Base Class: Barbarian
“When dragons attack, the only thing you should seek to stand behind is your own sword.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
Some barbarian tribes learn to loose themselves to their frenzy and rage, while others seek to emulate beasts of the wild, enhancing their senses and heightening their natural skills and fighting prowess. A few others choose a different path. Barbarians who follow the Path of the Dragon seek to rival, and perhaps even surpass the creatures who they believe are the true apex predators of the land. The majestic and deadly, true embodiment of death from above. Dragons.
Blood of the Dragon
When you reach 3rd level, you undergo an obscure supernatural rite, receiving occult knowledge handed down through generations by the tribe's shamanic elders. This elaborate ritual involves the consumption of blood from a young dragon, in a very specific manner, (ritual specifics may be fleshed out by DM and player). This ritual succeeds only if the dragon’s blood comes from a true dragon, which must be slain by your hand, (the young dragon is usually captured with help of the tribe and prepared for the testing ritual). Blood from any other type of dragon kin, such as a wyvern, results in the ritual's failure, as well as shame and potential injury or even death to the aspiring dragon barbarian.
At the ritual's culmination, the dragons's blood unites with your own blood, quickening within your veins and imparting on to you a fragment of the dragon's mighty essence. This blood merging presents itself differently on different barbarians. Some manifest scale like patterns on their skin, while others grow elongated fangs, some may even develop talons or slight horn like formations on their heads. This transformation forecasts just the beginning of the changes you will undergo as you begin to embody the raw power inherent to all dragon kind.
The barbarian may repeat this rite every time a dragon of a different kind (blue, gold, green, etc.), is slain by his hand, though it no longer needs to be vanquished in single combat. As your evolution continues, you are drawn to seek out and challenge dragons of different types and of greater age. Every success allows you to absorb and manifest a greater range of their formidable draconic abilities.
Breath of the Dragon
At 3rd level, you learn a degree of control over the draconic abilities you have assimilated from dragons you have bested and consumed in combat.
Whenever you enter a rage you may choose a Dragon type whose blood you've consumed through the Blood of the Dragon ritual. During your rage, you may use a bonus action to manifest a semblance of the dragon's formidable breath weapon as shown on the list below.
Breath weapon save DC = 8 + Constitution modifier + Proficiency modifier.
- Athasian: Psionic Blast in a 15 ft. Cone (Wisdom Save).
- Black: Acid in a 5 by 30 ft. Line (Dexterity Save)
- Blue: Lightning in a 5 by 30 ft. Line (Dexterity Save)
- Brass: Fire in a 5 by 30 ft. Line (Dexterity Save)
- Bronze: Lightning in a 5 by 30 ft. Line (Dexterity Save)
- Copper: Acid in a 5 by 30 ft. Line (Dexterity Save)
- Gold: Fire in a 15 ft. Cone (Dexterity Save)
- Green: Poison in a 15 ft. Cone (Constitution Save)
- Red: Fire in a 15 ft. Cone (Dexterity Save)
- Silver: Cold in a 15 ft. Cone (Constitution Save)
- White: Cold in a 15 ft. Cone (Constitution Save)
You may only choose one known dragon type to embody per rage, and you may use its breath weapon once per rage.
This breath weapon deals 2d6 damage on a failed save, and half as much on a successful one.
This damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (3d6), 11th level (4d6), and 17th level (5d6).
- If you are of the Dragonborn race, your breath weapon damage increases by an additional 1d6, if the dragon type you choose during your rage is that of the same type as you.
- If you are Athasian born or possess psionic abilities the Psionic Blast breath weapon increases by an additional 1d6 as well.
Enhanced Breath Weapon
At 19th level the range of your Breath Weapon increases in size to a 30 foot cone or a 60 foot line.
- Once you reach 20th level, the breath weapon damage doubles and while raging you can use the draconic breath weapon limited only by your ability to recharge it.
- To recharge you roll a d6 at the start of your turn and succeed with a result of 5 or 6.
