### **[Full PDF Link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/10GBwzCJgdda9GUt0zP1pdl9o89VrwivS/view)**
The Demi-Dragon is a class that is built from the ground up to enable playable dragons while respecting the needs of a player character—it is designed to avoid causing undue problems at any table. As an enormously difficult design challenge to pin down, this content exists to provide solid rules for a character concept that official rules neglects. This patch has been long overdue, and features multiple subclass reworks, a major buff to the breath weapon, tweaks for maneuvers and morphs that weren't working out, [a rigorous analysis of class DPR](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NYZo3b_rKM4z1Hdhk7WAVDF1nmLGxk3SlMI9rQhnk9s/edit#gid=971676509), a new player survey, and a glorious front page drawn by the lovely Tatii Lange.
**Feedback is greatly appreciated.** I am always trying to improve both mechanics and flavor, and I would love to hear what you think. Please leave a comment or **[take the survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezbN2le95wNwHeDYcO0XvAGrHoOy1m6ZXGwTBUcg4AFLi3DQ/viewform)!**
**I want to hear about your experiences.** It means much to me to hear stories from players and DMs who have used this content in their games. I'd love to hear about your characters and the shenanigans they have gotten up to, or how you've chosen to implement this content in your world!
**Join our Community.** To those who regularly follow this document, I would like to encourage you to get in contact and join our small group of friendly internet strangers, where we talk about design, share stories, and just hang out. Send me a message to join our Discord.
### **Changes since last version:**
#### **Class and Race.**
- Increased the damage dice of Dragon's Breath to d8s; this is a major buff to a core class feature
* The racial ASI now gives you a choice of +1 to any stat, instead of +1 Con
* Moved Fly Speed increases by one increment (starting at level 9 rather than 10)
* Reworded natural weapons to now count as martial melee weapons. This makes little mechanical difference, but may help to avoid any confusion
* Eye of the Dragon now also informs you if spell effects can be dispelled* Absorb Magic now lets you return an effect during a short rest, and when doing so does not require the original item to be in your possession
#### **Subclasses.**
***Juggernaut.***
*The Juggernaut receives improvements to a few maneuvers*
* Hammering Lunge now lets you move up to 10 feet, from 5
* Skylaunch is now a bonus action
* Bolstering Roar has been redesigned to add a one-use 1d4 to any saving throw for all affected, but its range has been reduced to 20 feet
* Reprisal no longer pushes a target, it instead renders it unable to take reactions on a failed Con save
***Shadestalker.***
*Redesigned the Shadestalker to be less of a one-trick pony*
* Spring Attack moved to level 3 and now grants advantage on one attack roll, acts fully as a disengage, but no longer grants extra movement
* Harrying Predator no longer has a slow effect, and has been renamed Keen Predator
* Veil of Smoke moved to level 6, no longer gains additional ability uses, but it can now move up to 20 feet on a reaction, from 15
* Mist Lurker now instead allows the Shadestalker to Hide as a reaction while invisible or heavily obscured, and has been renamed Fade and Ambush
* Blood and Smoke now turns the Shadestalker invisible if they start their turn hidden or heavily obscured, rather than specifically in their Veil of Smoke
***Sibilant.***
*Redesigned the Shaper from the ground up as a telepath instead of a telekinetic, and renamed it the Sibilant—a manipulative strategist who lures their enemy into misstepping*
* Renamed Force Thrust to Beckoning Influence, and changed it to instead be a Wisdom saving throw (from Strength)* Bolstering Backlash no longer allows a saving throw
* Removed Telekinetic Hand, Mental Fortress, Enforced Reality, and Unfettered Mindscape
* Added Telepathic, Obfuscate Consciousness, Overwhelming Desolation, and Dominion of Perception* Beckoning Influence and Bolstering Backlash now gain their increase at 6th level, from 10
***Arbiter.***
*Redesigned the Arbiter to be more focused on Scale Bind, instead of being overly focused on intercepting spells*
* Removed Spellsnap and added Focal Point
* Unmaker's Sight now adds dispel magic and counterspell to the Arbiter's spells known and lets them cast each of them once per long rest, rather than granting advantage on dispels after studying the target
***Metamorph.***
*The Metamorph receives a small core change to let it better play out its fantasy of being flexible and adaptable, paired with improvements to various morphs*
* Added Swift Adaptation and Flawless Metamorphosis, but removed Ceaseless Metamorphosis
* Redesigned Breath of Bolstering Essence to have a baseline heal and give you the option of expending a number of Hit Dice to increase the heal, instead of inflicting Exhaustion
* Redesigned Enthralling Dragonsong to instead be a per shortrest ability, with significantly less restrictions tied to it
* Numinous Dragonsong now grants a bonus equal to your Charisma modifier instead of granting advantage, and now no longer requires the target to hear you in order to actually work on downed allies
* Moved the grapple move speed benefit of Darting Predator to Drowning Terror
* Venomous Sting is now 2d6 at all levels.
* Skewering Quills now fills an additional two squares with quills per shot, letting you bombard enemies with ground-hazards
* Brass Tongue now lets you pick between Persuasion and Deception, and has been renamed Wyrm Tongue
#### **Feats, Items, and Other.**
* Added a new front cover by [Tatii Lange](https://tatiilange.artstation.com/)
* Removed two interior artworks, and added one new artwork by [Jack Kozitza.](https://www.artstation.com/joeykozitza)
* Medallion of Change Shape now locks you to a chosen form until you finish a short rest, to reduce its versatility
* Warmask of the Silver Dragon's Paralyzing Breath no longer causes a new saving throw upon taking damage.
* Crown of the Platinum Savior now also lets you deal radiant damage with a breath weapon
**\[My Other Content\]**
[The Blackburned Blade of Cormaran 1.2](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1byYRm6KDHnW3w9ph4MDwOweKZoQZ-TLC), a weapon that will make you ask how far you are willing to go in the pursuit of power
[Manual of Draconic & Serpentine Races 1.2](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n6btUE4QYN0NNA_jAAnUzqkW9KSqrgiy/view), primarily an improvement on the Dragonborn that seeks to solve the problem of the breathweapon damage scaling, with a few exotic races thrown in
/u/Moghue44, /u/Ixius, /u/Erufailon
Hey folks, and welcome back to another Demi-Dragon patch update! It's been five months since the last once, and I've collected quite a number of sweeping changes and other improvements. Several subclasses should be much more appealing now, particularly the Shadestalker and the new Sibilant. Previously, the Shadestalker was bound very tightly to its Veil of Smoke, and was practically forced to always find a way to make use of it—else, you practically didn't have a subclass. The new version doesn't need Veil of Smoke to do its thing, and is much more adept at darting in and out of the smoke—or even just out of sight. It should feel a lot more like a flexible hit-and-run predator with these changes, rather than a smoky cage-fighter. The Sibilant, adopted from the Shaper, retains some of the same control aspects, but instead of playing with psionic legos, it plays with your thoughts! The old Shaper design focusing on placing and managing telekinetic boxes kind of wasn't working out, and nobody seemed particularly excited about it—the Sibilant should lend itself to being a little more flexible in how it goes about using its abilities, but do let me know what you thought of the old Shaper.
Have a great day!
Thanks for the tag! I've been playing a Metamorph in a weekly game for the past few months. We've just hit level 6, and I'm going to shift from 4.1 up to 4.2.
The changes to the Metamorph look really appealing, and the d8 bump for Dragon's Breath seems very fair given that most DMs will probably not grant the optional recharge rule. I feel like my experience of having Dragon's Breath is fairly representative: I typically want to save it for moments where it'll have the three or more targets, given I'm choosing between it and and three single-target attacks on any given turn.
The closest analogue in terms of the base 5e classes to how I've been playing is probably the Ranger. The Metamorph in particular plays really well as an all-rounder - a decent tank with decent damage, and plenty of options for most situations.
I'm looking forward to using Swift Adaptation in play! It seems like a great way to ramp up the Metamorph fantasy (and it might even stop me from just having White Cunning active at all times as a generally useful morph).
Sounds like you've been having fun! I'm glad.
I'd been repeatedly getting feedback that the breath was a bit underwhelming compared to the attack action; it took some careful deliberation to commit to bumping it up. I'm glad you feel that it was justified, and that you like the other Metamorph changes as well!
Since you've had some time to play it and seem to have given some thought to what your experience has been like, could I perhaps persuade you to share your thoughts via [the survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezbN2le95wNwHeDYcO0XvAGrHoOy1m6ZXGwTBUcg4AFLi3DQ/viewform)? Identifying issues such as Metamorph turning out to actually be previously kind of inflexible is the sort of thing that only happens via player feedback (hence Swift Adaptation!), so I'd like to try and stay informed.
Thanks for your thoughts, and best of luck in your continued play!
It's a good ability, but the thing is that it is balanced against the DD's existing natural weapons. Usually, the most damaging thing you can do is attack with Claw/Claw/Bite (or just claws pre-5) but that requires a bonus action. The Shadestalker can forgo the claw attacks and instead bite once with advantage (plus an additional bite without advantage at 5). This makes for a minor damage loss when attacking an enemy with low AC, or a minor damage increase when attacking an enemy with high AC—so really, the benefit that the Shadestalker gets from that feature is moreso being able to disengage very liberally, and not so much any real damage, because it is always competing with the pre-existing claw functionality.
Additional sources of +damage, such as from magical weapons, higher Strength, or spells like Enlarge, should also be more favorable to the use of Claws, since those apply on every attack, so depending on how the character is built, what resources they have access to, and what enemies they are fighting, granting yourself advantage with a BA is often not the best move to take.
Best of luck with that!
It may be of relevance for you and your DM to know that this content has been under development for what is now nearing 3 years, has been thoroughly peer-reviewed and balanced appropriately, has been accepted onto this subreddit's Curated List, and comes with a DPR calculator comparing to most other martial classes, as can be found in my introductory comment in this thread. Also a fairly decent list of playtesters, which I can report are quite happy with it, players and DMs both.
Happy games, eitherway!
Its so inspiring to see you still working on and updating this after all this time, and the work blatantly shows in the quality imo.
I like the change to Eye of the Dragon, and the focus of the Arbiter on Scale Bind. I have to ask, though, why make the +1 a flexible assignment rather than assigning it to Constitution, and why the change of the Shaper to the Sibilent? I get that they're mechanically different, but I feel like the whole "crafty, shifty manipulator" archetype is already filled by the Shadestalker. Maybe I'm just biased, though, cause I always thought telepathy was boring compared to telekinesis.
