A Dragonborn Breath Battery

[RickAsWritten]

The Dragonborn's Breath Weapon is very weak.

As a DM, would you allow a Bronze Dragonborn Eldritch Knight/Wizard with high intelligence to strap a crude battery to his armor, breath electricity on to himself, take the damage(resistant) but perpetuate the electrical current, and then make a melee attack on an enemy with the target taking the lightning damage.

A bit far fetched I know, but all of the required components can be bought from the PHB(acid, copper, another conducting metal, a container). The earliest batteries were invented around 1800, not counting the Baghdad Battery, which may or may not have been something of the like; created much earlier.

[Koren]

If a player is that creative and clever, and the character could believably invent it then I don't see why not.

[Sigreid]

I'm not sure about that, but probably since I would be willing to let the player search for the masks of tiamat from the rise of tiamat quest paths. I just wouldn't necessarily make it easy to do.

[Unoriginal]

As a DM, would you allow a Bronze Dragonborn Eldritch Knight/Wizard with high intelligence to strap a crude battery to his armor, breath electricity on to himself, take the damage(resistant) but perpetuate the electrical current, and then make a melee attack on an enemy with the target taking the lightning damage.

Would you allow a Red Dragonborn to pour oil all over himself and then set himself on fire so he can deliver burning attacks on people?

Also, why would taking damage from the electricity and be restricted to melee attacks *improve* the breath? You lose the range advantage, and you're hurting yourself.

[Armored Walrus]

If the player just wanted to say "I do this." Probably not. It seems anachronistic to me. Like letting players Fabricate tanks.

However, if they wanted to spend downtime and resources and go on side quests to gather information to develop it as a magic item, I'd work with them to give them that.

[Kane0]

A better strategy might be to come up with a way to use Shocking Grasp in conjunction with your lightning breath for increased effect. You already have all the components necessary and you wouldn't hurt yourself nor have to lug around expensive (and experimental) equipment.

[strangebloke]

I just have an 'uncommon' magic item that can boost the x/day of fire breath, as well as boosting the damage die.

[Zanthy1]

I find the greatest weakness of the breath weapon is how frequently it can be used. I treat it like a slightly more powerful cantrip, but give it a recharge time. In 3.5 most breath weapons could be used every 1d4 rounds. At 1st level I would have it be 1d6, but could improve to 1d4 around 10th level. I haven't put much thought into upping the damage though, that could be cool.

[MeeposFire]

I like changing the action requirement. If something uses an action it has to compete with other abilities that use an action that typically get more support in the class than something like breath weapon.

Making it a bonus action would make it more usable for more classes.

[Falcon X]

As a high-level magical item: Absolutely.
As a Alchemist/Artificer wondrous item: Very likely, though I would have it scale.

Personally, I think it would be fun to modify Matt Mercer's Gunslinger into this. The homebrew class has been largely accepted by the community.
Why not have, instead of guns, be different batteries that are turned on on yourself, giving different levels of power output and possibilities of busting your device.
https://img.fireden.net/tg/image/1452/63/1452630054565.pdf

[greenstone]

The Dragonborn's Breath Weapon is very weak.
2d6 damage (goes up as you level), to up to 6 targets, with a save for half, of a damage type that bypasses weapon resistance? There aren't any cantrips that good, and a lot of 1st level attack spells are worse.

On the other hand, the spellcaster can use their cantrip every round, all day if they wish. Our dragonborn has to sit down and rest for an hour before they can breathe again.

The damage and save is great, the "once per rest" is certainly weak.

As a suggestion, make it a "Recharge 6" ability?

[RickAsWritten]

Would you allow a Red Dragonborn to pour oil all over himself and then set himself on fire so he can deliver burning attacks on people?

Also, why would taking damage from the electricity and be restricted to melee attacks *improve* the breath? You lose the range advantage, and you're hurting yourself.

Only if the Red Dragonborn was a Monk.

Because then you would be applying it on top of the normal attack action, and it would still allow the fighter's multiple attacks to work. Also, because I envisioned that the current would travel down the weapon and transfer on contact. A ranged attack doesn't make allow for direct contact(unless you tie a thin copper wire the arrow...hmm...interesting). I know, I know, get your chocolate out of my peanut butter, and get your science out of my magic.


I like changing the action requirement. If something uses an action it has to compete with other abilities that use an action that typically get more support in the class than something like breath weapon.

Making it a bonus action would make it more usable for more classes.

I like this alot. It was before I got into the game, but wasn't it like that in the original playtest days?


As a high-level magical item: Absolutely.
As a Alchemist/Artificer wondrous item: Very likely, though I would have it scale.

Personally, I think it would be fun to modify Matt Mercer's Gunslinger into this. The homebrew class has been largely accepted by the community.
Why not have, instead of guns, be different batteries that are turned on on yourself, giving different levels of power output and possibilities of busting your device.
https://img.fireden.net/tg/image/1452/63/1452630054565.pdf

I never knew how much I wanted this until now. A high risk/high reward class for a steampunk world.