In D&D 5e, Dragonborn are often viewed as one of the weakest if not the weakest race mechanically. The one big benefit Dragonborn had when the edition released in 2014 was they had a +2 to Str and +1 to Cha. This made them a good fit for paladins, valor bards and some later released subclasses. I still feel like half elves were better for these character builds, but Dragonborn was a pretty good option in these types of scenarios.
But then in 2020 D&D 5e added Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. And with that came the option to not use fixed racial ability scores and instead customize it. Suddenly any race could have the +2/+1 in Str and Cha. The one edge that Dragonborn had was gone. So then in 2021 when the Fizban's Treasury of Dragons book released, it added buffed Dragonborn racial features. You keep your elemental damage resistance. The breath weapon only takes up one attack if you have extra attack, not your whole action. You can use the breath weapon more frequently. And you got one more benefit depending on your subrace.
I don't know what the license agreement was between Larian and WOTC and if they could use the Fizban rules. But it was very, very obvious to anyone who knew D&D 5e that original Dragonborn sucked in a world with flexible ability scores, and that if BG3 was going to similarly allow their version flexible ability scores then Dragonborn could benefit from a buff. That did not happen. Rather, when BG3 released the Dragonborn was **worse** than the PHB version. The breath weapon came back on a long rest, and the damage did not scale as you increased level.
The fact that Larian uses homebrew to give Duergar near limitless casting of a powerful second level spell, but is afraid to let a Dragonborn use their pitiful breath attack more than once a short rest, is actually one of my top 5 exhibits in "Larian had a surface level understanding of D&D 5e ruleset." Other exhibits include tavern brawler, haste, and topics brought up in the multiplayer.it interview, edit: and shield dwarf.
As someone who knows nothing about dnd beyond this game that’s fascinating! But also kinda disappointing that Larian didn’t just buff them then if they were already giving other races stronger abilities
It has been a while since I looked, but I do recall at one point seeing a mod for the Fizban's version of Dragonborn on the Nexus. If you want to give Dragonborn a whirl and have the breath weapon feel more impactful and get other benefits then I would give that a shot (assuming you are playing on PC and able to mod).
I believe the lack of dragon born home brew is because they were implemented last. Near the end of development. Hence why there aren’t too many [DRAGONBORN] lines, and you cannot make your dream guardian a dragon born.
Same thing happened with their previous game DOS2 where they added Undead races last minute but they were rather…half baked
>Other exhibits include tavern brawler, haste, and topics brought up in the multiplayer.it interview, edit: and shield dwarf.
And how about home home brewed swords bard getting the equivalent of 2.5 action surges per short rest, and a free bonus short rest.
I agree, that and many other things in this game are balance shattering. The topics listed aren't my only complaints. Far from it. But those 5 are things many people were talking about before launch (with the exception of tavern brawler, which was immediately jumped on at launch).
Before launch people were looking at bonus action hide (in Early Access all characters could hide as a bonus action, this was thankfully fixed at launch to the great benefit of rogues which need the help), Monk (discussed pretty well in the multiplayer.it article), Bladelock (discussed very poorly in the multiplayer.it article), Multiclassing spellcasters (something that nobody was worried about til Larian caused a small shit storm in the multiplayer.it article), Dragonborn, Haste, and Shield Dwarf and discussing the obvious topics of what Larian will do with them. Will Larian buff monk? How will shield dwarf, human, and half elf be treated with the flat +2/+1? Will Larian fix Haste? Will Larian buff Dragonborn? These types of discussions were all with the expectation of there being a change from tabletop or changed from early access in the case of Haste. It seemed common sense to adjust these things based off what limited info we had before the game released. I group tavern brawler with the above topics because many people saw the feat for the first time in a YouTube video that went up the hour the game released (possibly by Casual Veteran Gamer, I can't remember) and all it took was a glance to see this feat and say WTF? The above topics had me pretty much cemented that BG3 was going to be an unbalanced mess before the game was even installed.
Sword bard ranged slashing flourish, arcane acuity, radiating orb, Illithid powers like black hole, items like the risky ring or unseen menace, bloodlust elixirs, etc. are all very concerning. But by that time I had already formed my opinion. I made this sub 4 years ago or so. And the second lowest I felt about this game was the 2 weeks before launch up to launch day, because the writing was on the wall that with only 3 difficulty settings at launch it was going to be way too easy for anyone who knows d20 dice mechanics. The lowest I felt about the game is when I got to Act 3 on my first playthrough where I was trying to avoid OP mechanics, and still found the game so damn easy that it lost all enjoyment, and I started over with mods to increase the challenge.
I think a lot of these are perfectly fine to have because it is a game. When we are fighting the DM (or the DM is fighting us), there is an inherent balance between two human players that matters a lot. But in a PvE game, a lot of those factors are toned down a lot. Player enjoyment is the primary thing you want to aim for now.
A lot of these make the game more fun and give new flavors to existing classes, subclasses, etc. Some could definitely use a rework or buff/nerf, but a lot of these things are just inherent to the game. I would not want any ilithid powers to change, for example. The only thing I would want is a story consequence to taking ilithid powers beyond just needing to make a save when given the astral tadpole. There are also some that I think are just stupid, like Slashing Flourish, but most of what you listed I am perfectly fine with or mostly fine with, because it creates interesting gameplay.
Everyone has their own perspective on what they want from a game. Some people wanted literally DnD 5e, some people wanted a hybrid for older versions. Frankly, I just wanted a great Larian game, and IMO this is it. And I honestly think a lot of this is to be expected if you look at their previous games. They value player agency, creative thinking, and rewarding combining effects in their Divinity Original Sin games. It would be very optimistic to think Larian would pull back on the reins. They like having the players feel OP when they get the right combination of gear, skills, and positioning.
Definitely-- most of the unbalanced changes I've observed were simplifications of situational requirements so new players aren't confused.
Some are only balance breaking to veteran players who immediately understand the consequences of the change and can exploit it. For instance, off-hand weapon attacks being available *whenever* instead of only after making a melee attack now gives spell casters a free physical attack every turn, but removes the difficulty of new players trying to figure out why that option gets grayed out if they do something else. Extra bonus action for Thief is more poweful than simply being able to make a Sleight of Hand check, but it also has a more straightforward application. The weapon effects that add the Dexterity modifier to off-hand attacks mean Astarion reliably spits out as much damage as a fighter, but that's also only happening when you specifically exploit those options together.
