New Unearthed Arcana 10/26/2020

[jaappleton]

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/subclasses5

[EggKookoo]

Way of the Ascendant Dragon and Drakewarden (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/UA2020_102620_Subclasses05.pdf)

Ascendant Dragon has an arguably better breath weapon than a dragonborn.

Edit: jaappleton started a thread with the same topic (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?621173-New-Unearthed-Arcana-10-26-2020&p=24771593#post24771593), so go there. :smallsmile:

[EggKookoo]

Wow, missed it by one minute (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?621174-New-UA-Subclasses-for-Monk-and-Ranger).

[PhoenixPhyre]

One interesting meta-feature here is the "one (or more) free use" thing for the monk subclass. They only have to pay ki to use the features after all those free uses are gone. I kinda like that--it gives you a free use pool, but you can break your limits by paying a scarce resource. Not sure if it's totally balanced, but...

I'd probably apply the same thing to Frenzy. You get one (or maybe 2?) free activations, then pay exhaustion after that.

[jaappleton]

Wait which of us made the topic first? I AM CONFUSION

[RogueJK]

Ascendant Dragon has an arguably better breath weapon than a dragonborn.


It's a better AoE option than Sun Soul's Burning Hands too.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One interesting meta-feature here is the "one (or more) free use" thing for the monk subclass. They only have to pay ki to use the features after all those free uses are gone. I kinda like that--it gives you a free use pool, but you can break your limits by paying a scarce resource. Not sure if it's totally balanced, but...

I'd probably apply the same thing to Frenzy. You get one (or maybe 2?) free activations, then pay exhaustion after that.

(switched from the now-going-away other thread on this topic).

[KorvinStarmast]

I'd probably apply the same thing to Frenzy. You get one (or maybe 2?) free activations, then pay exhaustion after that. The artificer get that with the canons: one free one, then pay with a spell slot.

[Sam113097]

Drakewarden looks like a very fun subclass- I know that there are many players that would love to have a dragon by their side. I'm assuming these are too late for Tasha's Cauldron of Everything?

[stoutstien]

More features keying off prof bonus. Personality not a fan.

The drakewarden is interesting in that it takes the smoother action economy of the battle smith and adds a much cleaner way of determined prof bonus for the pet.

An aoe monk option is new(other than 4E). At 1 ki after you blow all your starting charges means the breath attack is pretty spamable

[EggKookoo]

Wait which of us made the topic first? I AM CONFUSION

You posted yours before mine, I think. I did sit on mine for a bit while I tweaked what I was going to say, so it's possible I started mine first. Regardless, I'm happy to have this be the "real" thread.

[Aett_Thorn]

Dragon-themed subclasses are fun, though I think that always having the ability to switch to whatever damage type you want might be a smidge too powerful. Still, probably not a huge deal at Monk damage levels.

11-th level Rangers getting to swap out their third-level spells (or above) for basically a conical Fireball is pretty nice, though.

[EggKookoo]

The drakewarden is interesting in that it takes the smoother action economy of the battle smith and adds a much cleaner way of determined prof bonus for the pet.

I find this interesting: " If you are incapacitated, the drake can take any action of its choice, not just Dodge."

Just this weekend, our artificer got knocked unconscious and we weren't immediately sure what his Steel Defender could do. We decided to stick with the "rules do what they say" mindset and assume since the PC wasn't able use his bonus action, the Defender couldn't attack. I wonder if that'll be a change to the Tasha's artificer, to bring it in line with the drakewarden.

[Tvtyrant]

Big fan of the Monk, having a minion popping option is always nice and I like where they are going with the design of uses and then Ki when runs out.

[Teaguethebean]

The Monk is the first monk I am actually interested in playing for the first time is a long long time but the Drake Warden looks like it will be what the beast master was always meant to be, though I still have no interest unless they make changes to the core ranger in Tasha's.

[Amechra]

I really love the Monk... but would it have killed them to base stuff off of Wisdom instead of your Proficiency? The Hexblade has made me hate features like that on principle. That being said, I do really like the "you get X free uses of this feature per long rest" thing, since it means that the WAD can actually nova (unlike other Monks).

The Drakewarden is pretty cool - I wish Perfected Bond cam online a little earlier, though, since being able to ride your Dragon Friend is half of the point.

[stoutstien]

I find this interesting: " If you are incapacitated, the drake can take any action of its choice, not just Dodge."

Just this weekend, our artificer got knocked unconscious and we weren't immediately sure what his Steel Defender could do. We decided to stick with the "rules do what they say" mindset and assume since the PC wasn't able use his bonus action, the Defender couldn't attack. I wonder if that'll be a change to the Tasha's artificer, to bring it in line with the drakewarden.

Aye. I've made it standard for my tables for BM and BS pets to acted in a limited capacity if the player goes down.

[Vogie]

Way of the Ascendant Dragon feels like someone really wanted to write a novel, but was assigned a subclass instead.


I find this interesting: " If you are incapacitated, the drake can take any action of its choice, not just Dodge."

Just this weekend, our artificer got knocked unconscious and we weren't immediately sure what his Steel Defender could do. We decided to stick with the "rules do what they say" mindset and assume since the PC wasn't able use his bonus action, the Defender couldn't attack. I wonder if that'll be a change to the Tasha's artificer, to bring it in line with the drakewarden.

I completely agree - Drakewarden as a whole feels really good

As an aspiring designer, giving the companion a magical-damage attack from the get-go also avoids the boring "at X level the attacks become magical" ribbon... that is a nice subtle touch.

[EggKookoo]

Aye. I've made it standard for my tables for BM and BS pets to acted in a limited capacity if the player goes down.

How do you answer the question of, "if my pet can act on its own when I'm incapacitated, why can't it act on its own when I just don't give it an order?"

[jaappleton]

I like 'em both.

Monk having a legitimate AoE option for a subclass, while not being too focused on AoE, is long overdue. I know they made Sun Soul but that one really never did much for me, as it was fairly limited in its scope. This one lets me take an attack and fire off a blast of energy. Finally we can have our anime monk!

Ranger with a drake? I dig it. I'm not into pet classes, I'm pretty well documented on being anti-minionmancy because I don't like taking long for my turn (Its a ME thing, nothing against other people using 'em), and who doesn't love the idea of partnering up with a dragon?!

[x3n0n]

I like the "small number of free uses per long rest, spend class resources for extra use" model. I think something like that would have made the Elemonk a lot better at low levels.

The Monk breath looks significantly under-costed, doesn't it? I would probably playtest at 2 ki once you're done with the free ones. (Edit: hm, maybe not overpowered/undercosted, given the action economy? In a 5MWD, would you ever *not* spam this if there wasn't someone to stun?)

I am still deciding how I feel about Monk flight: not that it's too strong, but could almost be too weak given that running up walls and over liquids is coming at lv9, and Step of the Wind already doubles your jump distance. How many new things can you really reach? Neat synergy with Slow Fall, though.

Monk aura is cool. I'm a big fan of "help my friends" and letting them spend their own reactions for the revenge damage. A little bit of Absorb-Elements-style anti-synergy, in that it deals the damage you're resisting, which they are more likely to resist themselves, but oh well.

Monk capstone is cool. Why is the "can see invisible creatures" clause not redundant with having the blindsight in the first place?

[Amechra]

How do you answer the question of, "if my pet can act on its own when I'm incapacitated, why can't it act on its own when I just don't give it an order?"

Well, if you're around, your pet wants you to tell it what to do, because you are Smart and Good, and any ideas you come up with are better than any ideas that it has. If you're incapacitated, your pet is going to try to protect you (because, again, you are Smart and Good).

[Peelee]

WonderMod powers activate! Form of: Merged Thread!

[KorvinStarmast]

20-foot cone for Breath of Dragon
Should be a 15 foot cone to be consistent with PC dragonborn, I think. I like how the damage scales. I like free uses based on proficiency bonus 'free use but costs ki later, and but this does tend to leave dragon born in the dust ... maybe update dragonborn, or maybe scale this back a bit? (Yes, that was a deliberate pun)
Draconic Disciple
While I really like the damage type options, but I wonder if that's not a bit OP, balance wise? And the Intimidation or Persuasion check? Love it. Nicely thematic.

Wings Unfurled
As written, I like this a lot. And if you screw up, slow fall helps you reduce the damage. :smallcool:

11th level feature.
Do one, not both. OP to use both, I think. I'd go for the protective aura.

17th level.
That sure is a lot of features.
a. Just grand blindsight as written in the MM.
b. I like the persistent damage.
c. OK, you automatically have a wave of damage go out and the next turn whomever was hit takes persietent damage. OK. Is this in addition to or instead of the original Aspect of the Wyrm damage?

More features keying off prof bonus. Personality not a fan.

An aoe monk option is new(other than 4E). At 1 ki after you blow all your starting charges means the breath attack is pretty spamable Yes it is. Dragonborn PCs will stare at you and grumble. Wait, here's an idea.
Dragonborn monk. Name: Hal Itosis :smallbiggrin:

I really love the Monk... but would it have killed them to base stuff off of Wisdom instead of your Proficiency? I like the proficiency base, but base off of wisdom makes sense if we look at most of the other PHB classes. I can like it either way.

[micahaphone]

The monk seems strong, but more importantly it seems really fun. At 6th level, you can grow wings, fly 90 feet, and breathe 4 martial arts die of damage onto the fools below you in an AOE. And then take no damage from the fall because Slow Fall. That's ridiculously awesome.


I like the "x free uses then cost" thing, really encourages you to make use of your subclass, even when there's a mechanically superior thing to do.


Drakewarden is yet another "beastmaster but we didn't screw it up this time" UA. Always welcome in my book. It's funny that if your drake keeps dying you can keep summoning a new one to swoop on in. It makes me think that there's a magic aircraft carrier of drakes just off screen, who all think you're really cool but only appear one at a time to help because they don't want to make it awkward. At level 5 you'd have 7 potential drakes just waiting in the wings to step in and help out at the right calling whistle!

And I love that the capstone is "ya boi go bigger". the puppy is all grown up.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Ranger with a drake? I dig it. I'm not into pet classes, I'm pretty well documented on being anti-minionmancy because I don't like taking long for my turn (Its a ME thing, nothing against other people using 'em), and who doesn't love the idea of partnering up with a dragon?!

I'm guessing that if that one goes live, it will be a very popular option for my new players. Who all seem to like dragons.

And if I were still running high school games, it would be everywhere, like some kind of scaly plague.

[jaappleton]

WonderMod powers activate! Form of: Merged Thread!

Thank you kindly!

[stoutstien]

How do you answer the question of, "if my pet can act on its own when I'm incapacitated, why can't it act on its own when I just don't give it an order?"
Theatrically they can flavor however they wish. As far as crunch it basically a gentleman's agreement. They are welcome to use the RaW version as well.

[Amechra]

Should be a 15 foot cone to be consistent with PC dragonborn, I think.

Counterargument: The Dragonborn breath weapon should be a 20ft cone. Because that's actually more proportionate than halving the line's length (the volume of a cone is based off of 2/3rds of the height, after all).

[Sigreid]

I have to think about the Way of the Ascendant Dragon. I may like it too much.

[EggKookoo]

Well, if you're around, your pet wants you to tell it what to do, because you are Smart and Good, and any ideas you come up with are better than any ideas that it has. If you're incapacitated, your pet is going to try to protect you (because, again, you are Smart and Good).

I find this explanation Smart and Good.

[micahaphone]

I'm guessing that if that one goes live, it will be a very popular option for my new players. Who all seem to like dragons.

And if I were still running high school games, it would be everywhere, like some kind of scaly plague.

That's interesting to me, in my anecdotal experience I haven't seen new players be very interested in dragons. I've occasionally seen "when are we gonna fight a dragon" brought up, usually to have a vet explain "dragons are a big deal they'll wipe the floor with you unless you're higher level and prepared". That memory was before any of us played/read Lost Mines of Phandelver, so now maybe new players have a bit less reverence for dragons. though that module certainly instills fear in people!

[Waterdeep Merch]

I adore that monk. I bet if these two see print, the Drakewarden will end up more popular. But the Ascendant Dragon is much cooler.

It's almost too bad the Drakewarden can't get a mountable drake until level 15 since it's such a game changer when it happens. Probably for the best balance-wise.

[jaappleton]

I adore that monk. I bet if these two see print, the Drakewarden will end up more popular. But the Ascendant Dragon is much cooler.

It's almost too bad the Drakewarden can't get a mountable drake until level 15 since it's such a game changer when it happens. Probably for the best balance-wise.

The dragon is a creature. It qualifies for the Enlarge spell, if you want to mount it for a minute. If the Sorc twins it, could they cause the Ranger to be Small and the Drake to be Medium?

