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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Help creating a Way of Bahamut monk archetype



KoyukiTei13
2016-07-21, 02:53 PM
I have this idea for dragonborn monks to follow Bahamut, and gain blessings from him to increase their dragon-iness.

Here's what I have so far...

Way of the Platinum Dragon
In a far away citadel live a reclusive clan of various dragons and their humanoid dragonborn kin. They meditate on the teachings of Bahamut and strive to gain utmost control over their draconic heritages. Occasionally, the Great Platinum Dragon himself visits these dragons, telling them of the world outside and encouraging their continued meditations and research into their true powers.
While dragons themselves cannot walk the way of a monk, dragonborn work on using their natural power against the forces of Tiamat and all other evil.
Other humanoids may walk the Way of Bahamut as well, but the majority of monks of this Way are dragonborn, due to their close connection to the King of Dragons. Non-draconic humanoids who take the Way of the Dragon at 3rd level are granted a breath weapon by Bahamut, the color of which is the monk's choice.

Aspects of the Dragons
Dragonborn monks who follow the Way of Bahamut are able to hone their bodies and minds to be keen weapons. Each dragonborn who follow this path are able to request a blessing from Bahamut when they have perfected a technique of draconic heritage: breath, talons, senses, and presence. When they have perfected all that they possess, Bahamut may see them worthy of additional benefits, such as wings, a tail, or an additional breath weapon element.
In addition to your Ability Score Increase at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19, you may take a single Aspect of the Dragons of your choice. If you take one of these Aspects, you cannot take a feat if your DM allows the optional feats rule.
Non-dragon humanoids who wish to gain an Aspect must meditate for 8 hours in communion with Bahamut to convince the King of Dragons of their worthiness. They go through the transformation directly after this 8 hour meditation, which takes 1 hour.

Blessing of Armored Scale: Your body is stronger than that of your peers, granting you an AC of 11 + Dexterity modifier + Wisdom modifier while unarmored and not wielding a shield.

Blessing of Breath: The recharge time of your breath weapon changes to "If you do not have the use of your breath weapon when you roll for initiative, you regain the use of your breath weapon." Additionally, the damage increases come at levels 5, 11, and 17, and change one of the following: your breath weapon becomes a bonus action, and its base damage becomes 1d6, or your breath weapon's damage increases by 2d6 each bump.

Blessing of Talons: You have claws on both of your hands. You can use your action to make the multiattack action, attacking once with each of your clawed hands. These claws use your Strength modifier for the attack roll, and deal 1d4 slashing damage. At 6th level, you can add your Strength modifier to the damage roll. At 11th level, these attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming magical damage. At 16th level, the damage increases to 2d4.

Blessing of Senses: Your senses are more as a dragon's than those of your kin. You gain Darkvision, and have a proficiency in Perception. Your draconic sight allows you to see in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 ft. of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You cannot see color in darkness, only shades of grey.

Blessing of Presence: You can channel your draconic presence, striking fear into those around you. As an action, you can attempt to frighten all creatures within a 30 ft. radius around you. Each hostile creature in that radius must succeed a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus) or be frightened until the start of your next turn. You can use this feature once per long rest. At 6th level, this radius increases to 45 ft. At 11th level, each creature that fails the saving throw is frightened for 1 minute, and must make a Wisdom saving throw on the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. At 16th level, the radius increases to 60 ft., and you can use the feature once per short of long rest.

Greater Blessing of Armored Scale: This bonus increases to 12 + Dexterity modifier + Wisdom modifier, while unarmored and not wielding a shield.

Greater Blessing of Balance: You have a strong tail that you can use to aid your balance. You have advantage on checks for balancing (ex Dexterity (Acrobatics)). At 6th level, your tail is strong enough to attack with: you may attack with your tail as a bonus action on your turn as long as you have used the attack or multiattack actions, dealing 1d6 bludgeoning damage on a hit. You can add your Strength modifier to the attack roll. At 11th level, you may add your Strength to your damage roll. At 16th level, the attack counts as magical for he purpose of overcoming resistances and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Greater Blessing of Breath: Your experience with the more violent and magical energies of the world have hardened your innate magical breath weapon, increasing its potency.
Increase the damage die of your breath weapon from a d6 to a d8, and your breath weapon's range doubles.
You may select a second damage type from the Draconic Ancestry table. When you use your breath weapon, you may choose which damage type you deal.

