I miss the dragon shaman where would it fit in 5E

[Jgosse]

I believe I am in the minority but I really liked the Dragon shaman from 3.5 player's handbook 2. Where would it fit in to 5E a new class or a subclass for one of the other classes and if so what one?
I personally think it may fit as a warlock patron or a paladin oath.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Probably a Warlock patron. I 'brewed one here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?563755-The-Dragon-Patron-%28Dragonfire-Adept-adaptation%29).

[Jgosse]

Probably a Warlock patron. I 'brewed one here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?563755-The-Dragon-Patron-%28Dragonfire-Adept-adaptation%29).

That looks cool but the auras of the shaman are my favorite part of the class.

[Grod_The_Giant]

That looks cool but the auras of the shaman are my favorite part of the class.
Oh shoot, you're right. Sorry-- for some reason I read that as "dragonfire adept." My bad.

For the Dragon Shaman... Paladin might be your best bet, yeah, being a Cha-focused combat class that already has auras. Maybe use Channel Divinity to power your breath weapon, whip up a new spell or two to fit in more aura options?

[Man_Over_Game]

Oh shoot, you're right. Sorry-- for some reason I read that as "dragonfire adept." My bad.

For the Dragon Shaman... Paladin might be your best bet, yeah, being a Cha-focused combat class that already has auras. Maybe use Channel Divinity to power your breath weapon, whip up a new spell or two to fit in more aura options?

Grod is right on the money. Notice that Auras and burst abilities almost always come from melee characters, which is a design decision, so that you're either wasting the aura by being a tank, or you're wasting your ability to defend the party by being an aura bot in the middle of your team. Note that most dragon-esc things are already in Charisma (Dragonborn, Draconic Sorcerer, etc).

Paladins subclasses follow this system:

Level 3: 2 Channel Divinity uses, one built around offense and another around utility/control.

Level 7: Passive ability, often auras

Level 15: Defensive passive abilities

Level 20: Temporary god-mode feature that lasts 1-2 fights.


For the Dragon Shaman:

Level 3: Fire damage and knockback in a cone as an action; grant nearby allies temporary hitpoints and regain your highest level paladin spell slot as a bonus action.

Level 7: Resistance to a single damage type in an aura. Damage types can be Fire, Lightning, Cold, Radiant, Necrotic, Poison, Acid. You can change the damage type after a long rest.

Level 15: Advantage on Constitution saving throws (for concentration spells).

Level 20: Turn into a friggin' Dragon for 1 minute. While shifted, you have advantage RESISTANCE to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing damage, have a flying speed of 60, are Large, and your auras and channel divinity features have their sizes increased by 5 10 feet each.

[carrdrivesyou]

I'm with you dude. It was one of my favorite classes in all of DnD. It was the perfect fill in class. If someone wasn't sure what to play? Dragon Shaman. Couldn't make up your mind? Dragon Shaman. Not sure what would be best to add to party makeup? Dragon Shaman. Got all the bases covered and want to help out in a unique way? Dragon Shaman.

I have seen SEVERAL homebrewed versions of both the Dragon Shaman and Dragonfire Adept. Dungeonmaster's Guild has a few, one of which is a modified paladin chassis. Several are half casters, but there was one I saw that was the most perfect conversion. I saved the images to a word document, and can email if desired.

[ATHATH]

Level 20: Turn into a friggin' Dragon for 1 minute. While shifted, you have advantage to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing damage, have a flying speed of 60, are Large, and your auras and channel divinity features have their sizes increased by 5 feet each.
Only a 5 ft. increase? Only up to a size of Large, not, say, Gigantic or Huge (or just say that it's a size increase of +2 (shifts up the size table))? C'mon, this is a capstone ability- I think we can afford to make the effects a bit flashier.

Also, I'm assuming that you meant "resistance", not "advantage" there. You should probably change that.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Looks pretty solid, apart from the Channel Divinities-- the damaging one isn't bad, but I think the other should be "as an action, all allies within 30ft deal +1d4 fire damage with weapon attacks," or something along those lines. That's probably the last major Dragon Shaman aura ability missing.

[ATHATH]

Looks pretty solid, apart from the Channel Divinities-- the damaging one isn't bad, but I think the other should be "as an action, all allies within 30ft deal +1d4 fire damage with weapon attacks," or something along those lines. That's probably the last major Dragon Shaman aura ability missing.
What about the "regenerate HP up to half health" one?

[Man_Over_Game]

Only a 5 ft. increase? Only up to a size of Large, not, say, Gigantic or Huge (or just say that it's a size increase of +2 (shifts up the size table))? C'mon, this is a capstone ability- I think we can afford to make the effects a bit flashier.

Also, I'm assuming that you meant "resistance", not "advantage" there. You should probably change that.

5 foot increase for a 10 foot aura means it's now a 15 foot aura. A 10 foot aura radiating from your 5 foot square has a radius of 12.5, which translates to an area of 491 feet. A 15 foot aura has a radius of 17.5 feet, and an area of 962, doubling the size of your aura with a simple 5 foot increment.


Looks pretty solid, apart from the Channel Divinities-- the damaging one isn't bad, but I think the other should be "as an action, all allies within 30ft deal +1d4 fire damage with weapon attacks," or something along those lines. That's probably the last major Dragon Shaman aura ability missing.