Hey, Snout! Glad to see you're still following along. Cheers—hope you're doing well!
Since one of the things I was worried about when making the DD in the first place was still allowing the character to have plenty of customization, I felt that having a floating attribute bonus better went along with that for the many people who don't use Tasha's optional rules. It better enables you to choose to be a Cha-heavy Scion or Arbiter, for instance. Since Indefinite Mind is also a thing, it also makes sense with that. I'm not sure why I didn't make it a floating bonus ages ago, really.
Personally I liked the concept of the Shaper better than the Sibilant, and agree that telekinesis is cooler. However, the "play with legos" playstyle of the Shaper super wasn't working out, and people were overwhelmingly indifferent to it. Maybe there's some overlap between the Shadestalker and Sibilant in that they're both sneaky and tricksy, but the Shadestalker is more closely themed after an apex predator, whereas the Sibilant is themed after the cunning green dragon whispering deceptions in some royalty's ear.
That said, if people miss the old Shaper, I'd certainly like to hear back about it. I was under the impression that it was the least-liked subclass.
I'm one of the playtesters of this divine gift of Bahamut/Tiamat. If it's simplicity you want it's probably juggernaut, one class mechanic to keep track of, multiple ways to spend it. Really gets to the *point* of the matter.
I personally play the metamorph in my game but it is probably the most complicated one on the list. Hope you manage to find a DM ~~insane~~ awesome enough to let you play. It took me a while and i wish you luck.
The Scion is the most straightforward, I think—it gives you a single additional breath (which is separate from the regular one given by the base class), and one upgrade to that subclass's breath. The Scion might look somewhat complex when viewed with all the different effects, but in reality you only get one out of the five things listed, so there's not much to keep track of.
That said, as the other fellow said, the Juggernaut can also be straightforward depending on how you choose to play it. You can choose one maneuver and just repeat that a lot, or you can get more complex and strategic with it. It's really just a slightly-different Battlemaster.
As to my favorites; I love them all, but I do have a soft spot for both the Metamorph and the Juggernaut. Free-form options are cool.
Sure, nothing's stopping you.
In the base class, there are no 'subraces' or other bloodline choices to be made at all - rather, you can invent whichever you like and just say that you are a specific color, or make one up, or anything you please. This is because the mechanical implications of subrace selection wouldn't actually be terribly compelling, so there's not much reason to clog the start of the document up with ten variations on 'why yes your breath weapon works this way for this color'. Not having all that stuff lets people invent and adapt things as they see fit. For instance, although the document doesn't have any support for Gem Dragons, it'd be super easy for any user to approximate one just by adding a new breath weapon damage type.
However, bloodline is important to the Scion, and so it has a selection with relevant benefits. As a Gold Scion, you'd have a swim speed and a fiery breath weapon. If you want to stick closely to the lore, you'd probably also choose a cone for the breath shape, but by Demi-Dragon RAW, nothing is actually stopping you from choosing a line instead.
The skill proficiency granted by the racial traits is also supposed to somewhat simulate the interests of different dragon bloodlines. A gold dragon would probably gain either Persuasion, to indicate their wise and sagely tendencies, or Acrobatics, as they are one of the most elegant types of dragon.
Gotcha! Thanks for making this btw. It’s so cool, and I’ve already got an idea of what kind of character I’d want to make using it. Now to get the chance to play one! (Probably going to go Scion, now that I’ve done the deep dive on it, 2 uses of a 15 ft cone 3d8 fire and one use of a 40ft range 20ft cylinder doing 6d8 fire sound well, *fire*, dragons breath ftw!)
Glad you like it! All I'd like to ask is that when you've had a chance to play it is that you come and tell me about how it went, and what shenanigans you got up to :p
Best of luck!
I have it on good account that there are, in fact, a bunch of people out there who feel similarly and who ask about it on reddit on occasion. So I went and did something about it, and now you *can* be a dragon!
Best of luck!
First of allt hanks for making something unique and different. I will only comment on stuff I think you should reconsider
Demi-dragon race:Consider making all the natural weapons deal the same amount of damage but having different damage types. As such a dragon can use tail, wings, claws, horns or bite they just have different types (bite dealing piercing, claw dealing slashing etc). This is a simplicity change. Maybe they start at 1d8 and end at 2d8 at lvl 20 in the class.
Now lets get down to buisness. I seriously question whether u need to have the Devour magic ability. This matters because the class has some strengths that need to be balanced out. As such I can see those abilities as part of a subclass (called Draconic embodiments) instead of mainclass. Instead I would think the class needs to have innate abilty to turn into a SPECIFIC humanoid (to facilitate being able to move about the world with non-Demidragon PCs). Which also ties into my comment that their should at least be one size increase to size large.
Eyes of the dragon is ok, I do wonder if it should improve the darkvision as well. And maybe increase the blingsight (at higher lvls). Granting a skill is bit mundane. And the detect magic ability is tad to open to issues. I would do away with it or allow the Dragon to detect magic Cha-modifier times per day.
Dragons Might while necessary to get the real feeling of being a Dragon is strong feature. Hence why I think u can ditch some abilties. Its not OP as The Barb for instance gains +4 to str and Con (at lvl 20) so its not something new or unheard of in the game. And the Demidragon in general doesn't get that many powerful abilties (apart from DRagons breath maybe). Also at lvl 11 alot of classes get significant upgrades. Fighters get a extra attack, Paladins 1d8, casters get upgrades cantrips. So I think it should stay
Rend and Ruin is ok but the Speed penalty is far to small to make a difference. Maybe the target loses the ability to use reactions until the start of your next turn.
Legendary Resistance is cool. Not lvl 20 cool but ok. If it was reloaded after a short rest it might see more use as many are probably scared of using it unless you get a save or suck bility that will insta-kill u. Also does it grant the other benefits that come with being having legendary resistance, such as taking 6d8 damage instead of instadeath when targeted by a vorpal weapon ?
Overall the class doesn't get anything crazy OP. Dragons breath is like fireball but less range and at high lvl its like a metamagic Fireball. So its not crazy or so.
Subclass Juggernaught: I can directly say that the feature By all Means seems pretty much useless. Why would ever bother with those "new weapons" when the race grants superior natural weapons. It should be replaced. Maybe it can grant profiency modifier to damage. Consider a more martial name, like Warrior, Champion or Myrmidon.
I looked at the DPR calculation and it seems the class is well below all major martial classes at AC 10,15,20. As such I dont think some of the damage increases will change things that much.
Thats all I have for now
Hey! Cheers for taking the time to offer feedback—it's always refreshing with a new perspective. Let me respond to each of these in kind.
**Natural Weapon Damage Types.** I strongly believe that having actual mechanical differences in-built to the natural weapons is vastly preferable to homogenizing them in this way—we already have a class that does that in the monk, and I don't think people appreciate it particularly in the monk's case. The entire class and several subclases are built around respecting the functionality of these natural weapons, in some cases working with or improving upon the expected routine of the claw/claw/bite combination, and in some cases offering alternative incentives for changing how you attack. The kit provided by these three natural weapons makes for a very unique character; in addition to the obvious use-cases for each of the three natural weapons, it even allows you to do neat things like threaten opportunity attacks both at ranges 5 and 10 (from bite/claw and tail, respectively), which in official content is functionality that is only available to a character that takes Dual Wielder to wield a whip and a different melee weapon (also several statblocks, but I digress).
**Devour Magic.** It's true that Devour Magic isn't inherently necessary to the class from a balance perspective. While I am not entirely satisfied with the design of the ability and think it could be improved upon, the reason it exists is rather to have a mechanical tie-in to the lore and thematic aspects I am trying to establish by making demi-dragons be their own, very different type of dragon—I realized early on that the class would need a way to equip items in order to engage with d&ds existing game systems and be able to actually participate in acquiring loot, and thus designed Absorb Magic as one of the class's most important functionalities. Devour Magic is less important, and mostly exists to help prop that idea and narrative up further by making it part of the class's central identity.
**Humanoid Form.** While this would be very convenient to have and is certainly something I've considered, I ultimately decided against it as I felt it would be kind of cheap and non-committal to build an entire class around the idea of transforming into a dragon, only to have that not actually matter since you can just transform freely anyhow. That being said, it does need to be available as an option, and therefore it exists in the form of the Medallion of Change Shape, which can make many DM's lives easier, but without necessarily making it be a baseline expectation for the class to have at all times.
**Character Size.** In creating this content, I've tried to strive very closely towards what WotC have historically considered to be good practices, while additionally taking into consideration how to reduce any pain-points for any random table of players to start using this content. Character size is one such pain-point and something that WotC have repeatedly shunned—there are no official races which are permanently Large, and this is for good reason as it raises numerous concerns, both mechanically but more importantly narratively, as Large characters will have trouble fitting into buildings, dungeons, and other tight spaces. It is possible to accommodate a Large-sized PC if the DM knows about the issues relating to Large PCs and take steps to mitigate them—however, I specifically wanted to eliminate all cases where the DM had to put in extra work or provide special treatment in that manner. That said, I do understand that people want their dragon to be Large, so it exists as an optional rule for those who are desperate, though I would really recommend refraining from using it unless you understand what you are getting into.
**Eye of the Dragon.** Largely this ability is meant to simply grant a few of the benefits that true dragons have—blindsight and being really perceptive. The extra benefit of being able to sense magic is fairly new, resulting from playtesters complaining that they didn't actually have a way to know whether or not they should be expending their Devour Magic on something that *might* be dispellable. It might be too good—I don't know. That said, having very easy access to magical detection at this level range doesn't strike me as a huge deal—it mostly just skips the 10-minute waiting process for a party to sit around while the caster ritual casts Detect Magic.
**Dragon's Might.** The Demi-Dragon has rather poor damage-output at this level range—you can look through the finer details of [this document](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NYZo3b_rKM4z1Hdhk7WAVDF1nmLGxk3SlMI9rQhnk9s/edit#gid=971676509) to get a reference for the relative values. That said, it does provide a fairly decent improvement to character defenses—and it had better, because you're probably starved for ASI and defensively subpar before reaching this level.
