Oath of the Dragon Shaman

[Mimersbrønd]

There was a thread for not so long ago about Dragon Shaman's. A very much beloved class from 3.5 (for some i guess) and the idea of converting it into 5th edition.

The thread had some people starting to theory craft how this would be possible and they concluded that it was best for an archetype of the paladin class.

Basically, i took their ideas, and put it into a homebrewery page and i thought i might share it.

Tell me your thoughts and feedback on this. Be prepared bad english, cringy flavor text, and possible overpowered or underpoweredness as this has not been tested at all.
but i love the idea so much, that i'm going to use it in my group if they would want to play it.

Any fluff text, art, and the feature ideas are not owned by me, but i also didnt bother looking them up, sorry.

Link: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HkxfPKRJ4

for those who don't know what a dragon shaman is. Their main mechanic and class feature was aura's and being a melee support of sorts. being able to use their auras to heal, increase damage, and help on skills.

and eventually become more dragon-like with breath weapons, scales, and wings.

[Mjolnirbear]

The level 20 ability has 'grows wings' twice. It seems lackluster.

The aura is too strong. It has too many options. Either pick Power and that's it, or Presence and Senses as options (switch on short rest, drop the mention of initiative). Also:

* Drop Toughness completely. Constantly regenerating temporary hit points, for ever and ever? That's insanity. Maybe move Toughness to your level 20 ability. It doesn't fit as 'dragon' but it fits as 'shaman'.

* Everything I said for Toughness, consider it repeated for Vigour. Pick one or the other, not both.

For the Channel Divinity, drop the second one.. It is waaaaay too good. Instead, you might consider one of the two following suggestions:
* as a reaction until the end of your next turn, you and and allies within 30' gain resistance to the damage type you chose due to your totem dragon.
* you emanate magic. For ten minutes, friendly casters within 30 feet do not need components for their spells, except material components with a listed cost.

Either of those are situationally useful, as a Channel Divinity should be.


I would not even hesitate to ban at my table what you currently have.

[Mimersbrønd]

The level 20 ability has 'grows wings' twice. It seems lackluster.

The aura is too strong. It has too many options. Either pick Power and that's it, or Presence and Senses as options (switch on short rest, drop the mention of initiative). Also:

* Drop Toughness completely. Constantly regenerating temporary hit points, for ever and ever? That's insanity. Maybe move Toughness to your level 20 ability. It doesn't fit as 'dragon' but it fits as 'shaman'.

* Everything I said for Toughness, consider it repeated for Vigour. Pick one or the other, not both.

For the Channel Divinity, drop the second one.. It is waaaaay too good. Instead, you might consider one of the two following suggestions:
* as a reaction until the end of your next turn, you and and allies within 30' gain resistance to the damage type you chose due to your totem dragon.
* you emanate magic. For ten minutes, friendly casters within 30 feet do not need components for their spells, except material components with a listed cost.

Either of those are situationally useful, as a Channel Divinity should be.


I would not even hesitate to ban at my table what you currently have.

Ah, thanks for the correction on the wings. There is probably something more I could add, but most of the things i put in here was the stuff that was discussed in the earlier thread i mentioned, that includes the second channel divinity, though i do like your idea of the reaction resistance.

The point of the dragon shaman is to have multiple choices for your aura's and that you can swap them quickly, so you always has the most optimal aura on when needed. So this will be core and not removed, but i appreciate the concern and feedback. I tried my best to keep this at the same powerlevel as the storm herald barbarian's aura while reshaping as many aura's from the original class into 5e here.

I am a bit confused about your opinion on Toughness. The rules on temporary hit points, is that they don't stack. So allies would only gain 5 temporary hit points at level 20 and no more. The only way to benefit from this aura again would to be damaged and lose some of them. This is the exact same mechanic as the storm herald's tundra temporary hit points aura though the storm herald gets a maximum of 6 instead of 5.

Thank you very much for looking at it :)

[Malifice]

There was a thread for not so long ago about Dragon Shaman's. A very much beloved class from 3.5 (for some i guess) and the idea of converting it into 5th edition.

The thread had some people starting to theory craft how this would be possible and they concluded that it was best for an archetype of the paladin class.

Basically, i took their ideas, and put it into a homebrewery page and i thought i might share it.

Tell me your thoughts and feedback on this. Be prepared bad english, cringy flavor text, and possible overpowered or underpoweredness as this has not been tested at all.
but i love the idea so much, that i'm going to use it in my group if they would want to play it.

