Got my hands on tome of the beasts and saw multiple dragons... won't be nice to have extra colors for them? I saw multiple dragons and thought why not have more dragonborn colors?
What's your opinion?
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Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Wouldn't extra colors for Dragonborn just translate into cosmetic changes like scale color and slight mechanics variations covering a resistance and the damage type of the breath weapon? These seem pretty easy to do and not really require a packet worth of text to talk about like the Tiefling Update had.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Wouldn't extra colors for Dragonborn just translate into cosmetic changes like scale color and slight mechanics variations covering a resistance and the damage type of the breath weapon? These seem pretty easy to do and not really require a packet worth of text to talk about like the Tiefling Update had.
Well, it's best to have them do it over us since they sorta have better ways of balancing stuff out. Also, it's one way to convince a by the book DM accept it. Can't blame him since he doesn't want to break the balance of the game.
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Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
If Kobold Press ever puts out a book with PC races, I'm sure they'd probably translate their custom dragon types over to dragonborn.
I just want more official options T_T
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Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Its not exactly a different collour, but for my nephew I made what I call a "Glass" dragonborn.Their scales are actually translucent with a frosting on the underside. I also gave him breath of wind and sand that does bludgeoning damage. At higher levels he blows hot air and sand (bludgeoning and fire damage).
I remember some D&D youtubers I watch on and off going "hey whatever happened to those gem scaled dragons," and I think that'd be a really neat direction if they ever wanted to bring them back. Imagine being an amethyst dragonborn with psychic breath. Or even just expanding on the metallic and chromatic options based on lore would be nice. Like platinum and brown dragons, for radiant breath and... sand powers? Idk, the brown dragon doesn't have a breath weapon but it hangs out in the desert.
Point being, there's a lot of stuff already in setting to draw from, even if some of it's older edition stuff.
That said though, dragonborn could use some new content in general; they are sadly a fairly inflexible player race. Their attribute adjustment doesn't lend itself to as long a list of roles as other races, and their breath weapon doesn't scale well into late game. A variant race or a tiny buff would be very nice to get. Maybe Xanathar's will provide a little something for them.
I would actually go with Mixed dragonborn races. like a dragonborne who descends from a earth and water dragon being a a mud dragon. or fire and earth descended dragon spitting lava.
I would actually go with Mixed dragonborn races. like a dragonborne who descends from a earth and water dragon being a a mud dragon. or fire and earth descended dragon spitting lava.
Now there's an idea. Though I don't think 5e is wide enough in its different damage types to easily slot something like that in. So what if instead your mixed race dragonborn got an effect added onto their breaths along with the damage. Like, say a "lava" dragonborn (maybe descended from red and brown chromatic dragons) had a lava breath where a failed Dex save lead to said lava hardening a foe's feet to the ground. Or a tan dragonborn (white + brown chromatic) has a breath that chills with a chance to blind.
Wouldn't extra colors for Dragonborn just translate into cosmetic changes like scale color and slight mechanics variations covering a resistance and the damage type of the breath weapon? These seem pretty easy to do and not really require a packet worth of text to talk about like the Tiefling Update had.
Well, it's best to have them do it over us since they sorta have better ways of balancing stuff out. Also, it's one way to convince a by the book DM accept it. Can't blame him since he doesn't want to break the balance of the game.
As to the balancing question the biggest difficult would be the damage types. Some types are significantly better (from a meta game perspective) since fewer enemies would have resistance to that type. I think psychic, thunder, and force fall into that particular category, which would mean perhaps a step down on the damage die type to d4.
The Crazy Black Cat also mentioned mixed race dragons, some good ideas of interesting ways to incorporate them as well. Lava Breath, Windstorm (Sirocco), are fun for flavor and a simple way to work around it. Perhaps they have resistance to one parents heritage and the breath damage type of the second, have a kind of chimeric appearance where the colors are marbled rather than uniform.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
RE: balancing the breath weapon. Honestly it's not all that bad. We're pretty flexible with dragonborn at my table. In the campaign I run, one player is basically a psionic dragonborn (so, psychic damage breath and resistance). And in our other campaign, I'm a platinum dragonborn with a radiant beam breath, and the resistance.
At face value those seem like almost broken options, because of your low odds of ever running into an enemy that will resist that rarer damage type, and the breath comes back on a short rest, yeah. But by that same token, because the damage types are so rare, we pretty much never have encounters where either of our resistances to them come up. It's like this significant chunk of our respective characters' kits we're not really getting a lot of use out of, unlike if we'd just played red/gold for the fire resistance, which is way more ubiquitous a damage type.
So yeah it is a bit stronger, but not so busted that I'd nerf the breath weapon damage dice. At least, not in my experience.
Obviously, you need to draw a line somewhere. Force damage would be a good line to draw. Other lines may come up, depending on the game you want to run. Want to run a vampire hunting game, disallow any necrotic dragonborn. That kind of thing.