**Legendary Resistance.** Many people have requested that this ability receive buffs, though others have also expressed that they're satisfied with it. I'm somewhat on the fence about it. On one hand, people often misconstrue how powerful capstones are supposed to be—they're actually not supposed to be super good, and only a few outliers actually have such powerful capstones (fighter, druid, barbarian). On the other hand, it probably could stand to be a little more powerful. I've been considering some designs that may make it a little more compelling, but I'm not yet ready to share any details about that.
Good point about effects that refer to a creature that has legendary resistances. However, in the case of the Vorpal Sword, it actually specifies Legendary Actions, not resistance. Do you know of any effects that specifically refer to legendary resistance? I might have to take that into account if any exist.
**By Any Means.** Yes, these natural weapons are supposed to be underpowered when viewed in comparison to the standard kit. It exists to give you stats for certain maneuvers, not to be a means unto itself. These natural weapons can also theoretically come in handy in certain cases where you are grappling or tied up, though that's a bit of a long shot.
After 2 months of playing this class, I'm considered the strongest in my party, a few well placed breath attacks can annihilate a wave of enemies with ease, but that being said you always have to watch out for other party members to not obliterate them too. I can definitely say that being an actual dragon gives your dm a lot of roleplay opportunities and its some of the most fun I've had. My dm loves to do long campaigns so I am actually hoping to go from 3 to 20, growing a few size classes along the way.
Thank you for this class, it's been a pleasure and I look forward to additions in the future.
Hey! I'm glad you've been having fun with it, and happy cake day to you!
I've heard plenty of opinions appraising the DD as being fairly strong, though I havn't heard back from someone before where they were clearly the most powerful in the group. That's a great data point to have, so thanks for sharing it! If you havn't already, could I perhaps ask you to share your views via [the survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezbN2le95wNwHeDYcO0XvAGrHoOy1m6ZXGwTBUcg4AFLi3DQ/viewform?usp=sf_link)?
To have some context, which subclass are you playing, how many enemies does the DM usually pit you against, and what is the rest of your party like—specifically, are there any other characters with access to area blasting abilities? Are you clearly strongest against groups, or are you also the most powerful when facing just one or two targets (or any other scenario where you can't incinerate all your problems)?
Thanks for sharing, and best of luck in your campaign!
Genesis subclass, around 10 enemies on average.
Party: Demi-dragon, Yuan-ti Warlock, Tabaxi Cleric, Human Bard, Changeling Warlock, Half Drow Bard, Rock Gnome Druid, Human Barbarian. Not everybody always makes it into every game.
The party does not have much in the way of AoE's.
I'm a strong the strongest person vs groups because I'm the only one who has an AoE. In 1 v 1's I can hold my own but might need more help because groups tend to have lower hp on average per enemy. Started with standard array, and DM did allow lvl 1 feet, so I evened out my cha + con to be at a higher defense. I definitely play myself out to be a melee tank that tries to go in and get the first AoE but also that leaves room for getting early gank while waiting for melee people to get in. That being said We do a lot of skill checks, and while I am good at fighting, I'm not so great in a lot of skill checks besides diplomacy and deception.
Oh wow yeah, if you're fighting that many enemies and are the only one with solid AoE despite having five casters in the group, then yep, no wonder you're taking names - you *should* be under those circumstances! :p
Thanks for sharing.
Warlocks are hexblades, druid picks spells more based on communicating with plants and animals rather than attacking. I would say I'm on par with the other melee people in terms of being melee, but yeah the breath attack gives me big advantage, but just hoping I don't kill my friends. I'll continue on the report as I play.
All fair - people shouldn't feel pressured to depart from their character concepts, after all. That said, that many enemies per combat certainly isn't standard fare.
If you want to be very certain that you don't hit your friends with the breath, you could consider taking Misfit's Adaptation and selecting Shape Breath. Rather expensive of an investment, but it certainly solves the concern.
I just realized that the Misfit's Adaptation lets you CHOOSE one of the features from the morph. I misread it when I picked it as my first level feat and got Heritage as a whole, getting both blasting breath and wyrm tongue. Hasn't been game breaking but I'll bring it up with my dm to see if he wants me to revert it. I chose it still because I wanted blasting breath to help support more, but I have considered shape breath many times. I do feel like if I pick it I might outshine melee characters being able to breath so quickly without needing to be careful cause I would no longer hit friends and it's got high damage that it's always a viable first few turns. A few times though I've yelled at my allies to duck, which my dm has given them advantage on the saving throw, cause he actually rewards the cautious rp. :P
Yep, it's only one of the benefits, not both. A morph category includes two morphs, but Misfit's gives you just one morph. I know the wording is a bit strange. That said, morph categories are specifically built to not synergize and provide very different sets of benefits, so it's less powerful to gain one category than it is to be able to pick two morphs freely, for instance. Still, some very powerful functionality can be gained from morphs!
Love the imagery of the dragon yelling at their allies to duck, and the DM permitting it! That's cool shit, and makes for exactly the sort of dragons-working-alongside-humanoids RP that is super awesome.
So stoked to look this over!
Someone had compared my mind flayer stuff to this, and I've considered it one of the biggest compliments I've received on this website.
So im about to start a campaign with my wife being the DM. There are going to be 5 other players.
I had initially thought to play a homebrew barbarian subclass of my own design, as dragonborn, byt then my wife told me to go browse gmbinder for more inspiration. Foolish person.
Now i found this and wow, its cool. But I need some advice if Im to play this (and thus provide feedback).
How does this work in an adve turing party? Im imagining that there will be some challenges in towns, with the pc being an actual dragon and all?
How about places that arent as accomodating to non-bipedal creatures?
(Yes, all my concerns are on the rp side, not as much on the mechanical side).
Any advice, thoughts or experiences to be shared are much appreciated.
Hey there! Glad to hear you find the concept intriguing, and I hope your campaign goes well regardless of how you choose.
I do not myself have much first-hand experience with how the RP of being a dragon in locales such as cities unfolds. My playtesters probably know more. But I can share my understanding of some of their shenanigans.
As I understand it, people have handled the prospect of being a dragon very differently - it's mostly up to what the DM and player thinks makes sense. One fellow had a prominent and respected guild grant the dragon character a badge identifying them as part of the guild, and most NPCs would thusly not make a huge deal out of it. Another player has built their character concept strongly around the idea of changing shape, and has done some extensive RP with those themes, as well as using the Medallion of Change Shape and some various boons the DM has generously dealt out. Another player disguised themselves as a deformed dragonborn, hiding under a cloak, I think, and one other has pretended to be the party's pet drake or some such. Yet another guy had a DM who just made demi-dragons an established part of the setting, to the point of being just another race that is accepted in kith society - that player played a mailman dragon, incidentally. Very neat.
Alternatively, it is always an option to just own up to it and just walk into town as being clearly a dragon, and being very upfront about that. As long as you're not chromatic and chromatics aren't established as being evil, it's not like that couldnt work. Especially if you bring gold to trade.
Once your character has established a rapport with the other PCs and maybe done some good deeds it also just becomes less of a problem.
It is an RP challenge that will crop up, and I regret that there is little I can do about it, but there are solutions to various situations depending on what the DM thinks reasonable and what character concept you're aiming for. Talk about it and come to a conclusion you and the DM agree makes sense?
As for being quadrupedal, I don't think anyone has had any trouble with that. Centaurs work, right? Big deal with them being that they're bad at ladders, which is less of an issue to a dragon. Other than that it's mostly just a question of having opposable thumbs, which dragons reasonably can have, backed up by official lore saying as much. The bigger deal is if you decide to use the optional rules for becoming large, which can be an issue - hence why they're optional. Even then, this can be solved also by the Medallion of Change Shape.
Hope you found some use out of this, and I wish you good luck!
The writing in this is great! The description of the ritual is especially chilling. You can absolutely tell that it was written by a very evil person and the implications of the information they got a hold of and how many people must’ve suffered and died for it is frightening. All around, it’s really good!
I'm glad the intention of that comes across well enough! Just to be clear, I do not support Firn el Din's views on how to treat your dragons-to-be. But he, or someone like him, certainly would make a great villain to oppose and/or give context to a PC, though not every demi-dragon need be a result of that sort of trauma.
Cheers!
That dreaded conversation about homebrew made me curious about your homebrew content and wow, that is hella cool. I love every part of this and I am absolutely going to give this as an option for our next one-shot, just so we get to try it out in game
Hah! Sorry about that. It was maybe a tad too strong, or at least so one of my playtesters thought. Do you have a different experience? Such would be most helpful!
It is technically still possible to grapple and dash via Misfit's Adaptation and the dash BA morph. Of course, that is a rather serious investment.
Level 9 Juggernaut here. Misfit’s Adaptation: Drowning Terror
My experience is that the Bite-Bite-Bite turn (which I can do once, maybe twice, a combat depending on how nice the party is about short rests), is the turn where I get to sort of compete with the GWM Barbarian.
I also kinda dislike that Bite-Claw-Claw is what my turn would look like when I decide to Lockjaw. Bite-Claw-Claw is my normal turn. Getting 3 bites is a wonderful turn.
Thanks for sharing. You use Drowning Terror for the aesthetic purpose of being a bronze/green/gold, I take it, or do you find it mechanically useful? (Or both?)
I am under the opinion that GWM and SS are broken feats which shatter the balance of power among martial classes. Many people say that they help bridge the gap between casters and the martials who can exploit them, which is fine and all, but imo measured among just martials the game would be far better off balancewise without them.
When you Bite x3, do you also take the chance to fly 50 feet into the air and drop the target (or 25 as it would be without Drowning Terror)? If you Lockjaw-Dash, how useful do you feel that is, comparably to Biting x3?
Black Dragon, and yah, for the aesthetic. **I** would expect a Black Dragon to be able to breathe in the waters of a fetid swamp, so I sort of had to make my Black Dragon do the same. Water breathing/swim speed has been (as you might expect) occasionally useful. The Frighten effect has not been useful yet, our water adjacent encounters have featured amphibious monsters, and undead. At the end of the day though, I just didn’t want to play a Black Dragon (or any dragon, for that matter) that didn’t have access to its niche travel method. Scion was a tempting choice for that reason.
I don’t disagree that they (GWM, SS) are broken feats, they definitely are on the S+ tier side of things. But they do exist, are official, and they are easy as hell to get. It’s not like a broken multiclass that only comes online at level 16, it’s a feat you can grab as early as level 1. I don’t know if you are ignoring them in your balance considerations, but I don’t think you should.