[Vogie]

It's almost too bad the Drakewarden can't get a mountable drake until level 15 since it's such a game changer when it happens. Probably for the best balance-wise.

I found it odd, at first, that it went directly from small to large. Then I realized that if it was medium at any time, nearly every drakewarden would be a gnome or other small race to start riding earlier.

[Waterdeep Merch]

The dragon is a creature. It qualifies for the Enlarge spell, if you want to mount it for a minute. If the Sorc twins it, could they cause the Ranger to be Small and the Drake to be Medium?
That should work, but it's quite an investment for another player to pay for a minute of flight time. If you play a halfling/gnome/goblin/kobold you could manage it with a normal Enlarge/Reduce (either one of you). A Potion of Growth would be ideal if you can find a way to stockpile them.

[KorvinStarmast]

Beast Companion IIRC for Beast Master had prof bonus adds for Ranger's level, right.

So it makes sense for the dragon companion.

Ooh, I like the dragon ranger a lot. Hey, look, they learned something from Artificer; trigger it on a bonus action. Now, Wizards, go back to the PHB and errata the Beast master to using a bonus action to trigger the beast companion, eh? :smallyuk:
Matching their initiative to the Ranger makes it less fiddly for the DM at the table.

a. utility cantrip for ranger. Nice.
b. Takes less than 8 hours to summon - hey, Beast Master, how you feeling. Abused? Yeah, I know ...
c. summon again at a cost. OK, I like that also.
d. Expires; so this is a short term summoned familiar on steroids. Hmm, lasts six hours at level 17. Two hours at level 3.
e. Hardy enough to survive but it's not a tank.
f. With a strength of 16, why is damage not Hit: 1d6 +3 piercing damage plus PB damage of a type determined by the drake’s Draconic Essence.
g. Reaction (Infused Strikes): Interesting, and re affirming that this is a magical creature of dragon spirit sort of kind of ...
h. (level 7) Swimming or flying, choose on summons. I like the flexibility.
i. Breath. Nice feature, costs resources to use again. (Similar to artificer)
j. Large size at level 15: I have a flying dragon. Wheeeeeee! :smallbiggrin::smallsmile: Hello Mounted Combat feat for a Ranger ...
k. I like the "resist damage" feature; keeps that flying dragon alive!

I am not sure how balanced this all is, but I like what they did here.

[jaappleton]

Can someone help me with this?

Breath of the Dragon

"When
you take the Attack action on your turn, you can
replace one of the attacks with an exhalation of
draconic energy"

You can replace one of the attacks

Typically that'd be worded very differently. Once per turn when you take the attack action, or something like that.

So is that, "Replace one of the attacks" as in singular, or "replace one of the attacks" as in the sense of 'an attack', which can be construed as multiple?

.....Look I know I'm trying to break something here, but that's the point of UA, to break it every which way possible so in the feedback we don't overlook things.

[KorvinStarmast]

Can someone help me with this?

Breath of the Dragon

"When
you take the Attack action on your turn, you can
replace one of the attacks with an exhalation of
draconic energy"

You can replace one of the attacks

Typically that'd be worded very differently. Once per turn when you take the attack action, or something like that.

So is that, "Replace one of the attacks" as in singular, or "replace one of the attacks" as in the sense of 'an attack', which can be construed as multiple?

.....Look I know I'm trying to break something here, but that's the point of UA, to break it every which way possible so in the feedback we don't overlook things. You talking about bonus action attacks, flurry of blows attacks, or extra attacks? I am going to guess that this is confined to Extra attacks starting at level 5.
That way it doesn't consume an unarmed strike style of bonus action, which is already limited to unarmed strikes, right?
At level 4, you either breath or you attack.
But does that mean no bonus action unarmed strike? Good question.

At level 5, one attack and one breath, and your flurry or bonus action unarmed strike obviuosly follow the regular attack. When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. For example, if you take the Attack action and attack with a quarterstaff, you can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, assuming you haven’t already taken a bonus action this turn. I am going to guess that the intent is 'replaces an attack, not a bonus action choice for an attack' but I can see how one might argue otherwise.

[EggKookoo]

Can someone help me with this?

Breath of the Dragon

"When
you take the Attack action on your turn, you can
replace one of the attacks with an exhalation of
draconic energy"

You can replace one of the attacks

Typically that'd be worded very differently. Once per turn when you take the attack action, or something like that.

So is that, "Replace one of the attacks" as in singular, or "replace one of the attacks" as in the sense of 'an attack', which can be construed as multiple?

.....Look I know I'm trying to break something here, but that's the point of UA, to break it every which way possible so in the feedback we don't overlook things.

One thing, maybe they're going to errata how Readying combines with Extra Attack. In Critical Role, I believe Mercer allows you to use Extra Attack when you Ready an attack, but (I think) per RAW you're only allowed one attack when Readying. If Tasha changes it so you can use EA with a Readied attack, it might behoove them to make a distinction between using EA on your turn or someone else's?

[jaappleton]

You talking about bonus action attacks, flurry of blows attacks, or extra attacks? I am going to guess that this is confined to Extra attacks starting at level 5.
That way it doesn't consume an unarmed strike style of bonus action, which is already limited to unarmed strikes, right?
At level 4, you either breath or you attack.
But does that mean no bonus action unarmed strike? Good question.
At level 5, one attack and one breath, and your flurry or bonus action unarmed strike obviuosly follow the regular attack.

About any of the attacks, is my question.

EDIT:

So at level 5, can I do this twice since I get Extra Attack?

At level 3, can I use it with my bonus action Martial Arts attack?

Can I do it four time at level 4 if I use Flurry of Blows?

[nickl_2000]

So, is drakewarden the final nail in the coffin of the beastmaster?

[KorvinStarmast]

So, is drakewarden the final nail in the coffin of the beastmaster?

Well, the game is called 'Dungeons and Dragons' not "Dungeons and Beasts" :smallbiggrin:

[KorvinStarmast]

About any of the attacks, is my question.
I am going to guess that the intent is 'replaces an attack' from the Attack action, not a bonus action choice for an attack' ... but I can see how one might argue otherwise.

Per my edit.

And I'd rather see it tied to the Attack action so as not to mix it up with bonus actions. That said, if it can replace an unarmed strike bonus action, they need to at least make that clear.

[jaappleton]

So, is drakewarden the final nail in the coffin of the beastmaster?

Not at all.

You're going to see some new options for Beast Master in Tasha's. Some new beasts called Primal Beasts and some 'alternative class and subclass features' as well.

[nickl_2000]

Well, the game is called 'Dungeons and Dragons' not "Dungeons and Beasts" :smallbiggrin:

I have to say, I really like the Drakewarden. This is the first Ranger subclass, that I have really wanted to play. Since you are using your bonus action to have the drake attack, how would you play the ranger differently since you are likely not going to be running Hunter's Mark.

[Master O'Laughs]

I like the ascendant dragon monk sub class. Makes me want to play one.

Drakewarden seems neat but I am scratching my head on the Drake HP calculation. 5+5 times ranger level, but it says it has a d10 hit die (avg would be 6 hp) and a +2 con modifier. so really its hp should be 4+8*ranger level.

[EggKookoo]

I am going to guess that the intent is 'replaces an attack' from the Attack action, not a bonus action choice for an attack' ... but I can see how one might argue otherwise.

Like how a shove replaces an attack, not your action. I hope they update dragonborn so Breath Weapon does the same.

[x3n0n]

Can someone help me with this?

Breath of the Dragon

"When
you take the Attack action on your turn, you can
replace one of the attacks with an exhalation of
draconic energy"

You can replace one of the attacks

Typically that'd be worded very differently. Once per turn when you take the attack action, or something like that.

So is that, "Replace one of the attacks" as in singular, or "replace one of the attacks" as in the sense of 'an attack', which can be construed as multiple?

I think this is intended to be like grapple/shove, but limited to one per turn. For comparison:

"Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."

I do hope to they clarify like Korvin said: at lv3 or lv4, if you use this to replace the single attack in your Attack action, can you use your free Martial Arts BA attack? (Clearly should be yes, and if Tasha's has the "if you spent ki on your action, you get the free Martial Arts attack", that covers everything except for the "free" uses.)

Edit: per your follow-up questions, I think the wording clearly intends to limit it to a single replacement per Attack action, of one of the two attacks in that action. "When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of the attacks". You can still Flurry, but those attacks are not part of the Attack action and can't be replaced. (I think Haste or Action Surge would be another Attack action and another potential use of the ability.)

[KorvinStarmast]

Like how a shove replaces an attack, not your action.
I hope so. It seems to fit.

I hope they update dragonborn so Breath Weapon does the same. Likewise.

[Unoriginal]

Can someone help me with this?

Breath of the Dragon

"When
you take the Attack action on your turn, you can
replace one of the attacks with an exhalation of
draconic energy"

You can replace one of the attacks

Typically that'd be worded very differently. Once per turn when you take the attack action, or something like that.

So is that, "Replace one of the attacks" as in singular, or "replace one of the attacks" as in the sense of 'an attack', which can be construed as multiple?

.....Look I know I'm trying to break something here, but that's the point of UA, to break it every which way possible so in the feedback we don't overlook things.

It's the same wording than for grappling or shoving.

I

[Amnestic]

Every class should have a dragon subclass.

No exceptions!

[jaappleton]

So at level 5 I can do it twice

But since Marital Arts and Flurry of Blows aren't part of the attack action, and are instead bonus actions, they cannot be replaced

Yes?

[KorvinStarmast]

So at level 5 I can do it twice

But since Marital Arts and Flurry of Blows aren't part of the attack action, and are instead bonus actions, they cannot be replaced

Yes? That's how I read it, but I'd like to see it made clear.
If you can be puzzled, given your experience with this edition, so can anyone.

[stoutstien]

So at level 5 I can do it twice

But since Marital Arts and Flurry of Blows aren't part of the attack action, and are instead bonus actions, they cannot be replaced

Yes?

It's how I read it but I could see it rules once per action as well.

[x3n0n]

So at level 5 I can do it twice

But since Marital Arts and Flurry of Blows aren't part of the attack action, and are instead bonus actions, they cannot be replaced

Yes?

Quoting my edit above:


I think this is intended to be like grapple/shove, but limited to one per turn Attack action.

<Snip>

Edit: per your follow-up questions, I think the wording clearly intends to limit it to a single replacement per Attack action, of one of the two attacks in that action. "When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of the attacks". You can still Flurry, but those attacks are not part of the Attack action and can't be replaced. (I think Haste or Action Surge would be another Attack action and another potential use of the ability.)

Edit: reconciled my post to agree with itself

[Gignere]

It’s obviously way too strong for the freebies to be based off of proficiency. The final maybe one free use or wisdom x or 1/2 proficiency and the ki costs after free uses will likely go up.

[jaappleton]

I will say I truly love how a ton of the recent UA stuff has had unique abilities which key off once per long rest, or short rest, with the ability to trigger them AGAIN if you do X (Spend a spell slot of a certain level or higher, for example).

It lets people do their super cool, unique abilities more often and truly encapsulate the feeling of their subclass more often.

[x3n0n]

I will say I truly love how a ton of the recent UA stuff has had unique abilities which key off once per long rest, or short rest, with the ability to trigger them AGAIN if you do X (Spend a spell slot of a certain level or higher, for example).

It lets people do their super cool, unique abilities more often and truly encapsulate the feeling of their subclass more often.

Definitely! That's probably my favorite piece of "design tech" that has come out post-Xanathar: (1 or other small number) free per long rest, spend class resources for additional uses.

[Dork_Forge]

I really didn't expect a UA until after Tasha's dropped, and they're both dragon themed, for an upcoming adventure maybe?

Dragon Monk:

-A dragon breath aoe that is free =prof and scales a little with your MA die, being able to breath and then still get your other EA or BA attack in will let the Monk leverage it's speed to hit as many people as possible, making this Monk king of mook killing and meh at single target. You get enough uses of this (with subsequent uses being so cheap) I have to wonder why this isn't just free or something close to it.

-You can fly when you use Step of the Wind, very cool (and again allowing th Monk to leverage that higher movement speed) but the cost again confuses me. This is taking a ki point and the Monk's already highly contested bonus action, 1 additional ki after prof mod for free is so little a cost it may as well not be there (how often is a Monk even going to need to use this anyway?)

-The aura is pretty cool and immediately gives everyone in it a retributive reaction use, I'm not sure I can see it being unrestricted in published form, but it's neat

-The capstone is pretty nice all around, always on Blinsight, a burst aoe and lingering effect to your breath, not bad at all

Drakewarden

I'm not sure why this exists within the Ranger, it's a cross between the Artificer's Turrets and something like the Wild Fire spirit in execution, where you'd expect a Ranger to always have their companion with them (and the Beast Master is presumably getting fixed in Tasha's... right?)