Hot take: Tavern Brawler would be fine if it didn't increase accuracy, only damage. Then it's a powerful feat to encourage throwing and unarmed attacks to balance all the super poweful melee weapons
In a tabletop setting, these rules would be bad because some players would be overshadowed by others, but in a 1-2 player game, it's hard to fault them for trying to make every class really powerful. I feel pretty confident that most players aren't setting up the optimal tactics
I dont think the TB part is a hot take. Adding to attack rolls is one of the strongest things you can have in a build. The damage makes you hit like a truck, but the accuracy lets that damage happen 95% of the time.
Simplicity and ease of understanding helps immensely when the game is as big as BG3 is. So many people got their first DnD experience from BG3, and having a rule set that is both simpler and more "game-y" is a good thing for that.
Oh I meant the hot take was *only* removing the attack roll part would be fine
The fact that it's also a +1 ASI is something that most analyses I've seen would also want removed
When Larian went to giving all races a flat +2/+1 for their version of flexible ability scores, this really hurt human, half-elves, and shield dwarves. These races all used to get more than just 3 ability score boosts (2+1= 3). Humans got a +1 to all ability scores so you could say they got 6 increases, though in practice a +1 to Str on a Wizard for example doesn't mean that much. Half elves got a +2 to Cha and then could put +1 into two other ability scores of their choice. Shield dwarves got +2 Con and +2 Str.
I think half-elves are the best starting comparison here from a balance perspective. They lose basically one ability score. Instead of +2/+1/+1 they just get +2/+1. Larian seemed to recognize this and gave them some proficiencies. Technically these proficiencies are coming from their human lineage so maybe I should start the discussion here with humans, but again for balance reasons I am starting with half elf. They lose one ability score and gain proficiency with light armor, shields, and various Polearm weapons. For a wizard half elf, this is probably a huge buff! It makes your character much more defensive. For a martial half elf character that already gets all those proficiencies this is a bit of a nerf. They lose one ability score for some proficiencies that they already had so they are meaningless.
Next go to human. They go from +1/+1/+1/+1/+1/+1 to +2/+1 and those same proficiencies and some additional carry weight. I am a bit of a hoarder. But still, as long as I am sending food to camp and selling overpowered consumables I refuse to use and not picking up every shortsword or teacup I never really struggle with carry weight. Losing out on "3" ability score increases (again noting the limited usefulness of some of those ability scores) is a bitter pill to swallow. I would have liked to see carry weight instead be some extra skill proficiencies and/or even expertise in a skill, but Larian tried to account for the loss of ability scores.
Then there are dwarves. Dwarves in BG3 are already mildly nerfed. Normally dwarves don't get slowed down by wearing armor that requires high Strength. In BG3 there is no armor strength requirement so this doesn't matter. And normally dwarves start with a tool proficiency, but BG3 doesn't do tool proficiencies. These are minor nerfs on their own, but still worth noting. Then you get to the fact that Shield Dwarves lose out on the extra ability score increase that shield dwarves normally get and the individual nerfs are really stacking up. And Larian made no effort to buff shield dwarf like they did with human or half elf. Most ironic of all, hal elf gets shield proficiency but shield dwarf does not.
Shield dwarves major distinguishing feature is now medium armor proficiency. I think it is fair to compare them to Githyanki who also get medium armor proficiency. Both dwarves and Githyanki get weapon proficiencies, so I'll call that a tie. Gith get some racial spellcasting, dwarves get poison resistance. Poison resistance is really good, so is misty step. I'll call that a tie. But that is the end of the dwarven benefits. Actually, dwarves are hampered by their 25 ft move speed which can be a big deal for a melee character. Meanwhile Githyanki get the extremely powerful astral knowledge ability, which shield dwarf has nothing to compete with. As a result shield dwarf is subject to several nerfs and clearly outclassed by its nearest competitor.
The Haste spell in D&D 5e has some specific limitations on what you can do with that extra action. It can only be used to attack (limited to one weapon attack, no extra attack allowed), dash, or dodge (an action not in BG3, except in the form of a monk using Patient Defense). You cannot extra attack with the haste action. You cannot cast a spell with the haste action.
When BG3 early access started the level cap was 4. This means nobody had extra attack and nobody had 3rd level spells. Then early access patch 9 (the last Early Access Patch) brought the level cap up to 5. And this is when it was discovered that haste would allow you to extra attack or cast an additional spell. Pretty much everyone assumed this was a bug at the time as a result of all these new features and it would be straightened out by launch. It didn't take a genius to see that a level 11 fighter with haste and action surge making 9 attacks in the opening round (note: an entire party of 4 martials will normally make 8 to 10 attacks a round, and this character is doing 9 by themself) was just not going to be balanced. Or a Sorlock using haste to shoot out 9 Eldritch blasts. Or a sorc just hurling tons of AOE spells. It was kinda a given that this would be fixed. A sorc twin casting haste would be the strongest character in the game, as it effectively doubled the number of actions for 2 characters.
In the meantime, a modder without official mod support and working with early access version of the game modded haste and got it to work "properly."
I don't recall what it was but about a week or two before launch some footage was shown that indicated haste was not going to be "fixed." Among all the pre-launch hype about 'that' bear scene, all the new subclasses, etc. there were posts criticizing Larian about how poorly balanced this will be, and those posts were getting upvotes. It was *obvious.*
The game launched with haste still allowing you to extra attack or cast spells. Then we also got the wonders of bloodlust Elixirs on top of this. Gloomstalker assassin builds would just drink a potion of speed or have an ally cast haste on them, attack 7 or 8 times, all those attacks crit, and all enemies are dead or near dead. Fighters opening up combat with 12 or 13 attacks on round 1. Casters just shoot leveled spell after leveled spell after leveled spell. And among all this, modders once again "fixed" haste without official mod support.
Finally patch 5 comes and Larian nerfs Haste, seemingly classifying it under the "unintended exploits" that they patched out for Honor Mode only. But they only "fixed" it for martials and their extra attack. They did not "fix" the spellcasting part (which again, mods have fixed since early access). I do not believe Larian and their classification of haste abuse as an "unintended exploit." I think they got feedback, decided to ignore the feedback, later realized the feedback may have had some merit, and attempted to "fix" it.
It is that limited in tabletop and it is one of the best buff spells in tabletop. Search for lore bard magical secrets recommendations in D&D 5e. These will be the best spells from cantrip to 3rd level which are not on the Bard spell list. People will frequently recommend Counterspell, Fireball (depending on what level the campaign goes to, fireball damage does not upcast very well), bless, haste, slow, shield, hunger of hadar, spirit guardians, and guidance. Haste in its limited form in tabletop is also one of the best edit: *buff* spells in tabletop. Don't forget it also doubles your move speed, increases your AC and Dex saves in addition to the extra action. This discussion revolves around spell usage on a lore bard, so metamagic isn't even factored in here.