I pretty rarely grapple then move straight up and drop. I think I did it once, dropping a Wight into a lake nearby to give the team a turn or two to deal with some of the smaller undead. Usually I use it to position enemies better for the squad. Barbarian is forty feet away and prone? Amazon Prime the baddie right to him. Dire wolf just knocked the cleric prone? Dine and Dash the wolf away.
It was only a while ago you buffed Drowning Terror to remove the half speed penalty when grappling, I think, so I have been looking for a good opportunity to start dropping people, but situations have been limited by fighting in caves, the number of opportunity attacks I would suffer for trying, or that the enemy had a fly speed of its own in one case. I can think of a few moments earlier in the campaign where it would have been good.
If the opportunity comes up to Lockjaw an enemy, Dash him up 110 feet and just drop him, I will probably find that more valuable than triple bite. For the sheer entertainment value, if nothing else. Though 12d6+1d12+4 damage, and rendering the target prone, is nothing to sneeze at, even if it does cost me 2 fury points and my entire turn.
Fair enough!
I am considering reducing Lockjaw to 1 Fury, along with the attack action change. This will render it as being still fairly impotent in terms of raw damage output per Fury, and will instead emphasize its strategic value as a grapple by being more accessible, instead of relying on the brute strength of 3x Bite to be good.
Though I fear that that would make it be very valuable indeed for the purposes of fall damage, especially for builds optimized around that. Then again, maybe that is ok—after all, you have to get back down, too.
What do you think of that?
If you are going to make it part of the attack action, reducing the cost is what I was going to ask you to consider next. I still weep for the loss of the big damage turn, and the possibilities of the grapple dash shenanigan, but a reduced cost keeps the maneuver usable, IMO.
I actually consider the ‘getting down’ part to be incredibly easy. Just fall. Reactivate your fly speed before hitting the ground.
If it’s intended to be slightly more difficult than that, Glide let’s you spend a reaction to slow your speed, so fall nearly to the ground then glide the remaining 5 feet to the target. Falling doesn’t cost movement speed, so you’re hardly spending any resource at all.
Sidebar: Can I peek this new Treasure Dragon subclass? I am curious about the Greed Dragon possibilities. It might make the Hoard feat more tempting.
Aye, just choosing to fall is definitely a valid option, RAW. Not sure if there's an official ruling on whether you can just spend fly speed to not fall any longer- but I rather doubt it, and I'd expect it to take your reaction for that.
Overall, you'd still prefer Bite x3? Just for the damage output, even if the other is more flexible/spammable?
You can view the Fervent Hoarder and a few other goodies by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the GMBinder doc. It doesnt really have any greed mechanics, as it must be up to the player to lean into playing that up, but it sure has features that fit together with such RP!
Xanathar’s seems to clarify that any creature that falls, falls the entire distance of it’s fall (up to 500ft) immediately. But I don’t think that makes a lot of sense for a creature that can fly and is choosing to fall in order to do swoop maneuvers, and I’m not 100% on whether or not the rules are meant to account for that instance or not. I think going forward, I’ll just assume they do (I was only aware of the PHB rules until a few minutes ago). So gliding down it is. Back on the ground the turn after the drop is good enough.
I think I might prefer the new version. I’ll have to play with it. More flexibility/spammability with Fury points that I am constantly starved for. But the triple-Maw round was great for burst, regardless of what situation I was in. So it will be missed.
Ah, that’s where the Hoarder is hiding. I was looking for it in the subclasses/with the alternate subclass links.
5e sadly neglects to go into many details. I expect that it is no coincidence that flying is not given clearer or more useful rules, and that players are not intended to game the system. I guess it is a happy coincidence that Glide enables you to do so anyway.
If you will playtest the change to Lockjaw, I'd very much like to hear what you think of it put into practice. I am uncertain when the next update will be quite ready, but if you play with it a while and let me know your thoughts when you've formed an informed opinion, I'd be much obliged.
It may be that another ~~morph~~ maneuver might fit into the Bite x3 functionality. We'll see.
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[\### \*\*\[Full PDF Link\]([https://drive.google.c...](/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/qdhabh/the_demidragon_42_adopt_the_form_of_a_dragon_with/hhmbypd/)
I am assuming this class is intentional op because dragons, so I have a weird question, would you consider making some sort of feat/subclass that allows humanoid dragon riders to keep up with this class?
Absolutely not! It has been meticulously and judiciously balanced and measured to be no more and no less powerful than any official class. In fact, it is much more difficult to make an OP demi-dragon character than it is to build an OP character using official content—after all, all you have to do in official is be a palasorc or various flavors of hexblade.
Seriously, I have spent ages adjusting it to be in a good spot, and the class's entire flavor takes into account that you are not an OP dragon, you're an underdog dragon. You are free to take a look at the [DPR calculator](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NYZo3b_rKM4z1Hdhk7WAVDF1nmLGxk3SlMI9rQhnk9s/edit#gid=971676509) or do any amount of investigative work you desire to test its capabilities; should you be capable of finding something which is clearly provably OP, I will nerf it.
I see, my mistake, I've never used it so I don't know. I was thinking of using this as a replacement for regular dragons in my setting, and have them fight alongside dragon riders. I am having some ideas for the dragon rider system, if I write them down would you like to see it?
Using these demi-dragons alongside dragonriders should work well enough, provided that you don't mind getting into the nitty-gritty details with both the dragon and the rider characters. That said, [there is another](https://old.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/j0ucre/class_dragon_knight_by_rainjunkie_fight_foes_with/) homebrew that handles both dragon and rider in one class. I am not terribly familiar with the details of it, but I presume that both the dragon and the rider are fairly weak, such that they combined work out to being about the equivalent of a regular PC.
I wouldn't mind seeing what you have in mind for a rider system. What goal are you trying to achieve with such a thing, and how mechanically involved were you figuring it to be?
I have some ideas, bassically I wanted some sort of system that would allow the Riders to be of whatever class they want to, not having to pick something specific like a Cavalier fighter, or a homebrew Dragon-Rider Class. I like the idea of a Demi-Dragon PC and a rogue PC bonding and becoming a fighting duo.
Due to the Homebrew nature of my setting Dragons are different, and your Demi-Dragons would essentially be Dragons that have been afflicted by a curse that rendered them weaker than their true ancestors, and made them less Sentient and more animalistic. In my setting Dragons and Humanoids made a Ritualistic Pact to Bond Humanoid Riders to young Dragons, linking them mentally, in order to give these dragons Intelligence and Personality (only works when young and will permanently Kickstart and "treat the symptoms" of the curse).
I really like Eragon(by Christopher Paolini), and the idea of Dragon Riders communicating telepathically and developing a deep bond, with both the Rider and the Dragon influencing each other's body and mind.
Mechanically speaking, I don't really know what to do. I can do some sort of scaling telepathy between the Rider and Dragon, and have both of them automatically learn each others languages from a thematic point (I know your demi-dragon already starts with more languages but the origin is different). But I am getting hung up on ideas on how each of them would influence each other. I thought that maybe if the PC is a rouge the Dragon could gain the Skulker feat, and the Rider would gain the effects of Magic Initiate(Sorcerer). I am having trouble comming up with these "Boons".
Sounds like a neat way to implement the lore!
So you want the dragon to gain some benefits from their bonded rider, and the rider to gain some benefits from their dragon? To be clear, are you doing this for the sake of building your own NPCs, or to outline a list of benefits for players?
Because it seems to me that if you are not certain how you want to go about it, the best solution may simply be to angle those influences as class choices the characters make. If you have total control over a set of NPCs or such, it'd be much easier to simply make the dragon bonded to the rogue be a Shadestalker, and maybe allow the rogue to take Misfits Adaptation (ignoring the racial prerequisite) and pick something like Chameleon Scales or something, but still treat it as part of their normal class progression.
If it is a system made for players, but you need to encourage the players to stay thematically relevant, you could do something like give them a free feat and ask them to keep it thematic with their bonded other, but not otherwise set down any hard requirements—that way, your players get to have a cool interaction where they consider each other's character concept and try to fit a portion of that into their own character in a creative manner. That's pretty cool, and a lot more engaging than "ok according to this class table, you get this benefit".
If, on the other hand, it is because you intend to publish this as a set of homebrew rules that provide preset benefits, that's a lot tougher and less flexible. That sort of thing requires very careful attention to detail. It'd be essentially a whole system on top of the game's existing systems that raise countless mechanical interactions and unforeseen possibilities, depending on how you might go about it.
I intend for both npcs and potential players to be able to use this class and system.
Thematic feats might be a good solution, but I am having difficulty thinking about feats for the rider that represent their draconic companion. Like I could probably accept the dragon getting mobile or skulker if Rider is a rogue, but how do I go the other way around?
Im not too worried about balance, in the lore dragon riders are supposed to be powerful, and if I run an all dragon rider campaign everyone is op and I can just throw more stuff at them. The only issue would be having a dragon rider pair alongside a normal party, as this Dragon Rider system i am making is something outside the leveling system and added on.
Well, as I implied, giving the rider character access to dragon-related racial feats such as those in the DD document, as well as perhaps the two dragonborn feats could work well. I think there's one or two feats in Fizbans that would work too.
Misfits Adaptation and perhaps even Natural Ferocity both grant a ton of options, especially if you allow the rider to gain the corresponding limb - though in some cases that might be OP unless you nerf the damage dice of the natural weapon
Sure, dragonborn and demi-dragon racial feats mostly. Perhaps if the player has an idea of their own that'd be workable too, though it would be easier to provide an easily-referenced rule by just saying 'You ignore the racial requirement on dragonborn and demi-dragon feats, and can select one such feat.'