I actually have no idea what the Dragon Shaman does. I just threw this together with some vague idea in my head based around what other people said about it on this thread. I assumed the Dragon Shaman was a semi-support class that used a lot of auras and some spellcasting, so that's what I tried to emulate, but if flaming weapons suits the bill, sure!


What about the "regenerate HP up to half health" one?

That's best for the specified "tanks" of the Paladin world. Note that the only ones that get that feature are the ones who are designed to take damage on a regular basis (Crown and Redemption). The others get other things.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I actually have no idea what the Dragon Shaman does. I just threw this together with some vague idea in my head based around what other people said about it on this thread. I assumed the Dragon Shaman was a semi-support class that used a lot of auras and some spellcasting, so that's what I tried to emulate, but if flaming weapons suits the bill, sure!
It's one of those hopelessly muddled 3.5 splatbook classes. They can fight (but not well), use a breath weapon (that's too weak to be useful), lay on hands (vaguely competently), project an aura (that's too weak to be useful), and gain some minor draconic defenses (mostly too late to be useful). The auras in question included:

Energy Shield: Anyone who hits an ally takes a tiny bit of energy damage
Power: Allies do slightly more damage in melee
Presence: Allies get a tiny bonus on Cha skills
Resistance: Allies get a passable amount of energy resistance
Senses: Allies get a tiny bonus on perception and initiative
Toughness: Allies get functionally useless damage resistance
Vigor: Allies heal slowly, but only up to half health.

[Man_Over_Game]

It's one of those hopelessly muddled 3.5 splatbook classes. They can fight (but not well), use a breath weapon (that's too weak to be useful), lay on hands (vaguely competently), project an aura (that's too weak to be useful), and gain some minor draconic defenses (mostly too late to be useful). The auras in question included:

Energy Shield: Anyone who hits an ally takes a tiny bit of energy damage
Power: Allies do slightly more damage in melee
Presence: Allies get a tiny bonus on Cha skills
Resistance: Allies get a passable amount of energy resistance
Senses: Allies get a tiny bonus on perception and initiative
Toughness: Allies get functionally useless damage resistance
Vigor: Allies heal slowly, but only up to half health.


Make the channel divinity that grants temp HP to not grant a spell slot, but instead cause fire damage equal to the Temporary HP lost when you (or your ally) takes melee damage (as with Armor of Agathys). Radius is only 5 feet, but that gets a lot better in Dragon form. Temp HP is equal to Proficiency + Charisma Modifier.

That covers the idea that they deal more damage in melee, reflects damage back, and that they have increased survivability, all in a single feature.

For the level 15 feature, I'd probably do something like increasing the level 7 feature to have a second element to choose, and increase the aura by another 5 feet.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Make the channel divinity that grants temp HP to not grant a spell slot, but instead cause fire damage equal to the Temporary HP lost when you (or your ally) takes melee damage (as with Armor of Agathys). Radius is only 5 feet, but that gets a lot better in Dragon form. Temp HP is equal to Proficiency + Charisma Modifier.
Sounds good to me.


For the level 15 feature, I'd probably do something like increasing the level 7 feature to have a second element to choose, and increase the aura by another 5 feet.
Or upgrade to immunity, perhaps?

[Mimersbrønd]

First I wanna say thx for the attention Dragon Shaman is getting in this thread. I loved it in 3.5 and I really like this idea of making it into a paladin oath.

I don't think it would be too broken to make the 7th level feature aura 10 feet radius, and the reason I bring it up is because all vanilla paladin aura's are 10 feet, so it would make it simpler for players.

To further this logic here, would allow them to increase Dragon Shaman aura to 30 feet radius at 18th level, for the same reason as above, though that might be a bit too much. what do you guys think?

I disagree on upgrading it to immunity though. If you can choose each long rest to get immunity to one damage type and grant that to some allies when fighting against something like a high CR elemental or something is pretty game changing. i think that is problematic and if the player's know what they will get up against, like they teleport to the plane of fire, so they expect a lot of fire damage, then its completely broken.

[Jgosse]

It's one of those hopelessly muddled 3.5 splatbook classes. They can fight (but not well), use a breath weapon (that's too weak to be useful), lay on hands (vaguely competently), project an aura (that's too weak to be useful), and gain some minor draconic defenses (mostly too late to be useful). The auras in question included:

Energy Shield: Anyone who hits an ally takes a tiny bit of energy damage
Power: Allies do slightly more damage in melee
Presence: Allies get a tiny bonus on Cha skills
Resistance: Allies get a passable amount of energy resistance
Senses: Allies get a tiny bonus on perception and initiative
Toughness: Allies get functionally useless damage resistance
Vigor: Allies heal slowly, but only up to half health.


I would not call the PHB 2 a splat book.
it made a great extra character. It could save the cleric some spell slots by healing every one up to half it really worked well out of combat. Bonus Melee damage even a little adds up. Really nice if an ally is a two wepon fighting build or a rapid shot ranger. People always give the class flack but just because it is a utility character who is OK at a bunch of things but not great at any one thing doesn't mean it's a bad class.