-Draconic Gift: Very nice ribbon for the Ranger, a nice direction

-Drake Companion: Unlike other iterations of this kind of summon this one calls out it can take an action in it's stat block or some other action (possible a Steel Defender errata coming in Nov?). I don't like how this companion is entirely divorced from your Wis mod or some of the calcs (which do not need to be scaling off prof, it's lazy writing that leads to MC issues). The armor calc seems a bit high, starting at 16 and ending at 20? I can see awkward siuations where the Ranger doesn't have it summoned yet so has to burn an action, whether that would actually be worth it on the first turn is very debatable. The reaction damage is a little weird, but it's a nice boost for either the Ranger or the party and since it's after the hit happens you can choose to throw it on top of crits.

Bond of Fang and Scale: Nice scaling for the companion, it seems to be lacking magical piercing for the original damage imo, maybe an oversight?

Drake's Breath: A nice AOE option for the Ranger, but the damage seems very lacking. They equate the breath to a 3rd level slot, yet it's only 6d6 at level 11? You should be pushing out Fireball+ levels of damage on this initially whilst retaining the later scaling

Perfected Bond: A pretty nice capstone, I'm mostly looking at the reaction damage reduction when I say that though, other wise you just get a bump to the Drake's attack and it jumps up two size categories. You can now ride it, but it feels very weird and awkward that it suddenly grew so much and small PCs haven't been able to ride up until this point.

Overall I like it but there's certainly tweaks to be made.

[Hael]

It's almost too bad the Drakewarden can't get a mountable drake until level 15 since it's such a game changer when it happens. Probably for the best balance-wise.

I mean, it’s simultaneously much better than the Beastmaster, yet somehow underpowered relative to what Paladins get at lvl 13 with find greater steed. That one can act independently from the point of view of action economy.

[Desteplo]

I enjoy the way of the 4 dragon subclass. It hits upon every complaint the sun soul and way of 4 got.
-pretty much touched on every homebrew quick list

[MaxWilson]

Way of the Ascendant Dragon and Drakewarden (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/UA2020_102620_Subclasses05.pdf)

Ascendant Dragon has an arguably better breath weapon than a dragonborn.

If you ignore the dragon flavor text and look purely at what fantasy it supports, Ascendant Dragon is Elemonk v2.0. Likely to make those elemental bending fans happy because they can spam elements all the time. Breath of the Dragon also has a downright fantastic action economy. You can make three attacks for 3 x (d10 + Dex) PLUS an AoE for 3d10 (+d10 per round, save to end), for two ki. Or you can Attack for 1d10+Dex plus do Breath of the Dragon for 3d10 (+10 per round, save to end) plus 4d10 more from Aspect of the Wyrm, which is 40ish AoE damage for 5 ki and an action+bonus action, plus a 1d10+Dex with Stunning Strike option for another 1 ki.

Strong subclass IMO, but not OP compared to spellcasters, merely simpler.

[Bloodcloud]

It's quite funny to me that the Dragon monk is a better bender than the 4E monk...

Seriously, so much better.

Also, recharge once you have successfully used abnility is GREAT designto me. Should have applied to fighter's Indomitable.

[RogueJK]

I enjoy the way of the 4 dragon subclass. It hits upon every complaint the sun soul and way of 4 got.


Agreed.

And technically it's 5 elements, which is 1 better than 4. :smallbiggrin:

(Although functionally 4, because c'mon... who's gonna choose poison? :smalltongue:)

[Tvtyrant]

I enjoy the way of the 4 dragon subclass. It hits upon every complaint the sun soul and way of 4 got.
-pretty much touched on every homebrew quick list

It's basically a street fighter character, everything I wanted out of a Monk. I am def going to play one next campaign I play.

[Kane0]

Every class should have a dragon subclass.

No exceptions!

Tooth and Scale Barbarian
Dragonlayer Bard
Greed Domain Cleric
Circle of the apex (predator) Druid
Dragonslayer Fighter
Ascendant Dragon Monk
Oath of Awe Paladin
Drakewarden Ranger
Hoardlurker Rogue
Dragonblood Sorcerer
Wyrm Patron Warlock
Old Tongue Wizard

[MeeposFire]

It's quite funny to me that the Dragon monk is a better bender than the 4E monk...

Seriously, so much better.

Also, recharge once you have successfully used abnility is GREAT designto me. Should have applied to fighter's Indomitable.

Well we should hope that as time goes by they get a better handle on how the game works and get progressively better as the game goes on.

[MaxWilson]

(Although functionally 4, because c'mon... who's gonna choose poison? :smalltongue:)

Someone who wants to avoid friendly fire damage to the Necromancer's minions?

[cutlery]

Someone who wants to avoid friendly fire damage to the Necromancer's minions?

I thought watching the necromancer's face while you set their minions on fire was half the fun?

[jaappleton]

Someone made a comment about the Drake’s attacks not being innately magical at some point

I could be wrong but aren’t all dragons (this qualifies) considered innately magical creatures? I can see why they should still put it into the statblock but I believe they’re already magical.

[Hael]

So the usual problem with pick your favorite element UA features is that it encourages shenanigans like multiclassing with the tempest cleric to get downright broken attacks. Alternatively it’s very metagamey as it encourages you to know every creature susceptibility, which leads to multiplicative scaling (something 5e hates).

But yea, these classes look like straight upgrades of the 4 Element monk and the Beastmaster.

I do really like the monk class though, it’s powerful enough that it makes up for the weak base class, without being too crazy. I’d have to see how it performs in practise.

[Dork_Forge]

Someone made a comment about the Drake’s attacks not being innately magical at some point

I could be wrong but aren’t all dragons (this qualifies) considered innately magical creatures? I can see why they should still put it into the statblock but I believe they’re already magical.

That'd be me, I don't think there's any RAW reason to believe that it'd be magical unless it explicitly said so, it'd also break design tradition of magical BPS damage around level 6th level. This isn't normally a problem for statblocks, but if they want to keep branching out into minionmancy, then they need to make things like this clear in the text.

If it isn't magical, then the damage output of the Drake is functionally lower than at first glance after a certain point, not much, not a big deal but something they need to consider.

[Unoriginal]

Someone made a comment about the Drake’s attacks not being innately magical at some point

I could be wrong but aren’t all dragons (this qualifies) considered innately magical creatures? I can see why they should still put it into the statblock but I believe they’re already magical.

As WotC says:


Is the breath weapon of a dragon magical?

If you cast antimagic field, don armor of invulnerability, or use another feature of the game that protects against magical or nonmagical effects, you might ask yourself, “Will this protect me against a dragon’s breath?” The breath weapon of a typical dragon isn’t considered magical, so antimagic field won’t help you but armor of invulnerability will.

You might be thinking, “Dragons seem pretty magical to me.” And yes, they are extraordinary! Their description even says they’re magical. But our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:

• the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many D&D creatures

• the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a magic item or channeled to create a spell or other focused magical effect

In D&D, the first type of magic is part of nature. It is no more dispellable than the wind. A monster like a dragon exists because of that magic-enhanced nature. The second type of magic is what the rules are concerned about. When a rule refers to something being magical, it’s referring to that second type. Determining whether a game feature is magical is straightforward. Ask yourself these questions about the feature:

• Is it a magic item?
• Is it a spell? Or does it let you create the effects of a spell
that’s mentioned in its description?
• Is it a spell attack?
• Is it fueled by the use of spell slots?
• Does its description say it’s magical?

If your answer to any of those questions is yes, the feature is magical.

Let’s look at a white dragon’s Cold Breath and ask ourselves those questions. First, Cold Breath isn’t a magic item. Second, its description mentions no spell. Third, it’s not a spell attack. Fourth, the word “magical” appears no-where in its description. Our conclusion: Cold Breath is not considered a magical game effect, even though we know that dragons are amazing, supernatural beings.

[KorvinStarmast]

That's what I do at my table, allow one free use of Frenzy before Exhaustion kicks in. Actually got the idea from the Evoker's Overchannel ability. One free use then you have to pay the price. Nice adjustment, I wish that were the default.

If you ignore the dragon flavor text and look purely at what fantasy it supports, Ascendant Dragon is Elemonk v2.0. {snip} Strong subclass IMO, but not OP compared to spellcasters, merely simpler. Aye.

Someone made a comment about the Drake’s attacks not being innately magical at some point They are elemental. Thus if one guesses wrong they couled be against a resistant or immune target.

[Gignere]

As WotC says:

Interesting this means that animate objects does magical damage now? We treated it as normal b/p/s.

[Dork_Forge]

They are elemental. Thus if one guesses wrong they couled be against a resistant or immune target.

Not all of the damage is elemental, it's a mixed bag with the original d6 of the bite being piercing damage

[jaappleton]

@Unoriginal That’s exactly the article I was thinking of! Well, seems I am certainly incorrect.

Can a Drake wear a magical item? Insignia of the Claws would certainly work, it’s a pendant, and magical items resize to their wielder.... >_>

[MaxWilson]

Interesting this means that animate objects does magical damage now? We treated it as normal b/p/s.

That WotC quote is about whether Animate Objects is affected by Antimagic Shell (it is). It doesn't say the creatures created by it inflict magical damage.

[EggKookoo]

Tooth and Scale Barbarian
Dragonlayer Bard
Greed Domain Cleric
Circle of the apex (predator) Druid
Dragonslayer Fighter
Ascendant Dragon Monk
Oath of Awe Paladin
Drakewarden Ranger
Hoardlurker Rogue
Dragonblood Sorcerer
Wyrm Patron Warlock
Old Tongue Wizard

I'm interested in your ideas and would like a pamphlet.

[RogueJK]

So the usual problem with pick your favorite element UA features is that it encourages shenanigans like multiclassing with the tempest cleric to get downright broken attacks.

Eh, no.

If you (wasted) 2 levels on Tempest Cleric for your Ascendant Dragon Monk, starting at Character Level 5 (3/2) you'd have the ability to maximize a single Lightning Breath AoE at 2x or 3x your Martial Arts dice. That's 2d4, 2d6, or eventually 3d8 lightning damage. That would mean going from average of 5/7/13.5 damage to maxed 8/12/24 damage. And the enemies would still be able to save for half.

And then finally at 19th character level (17/2), you could do a maximized 3d10 for 30 lightning damage with your Breath AoE, or use Ascendant Aspect to send out a maximized lightning aura blast doing 4d10 for 40 lightning damage. Not an impressive amount at 19th level.

And this Maximized damage would only be usable once per Short Rest anyway.


Therefore such a combo would hardly be "downright broken". After all, a straight Tempest Cleric character could do more at 5th level with maximized 3rd level spells like upcast Shatter/Thunderwave or Call Lightning than this Monk multiclass is doing at 19th level (!) with their Maximized Breath/Aspect. And that's not even getting into Sorcerers/Wizards/Mountain Druids who dip 2 levels of Tempest Cleric tossing out Maximized Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightning.

Plus you'd be 2 levels behind in your Monk abilities throughout your career, which really hurts. (Monks and Moon Druids hurt the most from multiclassing.) So it's actually quite suboptimal, and not worth the 2 level dip at all.

[Unoriginal]

If you ignore the dragon flavor text and look purely at what fantasy it supports, Ascendant Dragon is Elemonk v2.0. Likely to make those elemental bending fans happy because they can spam elements all the time.

I really hope the Elemental Monk get more worthwhile non-blasting options in the Tasha's.


@Unoriginal That’s exactly the article I was thinking of! Well, seems I am certainly incorrect.

Can a Drake wear a magical item? Insignia of the Claws would certainly work, it’s a pendant, and magical items resize to their wielder.... >_>

The drake can wear a magical item, but if it's worn it'll fall down when the drake is un-summoned.

Not sure how the magic tattoos would work, though...

[stoutstien]

So the usual problem with pick your favorite element UA features is that it encourages shenanigans like multiclassing with the tempest cleric to get downright broken attacks. Alternatively it’s very metagamey as it encourages you to know every creature susceptibility, which leads to multiplicative scaling (something 5e hates).

But yea, these classes look like straight upgrades of the 4 Element monk and the Beastmaster.

I do really like the monk class though, it’s powerful enough that it makes up for the weak base class, without being too crazy. I’d have to see how it performs in practise.