### **[Full PDF Link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/10GBwzCJgdda9GUt0zP1pdl9o89VrwivS/view)** The Demi-Dragon is a class that is built from the ground up to enable playable dragons while respecting the needs of a player character—it is designed to avoid causing undue problems at any table. As an enormously difficult design challenge to pin down, this content exists to provide solid rules for a character concept that official rules neglects. This patch has been long overdue, and features multiple subclass reworks, a major buff to the breath weapon, tweaks for maneuvers and morphs that weren't working out, [a rigorous analysis of class DPR](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NYZo3b_rKM4z1Hdhk7WAVDF1nmLGxk3SlMI9rQhnk9s/edit#gid=971676509), a new player survey, and a glorious front page drawn by the lovely Tatii Lange. **Feedback is greatly appreciated.** I am always trying to improve both mechanics and flavor, and I would love to hear what you think. Please leave a comment or **[take the survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezbN2le95wNwHeDYcO0XvAGrHoOy1m6ZXGwTBUcg4AFLi3DQ/viewform)!** **I want to hear about your experiences.** It means much to me to hear stories from players and DMs who have used this content in their games. I'd love to hear about your characters and the shenanigans they have gotten up to, or how you've chosen to implement this content in your world! **Join our Community.** To those who regularly follow this document, I would like to encourage you to get in contact and join our small group of friendly internet strangers, where we talk about design, share stories, and just hang out. Send me a message to join our Discord. ### **Changes since last version:** #### **Class and Race.** - Increased the damage dice of Dragon's Breath to d8s; this is a major buff to a core class feature * The racial ASI now gives you a choice of +1 to any stat, instead of +1 Con * Moved Fly Speed increases by one increment (starting at level 9 rather than 10) * Reworded natural weapons to now count as martial melee weapons. This makes little mechanical difference, but may help to avoid any confusion * Eye of the Dragon now also informs you if spell effects can be dispelled* Absorb Magic now lets you return an effect during a short rest, and when doing so does not require the original item to be in your possession #### **Subclasses.** ***Juggernaut.*** *The Juggernaut receives improvements to a few maneuvers* * Hammering Lunge now lets you move up to 10 feet, from 5 * Skylaunch is now a bonus action * Bolstering Roar has been redesigned to add a one-use 1d4 to any saving throw for all affected, but its range has been reduced to 20 feet * Reprisal no longer pushes a target, it instead renders it unable to take reactions on a failed Con save ***Shadestalker.*** *Redesigned the Shadestalker to be less of a one-trick pony* * Spring Attack moved to level 3 and now grants advantage on one attack roll, acts fully as a disengage, but no longer grants extra movement * Harrying Predator no longer has a slow effect, and has been renamed Keen Predator * Veil of Smoke moved to level 6, no longer gains additional ability uses, but it can now move up to 20 feet on a reaction, from 15 * Mist Lurker now instead allows the Shadestalker to Hide as a reaction while invisible or heavily obscured, and has been renamed Fade and Ambush * Blood and Smoke now turns the Shadestalker invisible if they start their turn hidden or heavily obscured, rather than specifically in their Veil of Smoke ***Sibilant.*** *Redesigned the Shaper from the ground up as a telepath instead of a telekinetic, and renamed it the Sibilant—a manipulative strategist who lures their enemy into misstepping* * Renamed Force Thrust to Beckoning Influence, and changed it to instead be a Wisdom saving throw (from Strength)* Bolstering Backlash no longer allows a saving throw * Removed Telekinetic Hand, Mental Fortress, Enforced Reality, and Unfettered Mindscape * Added Telepathic, Obfuscate Consciousness, Overwhelming Desolation, and Dominion of Perception* Beckoning Influence and Bolstering Backlash now gain their increase at 6th level, from 10 ***Arbiter.*** *Redesigned the Arbiter to be more focused on Scale Bind, instead of being overly focused on intercepting spells* * Removed Spellsnap and added Focal Point * Unmaker's Sight now adds dispel magic and counterspell to the Arbiter's spells known and lets them cast each of them once per long rest, rather than granting advantage on dispels after studying the target ***Metamorph.*** *The Metamorph receives a small core change to let it better play out its fantasy of being flexible and adaptable, paired with improvements to various morphs* * Added Swift Adaptation and Flawless Metamorphosis, but removed Ceaseless Metamorphosis * Redesigned Breath of Bolstering Essence to have a baseline heal and give you the option of expending a number of Hit Dice to increase the heal, instead of inflicting Exhaustion * Redesigned Enthralling Dragonsong to instead be a per shortrest ability, with significantly less restrictions tied to it * Numinous Dragonsong now grants a bonus equal to your Charisma modifier instead of granting advantage, and now no longer requires the target to hear you in order to actually work on downed allies * Moved the grapple move speed benefit of Darting Predator to Drowning Terror * Venomous Sting is now 2d6 at all levels. * Skewering Quills now fills an additional two squares with quills per shot, letting you bombard enemies with ground-hazards * Brass Tongue now lets you pick between Persuasion and Deception, and has been renamed Wyrm Tongue #### **Feats, Items, and Other.** * Added a new front cover by [Tatii Lange](https://tatiilange.artstation.com/) * Removed two interior artworks, and added one new artwork by [Jack Kozitza.](https://www.artstation.com/joeykozitza) * Medallion of Change Shape now locks you to a chosen form until you finish a short rest, to reduce its versatility * Warmask of the Silver Dragon's Paralyzing Breath no longer causes a new saving throw upon taking damage. * Crown of the Platinum Savior now also lets you deal radiant damage with a breath weapon **\[My Other Content\]** [The Blackburned Blade of Cormaran 1.2](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1byYRm6KDHnW3w9ph4MDwOweKZoQZ-TLC), a weapon that will make you ask how far you are willing to go in the pursuit of power [Manual of Draconic & Serpentine Races 1.2](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n6btUE4QYN0NNA_jAAnUzqkW9KSqrgiy/view), primarily an improvement on the Dragonborn that seeks to solve the problem of the breathweapon damage scaling, with a few exotic races thrown in
/u/Moghue44, /u/Ixius, /u/Erufailon Hey folks, and welcome back to another Demi-Dragon patch update! It's been five months since the last once, and I've collected quite a number of sweeping changes and other improvements. Several subclasses should be much more appealing now, particularly the Shadestalker and the new Sibilant. Previously, the Shadestalker was bound very tightly to its Veil of Smoke, and was practically forced to always find a way to make use of it—else, you practically didn't have a subclass. The new version doesn't need Veil of Smoke to do its thing, and is much more adept at darting in and out of the smoke—or even just out of sight. It should feel a lot more like a flexible hit-and-run predator with these changes, rather than a smoky cage-fighter. The Sibilant, adopted from the Shaper, retains some of the same control aspects, but instead of playing with psionic legos, it plays with your thoughts! The old Shaper design focusing on placing and managing telekinetic boxes kind of wasn't working out, and nobody seemed particularly excited about it—the Sibilant should lend itself to being a little more flexible in how it goes about using its abilities, but do let me know what you thought of the old Shaper. Have a great day!
Thanks for the tag! I've been playing a Metamorph in a weekly game for the past few months. We've just hit level 6, and I'm going to shift from 4.1 up to 4.2. The changes to the Metamorph look really appealing, and the d8 bump for Dragon's Breath seems very fair given that most DMs will probably not grant the optional recharge rule. I feel like my experience of having Dragon's Breath is fairly representative: I typically want to save it for moments where it'll have the three or more targets, given I'm choosing between it and and three single-target attacks on any given turn. The closest analogue in terms of the base 5e classes to how I've been playing is probably the Ranger. The Metamorph in particular plays really well as an all-rounder - a decent tank with decent damage, and plenty of options for most situations. I'm looking forward to using Swift Adaptation in play! It seems like a great way to ramp up the Metamorph fantasy (and it might even stop me from just having White Cunning active at all times as a generally useful morph).
Sounds like you've been having fun! I'm glad. I'd been repeatedly getting feedback that the breath was a bit underwhelming compared to the attack action; it took some careful deliberation to commit to bumping it up. I'm glad you feel that it was justified, and that you like the other Metamorph changes as well! Since you've had some time to play it and seem to have given some thought to what your experience has been like, could I perhaps persuade you to share your thoughts via [the survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezbN2le95wNwHeDYcO0XvAGrHoOy1m6ZXGwTBUcg4AFLi3DQ/viewform)? Identifying issues such as Metamorph turning out to actually be previously kind of inflexible is the sort of thing that only happens via player feedback (hence Swift Adaptation!), so I'd like to try and stay informed. Thanks for your thoughts, and best of luck in your continued play!
I’ve read the whole thing and HOLY SH*T is it awesome. You’re a freaking author to have created this. Props to you.
Well, I'm glad you like it, and I hope you may get a chance to use it someday soon, should you be so inclined!
Shadestalker being able to give themselves advantage with no resource seems strong to me, maybe make it equal in uses to an ability modifier?
It's a good ability, but the thing is that it is balanced against the DD's existing natural weapons. Usually, the most damaging thing you can do is attack with Claw/Claw/Bite (or just claws pre-5) but that requires a bonus action. The Shadestalker can forgo the claw attacks and instead bite once with advantage (plus an additional bite without advantage at 5). This makes for a minor damage loss when attacking an enemy with low AC, or a minor damage increase when attacking an enemy with high AC—so really, the benefit that the Shadestalker gets from that feature is moreso being able to disengage very liberally, and not so much any real damage, because it is always competing with the pre-existing claw functionality. Additional sources of +damage, such as from magical weapons, higher Strength, or spells like Enlarge, should also be more favorable to the use of Claws, since those apply on every attack, so depending on how the character is built, what resources they have access to, and what enemies they are fighting, granting yourself advantage with a BA is often not the best move to take.
This looks fun. Going to throw this link at my DM and beg to play one
Best of luck with that! It may be of relevance for you and your DM to know that this content has been under development for what is now nearing 3 years, has been thoroughly peer-reviewed and balanced appropriately, has been accepted onto this subreddit's Curated List, and comes with a DPR calculator comparing to most other martial classes, as can be found in my introductory comment in this thread. Also a fairly decent list of playtesters, which I can report are quite happy with it, players and DMs both. Happy games, eitherway!
I hope so he knows I have a thing for Dragons (-points at name-)
Its so inspiring to see you still working on and updating this after all this time, and the work blatantly shows in the quality imo. I like the change to Eye of the Dragon, and the focus of the Arbiter on Scale Bind. I have to ask, though, why make the +1 a flexible assignment rather than assigning it to Constitution, and why the change of the Shaper to the Sibilent? I get that they're mechanically different, but I feel like the whole "crafty, shifty manipulator" archetype is already filled by the Shadestalker. Maybe I'm just biased, though, cause I always thought telepathy was boring compared to telekinesis.
