I've always given my dragonborn wings and a tail just for roleplaying aspects, and they look super weird without a tail in miniatures.
I'm curious WHY they don't have them? Do they get them cut off at birth? Is it a genetic defect? Is it just how they've evolved and they've never had them?
I believe one of the racial feats from UA for Dragonborn is to get wings (which has unfortunately been scrapped for the release of XGTE), while for the tail, as far as I know there is no real explanation aside from lack of usefulness during evolution (most reptiles have a tail for balance and manoeuvrability reasons in the natural world, which becomes irrelative in a bipedal form). In Critical Role, Matt Mercer made the presence or lack of tail a social discriminant in the Dragonborn society with, IIRC, the ones without a tail being the lower "caste" of the society, and little more than slaves. Mechanically speaking, the presence of a tail can have no real impact to the game, but some might argue that it could grant an slam attack to the character.
In the end, at least for the tail, it's mostly a matter of talking with the DM and seeing if they're ok with it. For the wings, I'd suggest using the Feat mentioned.
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Dragonborne are not from Toril and are far different in origin than half dragons. The short version is slaves from the primordial world that Dragons control. They don't know how they came to be only that they were made to be slaves.
To be honest, I thought that was weird too and just gave them tails in my homebrew world, even if they're mostly just cosmetic.
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
If you want to be all that technical, Dragonborn and Dragconic Bloodline Sorcerers have an ancestor in there heritage that was a Dragon. Neither of them have tails, giving one to Dragonborn seems fair enough. A Sorcerer of that bloodline grows wings at 14th level. It would be fair enough to give Dragonborn the same. One of the things that makes me wonder. Dragonborn and Kobolds are somehow related to Dragons. Kobolds have Darkvision. All forms of Dragon I know of also have Darkvision. Dragonborn do not. I wonder why? It can certainly be argued that Dragonborn are more closely related to Dragons than Kobolds are.
If you want your dragonborn character to have a tail, then it has a tail. No biggie. And wings would probably just cause a power imbalance, especially at the lower levels. It's just a game. They try to keep the mechanics of the game fair and even, so the wings are out. But as far as the little flavor things, like a tail, go for it. It's your character. There won't be any "D&D Police" confiscating your character sheet if you say your dragonborn has a tail.
As mentioned above, their creature type is humanoid so that makes them a lot closer to human form than dragon. I would guess the lack of tails is to reinforce that they're humanoids with draconic traits rather than tiny dragons shaped like humans. Wings are obvious: if they fly then it's a game balance issue so hard flat no. "But what about wings for flavor" will just result in players whining about "but why have wings if I wasn't supposed to use them," never mind what the rules actually say, and the only real function of them would be to inconvenience the character because they have these large objects stuck to them that serve no purpose.
I honestly don't see an issue for adding a tail to a dragonborn for flavor or just purely cosmetic purposes but wings are a hard pass from my point of view. Boobs can be the same as tails as far as I'm concerned, whichever the player wants if it's a PC and whichever I feel like at the time I come up with the character for an NPC if I'm DMing (so probably boobs, because boobs).
Lizardfolk have tails , they are bipedal and its of no use other then may be swimming. It doesn't perform any action in battle. So why not dragonborn have tails?
I have a really great idea for the race history , like they have tails during birth but during there years of slavery dragons forced them to remove it as a sign of a slave , but now some cut it to look different from dragons and others keep them as there mark of freedom..
And TBH is the anyone who likes there dragonborn tail less...
Perhaps the thing about the tail was in-part to distinguish from Half-Dragons which differ from Dragonborn.
In 3.5e lore, Dragonborn are converted Humanoids. I've seen 5e characters that used that lore for a paladin order (from which the Dragonborn player character comes). (Ref: Oxventure D&D campaignette 2 and onward.)
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Conversely, some newer players never realize that Dragonborn don't have tails and you end up with a popular stream game character like Donaar from Acq Inc. having a tail and it just normalizes it for everyone who uses that as their entry point into the hobby.
Which is fine because it really doesn't matter if your dragonborn has a tail or not.
Well i have a theory that i have on why dragonborn don't use there tail in combat, Dragonborn are honor bound and will not use anything that gives there enemy a disadvantage in battle , they wanna fight fare and square . Therefore the don't use there tails in battle , just like there claws..
This don't give then an extra move in battle and don't change there basic ability, not make it overpowered and balanced with the tail..just a cosmetic option really cos it looks really cool to have a tail.
Perhaps the thing about the tail was in-part to distinguish from Half-Dragons which differ from Dragonborn.
I think this is basically the answer that makes the most sense to me. I've been DM'ing my friends through Tyranny of Dragons, which includes a few Half-Dragon NPCs, and just to hammer home the difference between Half-Dragons and Dragonborn I changed one of the major NPCs met early in the game to be a Dragonborn, if only to bring attention to the lack of tails in Dragonborn so the players will know automatically when they meet a Half-Dragon.
I've always given my dragonborn wings and a tail just for roleplaying aspects, and they look super weird without a tail in miniatures.
I'm curious WHY they don't have them? Do they get them cut off at birth? Is it a genetic defect? Is it just how they've evolved and they've never had them?