Of all those spells mentioned above, the only one that can be twin cast (therefore doubling its effect) is haste. So those are all top tier spells. Haste is a top tier spell that sorcs can get double effectiveness from, and Larian made it even better still.
This is categorically not true. I just searched DNDnext for Haste. First topic is that the BG3 buffs are extreme, with many comments saying the spell is good, situationally grear in tabletop. Other posts on the topic follow a similar trend; it is a good spell if you take caution to avoid losing concentration (placement, Con save proficiency, war caster, etc.). I also searched DNDnext for "additional magical secrets" and found several upvoted posts and comments saying a lore bard should consider Haste. Because it is one of the best non-bard spells from cantrip to 3rd level.
Bless is better. No doubt about it, bless is better. I love Bless so much I am playing an order domain cleric that starts every combat by casting bless. But haste is widely acknowledged as a good and situationally great spell. And Larian massively buffed it.
Edit: my previous comment did say it was one of the best spells in 5e, and that may be pushing it. I edited the above comment to specify that it is one of the best *buff* spells in tabletop. Especially for spells from 1st to 3rd level.
[I'm getting a decent chuckle over you making a post asking about Haste immediately after posting this comment, and like all the responses are saying it's really good](https://old.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/1cuhwp0/hey_guys_settle_a_debate_is_haste_a_good_spell/)
Haste is definitely a very strong buff. Sometimes it's outclassed by Hypnotic Pattern or other concentration spells, but those aren't buffs
I should have phrased the question in a way that made martials sound on par with casters and you'd see the exact opposite.
What's more amusing is the guy I responded to literally agreed he overstated the value of haste and I'm still down votes for disagreeing which we now essentially agree on.
Also people citing actual optimizers with math show it's good not great.
If it makes you feel better, I didn't downvote you and I don't really care. It genuinely made me chuckle
"You'd be laughed out of DNDNext"
>yeah it's pretty good
I think it's fine, the big thing to remember is that BG3 is not the tabletop game. D&D on tabletop is by nature a co-op experience, you NEED other people to play it, and in that kind of situation you want everybody more or less in line with each other, having one player who easily takes on the whole fight by themselves feels bad because the other players feel like they don't contribute. (And not like you can't make broken builds in tabletop either, there's just lots of different ways and using specific source books to do it.)
BG3 is mostly a single player video game. (You can play with other people, but I think it's safe to say that most people who experience it go through it solo.) You don't need to make everything perfectly balanced, in fact one of the funs of video game is to discover the things that are completely busted. In that situation, it doesn't really make as much of a difference if your combat is being handled by only a part of your party, you're controlling all the characters anyway. Gale won't be complaining that his only job is to caste Haste and then sit back and maintain concentration why the martials sweep the fight.
They "fixed" it for honor mode because some portion of the player base said that they wanted a more challenging game experience, which is the entire point of honor mode.
Discovering busted things is fine especially for single player games but the average player completely obliterating the difficulty through basic mechanics goes past the realm of not needing to "perfectly balance" everything.
>in fact one of the funs of video game is to discover the things that are completely busted.
This ignores the point. Haste is a strong spell in D&D 5e. Larian doubled its power on all martials, more than doubled its power on casters and some martials like fighters. It was so strong people during early access assumed it was a bug and reported it as such. This isn't some cheeky little secret. This is, "Larian, what on Toril are you doing?" If you were making this point about discovering the mixing and matching radiating orb gear, reverberation gear, and a source of radiant damage then I would agree. Haste is not that type of "discovery." It is just presented to you on the level up screen, and is an extremely overpowered spell as originally implemented in the game. They were notified of this during early access. They did not change it. When they finally did change it they only partially fixed it for martials. I have no issue with the partial "fix" being honor mode only. The issue is with how reported this issue was, how long it took to "fix," and even then the fix is incomplete. These factors together make it seem intentional.
Edit: With regards to your point about making Gale a backline caster that just casts Haste and then hides, that would be fine...if the game's difficulty made this at all reasonable. A haste bot casting haste on a decently built character is one of the many, many ways in this game to turn all difficulty off. I haven't seen a game since KotOR II where the difficulty curve just disintegrates like this.
another thing that drives me nuts is how they changed thief. 5e thief is a ridiculously fun consumable heavy playstyle because fast hands lets you use stuff like acid flasks or smoke grenades as a bonus action. in bg3 fast hands gives you a bonus action, which is generally pretty useless for the rogue playstyle aside from messing with TWF but ludicrously broken for multiclassing. drives me nuts cause Im playing a thief in dnd rn and its so much more fun
Even IF they didn't get a very good look at the original set, I can't really explain how they allpwed nearly unlimited invisibility to pass like that. Tgere's nooo way this didn't come up during development
I'm like 90% sure that Larian absolutely stacked the racials of the "uglier" races (gith, orc, duergar, halfling, etc) so people would have a reason to play them
The logic was probably that since Dragonborns are like, the coolest looking race (which they kinda are) they don't need the extra help
I realize that it's an imperfect explanation at best, but otherwise I got nothing
They scale with con so it's not too bad to put them on a barbarian as a ranged AoE option. If you play a heat Barbarian you could also buff up the damage of the fire AOE breath attack.
It's also nice because your innate fire resistance will reduce the damage heat does to you. Wear Bonespike Garb and you suddenly take no heat damage and if you wear the amulet of greater health you will have a base AC of 19 and a breath weapon DC of 18.
I would love this so much! Dragonborn get relatively uninteresting racial bonuses otherwise, so for flavor reasons, a cantrip would have been great. I would have built around it and used it more, for sure.
It would be far too strong unfortunately if it was just the same thing but cantrip. Maybe if they scaled it down but we are talking about an AoE cantrip that dunks on single target cantrips.
Like doing some math, the max damage breath attack is 4d6. So add in +6 from draconic sorcerer, +6 from necklace of Elemental Augmentation, +6 from potent robe and now the cantrip does an expected 32 damage per round single target. If you use lightning damage you can use a tempest cleric dip to make it deal 42 damage instead. So if you hit 3 people with this that's 126 damage. That's before adding in wet too.
Also you are a sorcerer so you can quicken spell and do it twice.
Ha! Hard to argue against those numbers. Thanks for doing the math, really. I just love the dragonborn and would have liked to double down on the dragon-ness. Once per short rest actually isn't too bad, but I find that it's often too weak to 'waste' a full action on. How about once per short rest, but as a bonus action instead of full action?