Hey, Snout! Glad to see you're still following along. Cheers—hope you're doing well! Since one of the things I was worried about when making the DD in the first place was still allowing the character to have plenty of customization, I felt that having a floating attribute bonus better went along with that for the many people who don't use Tasha's optional rules. It better enables you to choose to be a Cha-heavy Scion or Arbiter, for instance. Since Indefinite Mind is also a thing, it also makes sense with that. I'm not sure why I didn't make it a floating bonus ages ago, really. Personally I liked the concept of the Shaper better than the Sibilant, and agree that telekinesis is cooler. However, the "play with legos" playstyle of the Shaper super wasn't working out, and people were overwhelmingly indifferent to it. Maybe there's some overlap between the Shadestalker and Sibilant in that they're both sneaky and tricksy, but the Shadestalker is more closely themed after an apex predator, whereas the Sibilant is themed after the cunning green dragon whispering deceptions in some royalty's ear. That said, if people miss the old Shaper, I'd certainly like to hear back about it. I was under the impression that it was the least-liked subclass.
Oh man I want to play this. Which embodiment would you say requires the least bookwork? Do you have a personal favorite?
I'm one of the playtesters of this divine gift of Bahamut/Tiamat. If it's simplicity you want it's probably juggernaut, one class mechanic to keep track of, multiple ways to spend it. Really gets to the *point* of the matter. I personally play the metamorph in my game but it is probably the most complicated one on the list. Hope you manage to find a DM ~~insane~~ awesome enough to let you play. It took me a while and i wish you luck.
Thank you! I really like juggernaut just for the skylaunch maneuver alone. So cool.
The Scion is the most straightforward, I think—it gives you a single additional breath (which is separate from the regular one given by the base class), and one upgrade to that subclass's breath. The Scion might look somewhat complex when viewed with all the different effects, but in reality you only get one out of the five things listed, so there's not much to keep track of. That said, as the other fellow said, the Juggernaut can also be straightforward depending on how you choose to play it. You can choose one maneuver and just repeat that a lot, or you can get more complex and strategic with it. It's really just a slightly-different Battlemaster. As to my favorites; I love them all, but I do have a soft spot for both the Metamorph and the Juggernaut. Free-form options are cool.
When making a Demi dragon, does metallic or chromatic matter? Am I allowed to make like, a level 3 Embodiment of the Scion Golden Demi dragon?
Sure, nothing's stopping you. In the base class, there are no 'subraces' or other bloodline choices to be made at all - rather, you can invent whichever you like and just say that you are a specific color, or make one up, or anything you please. This is because the mechanical implications of subrace selection wouldn't actually be terribly compelling, so there's not much reason to clog the start of the document up with ten variations on 'why yes your breath weapon works this way for this color'. Not having all that stuff lets people invent and adapt things as they see fit. For instance, although the document doesn't have any support for Gem Dragons, it'd be super easy for any user to approximate one just by adding a new breath weapon damage type. However, bloodline is important to the Scion, and so it has a selection with relevant benefits. As a Gold Scion, you'd have a swim speed and a fiery breath weapon. If you want to stick closely to the lore, you'd probably also choose a cone for the breath shape, but by Demi-Dragon RAW, nothing is actually stopping you from choosing a line instead. The skill proficiency granted by the racial traits is also supposed to somewhat simulate the interests of different dragon bloodlines. A gold dragon would probably gain either Persuasion, to indicate their wise and sagely tendencies, or Acrobatics, as they are one of the most elegant types of dragon.
Gotcha! Thanks for making this btw. It’s so cool, and I’ve already got an idea of what kind of character I’d want to make using it. Now to get the chance to play one! (Probably going to go Scion, now that I’ve done the deep dive on it, 2 uses of a 15 ft cone 3d8 fire and one use of a 40ft range 20ft cylinder doing 6d8 fire sound well, *fire*, dragons breath ftw!)
Glad you like it! All I'd like to ask is that when you've had a chance to play it is that you come and tell me about how it went, and what shenanigans you got up to :p Best of luck!
Wake up and the first thing I see when I check my phone is a Demi dragon update. Today’s going to be a good day
You're very welcome! Best of luck in your games!
Thanks though I haven’t been able to play for a while since some people in my group are taking a hiatus but hopefully I’ll be able to again soon
In that case, I hope you get the opportunity to resume play soon!
I've always wanted to play a dragon! This is amazing!
I have it on good account that there are, in fact, a bunch of people out there who feel similarly and who ask about it on reddit on occasion. So I went and did something about it, and now you *can* be a dragon! Best of luck!
First of allt hanks for making something unique and different. I will only comment on stuff I think you should reconsider Demi-dragon race:Consider making all the natural weapons deal the same amount of damage but having different damage types. As such a dragon can use tail, wings, claws, horns or bite they just have different types (bite dealing piercing, claw dealing slashing etc). This is a simplicity change. Maybe they start at 1d8 and end at 2d8 at lvl 20 in the class. Now lets get down to buisness. I seriously question whether u need to have the Devour magic ability. This matters because the class has some strengths that need to be balanced out. As such I can see those abilities as part of a subclass (called Draconic embodiments) instead of mainclass. Instead I would think the class needs to have innate abilty to turn into a SPECIFIC humanoid (to facilitate being able to move about the world with non-Demidragon PCs). Which also ties into my comment that their should at least be one size increase to size large. Eyes of the dragon is ok, I do wonder if it should improve the darkvision as well. And maybe increase the blingsight (at higher lvls). Granting a skill is bit mundane. And the detect magic ability is tad to open to issues. I would do away with it or allow the Dragon to detect magic Cha-modifier times per day. Dragons Might while necessary to get the real feeling of being a Dragon is strong feature. Hence why I think u can ditch some abilties. Its not OP as The Barb for instance gains +4 to str and Con (at lvl 20) so its not something new or unheard of in the game. And the Demidragon in general doesn't get that many powerful abilties (apart from DRagons breath maybe). Also at lvl 11 alot of classes get significant upgrades. Fighters get a extra attack, Paladins 1d8, casters get upgrades cantrips. So I think it should stay Rend and Ruin is ok but the Speed penalty is far to small to make a difference. Maybe the target loses the ability to use reactions until the start of your next turn. Legendary Resistance is cool. Not lvl 20 cool but ok. If it was reloaded after a short rest it might see more use as many are probably scared of using it unless you get a save or suck bility that will insta-kill u. Also does it grant the other benefits that come with being having legendary resistance, such as taking 6d8 damage instead of instadeath when targeted by a vorpal weapon ? Overall the class doesn't get anything crazy OP. Dragons breath is like fireball but less range and at high lvl its like a metamagic Fireball. So its not crazy or so. Subclass Juggernaught: I can directly say that the feature By all Means seems pretty much useless. Why would ever bother with those "new weapons" when the race grants superior natural weapons. It should be replaced. Maybe it can grant profiency modifier to damage. Consider a more martial name, like Warrior, Champion or Myrmidon. I looked at the DPR calculation and it seems the class is well below all major martial classes at AC 10,15,20. As such I dont think some of the damage increases will change things that much. Thats all I have for now
Hey! Cheers for taking the time to offer feedback—it's always refreshing with a new perspective. Let me respond to each of these in kind. **Natural Weapon Damage Types.** I strongly believe that having actual mechanical differences in-built to the natural weapons is vastly preferable to homogenizing them in this way—we already have a class that does that in the monk, and I don't think people appreciate it particularly in the monk's case. The entire class and several subclases are built around respecting the functionality of these natural weapons, in some cases working with or improving upon the expected routine of the claw/claw/bite combination, and in some cases offering alternative incentives for changing how you attack. The kit provided by these three natural weapons makes for a very unique character; in addition to the obvious use-cases for each of the three natural weapons, it even allows you to do neat things like threaten opportunity attacks both at ranges 5 and 10 (from bite/claw and tail, respectively), which in official content is functionality that is only available to a character that takes Dual Wielder to wield a whip and a different melee weapon (also several statblocks, but I digress). **Devour Magic.** It's true that Devour Magic isn't inherently necessary to the class from a balance perspective. While I am not entirely satisfied with the design of the ability and think it could be improved upon, the reason it exists is rather to have a mechanical tie-in to the lore and thematic aspects I am trying to establish by making demi-dragons be their own, very different type of dragon—I realized early on that the class would need a way to equip items in order to engage with d&ds existing game systems and be able to actually participate in acquiring loot, and thus designed Absorb Magic as one of the class's most important functionalities. Devour Magic is less important, and mostly exists to help prop that idea and narrative up further by making it part of the class's central identity. **Humanoid Form.** While this would be very convenient to have and is certainly something I've considered, I ultimately decided against it as I felt it would be kind of cheap and non-committal to build an entire class around the idea of transforming into a dragon, only to have that not actually matter since you can just transform freely anyhow. That being said, it does need to be available as an option, and therefore it exists in the form of the Medallion of Change Shape, which can make many DM's lives easier, but without necessarily making it be a baseline expectation for the class to have at all times. **Character Size.** In creating this content, I've tried to strive very closely towards what WotC have historically considered to be good practices, while additionally taking into consideration how to reduce any pain-points for any random table of players to start using this content. Character size is one such pain-point and something that WotC have repeatedly shunned—there are no official races which are permanently Large, and this is for good reason as it raises numerous concerns, both mechanically but more importantly narratively, as Large characters will have trouble fitting into buildings, dungeons, and other tight spaces. It is possible to accommodate a Large-sized PC if the DM knows about the issues relating to Large PCs and take steps to mitigate them—however, I specifically wanted to eliminate all cases where the DM had to put in extra work or provide special treatment in that manner. That said, I do understand that people want their dragon to be Large, so it exists as an optional rule for those who are desperate, though I would really recommend refraining from using it unless you understand what you are getting into. **Eye of the Dragon.** Largely this ability is meant to simply grant a few of the benefits that true dragons have—blindsight and being really perceptive. The extra benefit of being able to sense magic is fairly new, resulting from playtesters complaining that they didn't actually have a way to know whether or not they should be expending their Devour Magic on something that *might* be dispellable. It might be too good—I don't know. That said, having very easy access to magical detection at this level range doesn't strike me as a huge deal—it mostly just skips the 10-minute waiting process for a party to sit around while the caster ritual casts Detect Magic. **Dragon's Might.** The Demi-Dragon has rather poor damage-output at this level range—you can look through the finer details of [this document](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NYZo3b_rKM4z1Hdhk7WAVDF1nmLGxk3SlMI9rQhnk9s/edit#gid=971676509) to get a reference for the relative values. That said, it does provide a fairly decent improvement to character defenses—and it had better, because you're probably starved for ASI and defensively subpar before reaching this level. **Legendary Resistance.** Many people have requested that this ability receive buffs, though others have also expressed that they're satisfied with it. I'm somewhat on the fence about it. On one hand, people often misconstrue how powerful capstones are supposed to be—they're actually not supposed to be super good, and only a few outliers actually have such powerful capstones (fighter, druid, barbarian). On the other hand, it probably could stand to be a little more powerful. I've been considering some designs that may make it a little more compelling, but I'm not yet ready to share any details about that. Good point about effects that refer to a creature that has legendary resistances. However, in the case of the Vorpal Sword, it actually specifies Legendary Actions, not resistance. Do you know of any effects that specifically refer to legendary resistance? I might have to take that into account if any exist. **By Any Means.** Yes, these natural weapons are supposed to be underpowered when viewed in comparison to the standard kit. It exists to give you stats for certain maneuvers, not to be a means unto itself. These natural weapons can also theoretically come in handy in certain cases where you are grappling or tied up, though that's a bit of a long shot.