Eh. 1-2 lv of tempest cleric would be nice to mix in this monk but hardly broken. Talking about two dice for over half the monks progression. Would be an interesting option if you happen to crit with a attack though. Cleric 2 is IMO almost always better than straight monk once you have a enough ki so it's there.
5e also pretty much assumes someone in the party will know the resistance and vulnerabilities of NPCs. At this point they're mostly just flavor.

[MaxWilson]

Eh. 1-2 lv of tempest cleric would be nice to mix in this monk but hardly broken. Talking about two dice for over half the monks progression. Would be an interesting option if you happen to crit with a attack though. Cleric 2 is IMO almost always better than straight monk once you have a enough ki so it's there.
5e also pretty much assumes someone in the party will know the resistance and vulnerabilities of NPCs. At this point they're mostly just flavor.

It's too bad 5E monster design doesn't take more advantage of vulnerabilities. As far as I know, the only vulnerabilities in 5E are for the following monsters (ignoring uniques):

Atropal: radiant
Awakened-shrub: fire
Awakened-tree: fire
Awakened-zurkhwood: fire
Centaur-mummy: fire
Dust-mephit: fire
Earth-elemental: thunder
Fire-snake: cold
Flumph: psychic
Ice-mephit: bludgeoning, fire
Magma-mephit: cold
Minotaur-skeleton: bludgeoning
Mummy-lord: fire
Mummy: fire
Rakshasa: piercing from magic weapons wielded by good creatures
Salamander: cold
Scarecrow: fire
Shadow-assassin: radiant
Shadow-demon: radiant
Shadow: radiant
Skeleton: bludgeoning
Slithering-tracker: cold, fire
Treant: fire
Twig-blight: fire
Warhorse-skeleton: bludgeoning
Wood-woad: fire

[jaappleton]

It's too bad 5E monster design doesn't take more advantage of vulnerabilities. As far as I know, the only vulnerabilities in 5E are for the following monsters (ignoring uniques):

Atropal: radiant
Awakened-shrub: fire
Awakened-tree: fire
Awakened-zurkhwood: fire
Centaur-mummy: fire
Dust-mephit: fire
Earth-elemental: thunder
Fire-snake: cold
Flumph: psychic
Ice-mephit: bludgeoning, fire
Magma-mephit: cold
Minotaur-skeleton: bludgeoning
Mummy-lord: fire
Mummy: fire
Rakshasa: piercing from magic weapons wielded by good creatures
Salamander: cold
Scarecrow: fire
Shadow-assassin: radiant
Shadow-demon: radiant
Shadow: radiant
Skeleton: bludgeoning
Slithering-tracker: cold, fire
Treant: fire
Twig-blight: fire
Warhorse-skeleton: bludgeoning
Wood-woad: fire

Max, you’re right in that few creatures have actual vulnerabilities. However, many still have effects which only occur upon a certain damage type being inflicted.

Several Undead can typically regenerate but that stops when they take Radiant damage, but they aren’t vulnerable to Radiant, for example.

[stoutstien]

Drake's Breath: A nice AOE option for the Ranger, but the damage seems very lacking. They equate the breath to a 3rd level slot, yet it's only 6d6 at level 11? You should be pushing out Fireball+ levels of damage on this initially whilst retaining the later scaling

Overall I like it but there's certainly tweaks to be made.

I don't the damage it that bad. Being able to pick your damage type gives it a little bit of an edge over fireball. I would love to have his option for the artillerist cannon (why there's not a damage type switching infusion I don't know) although cones are harder to place than fireball it's not a new issue. It's also not a spell so it can be combined with a bonus action spell in the same round.

[stoutstien]

It's too bad 5E monster design doesn't take more advantage of vulnerabilities. As far as I know, the only vulnerabilities in 5E are for the following monsters (ignoring uniques):

Atropal: radiant
Awakened-shrub: fire
Awakened-tree: fire
Awakened-zurkhwood: fire
Centaur-mummy: fire
Dust-mephit: fire
Earth-elemental: thunder
Fire-snake: cold
Flumph: psychic
Ice-mephit: bludgeoning, fire
Magma-mephit: cold
Minotaur-skeleton: bludgeoning
Mummy-lord: fire
Mummy: fire
Rakshasa: piercing from magic weapons wielded by good creatures
Salamander: cold
Scarecrow: fire
Shadow-assassin: radiant
Shadow-demon: radiant
Shadow: radiant
Skeleton: bludgeoning
Slithering-tracker: cold, fire
Treant: fire
Twig-blight: fire
Warhorse-skeleton: bludgeoning
Wood-woad: fire

Aye. There are a few that I can think of that have certain elemental absorption that should be noted as well like the shambling mound and some golems. This comes to mind because I just had an encounter I ran that had a few shambling mounds running around with other NPCs healing it with shocking grasp and call lighting.

[MaxWilson]

Max, you’re right in that few creatures have actual vulnerabilities. However, many still have effects which only occur upon a certain damage type being inflicted.

Several Undead can typically regenerate but that stops when they take Radiant damage, but they aren’t vulnerable to Radiant, for example.

Vampires and vampire spawn, yellow musk creeper, revenants, some Archduke fiends (Geryon et al). Troll regen is likewise stopped by fire. Zombies Fortitude is stopped by radiant or crits. IIRC, that's about it for non-damage-vulnerability special vulnerabilities.

[Unoriginal]

5e also pretty much assumes someone in the party will know the resistance and vulnerabilities of NPCs. At this point they're mostly just flavor.

How is that "mostly just flavor"? They impact the tactics used quite a bit.

[stoutstien]

How is that "mostly just flavor"? They impact the tactics used quite a bit.

No, not really. It just makes the most opportune tactic slightly different. As Max pointed out above vulnerabilities is quite rare so it's more of a question of avoiding immunity and resistance. Dragons are color coordinated for our convenience and the big creature types like devil's have very predictable type resistance so unless a DM is using a completely randomized encounter building technique a party will have a good idea of whats coming and plans accordingly.

When in doubt:magical P/S/B damage is a good go too if you do have to guess.

[Ganryu]

So... am I the only one who dislikes the monk intensely?
A) Causes an ungodly amount of rolls on your turn, slowing down the game
B) Compare it to draconic sorcerer, switching between damages of any dragon type seems unthematic. I feel you should pick one, and stick with it.
C) The damage increase with a dragon's breath EVERY turn! I doesn't even really consume a resource, you get 2-6 free uses, and then it's just 1 ki point, for a decent cone size, and straight increase of damage. I'd be fine if it took an action, but as just one attack is a bit much.
D) Aspect of the worm is insane. It's an 11th level ability, so I guess I could forgive it somewhat, but it lasts a whole combat, is basically free, is only a bonus action. Everyone gains a use of their reaction. Everyone. Everyone gets hit by an AoE? That's 4-6d10.
E) Now your breath sets things on fire. While that's funny, it's now 4d10 for an attack action again a host of creatures, and the repeated saving throws are going to slow down combat even more. And you'll be doing it every turn...

Yeah, I hate this thing.
The Drakewarden is fine, and I quite like it honestly.

[Segev]

I think the trade-off on the monk's dragon breath is supposed to be less damage over a wider area, since it's just 2d(MA) rather than anything that scales with stats and other add-ons. It does look like the wording is such that you can trade any attack you care to for the breath weapon, as long as you're taking an attack action (not just making an attack as a bonus action, reaction, etc.), so yes, you can burn three uses of it in one round pretty easily if you're flurrying.

The element shift at will is good for balance, but is annoying, I agree, when held up against the dragon sorcerer who is locked into an element.

[Ganryu]

I think the trade-off on the monk's dragon breath is supposed to be less damage over a wider area, since it's just 2d(MA) rather than anything that scales with stats and other add-ons. It does look like the wording is such that you can trade any attack you care to for the breath weapon, as long as you're taking an attack action (not just making an attack as a bonus action, reaction, etc.), so yes, you can burn three uses of it in one round pretty easily if you're flurrying.

The element shift at will is good for balance, but is annoying, I agree, when held up against the dragon sorcerer who is locked into an element.

I mean, it then goes to 3d(Ma), and then 4+d(MA). Replacing one attack. At first, its weaker than attacks, but then later gets stronger than what it replaces it. It probably means no replacing flurry of blows as I read it, but I'm still going to complain about it. Not only that, now you're spreading it out over multiple creatures, every turn.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I think the trade-off on the monk's dragon breath is supposed to be less damage over a wider area, since it's just 2d(MA) rather than anything that scales with stats and other add-ons. It does look like the wording is such that you can trade any attack you care to for the breath weapon, as long as you're taking an attack action (not just making an attack as a bonus action, reaction, etc.), so yes, you can burn three uses of it in one round pretty easily if you're flurrying.

The element shift at will is good for balance, but is annoying, I agree, when held up against the dragon sorcerer who is locked into an element.

Wait they aren’t locked into an element? With Aspect if the Wyrm every party will want one. A mass resist energy!

[Amechra]

C) The damage increase with a dragon's breath EVERY turn! I doesn't even really consume a resource, you get 2-6 free uses, and then it's just 1 ki point, for a decent cone size, and straight increase of damage. I'd be fine if it took an action, but as just one attack is a bit much.

This actually isn't necessarily true until around 11th level. If you're facing down a single creature, making a quarterstaff attack for 1d8+Dex is generally going to do more than forcing a Dex save for 2d6 damage (unless the creature happens to have a really high AC and a bad Dex save). It only starts to be a "straight" increase when it turns into 3d8 damage. The damage is a little higher than what other Monks can do, but that's an issue with most UA Monk subclasses - they keep trying to fix the way that Monk damage drops off in T3 by shoving damage features into subclasses instead of changing the chassis.

It's important to note that your allies can't use the reaction from Aspect of the Wyrm unless they get attacked. Unless your AoE happens to involve making attack rolls against everyone within the area of effect, that damage doesn't happen.

I do agree that you should have to pick one damage type and stick with it. That's really the only change I'd personally make to the subclass.

[stoutstien]

So... am I the only one who dislikes the monk intensely?
A) Causes an ungodly amount of rolls on your turn, slowing down the game
B) Compare it to draconic sorcerer, switching between damages of any dragon type seems unthematic. I feel you should pick one, and stick with it.
C) The damage increase with a dragon's breath EVERY turn! I doesn't even really consume a resource, you get 2-6 free uses, and then it's just 1 ki point, for a decent cone size, and straight increase of damage. I'd be fine if it took an action, but as just one attack is a bit much.
D) Aspect of the worm is insane. It's an 11th level ability, so I guess I could forgive it somewhat, but it lasts a whole combat, is basically free, is only a bonus action. Everyone gains a use of their reaction. Everyone. Everyone gets hit by an AoE? That's 4-6d10.
E) Now your breath sets things on fire. While that's funny, it's now 4d10 for an attack action again a host of creatures, and the repeated saving throws are going to slow down combat even more. And you'll be doing it every turn...

Yeah, I hate this thing.
The Drakewarden is fine, and I quite like it honestly.

It's really not that bad. The elemental switching is annoying but if they didn't have it everybody would just pick acid anyways. At low levels it would be really good at clearing low hp hordes but the damage is really quite low so unless you are targeting something with a super high AC and really bad dex saves normal blows will be better.

The reaction is nice but who won't have a good pool of reactions that out preform this by the time it comes online? It only works on attacks so it's unlikely everyone will get a use at once anyways. So in play the on tap 30 ft aura resistance is the best part.

*Ninja*

[Amechra]

I think the trade-off on the monk's dragon breath is supposed to be less damage over a wider area, since it's just 2d(MA) rather than anything that scales with stats and other add-ons. It does look like the wording is such that you can trade any attack you care to for the breath weapon, as long as you're taking an attack action (not just making an attack as a bonus action, reaction, etc.), so yes, you can burn three uses of it in one round pretty easily if you're flurrying.

The way it's worded explicitly limits you to replacing one attack per Attack action. If you want to burn multiple uses per turn, you'll need to use Action Surge or Haste to get extra Attack actions.

[stoutstien]

My gut instinct with this monk is to find a sweet spot to mix it with druid for a acid spiting bunny build.

[jaappleton]

I can certainly see limiting the dragon damage type as “When you finish a rest, pick one damage type from this list” as opposed to making it at will.

[Segev]

The way it's worded explicitly limits you to replacing one attack per Attack action. If you want to burn multiple uses per turn, you'll need to use Action Surge or Haste to get extra Attack actions.

I disagree with you that the wording restricts it. It says, "When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of the attacks with an exhalation of draconic energy," which, while I see where you're reading this as "only one attack," all it says is that what the price is is "one" attack.

I can't speak to the RAI, here, and wouldn't object to a rewording of it in the final printing that made it no more than one attack per attack action, but as written, it is definitely readable as, "you can replace one [or more] of the attacks with [a like number of] exhalation[s] of draconic energy." No, not saying it's meant to be read that way. Just pointing out that it is a valid reading as-written.