Greater Blessing of Flight: You gain wings that sprout from your back, between your shoulder blades. You gain a flying speed of 30 feet. These wings are approximately twice your height. At 11th level, this speed increases to your walking speed if it is higher. Any clothes or armor must be specifically made for you to accommodate your wings, which doubles the price of your clothes or armor.


Greatest Blessing of True Dragonhood: This Aspect blessing is only available to monks in the highest regard of Bahamut. You are granted a true dragon form, as well as a hybrid between true and your original form.

First Technique of Bahamut
When you choose this Way at 3rd level, you are able to funnel your ki into draconic might.

Second Technique of Bahamut
At 6th level,

Third Technique of Bahamut
At 11th level,

Fourth Technique of Bahamut
At 16th level,


I'm not sure if I should include the Aspects as features to be gained separately, or include them as a potluck pick-and-choose ability thing. I quite like the idea of integrating draconic aspects with leveling up, and a lot of this material was taken straight from RakiReborn's Dragonborn Variants (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477047-Dragonborn-Variants-WIP-PEACH).

KoyukiTei13
2016-07-23, 11:45 AM
Bumping. I would like some ideas, resources, etc. :)

Rerem115
2016-07-23, 02:56 PM
The format has me a little confused. What do you get at 3rd level? At 6th? At 11th? What is the capstone? Do you pick one of these pseudo-feats when you would gain a sub-class feature?

As a minor note, some of the transformations need a little tuning.
1: Blessing of Talons. This is strictly worse than Unarmed Strike, something the Monk already gets
2: Greater Blessing of Balance. Tail seems fine, until you hit level 11. Holy power spike, Batman. The tail weapon goes from 1d6+(1-5) to 1d6+up to 20. 1d6+20 damage is ludicrous, and is better than anything a Monk can do until level 17.
3: Greater Blessing of Armored Scale. The Monk is allowed to have their Unarmored Defense scale off their primary stats because they can't use a shield. This essentially gives a shield, and lets them push their AC to 22, higher than any other class.

KoyukiTei13
2016-07-23, 04:39 PM
The format has me a little confused. What do you get at 3rd level? At 6th? At 11th? What is the capstone? Do you pick one of these pseudo-feats when you would gain a sub-class feature?

As a minor note, some of the transformations need a little tuning.
1: Blessing of Talons. This is strictly worse than Unarmed Strike, something the Monk already gets
2: Greater Blessing of Balance. Tail seems fine, until you hit level 11. Holy power spike, Batman. The tail weapon goes from 1d6+(1-5) to 1d6+up to 20. 1d6+20 damage is ludicrous, and is better than anything a Monk can do until level 17.
3: Greater Blessing of Armored Scale. The Monk is allowed to have their Unarmored Defense scale off their primary stats because they can't use a shield. This essentially gives a shield, and lets them push their AC to 22 higher than any other class.

Well I don't have the 3rd, 6th, 11th, capstone selected yet. I was messing around with what Bahamut would grant as the monk leveled up. I think I'll power down the blessings you've mentioned and edit Blessing of Talons to be more beneficial. Should I grant these "pseudo-feats" as the monk levels up, or have blessings at 3rd, 6th, and 11th, with a better capstone?

Rerem115
2016-07-23, 05:00 PM
Hmmm. Looking at what you've got, I would probably make something that looks like this.

3rd Level: Gain a breath weapon if you don't have one already. You can spend (x) Ki to recharge your breath weapon. In addition, you learn (x) blessings that you can spend (x) Ki to gain for (x) amount of time, or spend (x) Ki to gain the effect until you suspend it. Ki spent on maintaining effects doesn't recover when you would normally recover Ki.