I was talking to a friend last night and he brought up your exact point, kinda evens them out because that resistance is a little less useful.
Funny question, do npcs ever ask you if you are a silver dragon (and are you mildly offended by their mistake?).
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
One of my players has a fondness of Dragonborn, and I, as a child of ADnD wondered when/if they would do the other dragons of the DND multiverse(s). I would love to see what you came up with, specifically if you have done the Mercury or Astral Dragons. For those that can use multiple Breath weapons (ie: Copper) I think I would have a chance (beyond the player's control) that the other breath weapon actually be used (roll of 7 on the d20).
Thoughts?
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I do not like the word... prisoner. It implies a helpless state, and I assure you, I am never helpless.
Mercury or Astral dragons? Huh... Never even considered those. I've expanded on the Chromatics and Metallics and incorporated a few Prismatics but that's about it. Oh, and I considered a shadow dragonborn but only briefly.
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Got my hands on tome of the beasts and saw multiple dragons... won't be nice to have extra colors for them? I saw multiple dragons and thought why not have more dragonborn colors?
What's your opinion?
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
If Kobold Press ever puts out a book with PC races, I'm sure they'd probably translate their custom dragon types over to dragonborn.
Wouldn't extra colors for Dragonborn just translate into cosmetic changes like scale color and slight mechanics variations covering a resistance and the damage type of the breath weapon? These seem pretty easy to do and not really require a packet worth of text to talk about like the Tiefling Update had.
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Why would wotc make stuff for kobold press?
Its not exactly a different collour, but for my nephew I made what I call a "Glass" dragonborn.Their scales are actually translucent with a frosting on the underside. I also gave him breath of wind and sand that does bludgeoning damage. At higher levels he blows hot air and sand (bludgeoning and fire damage).
I remember some D&D youtubers I watch on and off going "hey whatever happened to those gem scaled dragons," and I think that'd be a really neat direction if they ever wanted to bring them back. Imagine being an amethyst dragonborn with psychic breath. Or even just expanding on the metallic and chromatic options based on lore would be nice. Like platinum and brown dragons, for radiant breath and... sand powers? Idk, the brown dragon doesn't have a breath weapon but it hangs out in the desert.
Point being, there's a lot of stuff already in setting to draw from, even if some of it's older edition stuff.
That said though, dragonborn could use some new content in general; they are sadly a fairly inflexible player race. Their attribute adjustment doesn't lend itself to as long a list of roles as other races, and their breath weapon doesn't scale well into late game. A variant race or a tiny buff would be very nice to get. Maybe Xanathar's will provide a little something for them.
I would actually go with Mixed dragonborn races. like a dragonborne who descends from a earth and water dragon being a a mud dragon. or fire and earth descended dragon spitting lava.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
RE: balancing the breath weapon. Honestly it's not all that bad. We're pretty flexible with dragonborn at my table. In the campaign I run, one player is basically a psionic dragonborn (so, psychic damage breath and resistance). And in our other campaign, I'm a platinum dragonborn with a radiant beam breath, and the resistance.
At face value those seem like almost broken options, because of your low odds of ever running into an enemy that will resist that rarer damage type, and the breath comes back on a short rest, yeah. But by that same token, because the damage types are so rare, we pretty much never have encounters where either of our resistances to them come up. It's like this significant chunk of our respective characters' kits we're not really getting a lot of use out of, unlike if we'd just played red/gold for the fire resistance, which is way more ubiquitous a damage type.
So yeah it is a bit stronger, but not so busted that I'd nerf the breath weapon damage dice. At least, not in my experience.
Obviously, you need to draw a line somewhere. Force damage would be a good line to draw. Other lines may come up, depending on the game you want to run. Want to run a vampire hunting game, disallow any necrotic dragonborn. That kind of thing.
I was talking to a friend last night and he brought up your exact point, kinda evens them out because that resistance is a little less useful.
Funny question, do npcs ever ask you if you are a silver dragon (and are you mildly offended by their mistake?).
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
My group has asked me to do just that, expand the dragonborn color options and racial feats. Working on them now.
@ AdventureHalz,
One of my players has a fondness of Dragonborn, and I, as a child of ADnD wondered when/if they would do the other dragons of the DND multiverse(s). I would love to see what you came up with, specifically if you have done the Mercury or Astral Dragons. For those that can use multiple Breath weapons (ie: Copper) I think I would have a chance (beyond the player's control) that the other breath weapon actually be used (roll of 7 on the d20).
Thoughts?
I do not like the word... prisoner. It implies a helpless state, and I assure you, I am never helpless.
--Artemis Entreri
Mercury or Astral dragons? Huh... Never even considered those. I've expanded on the Chromatics and Metallics and incorporated a few Prismatics but that's about it. Oh, and I considered a shadow dragonborn but only briefly.