It certainly doesn't explicitly limit you to replacing only one attack per Attack action.

[Gignere]

So... am I the only one who dislikes the monk intensely?
A) Causes an ungodly amount of rolls on your turn, slowing down the game
B) Compare it to draconic sorcerer, switching between damages of any dragon type seems unthematic. I feel you should pick one, and stick with it.
C) The damage increase with a dragon's breath EVERY turn! I doesn't even really consume a resource, you get 2-6 free uses, and then it's just 1 ki point, for a decent cone size, and straight increase of damage. I'd be fine if it took an action, but as just one attack is a bit much.
D) Aspect of the worm is insane. It's an 11th level ability, so I guess I could forgive it somewhat, but it lasts a whole combat, is basically free, is only a bonus action. Everyone gains a use of their reaction. Everyone. Everyone gets hit by an AoE? That's 4-6d10.
E) Now your breath sets things on fire. While that's funny, it's now 4d10 for an attack action again a host of creatures, and the repeated saving throws are going to slow down combat even more. And you'll be doing it every turn...

Yeah, I hate this thing.
The Drakewarden is fine, and I quite like it honestly.

Yeah monk’s broken right now, I’d expect free uses will come down. Ki costs to go up and likely restricted to one dragon type.

[x3n0n]

So... am I the only one who dislikes the monk intensely?

A) Causes an ungodly amount of rolls on your turn, slowing down the game

D) Aspect of the worm is insane. It's an 11th level ability, so I guess I could forgive it somewhat, but it lasts a whole combat, is basically free, is only a bonus action. Everyone gains a use of their reaction. Everyone. Everyone gets hit by an AoE? That's 4-6d10.

E) Now your breath sets things on fire. While that's funny, it's now 4d10 for an attack action again a host of creatures, and the repeated saving throws are going to slow down combat even more. And you'll be doing it every turn...



Curious: do you have the same problem with "lots of rolls" with all AoE effects? This doesn't seem that much worse than (for example) Word of Radiance.

Others have already mentioned that the reaction granted by the aura only triggers on attacks. Given that, are you still as concerned? That just seems like a cool effect to me: "stop hitting my friends". Also circumvented by enemies focusing attacks on one ally, who only has one reaction to spend.

I am starting to be a little more concerned about the breath at lv11+. If the damage-maximizing choice is to always use it, even if you have a single target, that seems like the wrong balance point. 1d8+Dex with 0 on miss (that is, attack damage) sounds worse than 3d8 with half on save (breath damage). Granted, saving is usually easier than dodging, but that doesn't seem like enough to compensate.

[ironkid]

I alse quite liked the monk, and I would also limit them to one typo of energy.

... unless you're emulating Tiamat. In which case you'd roll a d6 each morning to see if you get ice, acid, poison lightning or fire (if you roll a 6 its your choice)

Also, I'd add radiant to the list in order to emulate Bahamut.


The ranger was.... OK.

[Amechra]

I disagree with you that the wording restricts it. It says, "When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of the attacks with an exhalation of draconic energy," which, while I see where you're reading this as "only one attack," all it says is that what the price is is "one" attack.

I can't speak to the RAI, here, and wouldn't object to a rewording of it in the final printing that made it no more than one attack per attack action, but as written, it is definitely readable as, "you can replace one [or more] of the attacks with [a like number of] exhalation[s] of draconic energy." No, not saying it's meant to be read that way. Just pointing out that it is a valid reading as-written.

It certainly doesn't explicitly limit you to replacing only one attack per Attack action.

That feels like a really weird reading, if I'm going to be completely honest.

Let's put this another way: this feature is roughly equivalent to someone handing you a plate with three apples on it and telling you that you can replace one apple with a cookie. Would you take that to mean "you can trade at most one apple for a cookie" or "you can trade any number of apples for an equal amount of cookies"?

EDIT: I'm actually legitimately interested in how you're interpreting this. Like, reading that interpretation made me realize that my dialect would use "one attack" to mean "at most one attack", while "an attack" would mean "any number of attacks, at this given exchange rate". I'm kinda curious about how general that is.

[Segev]

The ranger was.... OK.

The ranger feels like a second or third stab at making a beastmaster ranger, but with a more focused pet.

[stoutstien]

Curious: do you have the same problem with "lots of rolls" with all AoE effects? This doesn't seem that much worse than (for example) Word of Radiance.

Others have already mentioned that the reaction granted by the aura only triggers on attacks. Given that, are you still as concerned? That just seems like a cool effect to me: "stop hitting my friends". Also circumvented by enemies focusing attacks on one ally, who only has one reaction to spend.

I am starting to be a little more concerned about the breath at lv11+. If the damage-maximizing choice is to always use it, even if you have a single target, that seems like the wrong balance point. 1d8+Dex with 0 on miss (that is, attack damage) sounds worse than 3d8 with half on save (breath damage). Granted, saving is usually easier than dodging, but that doesn't seem like enough to compensate.

The unarmed strike could also be the opportune pick so that's a wash. As far as attack vs saves once we start talking about the big baddies AC tend to be much softer targets and advantage is easier to get on attacks.

It does open up the possibility for a wisdom focused Monk.

[Dork_Forge]

I don't the damage it that bad. Being able to pick your damage type gives it a little bit of an edge over fireball. I would love to have his option for the artillerist cannon (why there's not a damage type switching infusion I don't know) although cones are harder to place than fireball it's not a new issue. It's also not a spell so it can be combined with a bonus action spell in the same round.

The subclass already has tied up bonus action economy with the Drake, but my complaint was more that it just didn't seem like enough damage period to be the show stopping ability of an 11th level character (and looking at what 3rd level aoes do, it seems sub par, Lightning Bolt and Fireball are both 3rd level and both do 8d6).

[Kane0]

Okay, customary breakdown:

Ascendant Monk
Flavor: Yay, more dragons. Honestly I think this far into the life of this edition we can get a bit more adventurous.

Dragon Disciple: At will element changing is very tasty and potentially abusable with MC shenanigans, the language and Cha check rerolls are nice. Sort of odd the last bullet doesn't follow the 'free use then Ki for more' pattern of the other features
Dragon Breath: Straight up improvement over Dragonborn, which lets face it is a low benchmark. Replacing one attack and using MA die are very good fits, but PB instead of Wis Mod number of uses is a no thanks for me. Still, the free uses before Ki cost is lovely. There doesn't seem to be a 'once on your turn' wording here either, so you can breathe multiple times if you have the attacks to do so.
Wings Unfurled: Step of the Wind already carries a Ki cost, there is no need for this to also have a usage limitation or additional cost. Simply change to 'when you use Step of the Wind, gain wings until end of your turn'. SotW also doubles jump distance and in three levels you can run on walls/water so on-your-turn flight for 1 Ki isn't that OP (especially considering flying races).
Aspect of the Wyrm: Bonus action to use, large area and using you allies' reactions is nice, choosing element carries the same reason for pause as Dragon Disciple. Again nice to have a free use before needing Ki to power it.
Ascendant aspect: Blindsight is already spelled out in the MM, just use that. The second bullet point doesn't distinguish between targets that made their saves or not. Third bullet doesn't use MA die which breaks the trend up until now, and also doesn't need to be the same element as the actual aura which is weird.

Overall rather solid, only very minor tweaks needed.


Drakewarden Ranger
Flavor: See above.

Draconic Gift: Neat ribbons, no complaints.
Drake companion: Yet another improvement over the Beastmaster that still hasn't been directly addressed, despite the evident ability and desire to. I will not stop pointing this out.
At will element changing here as well, see above. Bonus action to command is better, but Rangers are already heavy on the bonus action usage. There's also a dissonance where your companion won't think for itself unless you're unconscious.
Bond of Fang and Scale: Good stuff, I would like to see the option of making your Drake medium sized instead of an additional movement mode for the second point. Infused strikes never scales which strikes me as odd because the bite does.
Drake's Breath: At will element changing as above, you or your drake doing it is a nice touch. The damage is a bit low for the level you get it and using your action, but at least the first one is free. I'd change it to short rest if the damage wasn't increased.
Perfected bond: Your drake can never be medium size, it goes straight from small to large (see my note on Bond of Fang and Scale). The other two bullets are fine if a bit boring.

This is infuriating. This subclass is a reworked beastmaster (and a perfectly good one, with only minor adjustments required) with a coat of dragon paint to differentiate it. Just. Rework. The. Beastmaster.

[stoutstien]

The subclass already has tied up bonus action economy with the Drake, but my complaint was more that it just didn't seem like enough damage period to be the show stopping ability of an 11th level character (and looking at what 3rd level aoes do, it seems sub par, Lightning Bolt and Fireball are both 3rd level and both do 8d6).

Both lightning bolt and fireball do more damage than any other spell for whatever reasons they decided.

could it be knocked up a little bit as far as the image is concerned sure wouldn't hurt it but it's the least of the problem with this whole subclass. It just seems very uninspired compared to the last few rangers we've seen.

[MaxWilson]

The subclass already has tied up bonus action economy with the Drake, but my complaint was more that it just didn't seem like enough damage period to be the show stopping ability of an 11th level character (and looking at what 3rd level aoes do, it seems sub par, Lightning Bolt and Fireball are both 3rd level and both do 8d6).

But 11th level Rangers don't normally have Fireball or Lightning Bolt. Normally they have Conjure Barrage for 3d8 (13.5) in a 60' cone (Dex save for half), in exchange for a 3rd level slot. Instead the Drake subclass gets 6d6 (21) in a 60' cone for FREE (plus one more per 3rd level slot), plus 1d6 piercing and 1d6+4 elemental damage (11) from the drake as a bonus action. At 15th level, that increases to 8d6 (28) plus 1d6 piercing and 2d6+5 elemental damage (15.5), for a grand total of 43.5 damage that doesn't even cost a spell slot unless you use it multiple times per long rest.

Is it amazingly good by Evoker standards? Nah. Is it pretty good by Ranger AoE standards? Yes. It's good enough to be worthy of consideration even compared to Conjure Animals (given that it doesn't take concentration so is more nova-able), and even if you dedicate all of your 3rd+ spell slots to Conjure Animals you still get a free Drake's Breath anyway.

You could play a Drakewarden all the way to level 20 and probably not feel bad about it.

[Kane0]

But 11th level Rangers don't normally have Fireball or Lightning Bolt. Normally they have Conjure Barrage for 3d8 (13.5) in a 60' cone (Dex save for half), in exchange for a 3rd level slot. Instead the Drake subclass gets 6d6 (21) in a 60' cone for FREE (plus one more per 3rd level slot), plus 1d6 piercing and 1d6+4 elemental damage (11) from the drake as a bonus action. At 15th level, that increases to 8d6 (28) plus 1d6 piercing and 2d6+5 elemental damage (15.5), for a grand total of 43.5 damage that doesn't even cost a spell slot unless you use it multiple times per long rest.

Is it amazingly good by Evoker standards? Nah. Is it pretty good by Ranger AoE standards? Yes. It's good enough to be worthy of consideration even compared to Conjure Animals (given that it doesn't take concentration so is more nova-able), and even if you dedicate all of your 3rd+ spell slots to Conjure Animals you still get a free Drake's Breath anyway.

You could play a Drakewarden all the way to level 20 and probably not feel bad about it.

You are correct and I agree, however Conjure Barrage is a poor spell and weakens your case. It would be like using Witch Bolt as your balancing point (well, you could use it as a what-not-to-do I suppose).

[stoutstien]

AFB but isn't 6d6 the suggested damage for a third level AOE spell based on the chart in the DMG?

[x3n0n]

The unarmed strike could also be the opportune pick so that's a wash. As far as attack vs saves once we start talking about the big baddies AC tend to be much softer targets and advantage is easier to get on attacks.

It does open up the possibility for a wisdom focused Monk.

Let's say you have +5 Dex and will hit them on a d20 of 9+ (55% to hit), and they save on a 9+ (60% to save)

(9 + 5) * .05 + (4.5 + 5) * .5 + 0 * .45 on an attack is 5.45 expected damage,
13.5 * .4 + 6.25 * .6 on a breath is 9.15.

Even if I move the percentages a bunch, it looks like it's always better to breathe, even with a single target (unless you're trying to stun).

Am I missing something?

Edit: just to clarify my concern, given the nearly-unbounded uses of the breath, it seems like a non-decision. If you don't need to stun this turn, you should definitely replace one of your attacks with a breath every single turn, starting at lv11; this is even more true at lv17.