Any fluff text, art, and the feature ideas are not owned by me, but i also didnt bother looking them up, sorry.

Link: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HkxfPKRJ4

for those who don't know what a dragon shaman is. Their main mechanic and class feature was aura's and being a melee support of sorts. being able to use their auras to heal, increase damage, and help on skills.

and eventually become more dragon-like with breath weapons, scales, and wings.

Mechanically those guys (in 3E) were most similar to the Warlock (at will blasts and supernatural spell like abilities) from memory. They werent heavy armored melee guys (which is where the Paladin sits), they were moderately armored, medium hit dice, 3/4 BAB blasters.

I'd be tempted to create them as a Warlock patron and not Paladin. Make the auras features of the Patron (Dragon Totem patron).

[Rowan Wolf]

The oath spells, while perhaps theme oriented, go against general design of phb only.

[Mjolnirbear]

Ah, thanks for the correction on the wings. There is probably something more I could add, but most of the things i put in here was the stuff that was discussed in the earlier thread i mentioned, that includes the second channel divinity, though i do like your idea of the reaction resistance.

The point of the dragon shaman is to have multiple choices for your aura's and that you can swap them quickly, so you always has the most optimal aura on when needed. So this will be core and not removed, but i appreciate the concern and feedback. I tried my best to keep this at the same powerlevel as the storm herald barbarian's aura while reshaping as many aura's from the original class into 5e here.

I am a bit confused about your opinion on Toughness. The rules on temporary hit points, is that they don't stack. So allies would only gain 5 temporary hit points at level 20 and no more. The only way to benefit from this aura again would to be damaged and lose some of them. This is the exact same mechanic as the storm herald's tundra temporary hit points aura though the storm herald gets a maximum of 6 instead of 5.

Thank you very much for looking at it :)

If a feature is flexible, then it is powerful,which means the options need to be far weaker. Power would be really strong, about on par with the current strongest Aura, Ancients. Senses and Presence, together, would be a viable option and strong option, without any other options. If you want more options, they need to be weak. I'm talking five-second-teabag-dunk weak. What you have is... Just wrong. I actually pity the table this thing shows up as.

You're right, temporary hit points don't stack. They don't need to. Imagine you have 15 people stacked amidst a Thunder Wave. You roll damage; 7. All these people are in your aura; they all take only two damage. Next round, everybody gets temp hp again. Their effective hp is still higher than their max hp. It's pure mitigation, for everybody.

It's comparable to everybody getting free resist all damage. Or, à better comparison, free Heavy Armour Master for no feat cost while they are naked, except better. At no action cost on the part of anybody, and no resource usage.

At no level is this balanced. As a one-minute once-per-day level 20 ability? Could be fun. Cost-free, action-free, always on? As a DM I'd say no. As a player I'd quit.

If you are building this to play a new character of yours, you need to make it reasonable, or no DM would accept it.

If you are building this to allow others to play at your table, the only way to keep them happy with this is iff they *all* use it. Your battles become trivial. You'll need to increase the CR of all your monsters by at least 2. You'll feed to have the bad guys focus each player down to have a chance at simulating any kind of risk.

One last point. You're building a paladin; you have to compare the power of what you're giving to another paladin. The ability you have for auras far, far outstrips the Ancients aura. All the other Auras are even weaker.


I'm criticizing not to upset you. I like all things dragons and the idea of what you want to make sounds really interesting. But mechanically, almost none of this works. On a scale of balanced to overpowered, you're the 1% that Occupy Wall Street was protesting. It's CoDZilla from 3e. It's Pacman except *all* the pills are power pills.

Also... Storm Aura from Barbarian is only when you rage, which you can do twice a day. They get the points on the turn you activate your rage; they don't refresh every round! Each player gets 2 thp and that's it, until the next time you rage. What you've written is an ability that refreshes for free all day.

[carrdrivesyou]

Good job on the workup! Needs a few tweaks, but you've got the gist of it.

My only real issue here is this: why does it need to be a subclass? I honestly curious as to why 5e is relegating EVERYTHING into subclasses of the same base 12 classes. What's so wrong with adding a few more classes?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Mechanically those guys (in 3E) were most similar to the Warlock (at will blasts and supernatural spell like abilities) from memory. They werent heavy armored melee guys (which is where the Paladin sits), they were moderately armored, medium hit dice, 3/4 BAB blasters.

