Dragon Fear and Paladin of Conquest

[Elric VIII]

What are people's thoughts on the Dragon Fear feat on a Conquest Paladin?

I generally agree that Dragonborn is a mediocre race, but does the option of AoE fear effect 1/sr with Aura of Conquest make it a good choice?

[CTurbo]

Yes it absolutely does. ANYTHING that causes fear is amazing on a Conquest after level 7. That is getting the most out of your Aura which is the only real reason to play that Oath.

[kardar233]

Counterpoint: Conquest’s aura causes start-of-turn damage to feared enemies. Dragon Fear allows a save whenever damage is taken. Thus, anyone Dragon Fear-ed in your aura gets a save to not be Frightened every time they start their turn.

I feel like this is a pretty nasty piece of Skornergy and so I wouldn’t go for it. It’s just reinforced by the fact you’re paying your choice of race, a feat, and a short rest resource for it. I would suggest looking into Fallen Aasimar instead.

[DarkKnightJin]

Counterpoint: Conquest’s aura causes start-of-turn damage to feared enemies. Dragon Fear allows a save whenever damage is taken. Thus, anyone Dragon Fear-ed in your aura gets a save to not be Frightened every time they start their turn.

I feel like this is a pretty nasty piece of Skornergy and so I wouldn’t go for it. It’s just reinforced by the fact you’re paying your choice of race, a feat, and a short rest resource for it. I would suggest looking into Fallen Aasimar instead.

I agree. I don't see why people would get to save again when they take damage. End of turn, fine.
I might argue that Fear doesn't allow a save again while the source of the Fear is within line of sight from them.

Allowing a save when damage is taken makes no narrative sense to me. "I'm scared out of my mind. I've just been hurt. Oh hey, I'm not scared anymore!"

As for the feat.. Dragonborn kinda got hosed with racial traits in the PHB. And then they get hosed again with the rather lackluster racial feats in XGtE.
I'd personally roll the Dragon Hide feat (sans stat boost) into the baseline Dragonborn. Tough scales and claws. They're now still a weaker version of the Lizardfolk.

[Asmotherion]

There's always the Fear spell in the Warlock's and Sorcerer's Spell list, and it's not like Sorcerer and/or Paladin don't Multiclass excelently together. Just saying.

That said, it does allow an earlyer taking of it, which can be interesting.

On the other hand, Wrathful Smite is probably going to be your go-to thingy anyway, so unless you really need to AoE, you can probably wait for level 10 Imo, if the campain goes on. Again, personal oppinion.

[Elric VIII]

I missed that the feat allows a new save immediately upon taking damage. What a bummer. I thought it would be a cool AoE lockdown for a turn.

So close to being good.

[A Fat Dragon]

Menacing Feat might be an interesting choice, though Om not sure it’d work.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Long Death Monk fear might be useful. But thats a pretty MAD multiclass, if you roll good its worth tho.


For a Fear focused character I'd think Warlock/Paladin is a good mix. Personally like tieflings, but Black Dragonborn for Dragon Fear or maybe Fallen Assimar is also fine.

[GeistInMachine]

It may not synergize as well with Aura of Conquest as Conquerer's presence, but i have found it a fantastic zoning feat. The key is that save on damage, you can pop Dragon Fear and basically ignore anything that botches it save, as they are heavily disabled.

Team focuses down those that arnt afraid, then you mop up the afraid ones who couldn't do much for their guaranteed minute of fear.


Also great for retreats for the same reason, pop it and run, and you only have to kill the fraction of enemies that made their save

[Sception]

Dragonborn is an ok race for conquest pally anyway on stat bonuses alone, and dragon fear ups cha. If you play a dragonborn, and have an odd cha, and menacing isnt allowed, then might as well take dragon fear. The skornergy is frustrating and very real, but as a backup option, or something to pop on poor save mooks who arent worth burning your cd or a spell slot its not terrible to have.

Menacing, along with all the skill feats, seems to be deprecated ua content, so most dms probably wont allow it. But if they do allow it, it's a must take feat on a conquest pally. Freaking amazing. Oh, only lasts a turn, sure, and eats an attack, but it's hard to resist, *especially* in follow up rounds, and costs *no* resources in spells or recharge abilities.

[Boci]

Allowing a save when damage is taken makes no narrative sense to me. "I'm scared out of my mind. I've just been hurt. Oh hey, I'm not scared anymore!"

Pain gives clarity, its a really common trope, and one more based in reality than others.

[Sception]

In general, fallen aasimar is the top racial choice for conquest pallies, with tritons, half elves, and vumans only barely behind. Dragonborn and tieflings are right behind that, but still very good fits for the build, even if they arent top tier.

Asi wise, madness really gets in the way. The need to max cha and still have a good attack stat and concentration saves doesnt really leave any room for anything else. Sentinel, polearm master, shield master, heavy armor master, inspiring leader, mage hunter, these would all be phenomenal, but theres just not room for the most part. Cha boosting half feats are pretty nice then, since they might fit in without hurting your stat progression. Dragon fear and elven accuracy arent great feats for conquest pally, but if you can take them while raising your cha mod, then the extea benefits are basically gravey.

[CTurbo]

Counterpoint: Conquest’s aura causes start-of-turn damage to feared enemies. Dragon Fear allows a save whenever damage is taken. Thus, anyone Dragon Fear-ed in your aura gets a save to not be Frightened every time they start their turn.

I feel like this is a pretty nasty piece of Skornergy and so I wouldn’t go for it. It’s just reinforced by the fact you’re paying your choice of race, a feat, and a short rest resource for it. I would suggest looking into Fallen Aasimar instead.


