I am only posting here because i have no other recourse.
You would think that the backlash to the purple dragon knight subclass would give the designers at WOTC the hint but the new books push the narrative that the purple dragon knights are defined by their having an amethyst dragon is their core trait.
Like... why? The established lore was sick. A black dragon so old that its scales turned purple? These were supposed to be the arthurian knights -The battlefield warriors; knights riding their horses beneath giant trees.
Who is so obsessed with this idea that they had to get rid of the previous lore to make room for this stupid idea. The new books dont even make mention of thauglor at all. I mean why even bring the banneret back if you were still planning on butchering the lore.
I’m with you on this one, even though I actually liked the mechanics of the UA Purple Dragon Knight. In my opinion, reverting the mechanics of the subclass while keeping the lore is the worst of both worlds.
I think what happened was that WotC saw, when the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide was released, that new players were excited for the Purple Dragon Knight subclass based on the name alone, and were then disappointed that there was no purple dragons involved. The fact that the subclass was rather bad mechanically didn’t help things.
So WotC decided to update the Purple Dragon Knight Faction so they actually do ride Amethyst (Purple) Dragons, commissioned art, setting fluff, and a new subclass that includes a pet dragon! Everything those, then new, players that were originally disappointed were looking for. They just needed to test the new Subclass to make sure it wasn’t too powerful or had unforeseen mechanical problems, so released it in UA.
There was just one problem. It had been ~10 years since SCAG was released, and all those originally new players who were disappointed thar the Purple Dragon Knights didn’t involve Purple Dragons? They learnt that the faction was named for a Black Dragon so old that his scales turned purple, and that these knights are actually meant to be Arthurian style Knights. And that is genuinely interesting. People like the tales of King Arthur and The Round Table, it reminds players that a military order can be named for creatures, and that people can misidentify creatures.
So the UA was trashed by the community. But WotC had not only already paid for all the art and fluff, but the book was already laid out with space set aside for the subclass. The idea that people would turn down a subclass that gives you a pet dragon, and all the fluff that goes with it, never occurred to WotC, and it was to late to commission new art and rewrite the fluff. So they took the original SCAG subclass, tweaked it, and put that subclass in the book, and changed nothing else.
They could have surgically removed the subclass's art and placed it in another book while replacing it with the banneret. While yes that would require much more time and money, it would have at least preserved art and lore that actually makes sense in another book, like 2025's Fizban or something.
The UA was trashed by people more concerned with their uncritical attitude towards, & parasocial relationships with, novel authors & their works, while others didn't realize the fallacious nature of wanting to "preserve the Drakewarden Ranger's uniqueness"-OtherStuffExists is a fallacy well known to Wikipedia editors.
Hence we got a Banneret that's setting neutral, but boring & burns through everything quickly.
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DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
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I am only posting here because i have no other recourse.
You would think that the backlash to the purple dragon knight subclass would give the designers at WOTC the hint but the new books push the narrative that the purple dragon knights are defined by their having an amethyst dragon is their core trait.
Like... why? The established lore was sick. A black dragon so old that its scales turned purple? These were supposed to be the arthurian knights -The battlefield warriors; knights riding their horses beneath giant trees.
Who is so obsessed with this idea that they had to get rid of the previous lore to make room for this stupid idea. The new books dont even make mention of thauglor at all. I mean why even bring the banneret back if you were still planning on butchering the lore.
I’m with you on this one, even though I actually liked the mechanics of the UA Purple Dragon Knight. In my opinion, reverting the mechanics of the subclass while keeping the lore is the worst of both worlds.
I think what happened was that WotC saw, when the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide was released, that new players were excited for the Purple Dragon Knight subclass based on the name alone, and were then disappointed that there was no purple dragons involved. The fact that the subclass was rather bad mechanically didn’t help things.
So WotC decided to update the Purple Dragon Knight Faction so they actually do ride Amethyst (Purple) Dragons, commissioned art, setting fluff, and a new subclass that includes a pet dragon! Everything those, then new, players that were originally disappointed were looking for. They just needed to test the new Subclass to make sure it wasn’t too powerful or had unforeseen mechanical problems, so released it in UA.
There was just one problem. It had been ~10 years since SCAG was released, and all those originally new players who were disappointed thar the Purple Dragon Knights didn’t involve Purple Dragons? They learnt that the faction was named for a Black Dragon so old that his scales turned purple, and that these knights are actually meant to be Arthurian style Knights. And that is genuinely interesting. People like the tales of King Arthur and The Round Table, it reminds players that a military order can be named for creatures, and that people can misidentify creatures.
So the UA was trashed by the community. But WotC had not only already paid for all the art and fluff, but the book was already laid out with space set aside for the subclass. The idea that people would turn down a subclass that gives you a pet dragon, and all the fluff that goes with it, never occurred to WotC, and it was to late to commission new art and rewrite the fluff. So they took the original SCAG subclass, tweaked it, and put that subclass in the book, and changed nothing else.
They could have surgically removed the subclass's art and placed it in another book while replacing it with the banneret. While yes that would require much more time and money, it would have at least preserved art and lore that actually makes sense in another book, like 2025's Fizban or something.
The UA was trashed by people more concerned with their uncritical attitude towards, & parasocial relationships with, novel authors & their works, while others didn't realize the fallacious nature of wanting to "preserve the Drakewarden Ranger's uniqueness"-OtherStuffExists is a fallacy well known to Wikipedia editors.
Hence we got a Banneret that's setting neutral, but boring & burns through everything quickly.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.