I'd be tempted to create them as a Warlock patron and not Paladin. Make the auras features of the Patron (Dragon Totem patron).
You're thinking of the Dragonfire Adept. The Dragon Shaman had a high HD, a breath weapon only usable every few rounds, auras, and lay on hands. They're closer to 5e Paladins than anything else.

[KorvinStarmast]

My only real issue here is this: why does it need to be a subclass? I honestly curious as to why 5e is relegating EVERYTHING into subclasses of the same base 12 classes. What's so wrong with adding a few more classes? The devs are trying to keep this edition less complicated. That is why. But I suspect that the Mystic, when it arrives, will be the 13th class.

[clash]

The temp hp thing isnt nearly as potent as Mjolnirbear suggests. The temp hp effectively reduces damage by 5 sure but only against the first damage you take that round. All other damage is still normal so getting hit with mutliattack which is common even at low levels and only gets more common as levels increase it definitely is not reducing all damage by 5. I think it is fine. That being said I would make the aura bonus just equal to your cha modifier to make it simple and require investment to optimize it and he is right that the added flexibility does add a lot in terms of power. I might restrict it to switching during a short rest or require an action to switch auras to increase the cost of the flexibility.

[Mimersbrønd]

You're right, temporary hit points don't stack. They don't need to. Imagine you have 15 people stacked amidst a Thunder Wave. You roll damage; 7. All these people are in your aura; they all take only two damage. Next round, everybody gets temp hp again. Their effective hp is still higher than their max hp. It's pure mitigation, for everybody.

It's comparable to everybody getting free resist all damage. Or, à better comparison, free Heavy Armour Master for no feat cost while they are naked, except better. At no action cost on the part of anybody, and no resource usage.

At no level is this balanced. As a one-minute once-per-day level 20 ability? Could be fun. Cost-free, action-free, always on? As a DM I'd say no. As a player I'd quit.

Yes this is how it would work, and I would say, if you are level 20 and get hit by a thunderwave for 7 damage, then your DM is doing something wrong, at this point you have 250+ hp (that is what my cavalier fighter has with tough feat atm.).

If the 7 damage is cause by a trap, most likely the Dragon Shaman would have Presence up.

An ancient red dragon does 26d6, thats an average of 91 points of damage according to AnyDice, so that would be 86 damage to everyone in the aura, and I don't find that too bad (I don't usually do dice calculation, so i hope thats right).

I am very happy that you compare it with resistance and heavy armor master, cause that is how it works in 3.5.
In 3.5 you had something called Damage Reduction or DR. It basically works like Heavy Armor Master, reduce damage by the number of your DR. And you could have difference kind of DR, this was the way resistance worked in 3.5, with demons having high DR against lightning and fire, but less against other damage types. Toughness is meant to be DR against magic.

But i thought it would be weird to introduce that mechanic in a subclass when the only other player comparison is the feat, so i chose thp instead, so that you compare it to that and the feat, means I must have done something right, cause that was the intend.

If you are interested to compare the reshaping, here is the 3.5 Dragon Shaman: http://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/dragon-shaman/index.html

Honestly, I thought there would be a lot more critizicme on Vigor, cause all auras are meant to be on permanently, though 1 at a time, and its free healing. I remember it being a problem for my DM when we played 3.5 back then.


Also... Storm Aura from Barbarian is only when you rage, which you can do twice a day. They get the points on the turn you activate your rage; they don't refresh every round! Each player gets 2 thp and that's it, until the next time you rage. What you've written is an ability that refreshes for free all day.

I am sorry, but this is wrong, or half right. Yes only when raging, but they can refresh it with a bonus action each turn "Your aura has an effect that activates when you enter your rage and you can activate the effect again on each of your turn as a bonus action." Otherwise it would be the worst archetype in the game for barbarians.

And to be fair with your thunderwave example, the Storm Herald Barbarian's party would only have taking 1 damage, cause it maxxes out to 6 thp.

So the discussion should mostly be about whether restricting the Dragon Shaman to activate it on bonus action, instead of passive permanent buff that can be switched on bonus actions.

I did think about doing this, the way I think the best way of doing homebrew and playtest, is to frontload your stuff first, and then nerf later. its easier that way. So this, and having the aura bonus be less, is definetely a way to nerf them :)

the aura bonus for now I have mostly just taking it literal from the original Dragon Shaman. It is 1/5 bonus per level, level 5 = +1, level 10= +2, etc. But maybe it should be less. There is a difference in that the aura bonus of 3.5 and the auras worked differently.
For example it says something like "you add double your aura bonus on Power", so at 20th level it would be 10 damage. But i thought that would be wayyyy too powerful, especially when you add times 4 for Vigor or something. So I changed it to no more than aura bonus, but maybe it needs to be less. So a maximum of +3 is better? it feels a lot harsh, but then again, paladin's are really strong, so it might be right.