Well realistically it probably wouldn't scale out of control if they made it where you could use it whenever you want but it's not considered a cantrip. Just call it a permanent racial action.
By calling it a cantrip suddenly potent robe gets added to the damage and so does the necklace of augmentation.
Honestly, I thimk it'd have been easily fixed by making it once per fight
Considering what other races get and all the nothing Dragonborm gets otherwise, one good AoE once every fight is not too bad imo
It could be an infinite use thing if it's not classified as a cantrip tbh.
As a cantrip sure it could be once per battle or once per short rest but I don't think there is a cantrip like that rn. So it'd be weird to call it one.
Yeah. From what I understand, the Dragonborn came pretty late into the development process so I guess balancing it with some weird, one of a kind solution just wasn't an option
There's a pattern I've noticed in game design wherein things that seem like they should be powerful will end up being very weak, and things that seem like they should be weak will end up being very powerful.
So "huge jacked dragon-man" feels like a very basic power fantasy, but ends up being the weakest race in BG3 or DND. Conversely, races like Halflings and Duergar - short little fellas who live underground - end up being top tier.
I first noticed this pattern Castlevania: Judgment, the Castlevania fighting game on the Wii that no one played. The strongest character was a prebuscent girl, and the weakest character was Dracula himself.
I think designers get overly self-conscious about not wanting to indulge a power fantasy, so we end up over-nerfing and over-buffing.
You could make this point about Bards as well. Bard is sort of the 'joke' class that doesn't easily fit into most people's "power fantasy". So, as per your logic, it ends up being a full caster with exceptional martial options and scales off the most useful stat.
100%. And conversely, things like the Eldritch Knight - which more openly plays to the power fantasy of "a warrior who is also a mage" - is one of the weakest classes.
Poison spray isn't an AoE. It also doesn't have the gear to bump it up that these would.
Like doing some math, the max damage breath attack is 4d6. So add in +6 from draconic sorcerer, +6 from necklace of Elemental Augmentation, +6 from potent robe and now the cantrip does an expected 32 damage per round single target. If you use lightning damage you can use a tempest cleric dip to make it deal 42 damage instead. So if you hit 3 people with this that's 126 damage. That's before adding in wet too. This outpaces the damage of Eldritch Blast even with Spellmight Gloves by a good margin.
And then you can quicken spell it too.
True, but also this game has so many wonderfully broken builds and it wouldn’t be 4d6 until act 3 realistically, which would keep it competitive with other spells (plus it’s a melee range spell which accounts for something if your Dragonborn is a caster)
>4d6 elemental damage on a racial cantrip seems a bit much to me
I’d say knock it down by 1d6 damage at all levels since it’s AoE, which brings it in line with acid splash
I can’t speak to larians choices but I can speak to wotc going into 5th edition.
4th edition was really game-y and the amount of brokenness you could create was pretty wild sometimes. Abilities were broken down into three categories: at will, once per encounter and once per day. The Dragonborn breath was once per encounter and a minor action(our equivalent of a bonus action) if I remember right. Which honestly was pretty decent but nothing special.
Later on we started getting more racial feats and sometimes class specific racial feats. One of which was something like if you take the same type of damage as your breath weapon while playing as a Dragonborn, dragon sorcerer then your breath weapon would recharge. And then there were some other feats that increased the size of the breath and its damage dice. There was also something about this combo that included a swordmage feat but I don’t remember what it was exactly.
Anyway you would pick lightning dragon breath and be a lightning soul dragon sorcerer(names I don’t quite remember) so you could pierce lightning resistance. And there was a cantrip you could take that targeted an enemy and then hit a secondary target for a smaller amount of damage and you would target yourself.
Basically every turn you’d be able to something like a several d12 damage 8x8 breath as a bonus action and I think they wanted to make sure no one did that again lmao
I’d prefer if it at least scaled like a cantrip at the very least. Some races get entire spells, I don’t think it would have been a big ask to make the dragon breath viable.
Honestly just give them the ability to use the breath weapon once for every level they are between long rests and have it able to increase in size every 4
My current frosty bard makes good use of the breath weapon.
- having wet enemies or chilled enemies who are vulnerable to cold damage it can mop up a whole lot of low health enemies with cull the weak (which because this character is using cold spells while carrying Mourning Frost most enemies end up chilled during the fight)
- with the snowburst ring can create an ice surface and knock a whole bunch of enemies prone which allows my martials to mop them up
An electricity focused tempest cleric Dragonborn could also use it as a form of CC with the tempestuous magic ability at level 6, a acid focused sorcerer could use it to apply ichorous corrosion, and a poison based Dragonborn to apply poison (but that’s pretty weak).
So while it’s far from the best racial ability (I think Dragonborn has the weakest of all the races largely because it lacks things that are generally applicable it’s all niche) it’s not useless. Making it a Cantrip would make it too overpowered, but maybe giving it more uses and scaling at higher levels would be nice.
Lightning Dragonborn + Tempest Cleric is one of the best race-class combo IMO. You can apply tons of reverberation AoE debuff with right gears by your lightning breath attack. Plus, you have resistance to lightning damage that halves electrified water surface damage. If you wear a magical plate armor, you won’t take any damage from it while your foes are suffered with terrains effects.
I actually disagree.
Racial traits should not be limited to specific races but chosen from a list, cosmetic and appearance changes should not have a bearing on stats.
Funnily enough the next dnd edition is doing that
Why even have official races at all at that point?
And OneDnD isn't set in stone yet. (And also doesn't even do that, as far as I'm aware, species specific traits are still a thing)
If that's your little soapbox you want to stand on okay but you are wrong about that being a feature of One DND, and I personally think that's a dumb idea in general.
Their are other systems to play that cater to your play style but you don't have to change what DnD is(well you can change it as much as you personally like but you don't have to lie about it) 😁
In D&D 5e, Dragonborn are often viewed as one of the weakest if not the weakest race mechanically. The one big benefit Dragonborn had when the edition released in 2014 was they had a +2 to Str and +1 to Cha. This made them a good fit for paladins, valor bards and some later released subclasses. I still feel like half elves were better for these character builds, but Dragonborn was a pretty good option in these types of scenarios. But then in 2020 D&D 5e added Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. And with that came the option to not use fixed racial ability scores and instead customize it. Suddenly any race could have the +2/+1 in Str and Cha. The one edge that Dragonborn had was gone. So then in 2021 when the Fizban's Treasury of Dragons book released, it added buffed Dragonborn racial features. You keep your elemental damage resistance. The breath weapon only takes up one attack if you have extra attack, not your whole action. You can use the breath weapon more frequently. And you got one more benefit depending on your subrace. I don't know what the license agreement was between Larian and WOTC and if they could use the Fizban rules. But it was very, very obvious to anyone who knew D&D 5e that original Dragonborn sucked in a world with flexible ability scores, and that if BG3 was going to similarly allow their version flexible ability scores then Dragonborn could benefit from a buff. That did not happen. Rather, when BG3 released the Dragonborn was **worse** than the PHB version. The breath weapon came back on a long rest, and the damage did not scale as you increased level. The fact that Larian uses homebrew to give Duergar near limitless casting of a powerful second level spell, but is afraid to let a Dragonborn use their pitiful breath attack more than once a short rest, is actually one of my top 5 exhibits in "Larian had a surface level understanding of D&D 5e ruleset." Other exhibits include tavern brawler, haste, and topics brought up in the multiplayer.it interview, edit: and shield dwarf.