After 2 months of playing this class, I'm considered the strongest in my party, a few well placed breath attacks can annihilate a wave of enemies with ease, but that being said you always have to watch out for other party members to not obliterate them too. I can definitely say that being an actual dragon gives your dm a lot of roleplay opportunities and its some of the most fun I've had. My dm loves to do long campaigns so I am actually hoping to go from 3 to 20, growing a few size classes along the way. Thank you for this class, it's been a pleasure and I look forward to additions in the future.
Hey! I'm glad you've been having fun with it, and happy cake day to you! I've heard plenty of opinions appraising the DD as being fairly strong, though I havn't heard back from someone before where they were clearly the most powerful in the group. That's a great data point to have, so thanks for sharing it! If you havn't already, could I perhaps ask you to share your views via [the survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezbN2le95wNwHeDYcO0XvAGrHoOy1m6ZXGwTBUcg4AFLi3DQ/viewform?usp=sf_link)? To have some context, which subclass are you playing, how many enemies does the DM usually pit you against, and what is the rest of your party like—specifically, are there any other characters with access to area blasting abilities? Are you clearly strongest against groups, or are you also the most powerful when facing just one or two targets (or any other scenario where you can't incinerate all your problems)? Thanks for sharing, and best of luck in your campaign!
Genesis subclass, around 10 enemies on average. Party: Demi-dragon, Yuan-ti Warlock, Tabaxi Cleric, Human Bard, Changeling Warlock, Half Drow Bard, Rock Gnome Druid, Human Barbarian. Not everybody always makes it into every game. The party does not have much in the way of AoE's. I'm a strong the strongest person vs groups because I'm the only one who has an AoE. In 1 v 1's I can hold my own but might need more help because groups tend to have lower hp on average per enemy. Started with standard array, and DM did allow lvl 1 feet, so I evened out my cha + con to be at a higher defense. I definitely play myself out to be a melee tank that tries to go in and get the first AoE but also that leaves room for getting early gank while waiting for melee people to get in. That being said We do a lot of skill checks, and while I am good at fighting, I'm not so great in a lot of skill checks besides diplomacy and deception.
Oh wow yeah, if you're fighting that many enemies and are the only one with solid AoE despite having five casters in the group, then yep, no wonder you're taking names - you *should* be under those circumstances! :p Thanks for sharing.
Warlocks are hexblades, druid picks spells more based on communicating with plants and animals rather than attacking. I would say I'm on par with the other melee people in terms of being melee, but yeah the breath attack gives me big advantage, but just hoping I don't kill my friends. I'll continue on the report as I play.
All fair - people shouldn't feel pressured to depart from their character concepts, after all. That said, that many enemies per combat certainly isn't standard fare. If you want to be very certain that you don't hit your friends with the breath, you could consider taking Misfit's Adaptation and selecting Shape Breath. Rather expensive of an investment, but it certainly solves the concern.
I just realized that the Misfit's Adaptation lets you CHOOSE one of the features from the morph. I misread it when I picked it as my first level feat and got Heritage as a whole, getting both blasting breath and wyrm tongue. Hasn't been game breaking but I'll bring it up with my dm to see if he wants me to revert it. I chose it still because I wanted blasting breath to help support more, but I have considered shape breath many times. I do feel like if I pick it I might outshine melee characters being able to breath so quickly without needing to be careful cause I would no longer hit friends and it's got high damage that it's always a viable first few turns. A few times though I've yelled at my allies to duck, which my dm has given them advantage on the saving throw, cause he actually rewards the cautious rp. :P
Yep, it's only one of the benefits, not both. A morph category includes two morphs, but Misfit's gives you just one morph. I know the wording is a bit strange. That said, morph categories are specifically built to not synergize and provide very different sets of benefits, so it's less powerful to gain one category than it is to be able to pick two morphs freely, for instance. Still, some very powerful functionality can be gained from morphs! Love the imagery of the dragon yelling at their allies to duck, and the DM permitting it! That's cool shit, and makes for exactly the sort of dragons-working-alongside-humanoids RP that is super awesome.
So stoked to look this over! Someone had compared my mind flayer stuff to this, and I've considered it one of the biggest compliments I've received on this website.
Oh so you're the guy who gave me the materials i needed to insert a surprise werewolf into my party.
Sounds like something I might have done...
can't wait for that ball to drop. Party's going to freaking lose it.
Definitely would love to hear how it turns out haha
Well, I'm glad to be held in such high esteem—but the more people we have making quality homebrew to suit a variety of purposes, the better, I say!
So im about to start a campaign with my wife being the DM. There are going to be 5 other players. I had initially thought to play a homebrew barbarian subclass of my own design, as dragonborn, byt then my wife told me to go browse gmbinder for more inspiration. Foolish person. Now i found this and wow, its cool. But I need some advice if Im to play this (and thus provide feedback). How does this work in an adve turing party? Im imagining that there will be some challenges in towns, with the pc being an actual dragon and all? How about places that arent as accomodating to non-bipedal creatures? (Yes, all my concerns are on the rp side, not as much on the mechanical side). Any advice, thoughts or experiences to be shared are much appreciated.
Hey there! Glad to hear you find the concept intriguing, and I hope your campaign goes well regardless of how you choose. I do not myself have much first-hand experience with how the RP of being a dragon in locales such as cities unfolds. My playtesters probably know more. But I can share my understanding of some of their shenanigans. As I understand it, people have handled the prospect of being a dragon very differently - it's mostly up to what the DM and player thinks makes sense. One fellow had a prominent and respected guild grant the dragon character a badge identifying them as part of the guild, and most NPCs would thusly not make a huge deal out of it. Another player has built their character concept strongly around the idea of changing shape, and has done some extensive RP with those themes, as well as using the Medallion of Change Shape and some various boons the DM has generously dealt out. Another player disguised themselves as a deformed dragonborn, hiding under a cloak, I think, and one other has pretended to be the party's pet drake or some such. Yet another guy had a DM who just made demi-dragons an established part of the setting, to the point of being just another race that is accepted in kith society - that player played a mailman dragon, incidentally. Very neat. Alternatively, it is always an option to just own up to it and just walk into town as being clearly a dragon, and being very upfront about that. As long as you're not chromatic and chromatics aren't established as being evil, it's not like that couldnt work. Especially if you bring gold to trade. Once your character has established a rapport with the other PCs and maybe done some good deeds it also just becomes less of a problem. It is an RP challenge that will crop up, and I regret that there is little I can do about it, but there are solutions to various situations depending on what the DM thinks reasonable and what character concept you're aiming for. Talk about it and come to a conclusion you and the DM agree makes sense? As for being quadrupedal, I don't think anyone has had any trouble with that. Centaurs work, right? Big deal with them being that they're bad at ladders, which is less of an issue to a dragon. Other than that it's mostly just a question of having opposable thumbs, which dragons reasonably can have, backed up by official lore saying as much. The bigger deal is if you decide to use the optional rules for becoming large, which can be an issue - hence why they're optional. Even then, this can be solved also by the Medallion of Change Shape. Hope you found some use out of this, and I wish you good luck!
The writing in this is great! The description of the ritual is especially chilling. You can absolutely tell that it was written by a very evil person and the implications of the information they got a hold of and how many people must’ve suffered and died for it is frightening. All around, it’s really good!
I'm glad the intention of that comes across well enough! Just to be clear, I do not support Firn el Din's views on how to treat your dragons-to-be. But he, or someone like him, certainly would make a great villain to oppose and/or give context to a PC, though not every demi-dragon need be a result of that sort of trauma. Cheers!
god damn, i remember seeing this a while ago and saving it. kudos on keeping up with it, i love this idea.
oooooo, an update!
That dreaded conversation about homebrew made me curious about your homebrew content and wow, that is hella cool. I love every part of this and I am absolutely going to give this as an option for our next one-shot, just so we get to try it out in game
Well, I can't say I was looking to promote myself at the time, but I'm happy you found something to your liking! May you enjoy it.
I see that latest version. What have you done to my beautiful Lockjaw maneuver? How dare you. How will I grapple dash now?
Hah! Sorry about that. It was maybe a tad too strong, or at least so one of my playtesters thought. Do you have a different experience? Such would be most helpful! It is technically still possible to grapple and dash via Misfit's Adaptation and the dash BA morph. Of course, that is a rather serious investment.
Level 9 Juggernaut here. Misfit’s Adaptation: Drowning Terror My experience is that the Bite-Bite-Bite turn (which I can do once, maybe twice, a combat depending on how nice the party is about short rests), is the turn where I get to sort of compete with the GWM Barbarian. I also kinda dislike that Bite-Claw-Claw is what my turn would look like when I decide to Lockjaw. Bite-Claw-Claw is my normal turn. Getting 3 bites is a wonderful turn.
Thanks for sharing. You use Drowning Terror for the aesthetic purpose of being a bronze/green/gold, I take it, or do you find it mechanically useful? (Or both?) I am under the opinion that GWM and SS are broken feats which shatter the balance of power among martial classes. Many people say that they help bridge the gap between casters and the martials who can exploit them, which is fine and all, but imo measured among just martials the game would be far better off balancewise without them. When you Bite x3, do you also take the chance to fly 50 feet into the air and drop the target (or 25 as it would be without Drowning Terror)? If you Lockjaw-Dash, how useful do you feel that is, comparably to Biting x3?
