Fizban's Treasury of Dragons introduces three ancestries for the dragonborn race. Each reflects one of the three dragon families in Dungeons & Dragons — the chromatic, the gem, and the metallic. Here's a sneak peek at the metallic dragonborn and how it compares to the original dragonborn found in the Player's Handbook.
- Metallic dragonborn racial traits
- A metallic dragonborn's outlook on life
- Building a metallic dragonborn character
Metallic dragonborn racial traits
Dragonborn with metallic ancestry lay claim to the tenacity of metallic dragons—brass, bronze, copper, gold, and silver—whose hues glint in their scales. Theirs is the fire of hearth and forge, the cold of high mountain air, the spark of inspiration, and the scouring touch of acid that purifies.
Source: Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
The original dragonborn offers two key traits that are based on your draconic ancestry: damage resistance and a breath weapon that can be used once per short or long rest. The race lends itself to martial classes — particularly the paladin — by offering +2 in Strength and +1 in Charisma at character creation.
The metallic dragonborn still offers damage resistance and a damaging breath weapon, but there are key differences to how the breath weapon works. On top of that, the metallic dragonborn also gains a second breath weapon at 5th level!
Here's a summary of the metallic dragonborn and how it compares to the original:
- You can use your breath weapon a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. The uses of your breath weapon reset on a long rest. For adventuring parties that don't often take short rests, this change increases how many breath weapons you get per long rest. More importantly, you can save your breath weapon uses for combats that matter, rather than being limited to just one use per short rest.
- Your breath weapon is a 15-foot cone. With the original dragonborn, your breath weapon deals damage in a cone or a line depending on your ancestry.
- The damage on the breath weapon has changed. The damage scales from 1d10 up to 4d10 at 17th level. Comparatively, the original dragonborn's damage scales from 2d6 up to 5d6 at 16th level.
- An attack can be replaced with your breath weapon. The metallic dragonborn breath weapon replaces one of your attacks rather than uses an action. For example, if you have the Extra Attack feature, you can replace one or both of your attacks with a breath weapon!
- You gain a second breath weapon. At 5th level, you get Metallic Breath Weapon, a 15-foot cone attack that can be used once per long rest. When you use your Metallic Breath Weapon, you'll choose from one of two effects: Enervating Breath and Repulsion Breath. Enervating Breath forces enemies to make a Constitution saving throw or be incapacitated until the start of your next turn. Repulsion Breath forces enemies to make a Strength saving throw or be pushed back 20 feet and knocked prone.
Ability score increases for the metallic dragonborn
Starting with the harengon and fairy races found in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Dungeons & Dragons races no longer come with set ability score increases. Instead, players will get to choose one of the following options at character creation:
- Increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1
- Increase three different scores by 1
Similarly, you'll learn Common and one other language of your choice (with your DM's permission).
A metallic dragonborn's outlook on life
Much like their ancestors, dragonborn are prideful folk. They typically stand tall and are aware but unbothered by the fact that others commonly find them intimidating. Unlike many dragons, however, dragonborn rarely isolate themselves from their own kind. A dragonborn respects the clan to which they belong and will honor their position in it. However, people of this race are always seeking to improve and earn their place in the world.
Metallic dragonborn in particular are tenacious folk. If you're creating a metallic dragonborn, take a look at the personality traits and interests of the following dragons, summarized from the Monster Manual.
Metallic dragon personality traits
Type | Personality Traits |
Brass | Gregarious tricksters; irritated by those who don’t engage with them; fair in dishing out punishment |
Bronze | Tacticians; love learning about warfare; despise tyrants; happy to interfere in conflicts |
Copper | Witty; prankers and jokesters; greedy |
Gold | Wise and fair but aloof and grim; will eat just about anything |
Silver | Friendly and sociable; enjoy learning history |
Building a metallic dragonborn character
The metallic dragonborn's breath weapon traits not only allow your character to deal damage to multiple enemies. They offer crowd control, too. Consider the following as you approach character creation:
- You can use Breath Weapon and Metallic Breath Weapon on the same turn. Characters that can make two attacks in a single turn can replace one attack with their Breath Weapon and another with their Metallic Breath Weapon to wreak havoc on mobs.
- Repulsion Breath enables melee builds. Imagine a metallic dragonborn monk that knocks an enemy prone with Repulsion Breath and then follows it up with a flurry of blows made with advantage!
- Constitution matters. This is true pretty much all of the time. But if you want your enemies to consistently fail their saving throws against your breath weapons, you'll want to find room in your build for a higher Constitution score. Since the barbarian's Unarmored Defense cares about Constitution and the fighter has extra Ability Score Improvements, these two classes could be a good pairing for the metallic dragonborn.
- Bronze dragonborn can maximize their breath weapon damage. The Tempest domain's Channel Divinity, Destructive Wrath, allows you to deal maximum damage when you roll for lightning or thunder damage. A bronze dragonborn's breath weapon deals lightning damage. Not a bad pairing at low levels!