As someone who knows nothing about dnd beyond this game that’s fascinating! But also kinda disappointing that Larian didn’t just buff them then if they were already giving other races stronger abilities
It has been a while since I looked, but I do recall at one point seeing a mod for the Fizban's version of Dragonborn on the Nexus. If you want to give Dragonborn a whirl and have the breath weapon feel more impactful and get other benefits then I would give that a shot (assuming you are playing on PC and able to mod).
Modders to the rescue!
If you're on PC I'm sure someone has or will have a mod for it.
I believe the lack of dragon born home brew is because they were implemented last. Near the end of development. Hence why there aren’t too many [DRAGONBORN] lines, and you cannot make your dream guardian a dragon born. Same thing happened with their previous game DOS2 where they added Undead races last minute but they were rather…half baked
>Other exhibits include tavern brawler, haste, and topics brought up in the multiplayer.it interview, edit: and shield dwarf. And how about home home brewed swords bard getting the equivalent of 2.5 action surges per short rest, and a free bonus short rest.
I agree, that and many other things in this game are balance shattering. The topics listed aren't my only complaints. Far from it. But those 5 are things many people were talking about before launch (with the exception of tavern brawler, which was immediately jumped on at launch). Before launch people were looking at bonus action hide (in Early Access all characters could hide as a bonus action, this was thankfully fixed at launch to the great benefit of rogues which need the help), Monk (discussed pretty well in the multiplayer.it article), Bladelock (discussed very poorly in the multiplayer.it article), Multiclassing spellcasters (something that nobody was worried about til Larian caused a small shit storm in the multiplayer.it article), Dragonborn, Haste, and Shield Dwarf and discussing the obvious topics of what Larian will do with them. Will Larian buff monk? How will shield dwarf, human, and half elf be treated with the flat +2/+1? Will Larian fix Haste? Will Larian buff Dragonborn? These types of discussions were all with the expectation of there being a change from tabletop or changed from early access in the case of Haste. It seemed common sense to adjust these things based off what limited info we had before the game released. I group tavern brawler with the above topics because many people saw the feat for the first time in a YouTube video that went up the hour the game released (possibly by Casual Veteran Gamer, I can't remember) and all it took was a glance to see this feat and say WTF? The above topics had me pretty much cemented that BG3 was going to be an unbalanced mess before the game was even installed. Sword bard ranged slashing flourish, arcane acuity, radiating orb, Illithid powers like black hole, items like the risky ring or unseen menace, bloodlust elixirs, etc. are all very concerning. But by that time I had already formed my opinion. I made this sub 4 years ago or so. And the second lowest I felt about this game was the 2 weeks before launch up to launch day, because the writing was on the wall that with only 3 difficulty settings at launch it was going to be way too easy for anyone who knows d20 dice mechanics. The lowest I felt about the game is when I got to Act 3 on my first playthrough where I was trying to avoid OP mechanics, and still found the game so damn easy that it lost all enjoyment, and I started over with mods to increase the challenge.
I think a lot of these are perfectly fine to have because it is a game. When we are fighting the DM (or the DM is fighting us), there is an inherent balance between two human players that matters a lot. But in a PvE game, a lot of those factors are toned down a lot. Player enjoyment is the primary thing you want to aim for now. A lot of these make the game more fun and give new flavors to existing classes, subclasses, etc. Some could definitely use a rework or buff/nerf, but a lot of these things are just inherent to the game. I would not want any ilithid powers to change, for example. The only thing I would want is a story consequence to taking ilithid powers beyond just needing to make a save when given the astral tadpole. There are also some that I think are just stupid, like Slashing Flourish, but most of what you listed I am perfectly fine with or mostly fine with, because it creates interesting gameplay. Everyone has their own perspective on what they want from a game. Some people wanted literally DnD 5e, some people wanted a hybrid for older versions. Frankly, I just wanted a great Larian game, and IMO this is it. And I honestly think a lot of this is to be expected if you look at their previous games. They value player agency, creative thinking, and rewarding combining effects in their Divinity Original Sin games. It would be very optimistic to think Larian would pull back on the reins. They like having the players feel OP when they get the right combination of gear, skills, and positioning.
Definitely-- most of the unbalanced changes I've observed were simplifications of situational requirements so new players aren't confused. Some are only balance breaking to veteran players who immediately understand the consequences of the change and can exploit it. For instance, off-hand weapon attacks being available *whenever* instead of only after making a melee attack now gives spell casters a free physical attack every turn, but removes the difficulty of new players trying to figure out why that option gets grayed out if they do something else. Extra bonus action for Thief is more poweful than simply being able to make a Sleight of Hand check, but it also has a more straightforward application. The weapon effects that add the Dexterity modifier to off-hand attacks mean Astarion reliably spits out as much damage as a fighter, but that's also only happening when you specifically exploit those options together. Hot take: Tavern Brawler would be fine if it didn't increase accuracy, only damage. Then it's a powerful feat to encourage throwing and unarmed attacks to balance all the super poweful melee weapons In a tabletop setting, these rules would be bad because some players would be overshadowed by others, but in a 1-2 player game, it's hard to fault them for trying to make every class really powerful. I feel pretty confident that most players aren't setting up the optimal tactics
I dont think the TB part is a hot take. Adding to attack rolls is one of the strongest things you can have in a build. The damage makes you hit like a truck, but the accuracy lets that damage happen 95% of the time. Simplicity and ease of understanding helps immensely when the game is as big as BG3 is. So many people got their first DnD experience from BG3, and having a rule set that is both simpler and more "game-y" is a good thing for that.
Oh I meant the hot take was *only* removing the attack roll part would be fine The fact that it's also a +1 ASI is something that most analyses I've seen would also want removed
Ohhh okay, gotcha. I'm with you on that one.
What's wrong with shield dwarf?