Fortitude of the Dragon
By 6th level, you have gained a deeper connection with the dragon’s essence and resilience, increasing your durability and survivability in harsh environments.
- You become immune to exhaustion caused by a given climate's extreme cold, heat, or high altitude.
- You can hold your breath for a number of minutes equal to twice your constitution modifier.
- You can gain sufficient nutrition by eating soft minerals, such as clay, for a number of days equal to your constitution modifier before needing regular food.
- You gain resistance against falling damage.
Aura of the Dragon
At 10th level, you learn to channel the legendary fear that all dragons instill on their prey.
- As an action, choose one creature that can see and hear you and is within 60 feet. That creature must make a Wisdom Saving Throw or be frightened until the end of your next turn. The DC = 8 + Charisma (Intimidation) Modifier + Proficiency bonus.
- On subsequent turns, you may use your bonus action to extend the duration of this effect until the end of your next turn.
- This effect ends if the creature ends it's turn more than 60 feet from you, or out of your line of sight.
- A creature who successfully saves against this ability may not be affected again by it for 24 hours.
Aspect of the Dragon
By 10th level, your connection to the draconic essence within grants you uncanny awareness and presence in combat.
- Blind-sight: You gain blindsight to a range 30 ft. every time you enter a rage.
- Draconic Courage: You emit a variation of a dragon's frightful presence, palpable by those allied with you while you are in a rage, granting friendly creatures within 10 feet of you advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened.
Wings of the Dragon
At 14th level, you reach the pinnacle of barbaric dragonhood. You become Death from Above, proving equally deadly in the air as you are in the ground.
- While Raging, you sprout a pair of large draconic wings from your back, granting you a fly speed equal to your normal movement speed.
- Once per rage you may also use a bonus action to make a wing attack to a target of your size or smaller, that is within 5 ft. You vigorously work your wings in an effort to buffet a target adjacent to you, who is your size or smaller, (smaller creatures save at a disadvantage).
- The target must make a Strength (athletics) saving throw or be pushed back 10 ft. away from you and knocked prone. If the target succeeds, it resists and nothing happens.
- DC = 8 + Constitution Modifier + Proficiency bonus.
Previous Versions
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I know I'm almost two years late but what would happen if an extremely powerful Path of the Dragon barbarian, with the help of their party, slays an extremely powerful dragon and then consumed its blood in the ritual? I'm talking about things like dracoliches, perhaps ancient dragons, greatwyrms (Fizban's Treasury of Dragons), or an aspect of Tiamat or Bahamut. I know in 90% of games this wouldn't come up, but it would be nice to have an added benefit from assimilating the blood of a draconic creature this powerful.
Also, if I played a Dragonborn or if I got a class feature that gave me a breath weapon, can I use the Path of the Dragon breath weapon AND the breath weapon from other sources in the same rage? Or would it be restricted in some way?
So I love this build. My only concern is the 20th level, doubling of the damage dice. A 10d6, or 12 d6 for dragonborn, aoe effect that recharges on a 5 or 6 seems crazy powerful.
Who said it had to be solo? Maybe the other members of the tribe weaken it a bit first, like a bull fight. Maybe the wings are shackled so the fight is on even ground.
Well, the flying did sound like the main point there, my bad. More meant that the only dragon a level 2 Barbarian has a chance of beating on their own is a baby.
Javelins?
Grapples?
Jumps?
Lasso?
Spitting in his eye and blind him?
Fly is no excuse.
Question, how's a level 2 barbarian supposed to beat a dragon in single combat? Even a baby can fly, so barbarian loses that unless you're lucky.
The Breath of the Dragon feature could be improved for how it displays on the character sheet. I have a player in my campaign playing it and every time I ask what the DC is he struggles to figure it out as it doesn't have a location that just displays the number. It would also be nice to have a choice selector in the character builder that lets the player choice which breath weapons they have acquired so they can show up in the actions tab of the sheets.