More to find in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
The metallic dragonborn is just one of three ancestries available for the classic race. But Fizban's Treasury of Dragons is chockful of other goodies, including two new subclasses, tons of dragons, and more.
Michael Galvis (@michaelgalvis) is a tabletop content producer for D&D Beyond. He is a longtime Dungeon Master who enjoys horror films and all things fantasy and sci-fi. When he isn’t in the DM’s seat or rolling dice as his anxious halfling sorcerer, he’s playing League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering with his husband. They live together in Los Angeles with their adorable dog, Quentin.
Tbh, the original dragonborn weren't worth playing if your group didnt take regular short rests (like mine). Plus they seemed a bit bland. They didnt feel like DRAGONborn. Genasi felt like they had more options, and that's saying something. now all the different types of dragonborn (gem, chromatic, metallic) all will have traits that make them unique from each other. I think that's a good thing!
Every human is not the same, and that's why we have different "ability scores". You can play a smart orc in D&D with default racial ASI. You do it by PUTTING YOUR HIGHEST ABILITY SCORE IN INTELLIGENCE. Novel concept, I know. In fact, did you know that if you do this, you will be smarter than a character who gets +2 Intelligence racial bonus and uses INT as his dump stat. Weird, but it's true! You actually get bigger influence by using your ability score at character generation than just using your racial bonus.
Min/maxed characters are not the baseline for viable characters. Nor do race and class combination make a character interesting. If you can't make a good or interesting character by not having the optimal solved build, then... you are doing something very wrong. 5e is not a hard game and doesn't even require optimal party builds to do well. To hear people say "Oh, I couldn't play an orc wizard because I couldn't get a 18/20 int at level 1" is just ... so boring. It's like that sort of behaviour just crushes the life out of this game and any magic it has. Why would you want to play the exact same character 10,000 people have played before? There is nothing special or novel about an optimal build and if anything it just encourages adventure game design for optimal builds, which is just toxic to the community. You might as well have a robot play your character for you.
::Opens the door to the comments section, looks around, and quietly shuts the door while backing away carefully::
Nah, I'm going in.
I think the thing to keep in mind here is telling the story you and your DM want to tell. Don't like a rule? Change it at your table. Don't like a variant race? Don't play it. Come up with something yourself if you like, we have that capability. Ask your DM to help enable you to be the min-maxed powerhouse legend you wish to be. Who even needs dice anymore? Just optimize your character at creation and win everything. That'll save you hours of boring roleplay.
I think the individuality that stat bonuses give is really over stated. I've never seen a stat effect roleplay or behavior beyond what your highest stat, your lowest stat and any negatives. Those tend to be consistently determined by class rather than race so all flavor there is over ridden except for a general tendency for certain races to be certain classes. For example 8 int is generally considered dumb, 16 is considered smart but a wizard will always be smart and people might think an orc is often dumb but an orc wizard will never be dumb and so the only flavor the orc gives is that people don't often pick orc wizards. The same would be accomplished with a piece of flavor text that says " orcs are not often wizards" . In my opinion that's all those ASI bonuses do , make most players follow a trend in race class combos so you have a trope to play with. It lets you feel unique by picking something " off meta" by creating a meta. The problem Is I just think feats do that allot better and stat ups compete directly with feats so the races loose out. I think there is a reason that variant human is the most popular and its just that they give allot more flavor to a class than a race does. You can get a familair, new attack options or special utility. If you want flavorful races I think those are the direction they should be going with them, stuff like the dragonborns fire breath, unique movement ect.
Now that I’ve researched all three of the subraces for dragonbrons, I agree that these versions are much better. You can still play a blue or gold but they have different effects, the chromatic ones are pretty nice with the immunity.
Dude, where are you taking your logic classes. TAKE ME WITH YOU, Socrates.
Touche, someone has called out a logical fallacy. However, the argument was not made that if we abandon ASIs that erasing gameplay systems or rulebooks will happen, rather Verenti was making the argument that, according to cmlamontagne's logic, cmlamtongue's reasoning could be taken also as a reason for abandoning the gameplay system or rulebooks. Therefore, Verenti was not committing the slippery slope fallacy. The fallacy never appears in the form of a question, i.e. "Using your logic, however, let me ask you:" A slippery slope fallacy, which generally goes something like this "If you let x happen, then xyz terrible things will also happen." is always in the form of a statement. While the difference is subtle, it is still there. I also happen to agree with the point he made about it adding nothing to the game. I suppose if they added the flexible ASIs as an optional rule, say, in TCoE, or XGtE, then none of us would be upset.
p.s., it's called the slippery slope fallacy, look it up. Still impressed that someone knows what that is.