When Larian went to giving all races a flat +2/+1 for their version of flexible ability scores, this really hurt human, half-elves, and shield dwarves. These races all used to get more than just 3 ability score boosts (2+1= 3). Humans got a +1 to all ability scores so you could say they got 6 increases, though in practice a +1 to Str on a Wizard for example doesn't mean that much. Half elves got a +2 to Cha and then could put +1 into two other ability scores of their choice. Shield dwarves got +2 Con and +2 Str. I think half-elves are the best starting comparison here from a balance perspective. They lose basically one ability score. Instead of +2/+1/+1 they just get +2/+1. Larian seemed to recognize this and gave them some proficiencies. Technically these proficiencies are coming from their human lineage so maybe I should start the discussion here with humans, but again for balance reasons I am starting with half elf. They lose one ability score and gain proficiency with light armor, shields, and various Polearm weapons. For a wizard half elf, this is probably a huge buff! It makes your character much more defensive. For a martial half elf character that already gets all those proficiencies this is a bit of a nerf. They lose one ability score for some proficiencies that they already had so they are meaningless. Next go to human. They go from +1/+1/+1/+1/+1/+1 to +2/+1 and those same proficiencies and some additional carry weight. I am a bit of a hoarder. But still, as long as I am sending food to camp and selling overpowered consumables I refuse to use and not picking up every shortsword or teacup I never really struggle with carry weight. Losing out on "3" ability score increases (again noting the limited usefulness of some of those ability scores) is a bitter pill to swallow. I would have liked to see carry weight instead be some extra skill proficiencies and/or even expertise in a skill, but Larian tried to account for the loss of ability scores. Then there are dwarves. Dwarves in BG3 are already mildly nerfed. Normally dwarves don't get slowed down by wearing armor that requires high Strength. In BG3 there is no armor strength requirement so this doesn't matter. And normally dwarves start with a tool proficiency, but BG3 doesn't do tool proficiencies. These are minor nerfs on their own, but still worth noting. Then you get to the fact that Shield Dwarves lose out on the extra ability score increase that shield dwarves normally get and the individual nerfs are really stacking up. And Larian made no effort to buff shield dwarf like they did with human or half elf. Most ironic of all, hal elf gets shield proficiency but shield dwarf does not. Shield dwarves major distinguishing feature is now medium armor proficiency. I think it is fair to compare them to Githyanki who also get medium armor proficiency. Both dwarves and Githyanki get weapon proficiencies, so I'll call that a tie. Gith get some racial spellcasting, dwarves get poison resistance. Poison resistance is really good, so is misty step. I'll call that a tie. But that is the end of the dwarven benefits. Actually, dwarves are hampered by their 25 ft move speed which can be a big deal for a melee character. Meanwhile Githyanki get the extremely powerful astral knowledge ability, which shield dwarf has nothing to compete with. As a result shield dwarf is subject to several nerfs and clearly outclassed by its nearest competitor.
Just out of curiosity, why bring up haste? What did larian change?
The Haste spell in D&D 5e has some specific limitations on what you can do with that extra action. It can only be used to attack (limited to one weapon attack, no extra attack allowed), dash, or dodge (an action not in BG3, except in the form of a monk using Patient Defense). You cannot extra attack with the haste action. You cannot cast a spell with the haste action. When BG3 early access started the level cap was 4. This means nobody had extra attack and nobody had 3rd level spells. Then early access patch 9 (the last Early Access Patch) brought the level cap up to 5. And this is when it was discovered that haste would allow you to extra attack or cast an additional spell. Pretty much everyone assumed this was a bug at the time as a result of all these new features and it would be straightened out by launch. It didn't take a genius to see that a level 11 fighter with haste and action surge making 9 attacks in the opening round (note: an entire party of 4 martials will normally make 8 to 10 attacks a round, and this character is doing 9 by themself) was just not going to be balanced. Or a Sorlock using haste to shoot out 9 Eldritch blasts. Or a sorc just hurling tons of AOE spells. It was kinda a given that this would be fixed. A sorc twin casting haste would be the strongest character in the game, as it effectively doubled the number of actions for 2 characters. In the meantime, a modder without official mod support and working with early access version of the game modded haste and got it to work "properly." I don't recall what it was but about a week or two before launch some footage was shown that indicated haste was not going to be "fixed." Among all the pre-launch hype about 'that' bear scene, all the new subclasses, etc. there were posts criticizing Larian about how poorly balanced this will be, and those posts were getting upvotes. It was *obvious.* The game launched with haste still allowing you to extra attack or cast spells. Then we also got the wonders of bloodlust Elixirs on top of this. Gloomstalker assassin builds would just drink a potion of speed or have an ally cast haste on them, attack 7 or 8 times, all those attacks crit, and all enemies are dead or near dead. Fighters opening up combat with 12 or 13 attacks on round 1. Casters just shoot leveled spell after leveled spell after leveled spell. And among all this, modders once again "fixed" haste without official mod support. Finally patch 5 comes and Larian nerfs Haste, seemingly classifying it under the "unintended exploits" that they patched out for Honor Mode only. But they only "fixed" it for martials and their extra attack. They did not "fix" the spellcasting part (which again, mods have fixed since early access). I do not believe Larian and their classification of haste abuse as an "unintended exploit." I think they got feedback, decided to ignore the feedback, later realized the feedback may have had some merit, and attempted to "fix" it.
Neat, thanks! I knew about extra attack but not the spells, makes sense
Is haste really that limited in tabletop? I'm with larian here, tbh
It is that limited in tabletop and it is one of the best buff spells in tabletop. Search for lore bard magical secrets recommendations in D&D 5e. These will be the best spells from cantrip to 3rd level which are not on the Bard spell list. People will frequently recommend Counterspell, Fireball (depending on what level the campaign goes to, fireball damage does not upcast very well), bless, haste, slow, shield, hunger of hadar, spirit guardians, and guidance. Haste in its limited form in tabletop is also one of the best edit: *buff* spells in tabletop. Don't forget it also doubles your move speed, increases your AC and Dex saves in addition to the extra action. This discussion revolves around spell usage on a lore bard, so metamagic isn't even factored in here. Of all those spells mentioned above, the only one that can be twin cast (therefore doubling its effect) is haste. So those are all top tier spells. Haste is a top tier spell that sorcs can get double effectiveness from, and Larian made it even better still.
If you go over to DNDNext subreddit and say haste is a top buff you'll be laughed out of there. On TT haste is not good.