Hello clickers777,
As I mentioned to Mr_Couver above, the Athasian dragon stuff is from the Dark Sun campaign setting, a fan favorite setting from past D&D editions (2E, 3/3.5E and 4E)!
Many of us are still waiting for its 5E incarnation, once WotC gets their psionics system worked out, as psionics is ubiquitous in Athas (always one of my favorite settings).
Nice sub-class idea. But I have a question... Why does everyone use a 2d6 for breath weapon damage? That’s as much as a single hit from a great sword. Using your action to do an average of 6 damage feels somewhat underwhelming. Especially when you think about the fact that you can only use it between short rests.
My suggestion is to buff the damage to something around 2d10, and have it improve by 1d10 at all the levels listed.
Edit: I realized that it’s actually once per rage, not once per short rest. But the damage is still somewhat underwhelming. As by level 3 you have 2 rages. (I think)
Maybe have it so that at 6th Level you gain Immunity to a condition and gain more at later levels. Being immune to Prone would be nice to have, and it still leaves you vulnerable to other conditions. I would say the options are; Stun, Prone, Blinded, Deafened, Fatigued, Frightened, Paralyzed, Poisoned. And at 6th, 12th, and 18th level you gain either Resistance OR Immunity (Needs to be play Tested) to one of these. I understand that being Immune to Stun, Paralyzed, and Prone is pretty strong but I think the level gaps make up for it.
And I agree, the Aura of the Dragon should be 8 + STG + Prof.
Wings of the Dragon is awesome and I can't wait to get to that level, but I think it should be 8 + STG + Prof just to have it more in tune with you trying to knock someone prone with your wings. =
Other than that this Subclass is sweet.
Hello Mr_Couver,
First off, thank you for taking the time to read the class and making some suggestions for improvement. This was one of the first classes I cobbled together and posted a while back for one of my players. I'm sure there is plenty of room for improvement.
I can totally understand how you could interpret the Fortitude of the Dragon's immunity to exhaustion as overpowered.
Just note that it is specific to climate, in order to reflect a dragon's resilience/adaptability to various environments.
Exhaustion levels caused by spell effects or lack of sleep/food still very much affects the character, as my friend's character found out when he was captured, caged and kept from getting a full night's rest and malnourished. lol.
Resistance to falling damage is just a fancy way of saying limited resistance to bludgeoning damage.
I imagined it as the pc, in the moment of panic, manifesting a lesser version of the draconic hide he manifests during a rage.
I was going for a lesser version of a rage, or the resistance gained by the Oathbreaker at higher levels, or the Avatar of Battle trait, or the blade ward cantrip, except the barbarian is still fully vulnerable to bludgeoning damage from weapons, as well as piercing and slashing damage (hopefully he doesn't fall into a hole with spikes at the bottom... ha). Though I may move this to 10th level.
The Aura of the Dragon DC is absolutely an oversight on my part. I need to update "Charisma (Intimidation)" to just Charisma. Thank you for the suggestion.
The Strength (athletics) saving throw, was definitely meant to be a Strength (athletics) check. Thanks for that. My players seemed to understand it just fine, but i may update it, in order to avoid unnecessary confusion.
The Athasian dragon stuff is from the Dark Sun campaign setting, a fan favorite setting from past D&D editions (2E, 3/3.5E and 4E)!
Many of us are still waiting for its 5E incarnation, once WotC gets their psionics system worked out, as psionics is ubiquitous in Athas (feel free to look it up if you don't know about it, hopefully you'll find it as interesting as I did!).
Again, thanks for taking the time to go through this subclass and offering constructive advise. I really do appreciate all feedback, as it helps me improve the subclass and catches things I missed.
--Xanotoz
So...I have a few nitpicks with this subclass. I'll just make a few suggestions and you can use your own judgment to decide if you want to adjust it:
First off, Fortitude of the Dragon has some things that seem very powerful at 6th level. I feel immunity to exhaustion due to extreme environments and high altitude honestly should be toned down to just advantage on those specific saves and give immunity at a much higher level; maybe at or before 17th level.