[Makorel]

I would like to point out that if the stun works on an enemy then they auto-fail their Dex save against the Breath of the Dragon ability, while a standard attack is "merely" at advantage.

[stoutstien]

Let's say you have +5 Dex and will hit them on a d20 of 9+ (55% to hit), and they save on a 9+ (60% to save)

(9 + 5) * .05 + (4.5 + 5) * .5 + 0 * .45 on an attack is 5.45 expected damage,
13.5 * .4 + 6.25 * .6 on a breath is 9.15.

Even if I move the percentages a bunch, it looks like it's always better to breathe, even with a single target (unless you're trying to stun).

Am I missing something?

Edit: just to clarify my concern, given the nearly-unbounded uses of the breath, it seems like a non-decision. If you don't need to stun this turn, you should definitely replace one of your attacks with a breath every single turn, starting at lv11; this is even more true at lv17.

Sure if you want a steady damage output the AOE is going to win unless you have advantage on attacks, need to consider friendly fire, need to land SS, or are planning to face hordes so might want to conserve them. 3x prof is a lot but if you are using it 1-2 a turn that will bleed dry fast and while the ki cost is cheap it is the same as a SS or flurry attempt.

I'm not saying it's not a strong opinion but I don't see it making normal attacks obsolete.

[MrStabby]

So for me... nah, probably not playing either of these. Which is fine. Maybe.

Ranger is simple. I just don't like pets at the table. Not the worst thing ever but it was always going to struggle to be a favourite for me. So whilst what it gets is functionally fine, thematically it doesnt do anything for me. Its like I don't feel a badass for having a powerful magical weapon - I just feel rich. If I were to play one of these I wouldn't feel badass for having a dragon - I would just feel like someone with a badass friend.

The monk is a bit more painful as it scratches a lot of itches I have about the monk. Mainly, too many turns are pretty much the same and there is not enough decision making. Now... choice of damage, choice of attack or breath on your enemies, the shape of the area, where to stand for it to have the best effect. You get minor combos like stunning enemies so they fail saves against the breath attack...

The breath attack is good. It opens up options for when you have disadvantage or for when enemy AC is really high. And if you have advantage you just use your normal attacks.

I shouldn't really complain - if I listed my gripes with the monk this would pretty much be a decent solution to them. I just don't like that anything really cool on the class seems to mainly be damage. I mean flying speed is OK but it isn't as cool as the monk's shadowstep and within a few levels you could run over most of the obstacles anyway. There are a bundle of abilities on dragons that would have made really cool aditions and would have been a bit more fun than just a few more dice of damage. Wing buffets, dragon fear would both have been preferable. I could get that they think that there is a fear effect on a monk already so don't want to step on the toes of the Long Death monk were they not adopting as a major theme of the subclass Elemental Damage... which is correspondingly also a theme of an existing subclass.

Still, it seems like one monk that will actually play a little differently to most others, which is cool.

Most positively, I think the WotC has really refined their understanding/design philosophy. So much more of the content coming out is looking pretty fun (maybe not always balanced) but they do seem to be following better ideas.


One thing that this does that annoys me, in a tiny way. A really tiny way... is that it focusses on a creature type that is pretty well represented in classes. Well, there is already a draconic subclass. And yes we have aberation, beast, celestial, giant, fiendish and fey subclasses (if you include UA). Possibly construct if you allow clockwork soul to fit that space. Maybe elementals as well with 4 elements monk. I would love to fill in the gaps. So by this I mean monstrosities, plants and oozes. A UA for each of these with a few subclasses in would get my attention more from a thematic perspective than yet another Dragon product.

[Aett_Thorn]

Dragonlayer Bard


Ummmm...I don’t know where this Bard is getting their practice, but I don’t wanna watch.

[Segev]

Ummmm...I don’t know where this Bard is getting their practice, but I don’t wanna watch.

I mean, half-dragons come from somewhere....

[Ganryu]

Curious: do you have the same problem with "lots of rolls" with all AoE effects? This doesn't seem that much worse than (for example) Word of Radiance.

Others have already mentioned that the reaction granted by the aura only triggers on attacks. Given that, are you still as concerned? That just seems like a cool effect to me: "stop hitting my friends". Also circumvented by enemies focusing attacks on one ally, who only has one reaction to spend.

I am starting to be a little more concerned about the breath at lv11+. If the damage-maximizing choice is to always use it, even if you have a single target, that seems like the wrong balance point. 1d8+Dex with 0 on miss (that is, attack damage) sounds worse than 3d8 with half on save (breath damage). Granted, saving is usually easier than dodging, but that doesn't seem like enough to compensate.

I generally don't mind on a huge AoE. That's par for course. But a monk has so many saving throws they can do.

Stunning strike first hit
Breath second
Two more stunning strikes.

For one target, that's 7 rolls for one turn of combat. And you can repeat that for several rounds before burning out. And if you're switching targets or have alot of enemies, that's just plain alot of time the monk is wasting compared to anyone else.

[stoutstien]

I generally don't mind on a huge AoE. That's par for course. But a monk has so many saving throws they can do.

Stunning strike first hit
Breath second
Two more stunning strikes.

For one target, that's 7 rolls for one turn of combat. And you can repeat that for several rounds before burning out. And if you're switching targets or have alot of enemies, that's just plain alot of time the monk is wasting compared to anyone else.

I guess you don't have grapple focused players at your games.

There are plenty of classes/builds that can call for 4+ ST on a single target in a turn. I have a high level artificer artillerist that can commonly call for 5 a turn.

[Emongnome777]

Anyone else notice the "missing" bonus spells for the ranger? XGtE subclasses had them, as did the UA Swarmkeeper and Fey Wanderer subclasses (don't know if they survived to TCoE of course). Was kinda hoping TCoE class variant features would have bonus spells for Hunter and Beast Master, but this UA sans bonus spells does dampen that hope.

*EDIT* Yeah, they do get the never-before-happened cantrip, but that doesn't replace bonus spells IMO.

[Dork_Forge]

Both lightning bolt and fireball do more damage than any other spell for whatever reasons they decided.

could it be knocked up a little bit as far as the image is concerned sure wouldn't hurt it but it's the least of the problem with this whole subclass. It just seems very uninspired compared to the last few rangers we've seen.


But 11th level Rangers don't normally have Fireball or Lightning Bolt. Normally they have Conjure Barrage for 3d8 (13.5) in a 60' cone (Dex save for half), in exchange for a 3rd level slot. Instead the Drake subclass gets 6d6 (21) in a 60' cone for FREE (plus one more per 3rd level slot), plus 1d6 piercing and 1d6+4 elemental damage (11) from the drake as a bonus action. At 15th level, that increases to 8d6 (28) plus 1d6 piercing and 2d6+5 elemental damage (15.5), for a grand total of 43.5 damage that doesn't even cost a spell slot unless you use it multiple times per long rest.

Is it amazingly good by Evoker standards? Nah. Is it pretty good by Ranger AoE standards? Yes. It's good enough to be worthy of consideration even compared to Conjure Animals (given that it doesn't take concentration so is more nova-able), and even if you dedicate all of your 3rd+ spell slots to Conjure Animals you still get a free Drake's Breath anyway.

You could play a Drakewarden all the way to level 20 and probably not feel bad about it.

I suppose my point is this, they set out to give the Ranger a limited use AOE at 11th level that consumes their action, so that aoe should be an aoe worth doing at 11th level for an action. It's irrelevant whether or not the Ranger normally has those options, the designers are giving them one, so it should be competitive, especially as it will act as their tier 3 bump. (I also don't really consider the first one being 'free' as being balancing point here, it's a subclass ability, not a spell).

At 5th level 8d6 is very impressive (if not outright overtuned, but they set that precedent with two spells from day one), at 15th level (which is where it lines up with the Drake Warden) it's below par. At 11th level 6d6 is imo below par, why should give the Ranger a dedicated, thematic AOE if it isn't even keeping up with what Fullcasters were capable of 6 levels ago?

On the side note about the DMG guidelines:

6d6 seems like a perfectly reasonable amount of damage to make available to a 5th level character, however that table is for spell damage, this is the entirity of an 11th level feature. Just because it can be used again at the cost of your highest level resource, doesn't mean that they should just find 3rd level in the DMG table and copy paste the corresponding amount of dice.

[Sigreid]

Anyone else notice the "missing" bonus spells for the ranger? XGtE subclasses had them, as did the UA Swarmkeeper and Fey Wanderer subclasses (don't know if they survived to TCoE of course). Was kinda hoping TCoE class variant features would have bonus spells for Hunter and Beast Master, but this UA sans bonus spells does dampen that hope.

*EDIT* Yeah, they do get the never-before-happened cantrip, but that doesn't replace bonus spells IMO.

I think letting your pet eventually turn into a winged, flying large, mountable creature is a good trade for bonus spells. But that's just me.

[RogueJK]

6d6 seems like a perfectly reasonable amount of damage to make available to a 5th level character, however that table is for spell damage, this is the entirity of an 11th level feature. Just because it can be used again at the cost of your highest level resource, doesn't mean that they should just find 3rd level in the DMG table and copy paste the corresponding amount of dice.


Not to mention that Rangers and Paladin gets access to some 3rd/4th/5th level spells that are potentially "overpowered" for their spell level, because they're generally only going to be coming online in upper tiers. (Which is what makes them so tempting for Bards to snag with their Magical Secrets.)

So a Ranger's upper level spell slot can be "worth more" than a corresponding level Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric spell slot, if you want to think of it that way.

[Dork_Forge]

I think letting your pet eventually turn into a winged, flying large, mountable creature is a good trade for bonus spells. But that's just me.

That's great at level 15+ but doesn't do anything to replace bonus spells up until that point, they don't even throw in telepathy to use the Drake as a scout.

[stoutstien]

I suppose my point is this, they set out to give the Ranger a limited use AOE at 11th level that consumes their action, so that aoe should be an aoe worth doing at 11th level for an action. It's irrelevant whether or not the Ranger normally has those options, the designers are giving them one, so it should be competitive, especially as it will act as their tier 3 bump. (I also don't really consider the first one being 'free' as being balancing point here, it's a subclass ability, not a spell).

At 5th level 8d6 is very impressive (if not outright overtuned, but they set that precedent with two spells from day one), at 15th level (which is where it lines up with the Drake Warden) it's below par. At 11th level 6d6 is imo below par, why should give the Ranger a dedicated, thematic AOE if it isn't even keeping up with what Fullcasters were capable of 6 levels ago?

On the side note about the DMG guidelines:

6d6 seems like a perfectly reasonable amount of damage to make available to a 5th level character, however that table is for spell damage, this is the entirity of an 11th level feature. Just because it can be used again at the cost of your highest level resource, doesn't mean that they should just find 3rd level in the DMG table and copy paste the corresponding amount of dice.

I think it rather address it from the action economy angle. The breath attack could be added to the Drake it self so targeting, bonus action instead of an action, and frankly the Drake having it makes more sense.

[MaxWilson]

At 5th level 8d6 is very impressive (if not outright overtuned, but they set that precedent with two spells from day one), at 15th level (which is where it lines up with the Drake Warden) it's below par. At 11th level 6d6 is imo below par, why should give the Ranger a dedicated, thematic AOE if it isn't even keeping up with what Fullcasters were capable of 6 levels ago?

Maybe it would help if you talked about what 15th level fights look like at your table. For me, I say if your 15th level party is fighting 12 Star Spawn Grues, 2 Star Spawn Hulks, 3 Star Spawn Manglers, and a Star Spawn Seer, a 30' cone of 8d6 (28) lightning or acid damage (plus more individual damage on the Drake) is very worthwhile, especially compared to the alternative (shooting a couple of arrows for d8+15 (23) damage each). Sure, a wizard could add a Chain Lightning or something for 10d8 (45), but that's great because together (45 + 28 = 73 HP) you can potentially kill off multiple Star Spawn Manglers (71 HP) in one round instead of getting ripped to shreds by them! You can kill Manglers and Grues and maybe damage a Hulk! Even if only 1 fight in four or five looks like this, the Drake Warden is going to get value out of Drake's breath.

On the other hand, if every single one of your 15th level fights look like "Party fights Demogorgon in 4-on-1 combat" then I can see why you might find 8d6 of AoE underwhelming even if it's "free" once per long rest.

What do 15th level fights look like at your table?

[clash]

Tooth and Scale Barbarian
Dragonlayer Bard
Greed Domain Cleric
Circle of the apex (predator) Druid
Dragonslayer Fighter
Ascendant Dragon Monk
Oath of Awe Paladin
Drakewarden Ranger
Hoardlurker Rogue
Dragonblood Sorcerer
Wyrm Patron Warlock
Old Tongue Wizard

Is the bard idea supposed to be missing the 's' from slayer?