6th Level: You gain proficiency in two of these skills: Intimidation, Deception, Persuasion. You learn (x) more blessings.

11th Level: You can use Flurry of Blows as a bonus action after using your breath weapon. In addition, you learn (x) Greater blessings.

Capstone: You learn (x) Greater blessings. In addition, you gain wings and a fly speed equal to your walking speed. Also, creatures that would normally resist your breath weapon are damaged normally, and creatures that would normally be immune are only resistant.

This is obviously only a rough draft, but I feel that your transformation system would be best supported if they were treated almost like maneuvers, creating sort of a battle-master/monk dragon thing.

Alternatively, you could have the blessings be permanent, but only gain one at 3rd, 6th, 11th, and 17th level. Either way, if you want to build a sub class around these blessings, you might want to think up a few more. :smalltongue:

Lalliman
2016-07-23, 05:09 PM
(Note: I started writing when the thread had only two replies, and I'm just going to post it as is.)

Ok, it's late, so I might be overlooking some things, but here are some a lot of thoughts.

1. Non-Dragonborn get a breath weapon, but you don't say how it works. I guess it works like that of the Dragonborn? Still, you have to actually say that. Speaking of which, if non-Dragonborn get a free breath weapon upon choosing the archetype, then choosing this archetype on a non-Dragonborn is strictly better than choosing it on a Dragonborn.

2. The fact that you receive your blessings along with your ASIs is odd, because no other class functions like that, and is also more difficult to balance, because comparing archetype features becomes more complicated. Can't you just grant the blessings at levels 3, 6, 11 and 17, and have those be the archetype features? Each blessing would have to be more powerful to complete with the features of the other archetypes, but it'd be much cleaner that way.

3. Why change the damage increases for breath weapons from 6, 11 and 16 to 5, 11 and 17? To line up with Extra Attack? Seems like a needless complication. Don't fix it if it isn't broken.

4. As Rerem said, Blessing of Talons makes no sense. It breaks the basic rules of the game (multiattack for PCs, no Strength to damage) and is way worse than the monk's regular attacks. A much more functional feature with the same flavour might be: "Your unarmed strikes deal slashing damage, and your unarmed strike damage die is one step higher than shown on the Martial Arts column of the Monk table, to a maximum of 1d12." If you want this archetype to be Str-based, she my final note at the bottom.

5. Blessing of Greater Balance: No offence, but I'm starting to wonder if you've played a monk before. Monks have bonus action attacks from the start, so what does this blessing actually do, aside from giving advantage on a rare skill check? An alternative might be: "When you use the Attack action on your turn, you can make one tail attack as a bonus action. A tail attack functions like an unarmed strike, and on hit, the target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be knocked prone."
(Rerem interpreted the "add your Strength to your damage roll" part to mean adding your strength score, but I assume you meant strength modifier.)

6. There are no prerequisites given for taking any of the blessings, which can be problematic especially for Blessing of Flight, granting a permanent fly speed as early as level 4.

7. No mechanical benefits are described for Blessing of True Dragonhood.

Overall assessment: You should reconsider the basic structure. To fit the dragon theme, I suggest that you bend the rules by making them choose the archetype at level 1 instead of 3. If they do, their unarmoured defence is changed to 10 + Dex + Cha, or to 10 + Dex + Str (not sure which is more appropriate). All other archetype features still come at the normal level.

Edit: And also make the monk's save DCs scale with whatever stat is used for unarmoured defence. I meant to include that.

KoyukiTei13
2016-07-23, 05:51 PM
No offence, but I'm starting to wonder if you've played a monk before.

I haven't, but the character I want to play in my friends campaign would've been vastly different from my image of her if I had gone with a Way listed in the PHB or one I'd found on here. I had this image in my head of this Way of the Platinum Dragon monk that was following Bahamut's orders to wipe tyrants from the land.

Thanks to both of you for your advice for this. :D I have some good ideas for the base of it now. :)