3D Artist - www.charliepharis.com
I have wondered why they have short life spans.
They're pretty far removed from dragons at this point considering their creature type is humanoid.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
My guess is they have a touch of the blood but not the magic.
Perpetually annoyed that Eldritch Knights can't use Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Smite, and Eldritch Sight.
The much deeper question is: why do dragonborn females have breasts?
3D Artist - www.charliepharis.com
On this video of Dragon Talk Chris Perkins and Matt Sernett talk about dragonborn. Including females have breasts topic XD.
And I cast Heroism on the community.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
I believe one of the racial feats from UA for Dragonborn is to get wings (which has unfortunately been scrapped for the release of XGTE), while for the tail, as far as I know there is no real explanation aside from lack of usefulness during evolution (most reptiles have a tail for balance and manoeuvrability reasons in the natural world, which becomes irrelative in a bipedal form).
In Critical Role, Matt Mercer made the presence or lack of tail a social discriminant in the Dragonborn society with, IIRC, the ones without a tail being the lower "caste" of the society, and little more than slaves.
Mechanically speaking, the presence of a tail can have no real impact to the game, but some might argue that it could grant an slam attack to the character.
In the end, at least for the tail, it's mostly a matter of talking with the DM and seeing if they're ok with it. For the wings, I'd suggest using the Feat mentioned.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Dragonborne are not from Toril and are far different in origin than half dragons. The short version is slaves from the primordial world that Dragons control. They don't know how they came to be only that they were made to be slaves.
Check out this video for the long story.
https://youtu.be/SgS5_TAdbPc
To be honest, I thought that was weird too and just gave them tails in my homebrew world, even if they're mostly just cosmetic.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
If you want to be all that technical, Dragonborn and Dragconic Bloodline Sorcerers have an ancestor in there heritage that was a Dragon. Neither of them have tails, giving one to Dragonborn seems fair enough. A Sorcerer of that bloodline grows wings at 14th level. It would be fair enough to give Dragonborn the same. One of the things that makes me wonder. Dragonborn and Kobolds are somehow related to Dragons. Kobolds have Darkvision. All forms of Dragon I know of also have Darkvision. Dragonborn do not. I wonder why? It can certainly be argued that Dragonborn are more closely related to Dragons than Kobolds are.
<Insert clever signature here>
If you want your dragonborn character to have a tail, then it has a tail. No biggie. And wings would probably just cause a power imbalance, especially at the lower levels. It's just a game. They try to keep the mechanics of the game fair and even, so the wings are out. But as far as the little flavor things, like a tail, go for it. It's your character. There won't be any "D&D Police" confiscating your character sheet if you say your dragonborn has a tail.
Have fun.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
As mentioned above, their creature type is humanoid so that makes them a lot closer to human form than dragon. I would guess the lack of tails is to reinforce that they're humanoids with draconic traits rather than tiny dragons shaped like humans. Wings are obvious: if they fly then it's a game balance issue so hard flat no. "But what about wings for flavor" will just result in players whining about "but why have wings if I wasn't supposed to use them," never mind what the rules actually say, and the only real function of them would be to inconvenience the character because they have these large objects stuck to them that serve no purpose.
I honestly don't see an issue for adding a tail to a dragonborn for flavor or just purely cosmetic purposes but wings are a hard pass from my point of view. Boobs can be the same as tails as far as I'm concerned, whichever the player wants if it's a PC and whichever I feel like at the time I come up with the character for an NPC if I'm DMing (so probably boobs, because boobs).
Lizardfolk have tails , they are bipedal and its of no use other then may be swimming. It doesn't perform any action in battle. So why not dragonborn have tails?
I have a really great idea for the race history , like they have tails during birth but during there years of slavery dragons forced them to remove it as a sign of a slave , but now some cut it to look different from dragons and others keep them as there mark of freedom..
And TBH is the anyone who likes there dragonborn tail less...
Perhaps the thing about the tail was in-part to distinguish from Half-Dragons which differ from Dragonborn.
In 3.5e lore, Dragonborn are converted Humanoids. I've seen 5e characters that used that lore for a paladin order (from which the Dragonborn player character comes). (Ref: Oxventure D&D campaignette 2 and onward.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Conversely, some newer players never realize that Dragonborn don't have tails and you end up with a popular stream game character like Donaar from Acq Inc. having a tail and it just normalizes it for everyone who uses that as their entry point into the hobby.
Which is fine because it really doesn't matter if your dragonborn has a tail or not.
Well i have a theory that i have on why dragonborn don't use there tail in combat, Dragonborn are honor bound and will not use anything that gives there enemy a disadvantage in battle , they wanna fight fare and square . Therefore the don't use there tails in battle , just like there claws..
This don't give then an extra move in battle and don't change there basic ability, not make it overpowered and balanced with the tail..just a cosmetic option really cos it looks really cool to have a tail.
I think this is basically the answer that makes the most sense to me. I've been DM'ing my friends through Tyranny of Dragons, which includes a few Half-Dragon NPCs, and just to hammer home the difference between Half-Dragons and Dragonborn I changed one of the major NPCs met early in the game to be a Dragonborn, if only to bring attention to the lack of tails in Dragonborn so the players will know automatically when they meet a Half-Dragon.
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