Dragon Disciple
 

With the new advanced players guide it has opened up a lot of archetypes. I have always been interested in trying a dragon disciple. I am having a hard time understanding how to actually do this. Multi-classing changed a lot in Pathfinder 2E, and I still dont understand the dedications and how they work. I think I figured out how to add them into HLO. Has anyone actually built a dragon disciple up to 10 or higher and is willing to share so I can see what feats and stuff you took?

I built a Dragon Disciple as a challenge to try to recreate a players old 3.x Dragon Shaman he played during a PF1 campaign years ago. There's no real way to duplicate all that classes features but I made a Champion and then took the Dragon Disciple dedication class feat at 4th level and just kept adding those feats for Dragon Disciple in the APG when they were available as I leveled him up.
The player was into the claws, extra armor and breath weapon of that class and eventual wings they get so I figured those were best choices.
Really wasn't trying to optimize the character, just for fun I was trying to see how old material can be recreated in PF2. I saw a few posts on Paizo's forums say the dedication isn't that great for one reason or another but with these archtypes you never know what feats might be available later, like if they release a dragon related bestiary for example or some Lost Omens regional book which adds more options to take

How were you able to take Dragon Disciple dedication as a Champion?
Access: You are a kobold with the dragonscaled or spellscaled heritage, a dragon instinct barbarian, or a draconic bloodline sorcerer.

Access isn't as strict as Prerequisite (APG page 4).

Correct, I had no issue selecting it. Would have been weird if they put those restrictions on it. Seems like Access means its not uncommon to those who meet those requirements

Ok, didnt realize the Access rules. Assumed that meant pre-req. Thank you. Started looking at a Warpriest, Dragon Disciple. Looks very good. Cant wait.

As the others said, the access paths are actually not very good for DD at all. The ones who get the most out of DD are probably Cleric and Druid. Dragon Arcana grants access to some very juicy arcane spells, like True Strike and Haste.

At higher levels, the Dragon Form is actually not very good. It technically locks you out of casting (although I might overrule this as a GM), and it's a mediocre melee combatant, as most forms are.

So the feats that really matter for DD are: Dragon Arcana and Scales of the Dragon. Scales of the Dragon gives you a much needed AC boost while in Dragon Form, but also all other battle forms. A druid can get some good use out of that, since the low form AC is one of the main downsides.

Claws are pretty character specific, I'd prefer if it was a bite, but some builds can get good use out of them. They're pretty weak as a main attack outside of battle forms.

The breath feats are somewhat decent, but they're a hard sell when you've got so few feats. I'd be more interested in picking them with double class feat or Free Archetype rules in play.

I'm playing with a build now, but noticing that it seems that hero lab doesn't handle Dragon Arcana correctly -- ie it doesn't add the spells to your spell list, so you can't prepare them. Is there a work around?

Yes, there's an Adjustment to add a spell to a spell list.

Don't forget to report the bug!

Yes, please report this as a bug if you haven't already. It makes it easier for us to keep track of issues we need to look into!