Where is the start of turn damage coming from? What am I missing?


Aura of Conquest:
Starting at 7th level, you emanate a menacing
aura while you’re not incapacitated. The aura
includes your space, extends 10 feet from you in
every direction, and is blocked by total cover.
Any enemy in the aura has disadvantage on
saving throws against being frightened.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases
to 30 feet.

[Davrix]

The biggest benefit of the feat is letting you test to see if anything is immune to fear. Without wasting a spell slot on something else. Also keep in mind the only thing that's going to be taking damage is creatures within 10ft of you until lv 17 when your aura does become 30ft. So its still going to be useful as a ability to control the field of battle.

You only real worry is once your DM see's how bad it can get if things dont save against fear they tend to knee jerk and start putting in fear immune in on everything.

[Sception]

Where is the start of turn damage coming from? What am I missing?


Aura of Conquest:
Starting at 7th level, you emanate a menacing
aura while you’re not incapacitated. The aura
includes your space, extends 10 feet from you in
every direction, and is blocked by total cover.
Any enemy in the aura has disadvantage on
saving throws against being frightened.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases
to 30 feet.

That's the aura from the original unearthed arcana introducing the paladin of conquest. The aura was revised in a later unearthed arcana article (https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/June5UA_RevisedClassOptv1.pdf) to read as follows:


Starting at 7th level, you constantly emanate a
menacing aura while you’re not incapacitated.
The aura includes your space, extends 10 feet
from you in every direction, and is blocked by
total cover.
If a creature is frightened of you, its speed is
reduced to 0 while in the aura, and that creature
takes psychic damage equal to half your paladin
level if it starts its turn there.

This was the biggest and most impactful of several changes made to the subclass in this revision which taken as a whole dramatically improved its quality, both in terms of power level and in terms of the game feel, interweaving its fluff and mechanics to create a much more effective and unique experience.

The finalized version of the Oath of Conquest was printed in the book Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and was mostly identical to the revised second version, including using this version of the aura, which immobilizes and damages frightened enemies (well, enemies frightened of you in particular) within the area, instead of imposing disadvantage on saves against the condition.

The effect of this aura, which has become the signature feature of the oath of conquest, is that the frighten condition plays almost completely differently for conquest paladins than for other characters. Where frighten usually encourages (even requires in some cases) enemies to scatter, the Conqueror's frightening effects lock enemies down, making Conquerors among of the most effective 'defenders' in the game, to borrow a 4e expression, especially in terms of stickiness. This results in a very distinct play style from other paladins, emphasizing debuffing and tanking over buffing and direct damage. This in turn shifts the conquest paladin's stat priority away from attack stat (which is still important, just not the most important) and towards their casting stat (the class's signature lockdown ability requires targets to first fail a save vs frighten). Likewise, it shifts priorities out of offense (more offense is nice to have, but once you've locked an enemy down it doesn't *really* matter all that much how many swings it takes to drop it) and into defense (fewer hits taken means fewer chances to fail concentration).

It also forces reassessment of some of the parent class abilities. Higher level spells known grant better means of inflicting frighten, and your higher-than-other-paladins charisma modifier makes even non-frightening paladin spells more attractive, where most other paladins mostly see those slots as smite fuel. Aura of Courage is a ribbon for most paladins, but for Conqueror it makes the otherwise party-unfriendly Fear spell, already amazing with the aura, much more flexible.


The initial printing of Oath of Conquest was honestly rather forgettable. Not especially good, the mechanics didn't really interact all that well with each other. An alright idea, but forgettable implementation. If you haven't thought about it since then, give it another look, because the revised version really has become one of the stand out examples of excellent subclass design in 5th edition.

[CTurbo]

I see thanks

[Foxhound438]

Yes it absolutely does. ANYTHING that causes fear is amazing on a Conquest after level 7. That is getting the most out of your Aura which is the only real reason to play that Oath.

I don't know about the aura being "the only reason" to take conquest. The spell list is all gas (save for maybe stoneskin or bestow curse), the fear channel is great crowd control where most paladins don't get any, scornful rebuke is more damage on top of your damage, and the capstone gives you an extra attack and improved critical to really get all the mileage possible out of divine smite and improved divine smite.

to the OP, it's something I would definitely consider taking, even though it's not 100% right for what the aura is. Forcing disadvantage on a bunch of enemies' attacks for basically as long as you let them live is probably even better for tanking presence than the channel, where if you ignore something it probably breaks free before the duration plays out anyways. Also note that it can improve con or strength, not just charisma as a lot of people seem to think- you can start with 17 str and boost it to 18 with the feat at 4th level, which means you're not losing out in terms of early damage progression. From there you still have enough ASI to max str and cha, and also pick up a second feat or a con boost at some point.

[Sception]

Yeah, the aura is the cornerstone of the subclass, the thing that makes all the other bits gel, but those other bits are still great.

[GeistInMachine]

Dragon fear is still powerful semipermanant control in a fight. And Conquest pallies still focus CHA, which makes it very effective, even if it doesn't synergize perfectly with Aura of Conquest.

[Elric VIII]

I had a thought:

Aura of Conquest says "If a creature is frightened of you, its speed is reduced to 0 while in the aura..."

Would it regain that speed if it makes the save at the beginning of its turn or would it have to wait until it starts its turn not frightened?

Even 1 turn of lockdown is pretty good if it works like this.

[Sception]

Nope. Aura is only active while target is afraid. As soon as frighten ends on a target, so does the ongoing effect of the aura for that target.