Also, as far as I know, no class or racial feature, spell or feat available to players gives resistance to falling damage. I would suggest removing that effect from the feature altogether and add in a more reasonable effect in the Wings of the Dragon feature, something akin to being under the effects of the feather fall spell or a lesser version of the effect.
Second, another thing I've noticed is in the Aura of the Dragon feature, the DC for the Wisdom save doesn't...make sense. The standard formula for determining a DC for anything (at least as far as I know) equals 8 + ability modifier (not skill) + proficiency bonus. You essentially set up a DC that has potentially double your proficiency bonus in it, which seems rather powerful (it would be triple if you happen to have Expertise in that skill). It should just be your Charisma mod instead of a total skill modifier which can break the whole bounding accuracy mechanic of 5e (feel free to look it up if you don't know about it), which caps a DC out at 30 no matter what depending on how you have Intimidation set up.
Thirdly, I don't know if this was a typo on your part but in the Wings of the Dragon feature, when a target has to roll to resist the wing attack, it should either be a Strength saving throw or a Strength (Athletics) check. There's no such thing as a Strength (Athletics) save. So whatever you meant by that, that part needs a change to avoid confusion.
I've ignored the whole Athasian dragon stuff as it's specific to a world you made so I have no problems with it.
Finally, I feel like the whole Enhanced Breath Weapon ability should happen at a much earlier level. Maybe when you get the Aspect of the Dragon feature.
But yeah, that's all the things I noticed that I feel would work better for the subclass. Feel free to adjust it to my suggestions as much or as little as you wish. Otherwise, this class is rather good despite the issues I have with it.
Best of luck to you!
Thanks for the reply! Excellent! This will be perfect for my son... he wants all the breath weapons!
Hello BigBaumer,
Exactly!
Your Dragonborn character would still keep his racial trait breath weapon from his specific draconic ancestry (once per short rest).
However, when he reaches 3rd level in "The Path of the Dragon", he would gain access to additional breath weapon attacks (once per rage, until 19th level)), granted to him by the "Breath of the Dragon" feature. These additional breath weapon attacks would be of the dragon types he has defeated and absorbed through the "Blood of the Dragon" ritual.
Furthermore, if your character defeats and absorbs the blood of a dragon that is of the same type as he is, through the "Blood of the Dragon" ritual, whenever he chooses to use that type of breath weapon during one of his rages, the breath weapon would deal an additional 1d6 points of damage.
example: Your 5th level, Path of the Dragon, green Dragonborn barbarian, slays and absorbs the blood of a green Dragon through the "Blood of the Dragon" ritual.
When he uses "Breath of the Dragon" during his rage, it deals an additional 1d6 poison damage, or 4d6 total. Additionally, if he uses his regular poison breath weapon while raging, it would also get the 1d6 bonus.
Thank you for the interest and let me know if you have any other questions. I always appreciate constructive criticism and advise from a fresh set of eyes.
Xanotoz.
How would this path work with a dragonborn character of a different type? Would they have their racial breath weapon, and the breath weapon from the ritual?
Hello clickers777,
In one of my homebrew campaigns 3 of my players come from Athas. The world of Athas is set in the DARK SUN campaign setting (http://www.athas.org/), which was a pretty popular setting back in D&D 2E, it came back in 3E and even 4E, but has not yet made it appearance in 5E (though lots of us have our fingers crossed).
It's a world with barren desserts blasted by defiling magic, that drains the life from the land, extremely harsh living conditions and crazy powerful psionic creatures (most notably, Athasian Dragons).
We (my players & I), think one of the reasons it hasn't made its way into 5E yet is because they're still working on a good system for psionics.
So, in the mean time I home-brewed the Mul race as well as the Athasian Human & Athasian halfling for them.
If you decide to give The Path of the Dragon a shot, please let me know if you like it. One of my players is a Mul/ Barbarian/ Path of the Dragon & seems to be having a blast so far.
Xanotoz
I have never heard of an Athasian dragon in 5e, nor have I heard anything about something called Athasian born.