Quote Originally Posted by Carl View Post
Tome's don't neither does your base stats. A 16 point bonus + a 15 base + a 2 point racial + a tome is allready a good +8 ahead of the devil. And that's assuming where just talking a +2 racial. If i was setting out to abuse, (particularly your version), i'd go in with a Centaur which would put me 16 ahead, and this is without leveling bonus's.
So...

Remind me why we're optimising strength anyway (to the point of using tomes, which I wasn't aware anyone actually did), when we have so much better stuff to do with our time?

Also, if you're a sorcerer, you can take spells off whatever list you like, so just grab Divine Power to invalidate any bonus a tome might have given the DD anyway.

Not to mention that the various shape altering spells are amongst the most common items on power limiting ban lists so trying to use that as an example of why it's balanced is really really odd.
The point is that one thing - one thing that a core class can do (incidentally, the core class you needed to go into, you guessed it, Dragon Disciple), without opening another book, makes your strength-optimisation (which involves, in the case of this base DD, throwing 13 levels down the sink which could invariably have been used for something more useful) compeletely pointless. In honesty, I don't think that what is essentially a +8 on attack and damage rolls is that overpowered - there's a reason that you can just go ahead and buy a weapon that does 5/8 of that - and if it is, someone can do it better.

Also, there's a reason why you should compare yourself to the high end, and not the low end.