very large either, so there's not much room to fly around, and the ones that do have space are barren and empty.

I'll admit that there's some games that I've played purely because they had dragons/dinosaurs and/or lizard people in, because I enjoy that sort of thing, but even I couldn't bear to play through that game more than once. Yes, you can turn into a dragon, but if you're only going to play it because that's an option, you're in for crushing disappointment. Also I remember the combat being incredibly boring tedious bullshit with obnoxious levelling mechanics (in that enemies 3+ levels above you are instant death, and 3+ levels below are made of paper and give 1xp) that forces extremely linear progression despite the apparent openness, but that's another thing entirely. Maybe I just had a shit build or something? I don't know or care enough to find out.

Adding to the list, there's an (apparently not very good) MMO called Istaria where you can play as a dragon. 15 years old now (so I guess it can't be that bad, right?). There's also a dragon faction in Battle for Wesnoth. And you can kinda-sorta turn into a dragony thing in Dark Souls, though it's more of an anorexic goat in the third one. Plus 2 or 3 pretty awful games on Steam whose names I forget. There's also Divinity: Dragon Commander where you can turn into a jet-powered dragon (seriously) to help out in the RTS sections for a limited amount of time. Oh, there's also the Guncaster mod for Doom (2) where you play as a dragon dude (which incidentally has possibly the best shotgun of any game ever). The base game is pretty OP and even demolishes horde maps pretty well, but there's an alternate version called Guncaster Vindicated which is more of a challenge.

It's a metaphor for women in gaming.
 

DraQ

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Divinity 2: the Dragon Knight Saga. Fucking brilliant game too (although some of the combat styles do suck)
This one is brilliant (and an example of actual Larian humour unlike the watered down DOS1 kind), although more of a H&S and dragon combat is kind of meh.
Highly recommended.

The I of the Dragon

You play as a Dragon all game long

That actually looks interesting, never heard of it before. Best suggestion so far.
IoTD is kind of a mixed bag.

You can choose between 3 different dragon characters:
  • Annoth - moderately fast, moderately resilient fire breathing one with powerful, but mostly long cooldown AoE offensive spells - both natural attack and magical powerhouse, but you will need to use basic breath attacks a lot.
  • Barroth - fragile (for a dragon) speedy ice breathing wizard type with diverse arsenal of utility and largely single target/small AoE spells that can be fired rapidly with small handful of devastating AoE later on - you will cast almost all the time, but you will overall have less damage output and have to use your spells cleverly. OTOH you will be fast and once you do get your AoE nukes you will be able to spam them.
  • Morrogh - slow but resilient poison breathing necromancer - armed mostly with necromantic spells, with some armour, debuffs and a bunch of nice AoE nukes for a good measure.
each with unique model that evolves and grows as you level up. Animations are good (apart from dragon not having any sense of weight and flying like a big toothy zeppelin), visuals are nice, esp. for its time. You have a decent number of visually distinct areas, day-night cycle, and arsenal of powerful magic that can lay waste to large areas of land (blowing swathes of forests into matchstick sized splinters, trees also react if you hover low), and temporarily deform the terrain. You can also catch and devour creatures (which you have to as the game has hunger mechanics), and there is a relatively simple city building/upgrade/repair mechanics (other than grabbing a human for a snack if you have to you can only interact with the city as a whole, but you actually have individual buildings and combatants on the ground, mages flying around on carpets fireballing monsters and harvesting mana for city upgrades/repairs and so on). There are in fact some segments where you play as human and they nicely emphasize the difference in size and power - what is a piddling, basic enemy attack barely worth noticing to you as a dragon, becomes a terrifying magical artillery barrage shattering trees overhead for a human.
That's good stuff.

The bad stuff is that the plot is 100% pretext, fighting with monsters and destroying their dwellings is mostly meh (probably the two most fun parts of the game are where you fight a human city aligned with the monsters - raising a volcano in the middle of it is quite effective, provided you can get through the defences without getting killed and one where you fight in an area inhabited by monsters somewhat similar to Myth's Ghols, that build camps and villages not dissimilar from what humans would build) and monsters become terrible HP sponges on higher difficulty levels - set the difficulty high and the game simply WON'T be fun.
Dragon controls are clunky (although you can switch to nifty FPP view allowing you to look around with your head separately from controlling your flight), the areas, while large are clearly delimited and there is a semi-cooldown system in place (individual spells are on cooldowns but the rate at which they can be recast depends on your mana inflow and number of spells that are being recharged).

Overall it feels like inside this game there is a mostly leaner and much better game wanting to get out - drop all or most of the monsters, drop or replace the plot, make it mostly about dragons and their vassal nations vying for dominance across the map or anything that would mostly have you smash puny humans than large menagerie of monsters (up to this point it's just the content that is already in game), maybe add some fortification mechanics in addition to central town per map, and you've got yourself a much better game even though you have dropped over half of the assets.

It's worth checking out for all the stuff it does well, but chances are you might still end up disappointed.
 
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DraQ

Arcane
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Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
Divinity 2: the Dragon Knight Saga. Fucking brilliant game too (although some of the combat styles do suck)

Word of warning if you're interested in this game just because of the ability to change into a dragon: when you finally get to turn into a dragon you'll find that your ability to enjoy this faces major obstacles. In many areas of the game there are very low glass ceilings that limit your ability to fly. Some of these are even lower than the thing you're trying to destroy, or lower than the entrance to the area you want to visit (walk in, fucko!). All normal enemies also disappear the moment you transform, so you're limited to breathing fire at turrets or the occasional enemy dragon thing. Most places aren't very large either, so there's not much room to fly around, and the ones that do have space are barren and empty.