Maybe a way to nerf Toughness a bit, would be to only let the thp last for one round, so you after an encounter, the Dragon Shaman would usually use vigor until everyone was healed to half hp, then use Toughness to give them a little extra thp, and then use presence if they are in a dungeon or exploring for the perception and initiative.



I'm criticizing not to upset you. I like all things dragons and the idea of what you want to make sounds really interesting. But mechanically, almost none of this works. On a scale of balanced to overpowered, you're the 1% that Occupy Wall Street was protesting. It's CoDZilla from 3e. It's Pacman except *all* the pills are power pills.

Don't worry, i am not taking offense :) I am honestly really glad someone posted a reply to one of my first posts and Dragon Shaman's being disccused, I love this class so much.

This is constructive critizime, and I mean it when I say I appreciate your input.

[Mimersbrønd]

The temp hp thing isnt nearly as potent as Mjolnirbear suggests. The temp hp effectively reduces damage by 5 sure but only against the first damage you take that round. All other damage is still normal so getting hit with mutliattack which is common even at low levels and only gets more common as levels increase it definitely is not reducing all damage by 5. I think it is fine. That being said I would make the aura bonus just equal to your cha modifier to make it simple and require investment to optimize it and he is right that the added flexibility does add a lot in terms of power. I might restrict it to switching during a short rest or require an action to switch auras to increase the cost of the flexibility.

Yeah, I dont find the temp hp at all a problem, but I appreciate the feedback i get from them, even when its misunderstood. I really like your idea of tying it to Charisma bonus, I had not thought about that at all.

This would make it really cool, cause you could have a difference of a more strength focused paladin and a more charisma focused paladin, one for crusading and the other for healing. I rarely see paladin's prioritize Charisma over Strength and Constitution. And thats fair enough, do they need strength for more smiting and con for hp as frontliners, but this might make a player prioritize charisma more.

I have only played with 1 paladin before who prioritized charisma over anything else, cause they wanted to be a healer and high spellcasting DC. But they only did that, cause it was their first time and didnt know how smite worked :P

Thank you very much, I really love this idea, i am putting it in immediately :)

[Mimersbrønd]

Good job on the workup! Needs a few tweaks, but you've got the gist of it.

My only real issue here is this: why does it need to be a subclass? I honestly curious as to why 5e is relegating EVERYTHING into subclasses of the same base 12 classes. What's so wrong with adding a few more classes?

I would lie if i said "I have not started another homebrewery to make this a class instead of a subclass". I actually did that a long time before I saw the thread about making it into a subclass.

reshaping Dragon Shaman into a subclass is far less work than making a completely new class. which is the primary reason :P

[Mimersbrønd]

The oath spells, while perhaps theme oriented, go against general design of phb only.

Honestly, the only part of the oath spell i personally put in. Was absorb elements (cause I love that spell), and Dragon's Breath.

The others i took straight from other dragon shaman homebrew :P

If you have any ideas/recommendation's on better spell (for thematic or synergistic reasons), i would be more than happy to know :)

[Grod_The_Giant]

Giving you some actual feedback...

Breath Weapon is pretty anemic for a 1/short rest ability.
Arcanum Rest is... problematic. How does expending a short rest ability during a short rest work? Does it happen before or after the refresh? It also combines two strong effects.
Draconic Aura's individual abilities are on the strong side for an at-will; combined, it's probably too much. I suggest requiring you to expend a spell slot as a bonus action to project the effect for, oh, 1 minute, with the aura strength being equal to the level of the spell expended. That makes it a lot more reasonable, I think. Especially Vigor.
Dragon's Blessing is odd. The default version seems a bit weak (+5ft aura range and flight for an hour, whoopee); the Variant version looks too strong (high AC, a solid damage boost, and flight for an hour). I'd suggest granting the Variant form as a one-minute buff, more in line with the other capstone transformations.

[Mimersbrønd]

If you are building this to play a new character of yours, you need to make it reasonable, or no DM would accept it.


When I am a player, i rarely bring up homebrew. I am the typical dwarf fighter player, so I never play anything shiny or flying races. I only look at homebrew stuff as a player, if the DM shows what they allow in their game.