If so, well done.

[Dork_Forge]

I think it rather address it from the action economy angle. The breath attack could be added to the Drake it self so targeting, bonus action instead of an action, and frankly the Drake having it makes more sense.

Bonus action would be more appealing, but loading everyhting onto the Drake when it's a non permanent summon is a bad idea imo, the Ranger is already very dependent on it. In contrast the Artillerist still has Arcane Firearm if they don't have their turrets up.


Maybe it would help if you talked about what 15th level fights look like at your table. For me, I say if your 15th level party is fighting 12 Star Spawn Grues, 2 Star Spawn Hulks, 3 Star Spawn Manglers, and a Star Spawn Seer, a 30' cone of 8d6 (28) lightning or acid damage (plus more individual damage on the Drake) is very worthwhile, especially compared to the alternative (shooting a couple of arrows for d8+15 (23) damage each). Sure, a wizard could add a Chain Lightning or something for 10d8 (45), but that's great because together (45 + 28 = 73 HP) you can potentially kill off multiple Star Spawn Manglers (71 HP) in one round instead of getting ripped to shreds by them! You can kill Manglers and Grues and maybe damage a Hulk! Even if only 1 fight in four or five looks like this, the Drake Warden is going to get value out of Drake's breath.

On the other hand, if every single one of your 15th level fights look like "Party fights Demogorgon in 4-on-1 combat" then I can see why you might find 8d6 of AoE underwhelming even if it's "free" once per long rest.

What do 15th level fights look like at your table?

This seems entirely irrelevant, I'm not bashing it being an aoe, I'm bashing it being relatively low on the damage aspect for no other reason than it's a Ranger.

Why should the power level of an aoe be lower for a Ranger of 11th/15th level than that of a Wizard at 11th/15th level? If the abilities are tuned to be level relevant then they should be the same, an argument could be made for maybe knocking a die off for the flexibility of damage type the rbeath gets, but even then it's still far behind.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This seems entirely irrelevant, I'm not bashing it being an aoe, I'm bashing it being relatively low on the damage aspect for no other reason than it's a Ranger.

Why should the power level of an aoe be lower for a Ranger of 11th/15th level than that of a Wizard at 11th/15th level? If the abilities are tuned to be level relevant then they should be the same, an argument could be made for maybe knocking a die off for the flexibility of damage type the rbeath gets, but even then it's still far behind.

Because wizards are primary aoe damage dealers (and weaker on single target, unless specifically built for that) and rangers are not? Because if you're comparing to fireball, you're doing it wrong (fireball is out of band for historical reasons)? It's a better aoe than any other mostly-martial class has at that level. Comparing a wizard and a ranger in this aspect just doesn't make for a useful comparison.

[Dork_Forge]

Because wizards are primary aoe damage dealers (and weaker on single target, unless specifically built for that) and rangers are not? Because if you're comparing to fireball, you're doing it wrong (fireball is out of band for historical reasons)? It's a better aoe than any other mostly-martial class has at that level. Comparing a wizard and a ranger in this aspect just doesn't make for a useful comparison.

Both Fireball and Lightning Bolt deal 8d6, though the comparison is a shallow one as the Ranger ability isn't a spell. Wizards aren't primarily anything, they are entirely dependent on what spells they take and that should have zero bearing on what a damage benchmark for a certain level should look like.

You can substitute Wizard with whatever caster you would like, it's rather simple:

-If you're a full caster then getting an 8d6 aoe is acceptable at level 5/6

-For some reason when designing an aoe for a Ranger subclass the threshold for acceptable damage has moved and they should be happy with 8d6 at level 15.

There's no good reason for a dedicated aoe ability to fall behind a spell in this regard, it's all they get at 11th level. When it comes to an AOE damage effect, why shouldn't the entire game operate on the same standard?

[MaxWilson]

(A) This seems entirely irrelevant, I'm not bashing it being an aoe, I'm bashing it being relatively low on the damage aspect for no other reason than it's a Ranger. (B) (B) Why should the power level of an aoe be lower for a Ranger of 11th/15th level than that of a Wizard at 11th/15th level? If the abilities are tuned to be level relevant then they should be the same, an argument could be made for maybe knocking a die off for the flexibility of damage type the rbeath gets, but even then it's still far behind.

(A) Combat utility is irrelevant? You said it was "below par" and implied that it was worthless ("it isn't even keeping up with what Fullcasters were capable of 6 levels ago"). If you're not bashing it for being a "below par" 1/day AoE, what par are you bashing it for being below?

I mean, obviously it's above par for the monk in the very same UA, who gets only 3d8 damage for free instead of 6d6 like the Ranger, when the Ranger feature comes online at 11th level.

Do you agree that it's a useful feature and you object on some other grounds, or are you calling it useless the way I originally thought you were?

(B) Why should the power level be the same? In a class-based system, you pay extra for powers outside your niche. A 14th level Transmuter may have the ability to Raise Dead (Master Transmuter: Restore Life), but it costs him his Transmuter's Stone for the rest of the day, whereas a cleric could do it just by spending a 5th level spell slot, as many times as he has spell slots for. (Both casters need diamonds too.) The cleric is unambiguously better at healing. A Paladin has the ability to AoE with Destructive Wave at 17th level (10d6 damage), but it's less damage than the sorcerer was doing at 9th level with Cone of Cold: the sorcerer is better at AoE. A Fighter doesn't have the ability to one-hit-kill enemies at all, but if they did it would be worse than a monk's Quivering Palm.

The Drake Warden gets a 6d6 AoE at 11th level, rising to 8d6 at 15th, for a 3rd level spell slot. The Paladin doesn't get Destructive Wave for 10d6 until 17th level, and even then it costs a 5th level slot. Both Drake's Breath and Destructive Wave have damage types that are clearly better than Fireball or Lightning Bolt, and the Drake Warden gets a free usage per day. What would a feature look like that would not be worthy of complaint in your eyes? Does Drake Breath need to do damage competitive with 7th level spells (Prismatic Spray, 10d6ish)? Do you need the Ranger to be doing 7th level spell damage out of a 3rd level slot?


You can substitute Wizard with whatever caster you would like, it's rather simple:

-If you're a full caster then getting an 8d6 aoe is acceptable at level 5/6

-For some reason when designing an aoe for a Ranger subclass the threshold for acceptable damage has moved and they should be happy with 8d6 at level 15.

And the wizards at level 15 are doing 10d6ish too (or 10d8 from 8th level slots like Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, which is a bad use of an 8th level slot). Blasting spells scale poorly in 5E, unlike summoning spells, and that's why it's significant when a Ranger (or Elemonk) can add another 8d6 to the party's AoE total: 18d6 will kill the monsters almost twice as fast as 10d6.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Both Fireball and Lightning Bolt deal 8d6, though the comparison is a shallow one as the Ranger ability isn't a spell. Wizards aren't primarily anything, they are entirely dependent on what spells they take and that should have zero bearing on what a damage benchmark for a certain level should look like.

You can substitute Wizard with whatever caster you would like, it's rather simple:

-If you're a full caster then getting an 8d6 aoe is acceptable at level 5/6

-For some reason when designing an aoe for a Ranger subclass the threshold for acceptable damage has moved and they should be happy with 8d6 at level 15.

There's no good reason for a dedicated aoe ability to fall behind a spell in this regard, it's all they get at 11th level. When it comes to an AOE damage effect, why shouldn't the entire game operate on the same standard?

You're using fireball and lightning bolt as comparison points. Don't. The devs have specifically said that they are specifically out of the normal balance band for historical reasons. Using them as your touchpoint it like using PAM/GWM cheese builds as your minimum viable dpr standard.

6d6 is straight out of the book for a 3rd-level-spell-slot-equivalent ability (which is what this costs if you want to use it again). So yeah. I don't agree.

[Dork_Forge]

(A) Combat utility is irrelevant? You said it was "below par" and implied that it was worthless ("it isn't even keeping up with what Fullcasters were capable of 6 levels ago"). If you're not bashing it for being a "below par" 1/day AoE, what par are you bashing it for being below?

I'm saying that the damage is lack luster for the levels that it is introduced and the level that it scales at.


I mean, obviously it's above par for the monk in the very same UA, who gets only 3d8 damage for free instead of 6d6 like the Ranger, when the Ranger feature comes online at 11th level.

Just because they both are aoe damage doesn't mean they are the same, the Monk's just replaces a single attack and is at will, the Ranger's consumes an entire action and is limited use. The comparison doesn't serve any purpose here.


Do you agree that it's a useful feature and you object on some other grounds, or are you calling it useless the way I originally thought you were?

It's a useful feature, the damage is too low.


(B) Why should the power level be the same? In a class-based system, you pay extra for powers outside your niche. A 14th level Transmuter may have the ability to Raise Dead (Master Transmuter: Restore Life), but it costs him his Transmuter's Stone for the rest of the day, whereas a cleric could do it just by spending a 5th level spell slot, as many times as he has spell slots for. (Both casters need diamonds too.) The cleric is unambiguously better at healing. A Paladin has the ability to AoE with Destructive Wave at 17th level (10d6 damage), but it's less damage than the sorcerer was doing at 9th level with Cone of Cold: the sorcerer is better at AoE. A Fighter doesn't have the ability to one-hit-kill enemies at all, but if they did it would be worse than a monk's Quivering Palm.

...If a dragon breath themed aoe isn't within the niche of a dragon themed Ranger then what is it? Your comparison points also seem wonky to me as they're all options. A transmuter's stone does many things and provides various benefits, that it's less efficient at rising the dead is understandable. Destructive Wave is a single spell that the Paladin doesn't even need to prepare etc. Drake's breath is a dedicated ability, it does one thing: damage within an area of effect. Since it's both single purpose and mandatory (this is not an option, it's what you get at 11th level when everyone is getting their Tier 3 bumps) then it better be good at what it's doing. It is not.

This would be a different matter if they had given the option of other breath types, like a paralysing breath from a Silver Dragon or the weird breath a Faerie Dragon has, but they chose to make it nothing but damage, then made that damage meh for what level it is.



The Drake Warden gets a 6d6 AoE at 11th level, rising to 8d6 at 15th, for a 3rd level spell slot. The Paladin doesn't get Destructive Wave for 10d6 until 17th level, and even then it costs a 5th level slot. Both Drake's Breath and Destructive Wave have damage types that are clearly better than Fireball or Lightning Bolt, and the Drake Warden gets a free usage per day. What would a feature look like that would not be worthy of complaint in your eyes? Does Drake Breath need to do damage competitive with 7th level spells (Prismatic Spray, 10d6ish)? Do you need the Ranger to be doing 7th level spell damage out of a 3rd level slot?

A spell on a prepared caster (that in this game can be stolen by a Bard) and a dedicated use subclass feature do not need to strictly adhere to the same things. You're also taking this as 'a third level slot is a third level slot' when a 3rd level slot is a hell of a lot more valuable to the Ranger than it is to a full caster. If you compare slot value on that narrow basis then things get real funky when you start looking at the value Artificers get out a 1st level slot.

As for what I would change so that I didn't complain? Either up the damage or give it some utility via other breaths.


And the wizards at level 15 are doing 10d6ish too (or 10d8 from 8th level slots like Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, which is a bad use of an 8th level slot). Blasting spells scale poorly in 5E, unlike e.g. summoning spells, and that's why it's significant when a Ranger (or Elemonk) can add another 8d6 to the party's AoE total: 18d6 will kill the monsters almost twice as fast as 10d6.

Blasting doesn't need to scale poorly, but spells are a different kettle of fish. If you're building a blaster then you have subclass abilities that can enhance your blasting, just like the Draconic Sorc, Evoker, War Mage etc. If you tied it all into the spells then you reduce specialisation, which is a bad thing imo. Seeing as this is not a spell but a dedicated damage aoe ability, it shouldn't need to follow the same narrow path.


You're using fireball and lightning bolt as comparison points. Don't. The devs have specifically said that they are specifically out of the normal balance band for historical reasons. Using them as your touchpoint it like using PAM/GWM cheese builds as your minimum viable dpr standard.

6d6 is straight out of the book for a 3rd-level-spell-slot-equivalent ability (which is what this costs if you want to use it again). So yeah. I don't agree.

If you're getting hung up on the Fireball/Lightning Bolt comparison then just remove spell names. Is 6d6 adequate damage for an 11th level ability you are only going to use a few times a day if you're willing to spend your highest level resources on it? If you feel yes, in a vacuum that damage is adequate then we just differ in opinion. If you think that's adequate damage for a Ranger but not for a caster of the same level, then we differ on how the game should be balanced.