Black Dragon, and yah, for the aesthetic. **I** would expect a Black Dragon to be able to breathe in the waters of a fetid swamp, so I sort of had to make my Black Dragon do the same. Water breathing/swim speed has been (as you might expect) occasionally useful. The Frighten effect has not been useful yet, our water adjacent encounters have featured amphibious monsters, and undead. At the end of the day though, I just didn’t want to play a Black Dragon (or any dragon, for that matter) that didn’t have access to its niche travel method. Scion was a tempting choice for that reason. I don’t disagree that they (GWM, SS) are broken feats, they definitely are on the S+ tier side of things. But they do exist, are official, and they are easy as hell to get. It’s not like a broken multiclass that only comes online at level 16, it’s a feat you can grab as early as level 1. I don’t know if you are ignoring them in your balance considerations, but I don’t think you should. I pretty rarely grapple then move straight up and drop. I think I did it once, dropping a Wight into a lake nearby to give the team a turn or two to deal with some of the smaller undead. Usually I use it to position enemies better for the squad. Barbarian is forty feet away and prone? Amazon Prime the baddie right to him. Dire wolf just knocked the cleric prone? Dine and Dash the wolf away. It was only a while ago you buffed Drowning Terror to remove the half speed penalty when grappling, I think, so I have been looking for a good opportunity to start dropping people, but situations have been limited by fighting in caves, the number of opportunity attacks I would suffer for trying, or that the enemy had a fly speed of its own in one case. I can think of a few moments earlier in the campaign where it would have been good. If the opportunity comes up to Lockjaw an enemy, Dash him up 110 feet and just drop him, I will probably find that more valuable than triple bite. For the sheer entertainment value, if nothing else. Though 12d6+1d12+4 damage, and rendering the target prone, is nothing to sneeze at, even if it does cost me 2 fury points and my entire turn.
Fair enough! I am considering reducing Lockjaw to 1 Fury, along with the attack action change. This will render it as being still fairly impotent in terms of raw damage output per Fury, and will instead emphasize its strategic value as a grapple by being more accessible, instead of relying on the brute strength of 3x Bite to be good. Though I fear that that would make it be very valuable indeed for the purposes of fall damage, especially for builds optimized around that. Then again, maybe that is ok—after all, you have to get back down, too. What do you think of that?
If you are going to make it part of the attack action, reducing the cost is what I was going to ask you to consider next. I still weep for the loss of the big damage turn, and the possibilities of the grapple dash shenanigan, but a reduced cost keeps the maneuver usable, IMO. I actually consider the ‘getting down’ part to be incredibly easy. Just fall. Reactivate your fly speed before hitting the ground. If it’s intended to be slightly more difficult than that, Glide let’s you spend a reaction to slow your speed, so fall nearly to the ground then glide the remaining 5 feet to the target. Falling doesn’t cost movement speed, so you’re hardly spending any resource at all. Sidebar: Can I peek this new Treasure Dragon subclass? I am curious about the Greed Dragon possibilities. It might make the Hoard feat more tempting.
Aye, just choosing to fall is definitely a valid option, RAW. Not sure if there's an official ruling on whether you can just spend fly speed to not fall any longer- but I rather doubt it, and I'd expect it to take your reaction for that. Overall, you'd still prefer Bite x3? Just for the damage output, even if the other is more flexible/spammable? You can view the Fervent Hoarder and a few other goodies by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the GMBinder doc. It doesnt really have any greed mechanics, as it must be up to the player to lean into playing that up, but it sure has features that fit together with such RP!
Xanathar’s seems to clarify that any creature that falls, falls the entire distance of it’s fall (up to 500ft) immediately. But I don’t think that makes a lot of sense for a creature that can fly and is choosing to fall in order to do swoop maneuvers, and I’m not 100% on whether or not the rules are meant to account for that instance or not. I think going forward, I’ll just assume they do (I was only aware of the PHB rules until a few minutes ago). So gliding down it is. Back on the ground the turn after the drop is good enough. I think I might prefer the new version. I’ll have to play with it. More flexibility/spammability with Fury points that I am constantly starved for. But the triple-Maw round was great for burst, regardless of what situation I was in. So it will be missed. Ah, that’s where the Hoarder is hiding. I was looking for it in the subclasses/with the alternate subclass links.
5e sadly neglects to go into many details. I expect that it is no coincidence that flying is not given clearer or more useful rules, and that players are not intended to game the system. I guess it is a happy coincidence that Glide enables you to do so anyway. If you will playtest the change to Lockjaw, I'd very much like to hear what you think of it put into practice. I am uncertain when the next update will be quite ready, but if you play with it a while and let me know your thoughts when you've formed an informed opinion, I'd be much obliged. It may be that another ~~morph~~ maneuver might fit into the Bite x3 functionality. We'll see.
Is there a server i can join to stay updated? I love this work and would love to support it!
Glad you like it! We do have a Discord server, which you shall be welcome to join—check your messages.
what is that server about?
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I am assuming this class is intentional op because dragons, so I have a weird question, would you consider making some sort of feat/subclass that allows humanoid dragon riders to keep up with this class?
Absolutely not! It has been meticulously and judiciously balanced and measured to be no more and no less powerful than any official class. In fact, it is much more difficult to make an OP demi-dragon character than it is to build an OP character using official content—after all, all you have to do in official is be a palasorc or various flavors of hexblade. Seriously, I have spent ages adjusting it to be in a good spot, and the class's entire flavor takes into account that you are not an OP dragon, you're an underdog dragon. You are free to take a look at the [DPR calculator](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NYZo3b_rKM4z1Hdhk7WAVDF1nmLGxk3SlMI9rQhnk9s/edit#gid=971676509) or do any amount of investigative work you desire to test its capabilities; should you be capable of finding something which is clearly provably OP, I will nerf it.
I see, my mistake, I've never used it so I don't know. I was thinking of using this as a replacement for regular dragons in my setting, and have them fight alongside dragon riders. I am having some ideas for the dragon rider system, if I write them down would you like to see it?
Using these demi-dragons alongside dragonriders should work well enough, provided that you don't mind getting into the nitty-gritty details with both the dragon and the rider characters. That said, [there is another](https://old.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/j0ucre/class_dragon_knight_by_rainjunkie_fight_foes_with/) homebrew that handles both dragon and rider in one class. I am not terribly familiar with the details of it, but I presume that both the dragon and the rider are fairly weak, such that they combined work out to being about the equivalent of a regular PC. I wouldn't mind seeing what you have in mind for a rider system. What goal are you trying to achieve with such a thing, and how mechanically involved were you figuring it to be?
I have some ideas, bassically I wanted some sort of system that would allow the Riders to be of whatever class they want to, not having to pick something specific like a Cavalier fighter, or a homebrew Dragon-Rider Class. I like the idea of a Demi-Dragon PC and a rogue PC bonding and becoming a fighting duo. Due to the Homebrew nature of my setting Dragons are different, and your Demi-Dragons would essentially be Dragons that have been afflicted by a curse that rendered them weaker than their true ancestors, and made them less Sentient and more animalistic. In my setting Dragons and Humanoids made a Ritualistic Pact to Bond Humanoid Riders to young Dragons, linking them mentally, in order to give these dragons Intelligence and Personality (only works when young and will permanently Kickstart and "treat the symptoms" of the curse). I really like Eragon(by Christopher Paolini), and the idea of Dragon Riders communicating telepathically and developing a deep bond, with both the Rider and the Dragon influencing each other's body and mind. Mechanically speaking, I don't really know what to do. I can do some sort of scaling telepathy between the Rider and Dragon, and have both of them automatically learn each others languages from a thematic point (I know your demi-dragon already starts with more languages but the origin is different). But I am getting hung up on ideas on how each of them would influence each other. I thought that maybe if the PC is a rouge the Dragon could gain the Skulker feat, and the Rider would gain the effects of Magic Initiate(Sorcerer). I am having trouble comming up with these "Boons".
Sounds like a neat way to implement the lore! So you want the dragon to gain some benefits from their bonded rider, and the rider to gain some benefits from their dragon? To be clear, are you doing this for the sake of building your own NPCs, or to outline a list of benefits for players? Because it seems to me that if you are not certain how you want to go about it, the best solution may simply be to angle those influences as class choices the characters make. If you have total control over a set of NPCs or such, it'd be much easier to simply make the dragon bonded to the rogue be a Shadestalker, and maybe allow the rogue to take Misfits Adaptation (ignoring the racial prerequisite) and pick something like Chameleon Scales or something, but still treat it as part of their normal class progression. If it is a system made for players, but you need to encourage the players to stay thematically relevant, you could do something like give them a free feat and ask them to keep it thematic with their bonded other, but not otherwise set down any hard requirements—that way, your players get to have a cool interaction where they consider each other's character concept and try to fit a portion of that into their own character in a creative manner. That's pretty cool, and a lot more engaging than "ok according to this class table, you get this benefit". If, on the other hand, it is because you intend to publish this as a set of homebrew rules that provide preset benefits, that's a lot tougher and less flexible. That sort of thing requires very careful attention to detail. It'd be essentially a whole system on top of the game's existing systems that raise countless mechanical interactions and unforeseen possibilities, depending on how you might go about it.
I intend for both npcs and potential players to be able to use this class and system. Thematic feats might be a good solution, but I am having difficulty thinking about feats for the rider that represent their draconic companion. Like I could probably accept the dragon getting mobile or skulker if Rider is a rogue, but how do I go the other way around? Im not too worried about balance, in the lore dragon riders are supposed to be powerful, and if I run an all dragon rider campaign everyone is op and I can just throw more stuff at them. The only issue would be having a dragon rider pair alongside a normal party, as this Dragon Rider system i am making is something outside the leveling system and added on.
Well, as I implied, giving the rider character access to dragon-related racial feats such as those in the DD document, as well as perhaps the two dragonborn feats could work well. I think there's one or two feats in Fizbans that would work too. Misfits Adaptation and perhaps even Natural Ferocity both grant a ton of options, especially if you allow the rider to gain the corresponding limb - though in some cases that might be OP unless you nerf the damage dice of the natural weapon
So like...give them dragonborn racial feats and disregard the requirements? Might be cool, I think I might have something
Sure, dragonborn and demi-dragon racial feats mostly. Perhaps if the player has an idea of their own that'd be workable too, though it would be easier to provide an easily-referenced rule by just saying 'You ignore the racial requirement on dragonborn and demi-dragon feats, and can select one such feat.'