So this is purely for my own and to give it as an option to my player's if they would be interested. Most of my friends i play with started out with me in 3.5, and one of my favorite character's was a dragon shaman, so they know what to expect when I tell them about this homebrew (I do want it to be more acceptable balanced first though).

[Mimersbrønd]

Giving you some actual feedback...

Breath Weapon is pretty anemic for a 1/short rest ability.
Arcanum Rest is... problematic. How does expending a short rest ability during a short rest work? Does it happen before or after the refresh? It also combines two strong effects.
Draconic Aura's individual abilities are on the strong side for an at-will; combined, it's probably too much. I suggest requiring you to expend a spell slot as a bonus action to project the effect for, oh, 1 minute, with the aura strength being equal to the level of the spell expended. That makes it a lot more reasonable, I think. Especially Vigor.
Dragon's Blessing is odd. The default version seems a bit weak (+5ft aura range and flight for an hour, whoopee); the Variant version looks too strong (high AC, a solid damage boost, and flight for an hour). I'd suggest granting the Variant form as a one-minute buff, more in line with the other capstone transformations.


Hello, i believe you were one of the two in the original Dragon Shaman thread theory crafting this and inspired me to make it and share it :)

Breath Weapon - I am far from good at balance things, so I just took the scaling from the Dragonborn's breath weapon and scaled it with d8's cause that is what paladin use for smites. I thought this would be closest i could do for balancing, cause i believe a spell or class feature should be stronger than a race feature. If you could recommend something better, i would be happy to change for balance :)

Arcanum Rest - As i said before the Arcanum Rest, came from that thread, i believe it was the other guys idea. I don't play much paladin so I don't know how problematic it is, but you are probably right. I was thinking it would refresh after the short rest, so you could do that multiple times. But honestly, i really wanna change it to something else.

I like Mjolnirbear's idea of making it into a reaction resistance to allies against totem dragon damage type. It makes it very situational, so the Dragon Shaman, might favor the breath weapon more. But also rewards the Dragon Shaman's preparation, when he and the party knows what they are going to fight and can prepare against it.

Draconic Aura - That would be a solution to make the aura's less permanent, but I really liked clash's idea of having the bonus be scaling off Charisma. So maybe the spell slot scales on time instead? 1st level spell slot gives 1 minute, 2nd gives 2 minutes etc. Though maybe a scaling that escalates more than just doubling? So maybe a 1st level is 1 minute and 5th level spell can grant a 24 hour aura, cause you sacrifize one of your highest spell slot, then put 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, somewhere in the middle.

Dragon's Blessing - yeah, as I said, i am far from being good at making this stuff, so I usually just take inspiration from others. The variant was the one that the original thread was talking about, turning yourself into a dragon. I love this idea, but i wanted to make it a variant, cause what if your paladin has a really cool weapon, like holy avenger, they wouldn't be able to use it while transformed.

And whoops, i must have read the paladin's wrong, i rarely play that class, i thought they all got an hour transformation. I tried to be as close to the class and archetypes as possible in terms of wording. My bad, thx for the correction :)

[jas61292]

Draconic Aura - That would be a solution to make the aura's less permanent, but I really liked clash's idea of having the bonus be scaling off Charisma. So maybe the spell slot scales on time instead? 1st level spell slot gives 1 minute, 2nd gives 2 minutes etc. Though maybe a scaling that escalates more than just doubling? So maybe a 1st level is 1 minute and 5th level spell can grant a 24 hour aura, cause you sacrifize one of your highest spell slot, then put 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, somewhere in the middle

I like this idea, and think it should definitely have a longer duration end time. Though I might suggest not trying to shoehorn in a boost with every spell level. Instead, I might say that it's a default of 1 minute, becomes 1 hour with a 3rd or 4th level spell, and 24 hours with a 5th. That's more like scaling spells that do increased duration.

With that said, I'd personally word it something like "Starting at 9th level, if you spend a 3rd level or higher spell slot...". That would make it so that a multiclass character couldn't get the aura and then leave the class to get access to longer auras faster. But if you don't care about that, it may not be needed.

[Mimersbrønd]

I like this idea, and think it should definitely have a longer duration end time. Though I might suggest not trying to shoehorn in a boost with every spell level. Instead, I might say that it's a default of 1 minute, becomes 1 hour with a 3rd or 4th level spell, and 24 hours with a 5th. That's more like scaling spells that do increased duration.