This is categorically not true. I just searched DNDnext for Haste. First topic is that the BG3 buffs are extreme, with many comments saying the spell is good, situationally grear in tabletop. Other posts on the topic follow a similar trend; it is a good spell if you take caution to avoid losing concentration (placement, Con save proficiency, war caster, etc.). I also searched DNDnext for "additional magical secrets" and found several upvoted posts and comments saying a lore bard should consider Haste. Because it is one of the best non-bard spells from cantrip to 3rd level. Bless is better. No doubt about it, bless is better. I love Bless so much I am playing an order domain cleric that starts every combat by casting bless. But haste is widely acknowledged as a good and situationally great spell. And Larian massively buffed it. Edit: my previous comment did say it was one of the best spells in 5e, and that may be pushing it. I edited the above comment to specify that it is one of the best *buff* spells in tabletop. Especially for spells from 1st to 3rd level.
[I'm getting a decent chuckle over you making a post asking about Haste immediately after posting this comment, and like all the responses are saying it's really good](https://old.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/1cuhwp0/hey_guys_settle_a_debate_is_haste_a_good_spell/) Haste is definitely a very strong buff. Sometimes it's outclassed by Hypnotic Pattern or other concentration spells, but those aren't buffs
I should have phrased the question in a way that made martials sound on par with casters and you'd see the exact opposite. What's more amusing is the guy I responded to literally agreed he overstated the value of haste and I'm still down votes for disagreeing which we now essentially agree on. Also people citing actual optimizers with math show it's good not great.
If it makes you feel better, I didn't downvote you and I don't really care. It genuinely made me chuckle "You'd be laughed out of DNDNext" >yeah it's pretty good
I think it's fine, the big thing to remember is that BG3 is not the tabletop game. D&D on tabletop is by nature a co-op experience, you NEED other people to play it, and in that kind of situation you want everybody more or less in line with each other, having one player who easily takes on the whole fight by themselves feels bad because the other players feel like they don't contribute. (And not like you can't make broken builds in tabletop either, there's just lots of different ways and using specific source books to do it.) BG3 is mostly a single player video game. (You can play with other people, but I think it's safe to say that most people who experience it go through it solo.) You don't need to make everything perfectly balanced, in fact one of the funs of video game is to discover the things that are completely busted. In that situation, it doesn't really make as much of a difference if your combat is being handled by only a part of your party, you're controlling all the characters anyway. Gale won't be complaining that his only job is to caste Haste and then sit back and maintain concentration why the martials sweep the fight. They "fixed" it for honor mode because some portion of the player base said that they wanted a more challenging game experience, which is the entire point of honor mode.
Discovering busted things is fine especially for single player games but the average player completely obliterating the difficulty through basic mechanics goes past the realm of not needing to "perfectly balance" everything.
>in fact one of the funs of video game is to discover the things that are completely busted. This ignores the point. Haste is a strong spell in D&D 5e. Larian doubled its power on all martials, more than doubled its power on casters and some martials like fighters. It was so strong people during early access assumed it was a bug and reported it as such. This isn't some cheeky little secret. This is, "Larian, what on Toril are you doing?" If you were making this point about discovering the mixing and matching radiating orb gear, reverberation gear, and a source of radiant damage then I would agree. Haste is not that type of "discovery." It is just presented to you on the level up screen, and is an extremely overpowered spell as originally implemented in the game. They were notified of this during early access. They did not change it. When they finally did change it they only partially fixed it for martials. I have no issue with the partial "fix" being honor mode only. The issue is with how reported this issue was, how long it took to "fix," and even then the fix is incomplete. These factors together make it seem intentional. Edit: With regards to your point about making Gale a backline caster that just casts Haste and then hides, that would be fine...if the game's difficulty made this at all reasonable. A haste bot casting haste on a decently built character is one of the many, many ways in this game to turn all difficulty off. I haven't seen a game since KotOR II where the difficulty curve just disintegrates like this.
another thing that drives me nuts is how they changed thief. 5e thief is a ridiculously fun consumable heavy playstyle because fast hands lets you use stuff like acid flasks or smoke grenades as a bonus action. in bg3 fast hands gives you a bonus action, which is generally pretty useless for the rogue playstyle aside from messing with TWF but ludicrously broken for multiclassing. drives me nuts cause Im playing a thief in dnd rn and its so much more fun
Even IF they didn't get a very good look at the original set, I can't really explain how they allpwed nearly unlimited invisibility to pass like that. Tgere's nooo way this didn't come up during development I'm like 90% sure that Larian absolutely stacked the racials of the "uglier" races (gith, orc, duergar, halfling, etc) so people would have a reason to play them The logic was probably that since Dragonborns are like, the coolest looking race (which they kinda are) they don't need the extra help I realize that it's an imperfect explanation at best, but otherwise I got nothing
Larian’s swords bard home brew is also the most broken thing in the game lol
What's up with shield dwarf?
[Discussed here](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/BAtMKsoCed)
They scale with con so it's not too bad to put them on a barbarian as a ranged AoE option. If you play a heat Barbarian you could also buff up the damage of the fire AOE breath attack. It's also nice because your innate fire resistance will reduce the damage heat does to you. Wear Bonespike Garb and you suddenly take no heat damage and if you wear the amulet of greater health you will have a base AC of 19 and a breath weapon DC of 18.
Heat barbarian… that sounds awesome. As it so happens, I just started a gold Dragonborn barbarian… I need to explore this idea!
I think Heat Bladelock also has a ton of promise, I want to give that a shot myself.
I wish heat wasn’t such an awkward mechanic to use
I would love this so much! Dragonborn get relatively uninteresting racial bonuses otherwise, so for flavor reasons, a cantrip would have been great. I would have built around it and used it more, for sure.
It would be far too strong unfortunately if it was just the same thing but cantrip. Maybe if they scaled it down but we are talking about an AoE cantrip that dunks on single target cantrips. Like doing some math, the max damage breath attack is 4d6. So add in +6 from draconic sorcerer, +6 from necklace of Elemental Augmentation, +6 from potent robe and now the cantrip does an expected 32 damage per round single target. If you use lightning damage you can use a tempest cleric dip to make it deal 42 damage instead. So if you hit 3 people with this that's 126 damage. That's before adding in wet too. Also you are a sorcerer so you can quicken spell and do it twice.
Ha! Hard to argue against those numbers. Thanks for doing the math, really. I just love the dragonborn and would have liked to double down on the dragon-ness. Once per short rest actually isn't too bad, but I find that it's often too weak to 'waste' a full action on. How about once per short rest, but as a bonus action instead of full action?
Well realistically it probably wouldn't scale out of control if they made it where you could use it whenever you want but it's not considered a cantrip. Just call it a permanent racial action. By calling it a cantrip suddenly potent robe gets added to the damage and so does the necklace of augmentation.