I'll admit that there's some games that I've played purely because they had dragons/dinosaurs and/or lizard people in, because I enjoy that sort of thing, but even I couldn't bear to play through that game more than once. Yes, you can turn into a dragon, but if you're only going to play it because that's an option, you're in for crushing disappointment. Also I remember the combat being incredibly boring tedious bullshit with obnoxious levelling mechanics (in that enemies 3+ levels above you are instant death, and 3+ levels below are made of paper and give 1xp) that forces extremely linear progression despite the apparent openness, but that's another thing entirely. Maybe I just had a shit build or something? I don't know or care enough to find out.
There was an explicit level based damage scaling (matching your experience) prior to DKS, thankfully they threw it out later.

Overal I'd say that the game remains fun also in terms of gameplay, but the dragon segments, although still a plus, are lacklustre.
Also removing normal enemies when using dragon form and vice versa (dragon sized enemies when fighting as human) misses the whole fucking point of having a dragon form.

For me as well having playable dragons, lizardfolk or at least furries makes a significant factor in deciding to buy the game.
Speaking of which:
TES games have playable lizardfolk (just don't do Oblivion, no one should do Oblivion), while Wizardries have playable lizardmen (sadly of all too common dumb as bag of bricks variety) and semi-humanoid dragonfolk.

There's also Divinity: Dragon Commander where you can turn into a jet-powered dragon (seriously) to help out in the RTS sections for a limited amount of time.
This is a somewhat tragic game full of cool concepts meticulously arranged so that they cockblock each other.

You have a decent RTS mode (neat units, good mechanics) crippled by tiny, endlessly recycled maps and lack of meaningful base building. You can participate in battles directly as a dragon wearing a motherfucking rocket powered jetpack (which is about as awesome as it sounds) but entry is on a timer, your ability to command your armies is limited as a dragon and the RTS phase favours zerg rushing so if you want to play the battle well you won't get to use the dragon form, and vice versa. You have strategic phase that is ok, if simple, but interacts poorly with RTS one as it allows completely bypassing it and even if using RTS combat, it favours rushing early to not waste advantage from units you bring in (so waiting to use dragon form almost completely negates any advantages gained in strategic phase). And then you have political/diplomatic phase which is generally ok (if you aren't allergic to heavy handed pushing of political agenda) and has fun characters, but is generally just talking heads.

Other than tiny recycled maps, you could basically just rearrange what is already in game to get something awesome, but as it is you get something rather mediocre.
A minor but painful point against RTS phase is that it also doesn't feature any sort of infantry you could squash like bugs as dragon.

Oh, there's also the Guncaster mod for Doom (2) where you play as a dragon dude (which incidentally has possibly the best shotgun of any game ever). The base game is pretty OP and even demolishes horde maps pretty well, but there's an alternate version called Guncaster Vindicated which is more of a challenge.
This is relevant to my interests.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,298
Would you be willing to settle for transforming into a Dragon Snapper?

drachensnapper.jpg


Incidentally, the Red Dragon Disciple PrC in Neverwinter Nights might be of interest.
You can become a dragon in NWN via Shapechange or epic feats, IIRC.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Not an RPG but you get to play as a girl who gets to ride a dragon:

Drakan-Order-of-the-Flame-Free-Download.jpg


Decent action adventure, although I found the dragon riding parts to be the weakest due to slightly clunky controls.
 

Lazing Dirk

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You can become a dragon in NWN via Shapechange or epic feats, IIRC.

You can also use a hex editor and change your race into a lizardman, if that's your thing. Though in Hordes of the Underdark you'll need to edit a script to get past a certain section if you're not a standard race. Works well with a monk since you still get the cool unarmed combat animations. I probably still have an old screenshot somewhere of my lizard due finishing off a white dragon with an uppercut.

This is relevant to my interests.

The main mod is here and Vindicated is here. For extra funsies, there's a fully voice-acted dragon shopkeeper dude to get upgrades from who can be amusing sometimes, and one of the powerups gives you a little wyvern that flies alongside you casting whatever spell you're using (yeah there's spells too). They both have significant sequence-breaking capabilities due to flying/hovering/climbing skills, and work well with various mapsets. For maximum overkill, you can collect a kind of dragon Iron Man (Iron Dragon?) suit, which massively beefs up your unarmed punches and kicks, adds a jetpack, gives you twin plasma guns, and an airstrike capability, along with faster movement and damage reduction (I mostly keep it off since it's just too strong). I personally prefer playing Vindicated; it's a lot more balanced and the minigun is actually worth using (with the upgrade, at least). Normal Guncaster is good for a quick no-nonsense blastathon on mapsets like Maps of Chaos though.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,298
You can become a dragon in NWN via Shapechange or epic feats, IIRC.

You can also use a hex editor and change your race into a lizardman, if that's your thing. Though in Hordes of the Underdark you'll need to edit a script to get past a certain section if you're not a standard race. Works well with a monk since you still get the cool unarmed combat animations. I probably still have an old screenshot somewhere of my lizard due finishing off a white dragon with an uppercut.
Nah. Just ways you can turn into a dragon in-game without editing stuff. Those are actually in the base game.
 

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