With that said, I'd personally word it something like "Starting at 9th level, if you spend a 3rd level or higher spell slot...". That would make it so that a multiclass character couldn't get the aura and then leave the class to get access to longer auras faster. But if you don't care about that, it may not be needed.

I agree with limiting it to paladin spells only, so it cannot be abused by multiclassing. And yeah, i thought about it a bit and making it:

1st level = 1 minut
2nd level = 1 hour
3rd level = 4 hours
4th level = 8 hours
5th level = 24 hours

I find this generally bad, so i like your idea of having it scale like this:

1st level = 1 minute
3rd level = 1 hour
5th level = 24 hours

I just had the craziest idea, why not let this be allowed after you smite someone?
So you attack and smite someone using a 3rd level spell slot and can now choose an aura that will last for 1 hour.

This way, you can swap aura's much more interesting and paladin-like, instead of changing it for free or by bonus action or action. I really like that idea, maybe also allow this on regular paladin spellcasting.

what are people thought on that?

edit*
I really liked this idea, so I have put it into the sheet. It is badly worded, but i tried my best to clarify that it only works on paladin spells and paladin spell slots. And for not changing too much I kept the bonus action to swap the aura. So spending the spell slot activates the aura, but you can still swap them to suit the situation the best as intended with the core of Dragon Shaman.

So, if it is still a bit too strong, i can nerf the bonus action to action.

[Joe the Rat]

Overall not a bad start. A few thoughts:

Auras are not all-access: you can pick a few, and access more at higher levels. Particularly problematic auras can be gate-kept with a level requirement. This falls in line with the original class.

Aura power in 3.5 was strictly level based - if you want to emulate this and have a longer growth cycle, use proficiency bonus. Yes, that takes you to 6.

If vigor proves too troublesome, turn it into a burst effect under channel divinity (in place of Arcanum Rest). Use the Life Cleric feature as a template.

Double breath weapon ranges at 18.

Transformation: would adding 5' of reach, or adding damage to strength attacks (per Enlarge) be appropriate? I'd also consider dragon-type damage immunity while transformed.

[Mimersbrønd]

Overall not a bad start. A few thoughts:

Auras are not all-access: you can pick a few, and access more at higher levels. Particularly problematic auras can be gate-kept with a level requirement. This falls in line with the original class.

This was my orignial idea, cause i started having the aura's at 3rd level. I tried to put them into the channel divinity, but no channel divinity of my knowledge has an passive constant effect, they are all 1 time use.

So i put it into the 7th level feature, and the original class states that you unlock all aura's at 9th level. So thats the reason I gave them all at the beginning, since you get them so late anyway. But this is another good way to balance them out. I am interested to know which aura's you would deem to be too powerful to start with and which level they should be allowed.

I am thinking that Energy Shield and Power are simular, so you start with 1 of them, the same with Presence and Senses is utility, and Toughness and Vigor is defenses.

I do not want to put it in 14th level, even though that is double up, because you already get a feature. And since i tied them to spells now, 13th level would maybe be best. So what about this:

at 7th level you start with
- Energy Shield
- Presence
- Toughness

at 13 level you gain:
- Power
- Senses
- Vigor

How is this or do you have other ideas, i am very interested to know? :)


Aura power in 3.5 was strictly level based - if you want to emulate this and have a longer growth cycle, use proficiency bonus. Yes, that takes you to 6.

This is true and originally intended, but I personally really like the idea of it scaling with Charisma, so for those who are interested, I could put in a variant rule to let it scale with proficiency bonus.


If vigor proves too troublesome, turn it into a burst effect under channel divinity (in place of Arcanum Rest). Use the Life Cleric feature as a template.

I am most likely changing it into the reaction aura of resistance. I am not a big fan of Arcanum Rest, but i don't think Vigor is going to be too strong when the aura is not permanent anymore, its part of spell slot resource management now. And if we change its level requirement, I think we have nerfed it to a point where I am comfortable that it doens't need anymore changes.


Double breath weapon ranges at 18.

Transformation: would adding 5' of reach, or adding damage to strength attacks (per Enlarge) be appropriate? I'd also consider dragon-type damage immunity while transformed.

Double breath range is a great idea, keeps the excitment of having it. And getting extra reach is a really good addition, the +1d4 on attack roles feels a bit weird but its probably right to put it in. Immunity to your dragon totem damage type has been added, ofcourse that should be there. :)

Thank you very much, this was great input and if you have any idea or recommendation, let me know.