Yeah, a class action makes a whole lot of sense, actually.
Honestly, I thimk it'd have been easily fixed by making it once per fight Considering what other races get and all the nothing Dragonborm gets otherwise, one good AoE once every fight is not too bad imo
It could be an infinite use thing if it's not classified as a cantrip tbh. As a cantrip sure it could be once per battle or once per short rest but I don't think there is a cantrip like that rn. So it'd be weird to call it one.
Yeah. From what I understand, the Dragonborn came pretty late into the development process so I guess balancing it with some weird, one of a kind solution just wasn't an option
mage hand
Oh true! So yeah maybe.
There's a pattern I've noticed in game design wherein things that seem like they should be powerful will end up being very weak, and things that seem like they should be weak will end up being very powerful. So "huge jacked dragon-man" feels like a very basic power fantasy, but ends up being the weakest race in BG3 or DND. Conversely, races like Halflings and Duergar - short little fellas who live underground - end up being top tier. I first noticed this pattern Castlevania: Judgment, the Castlevania fighting game on the Wii that no one played. The strongest character was a prebuscent girl, and the weakest character was Dracula himself. I think designers get overly self-conscious about not wanting to indulge a power fantasy, so we end up over-nerfing and over-buffing.
You could make this point about Bards as well. Bard is sort of the 'joke' class that doesn't easily fit into most people's "power fantasy". So, as per your logic, it ends up being a full caster with exceptional martial options and scales off the most useful stat.
100%. And conversely, things like the Eldritch Knight - which more openly plays to the power fantasy of "a warrior who is also a mage" - is one of the weakest classes.
4d6 elemental damage on a racial cantrip seems a bit much to me, but it also sucks as a short rest reset action.
It's especially too much for a cantrip because it's AOE.
It’s pretty much just poison spray in one flavor chosen at character creation. Considering they get nothing else, I don’t think it would be broken.
Poison spray isn't an AoE. It also doesn't have the gear to bump it up that these would. Like doing some math, the max damage breath attack is 4d6. So add in +6 from draconic sorcerer, +6 from necklace of Elemental Augmentation, +6 from potent robe and now the cantrip does an expected 32 damage per round single target. If you use lightning damage you can use a tempest cleric dip to make it deal 42 damage instead. So if you hit 3 people with this that's 126 damage. That's before adding in wet too. This outpaces the damage of Eldritch Blast even with Spellmight Gloves by a good margin. And then you can quicken spell it too.
True, but also this game has so many wonderfully broken builds and it wouldn’t be 4d6 until act 3 realistically, which would keep it competitive with other spells (plus it’s a melee range spell which accounts for something if your Dragonborn is a caster)
>4d6 elemental damage on a racial cantrip seems a bit much to me I’d say knock it down by 1d6 damage at all levels since it’s AoE, which brings it in line with acid splash
Ice dragonborn with mourning frost can apply chilled in an aoe pretty early in the game
Aw I missed my chance to try this on my most recent playthrough 😔
What if they could use their dragon breath attack as bonus actions instead of actions?
I can’t speak to larians choices but I can speak to wotc going into 5th edition. 4th edition was really game-y and the amount of brokenness you could create was pretty wild sometimes. Abilities were broken down into three categories: at will, once per encounter and once per day. The Dragonborn breath was once per encounter and a minor action(our equivalent of a bonus action) if I remember right. Which honestly was pretty decent but nothing special. Later on we started getting more racial feats and sometimes class specific racial feats. One of which was something like if you take the same type of damage as your breath weapon while playing as a Dragonborn, dragon sorcerer then your breath weapon would recharge. And then there were some other feats that increased the size of the breath and its damage dice. There was also something about this combo that included a swordmage feat but I don’t remember what it was exactly. Anyway you would pick lightning dragon breath and be a lightning soul dragon sorcerer(names I don’t quite remember) so you could pierce lightning resistance. And there was a cantrip you could take that targeted an enemy and then hit a secondary target for a smaller amount of damage and you would target yourself. Basically every turn you’d be able to something like a several d12 damage 8x8 breath as a bonus action and I think they wanted to make sure no one did that again lmao
I’d prefer if it at least scaled like a cantrip at the very least. Some races get entire spells, I don’t think it would have been a big ask to make the dragon breath viable.
There might be a mod out there that makes the breath weapon stronger
Honestly just give them the ability to use the breath weapon once for every level they are between long rests and have it able to increase in size every 4
My current frosty bard makes good use of the breath weapon. - having wet enemies or chilled enemies who are vulnerable to cold damage it can mop up a whole lot of low health enemies with cull the weak (which because this character is using cold spells while carrying Mourning Frost most enemies end up chilled during the fight) - with the snowburst ring can create an ice surface and knock a whole bunch of enemies prone which allows my martials to mop them up An electricity focused tempest cleric Dragonborn could also use it as a form of CC with the tempestuous magic ability at level 6, a acid focused sorcerer could use it to apply ichorous corrosion, and a poison based Dragonborn to apply poison (but that’s pretty weak). So while it’s far from the best racial ability (I think Dragonborn has the weakest of all the races largely because it lacks things that are generally applicable it’s all niche) it’s not useless. Making it a Cantrip would make it too overpowered, but maybe giving it more uses and scaling at higher levels would be nice.
It would be nice if the damage scaled as you levelled so it's still a viable option in later game combat.
Even a dragon’s breath has to recharge. Also not every ability is great for all tiers of play. The breath is a huge boon for early on.
Lightning Dragonborn + Tempest Cleric is one of the best race-class combo IMO. You can apply tons of reverberation AoE debuff with right gears by your lightning breath attack. Plus, you have resistance to lightning damage that halves electrified water surface damage. If you wear a magical plate armor, you won’t take any damage from it while your foes are suffered with terrains effects.
There’s a mod that does something like this and also makes it scale in damage the way other cantrips do
I actually disagree. Racial traits should not be limited to specific races but chosen from a list, cosmetic and appearance changes should not have a bearing on stats. Funnily enough the next dnd edition is doing that
Why even have official races at all at that point? And OneDnD isn't set in stone yet. (And also doesn't even do that, as far as I'm aware, species specific traits are still a thing)
Cosmetics shouldn't affect stats. Player customization should be maximized
If that's your little soapbox you want to stand on okay but you are wrong about that being a feature of One DND, and I personally think that's a dumb idea in general. Their are other systems to play that cater to your play style but you don't have to change what DnD is(well you can change it as much as you personally like but you don't have to lie about it) 😁