Because, my friend, without those set racial scores, there is no interesting character. The only reason that orcs are atypically wizards is that they have low intelligence, and are big strong, and stupid. Part of what makes a character like that interesting is starting with an unoptimal race, and building your way up to a master by using your class ASIs. If you don't want to do this, then you clearly aren't willing to go to the trouble of creating an interesting character. Also about the "different and special" thing. Sure. You're missing the fact that a person's race isn't what makes them different as an adventurer, what makes them different is the features they gain from their classes. Also, the height and weight thing? What? Since when does, "roll for your height and weight on this table", mean "everybody's height and weight in a given race are exactly the same." Who's rigging the dice at your table? Sure, average height and weight are presented, for those who are willing to be average height and weight, but seriously, since when does "the average man is 5 foot and 9 3/4 inches tall, and 156 lbs, mean: "Hey everybody, all men are the exact same height and weight"
Already replied to this post, but I like yours better......
where is the UA on D&D beyond?
I love these changes so much. Been playing a gold dragonborn sorcerer in one of my games for a few months and can't wait up update him when I get the book.
Aye, mate, allllll of this.
"Removing Suggested ASI makes the characters less unique!"
I dunno, to me the fact that the dragonborn can breathe fire/acid/what have you is way more of an important factor in why I pick them than where the +2 and the +1 lie.
In a perfect world, we wouldn't have stat bonuses at all and would instead get flavorful race features instead.
The point was not made that removing the suggested ASI will eliminate all racial distinctions. While the racial features tend to be more of an important factor, that doesn't mean that they are nor should be the only important factor. I seriously think that they should just add the flexible ASIs as an optional rule, and leave the core rules alone.
Right, and I understand where people are coming from in both directions. At a certain point, assigned ASIs eventually repeat themselves that everyone becomes some different variation of Strong, Smart, or Hot, etc. On the other hand, picking a race because of their +2/+1 is metagaming. On my third hand I don't like to talk about, assigning the +2/+1 isn't even that important, so we should both leave them how they are or make this the way going forward.
And my thoughts are if they aren't important, why even have them? Removing them across the board from every race in exchange for more flavorful abilities would be a great design step, maybe not here and now, but going forward in a different edition. I'd personally prefer to not have to argue about whether my Dwarf or Kobold or Elf must have a bonus I'm going to ignore anyway and in exchange have the designers focus more on things like Stonecunning, Trance, and Grovel. All of them are flavorful and no one ever remembers the +2/+1 beyond character creation anyway.
Maybe humans could keep them in this Hypothetical Future Edition, but otherwise it feels superflous and not worth all these arguments everyone wants to have about change and how we should embrace it or resist it or whatever.
Ok, that makes sense, how would you think of it if they offered both of those methods as optional rules, flexible ASIs, and Racial Features instead of ASIs? For example, just like the Point Buy, Manual, or Standard Array options, you would get a prompt when choosing your race whether you want Flexible ASIs, Set ASIs, or a racial trait unique to the race/subrace.
As for the metagaming, that's a really gray statement. The same could be said for the diminished need for hours of sleep garnered from trance or the sheer damage potential from a breath weapon. However, that sort of 'metagaming' enables a playstyle that some people genuinely enjoy, powergaming. Besides, if it is metagaming, then those who are arguing for the Flexible ASIs for the sake of class optimization are those metagamers. Refusing to pick a race because of its ASIs is as bad as picking one because of its ASIs. In short, arguing that Flexible ASIs allows one to play an unorthodox race/class combination is, according to your logic, metagaming. In short, there is and should be a dividing line between interesting race/class combinations for the sake of roleplay, and powergaming. What the Flexible ASIs do is erase that line. Still, while I think that Inflexible ASIs should remain the default, I understand that there are those who want to try to go for class optimization with whatever they want, so I stand by my earlier statement that if it's going to be added, it should be added as an optional rule.
I love how everyone here is arguing about whether the unassigned racial ASI's and all the other changes are good or bad. You do all realize that there is nothing that you have to use, and you don't have to follow everything exactly how it's written. If you want to use the optional ASI reassignment from Tasha's and your DM is good with it, go for it. If you think it shouldn't be used, don't use it. If you don't like flexible the new races' ASI's, you table can decide on what scores they'll always increase for each of the races. As a DM, you can change virtually anything.
The rules are there to provide a baseline that you can build on or change in pretty much any way so that your group can have fun. The point is fun, not a perfect game system.
Also, you people are getting mad at the 4ish races that have flexible ASI's. There are, like, 45 other races.
True, but for those new races, not only are the Flexible ASIs the default, they are the only ASIs presented. I'd prefer not to check the balance and lore on every new race my players want to play, so that I can create set ASIs. However, Flexible ASIs are not going to be used at my table, considering the arguments I have against it. Also, the Dragonborn used to be one of those 45 races, but they changed that. We're trying to make sure that those 45 races keep their Set ASIs.
Okay, that is reasonable. But still, raging debates aren't exactly the best.
This ASI arguments are getting a little crazy. I'm not going to get into them except to state my personal opinion. Personally, I'd like it if the optional rules that are in TCoE were shown as an option every time a book has any races in it, making it clear that it's an option while still allowing someone to build 'generic' characters of that race. *backs away slowly now*