As already said by another poster, a 3rd level slot is not the same value to a Ranger. The ability is basically once a day then your highest level resource to repeat.

[x3n0n]

Sure if you want a steady damage output the AOE is going to win unless you have advantage on attacks, need to consider friendly fire, need to land SS, or are planning to face hordes so might want to conserve them. 3x prof is a lot but if you are using it 1-2 a turn that will bleed dry fast and while the ki cost is cheap it is the same as a SS or flurry attempt.

I'm not saying it's not a strong opinion but I don't see it making normal attacks obsolete.

I just think it's visibly tuned up too high. I know Sun Soul and Elemonk are too weak here (2 ki for a 1st level spell that eats your whole action), but "uses only half your action, you get multiple free per day, each after that costs 1 ki, and by lv11, each is closer to being upcast to 2nd level in effect, then a legitimate 2nd-level spell at lv17" seems too much of an improvement.

I think it will need to be less of a damage boost at lv11 or a higher resource cost: maybe 2 ki per use is strong enough, since the action economy is better than the existing options, especially since you get some free ones anyway? Then this Monk can still play in the 5MWD game, spamming the expensive high-damage option every round while also stunning and flurrying.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If you're getting hung up on the Fireball/Lightning Bolt comparison then just remove spell names. Is 6d6 adequate damage for an 11th level ability you are only going to use a few times a day if you're willing to spend your highest level resources on it? If you feel yes, in a vacuum that damage is adequate then we just differ in opinion. If you think that's adequate damage for a Ranger but not for a caster of the same level, then we differ on how the game should be balanced.

As already said by another poster, a 3rd level slot is not the same value to a Ranger. The ability is basically once a day then your highest level resource to repeat.

It gives me (as a ranger) a capability I basically didn't have at all at that point--dealing with hordes of creatures/aoe. And the damage is enough to pop most of the horde-type monsters at that level (unless your DM is only running CR ~ level solo/duo encounters, which kinda is the problem). So yes, it's a good thing. And it's substantially stronger than the relevant sub-class abilities. Plus, 1x/day for free is a pretty good thing.

Classes have niches. So what's balanced for one class, in that context, may not be for another. You cannot look at abilities in a vacuum. The only outcome of that is to homogenize everything and make classes meaningless. Everyone has their role to play, and no one is in competition with anyone else. Cross-niche abilities (like aoe on a martial) are always weaker than within-niche abilities (like aoe on a primary caster). Full-casters get what martials do not--the ability to meaningfully aoe at almost every level. On the flip side, martials get things that casters do not (by default)--durability, melee capability, and single-target damage.

Sure, you can build elaborate multiclass/full-optimized builds that alter those niches, but unless you do so, martials will always deal better at single-target damage and casters will always do better at aoe damage. That's baked into the cake, by design. If <class A> can do what <class B> can do just as well...and also do other things that <class B> can't do, that's imbalanced.

[PhantomSoul]

Comparing it to the power of a third-level slot seems fair because that's what it's said to be worth -- Rangers getting fewer slots is specifically because spells are expected to be less of a focus!

But for an alternative, instead of looking at what other classes with different designs get, looking at what other Ranger subclasses get:
- Hunter A (Volley): Make one regular ranged attack against any creatures in a 10-foot sphere (costing ammunition as normal). This costs your full Action. Unless you've got a lot to boost your damage, you aren't getting close to the same damage.
- Hunter B (Whirlwind Attack): Make one regular melee attack against any creatures within 5 feet of you. This costs your full Action. Again, without big boosts from something, this isn't huge.
- Beastmaster: Your beast companion can make two attacks when you command it to use the attack action (your beast is CR 1/4 or lower, but gets a boost equal to your proficiency bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls so... uh... still pretty likely to be feeble).
- Gloomstalker (Stalker's Fury): Once on your turn when you miss a weapon attack, you can retry. Value of 1 attack, and only on a miss.
- Horizon Walker (Distant Strike): Teleport up to 10 feet before each attack in the attack action, which is very cool. If you hit two different creatures, you can make one extra attack against a third creature (so net damage is +1 attack again).
- Monster Slayer (Magic-User's Nemesis): Once per short rest counterspell/counterteleport attempt (lost even if you fail to counter them).

After the comparison, the Drake's looking even better than expected, actually. And like the others, it has "cool" points.

[ByzantiumBhuka]

This UA seems to be trying to fulfill two goals:

1. Reworking the 4E monk and Beastmaster ranger, two of the least-liked classes in 5e. It’s done pretty well, though the Monk is a bit too powerful; they replaced a subclass that took up too much of the ki pool with a subclass that takes up too little. (But it’s OK because DRAGONS!)
2. This is paving the way for a Dragonlance adaptation. WotC did, after all, recently announce that they’d be adapting classic settings from previous editions to 5e...

[Segev]

This UA seems to be trying to fulfill two goals:

1. Reworking the 4E monk and Beastmaster ranger, two of the least-liked classes in 5e. It’s done pretty well, though the Monk is a bit too powerful; they replaced a subclass that took up too much of the ki pool with a subclass that takes up too little. (But it’s OK because DRAGONS!)
2. This is paving the way for a Dragonlance adaptation. WotC did, after all, recently announce that they’d be adapting classic settings from previous editions to 5e...

It fails at (1), if so, because the dragon theming is too tight for a proper replacement of those broader subclasses.

[Desteplo]

It fails at (1), if so, because the dragon theming is too tight for a proper replacement of those broader subclasses.

Way of 5 element!
-Flying beast master!
-they’re mechanics. Bend theme to your will! It’s like casting grease spell... what’s to say you aren’t summoning a giant snake to leave a trail

[Segev]

Way of 5 element!
-Flying beast master!
-they’re mechanics. Bend theme to your will! It’s like casting grease spell... what’s to say you aren’t summoning a giant snake to leave a trail

Of course you can refluff things. But that doesn’t change the primary presentation. And the dragon theming is not merely cosmetic. The refluffs will be just slightly “off” without some minor adjustments.

Also, while the Beastmaster Ranger is in need of reworking to fix it, the four elements monk could be fixed by simply adding more elemental techniques to pick from that are more well-balanced.

[Spiritchaser]

Looks like the monk would be very effective in white room discussions about how to tackle an “immune to normal weapons” monster in an antimagic field.

Also: blindsight needs to be better defined in general, but it also needs to be consistently defined. Clear definition of exactly what All the blindsight mechanisms are and what each creature has needs to be in the phb and monster manual. Don’t elaborate on the base definition here. Possibly restrict or modify.

This is a major problem that isn’t at all fair to blame on this UA, but this UA certainly makes it relevant.

[stoutstien]

I just think it's visibly tuned up too high. I know Sun Soul and Elemonk are too weak here (2 ki for a 1st level spell that eats your whole action), but "uses only half your action, you get multiple free per day, each after that costs 1 ki, and by lv11, each is closer to being upcast to 2nd level in effect, then a legitimate 2nd-level spell at lv17" seems too much of an improvement.

I think it will need to be less of a damage boost at lv11 or a higher resource cost: maybe 2 ki per use is strong enough, since the action economy is better than the existing options, especially since you get some free ones anyway? Then this Monk can still play in the 5MWD game, spamming the expensive high-damage option every round while also stunning and flurrying.

I guess I don't mind of its a tad strong. Monks are not in a position to runaway with the silverware anytime soon. If anything we need more monk options that don't immediately start draining ki right off the bat.

[Amnestic]

I guess I don't mind of its a tad strong. Monks are not in a position to runaway with the silverware anytime soon. If anything we need more monk options that don't immediately start draining ki right off the bat.

Also, generally, it's easier to tweak down than tweak up so erring on the side of strong for UA makes sense.

[Mikal]

I generally don't mind on a huge AoE. That's par for course. But a monk has so many saving throws they can do.

Stunning strike first hit
Breath second
Two more stunning strikes.

For one target, that's 7 rolls for one turn of combat. And you can repeat that for several rounds before burning out. And if you're switching targets or have alot of enemies, that's just plain alot of time the monk is wasting compared to anyone else.

And a spell caster using fireball can potentially call for 10 rolls in a turn. Are you seriously complaining because of this? Geez..

[stoutstien]

Also, generally, it's easier to tweak down than tweak up so erring on the side of strong for UA makes sense.

Aye. If anything I would slim down the 3x prof to just 2 or maybe wisdom mod per day because I dislike key features based on proficiency.

[Unoriginal]

Now the question is: why put an UA out so close to the Tasha's publication?

[Mikal]

Now the question is: why put an UA out so close to the Tasha's publication?

To prepare for the next book(s)....?

[stoutstien]

Now the question is: why put an UA out so close to the Tasha's publication?

I wonder if it has anything to do with the recently canceled book deal involving the dragonlance setting. I could see them rushing out of DL book with some potential royalties attached to try to wrap that up.

[EggKookoo]

I wonder if it has anything to do with the recently canceled book deal involving the dragonlance setting. I could see them rushing out of DL book with some potential royalties attached to try to wrap that up.

Is it a given that canceling the novel series with H&W means a Dragonlance sourcebook is also canceled?

[x3n0n]

Also, generally, it's easier to tweak down than tweak up so erring on the side of strong for UA makes sense.

Aye. If anything I would slim down the 3x prof to just 2 or maybe wisdom mod per day because I dislike key features based on proficiency.

Having slept on this, the breath is not as crazy as I thought: in a single-target world, the lv11 breath is on par with the extra damage of a Flurry, or maybe a little lower, so it's kind of like having the ability to Flurry twice in a turn, at the cost of 1 ki each. That gives this subclass a "natural" damage bump heading into tier 3, where the Monk really needs one.

(On scaling, put your comments in the survey! I think they've decided that character level and proficiency bonus are the right "default" scaling mechanism, and only feedback to the contrary will change their minds.)

Edit: what do you mean by "3x prof"? It looks like we get 1x prof free uses per day.

In tier 4, it's fine for it to be "OP". The key compares are pretty insane anyway. (That said, I think the flavor is better if the delayed damage only triggers if they fail the initial save.)


Now the question is: why put an UA out so close to the Tasha's publication?

To prepare for the next book(s)....?

Agreed. I think that the "spooky" subclasses (Spirits Bard and Undead patron) probably aren't in TCoE either, and that both of these UA batches are (were?) intended for 2021 setting books. Dragonlance would have been natural for these, but now who knows?

[Aett_Thorn]

Is it a given that canceling the novel series with H&W means a Dragonlance sourcebook is also canceled?

Doubtful. The two probably aren't strictly tied together, though they may have really wanted the two to come out at roughly the same time.

[jaappleton]

Can you change the elemental type of Drake whenever it’s summoned?

[x3n0n]

Can you change the elemental type of Drake whenever it’s summoned?

As written, it looks like it: "When you summon the drake, choose a damage type listed in its Draconic Essence trait."

[Unoriginal]

Can you change the elemental type of Drake whenever it’s summoned?

Yep. At least that's how I read it.

Can also choose between flying and swimming whenever it's summoned, once you reach the level for it.

[nickl_2000]

Because Dragonwarden screamed for it in my mind, here is a Heroforge colored PC link https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D11291202/


https://imgur.com/uC7KWWB.png


https://i.imgur.com/D9lX6BG.png

[Dork_Forge]

It gives me (as a ranger) a capability I basically didn't have at all at that point--dealing with hordes of creatures/aoe. And the damage is enough to pop most of the horde-type monsters at that level (unless your DM is only running CR ~ level solo/duo encounters, which kinda is the problem). So yes, it's a good thing.

I'm not sure where this notion of Rangers being incapable of aoe/dealing with mooks comes from, here's all of the spells on the Ranger list that strictly are aoe damage in nature:

-Hail of Thorns
-Conjure Barrage
-Lightning Arrow
-Conjure Volley
-Steel Wind Strike

Special mention to Spike Growth here as it's not strictly aoe damage, but it's pretty close if you get it off early enough. A summary of subclass abilities that fall into the multiple enemy camp are also included by PhantomSoul, quoted below.

The Ranger has been capable of AOE and dealing with mooks since release, they're certainly not the best in the game at it, but they definitely do have options for it.


And it's substantially stronger than the relevant sub-class abilities. Plus, 1x/day for free is a pretty good thing.

This free thing is bugging me as well, it's not a spell, it's a subclass ability. It's not 'free,' that makes the assumption that these abilities have a spell slot cost normally, they don't, in fact most of the Ranger subclass abilities are at will or limited per rest. The free argument makes it sound like you should be grateful you get it the first time without burning a slot, which is just bizarre.


Classes have niches. So what's balanced for one class, in that context, may not be for another. You cannot look at abilities in a vacuum. The only outcome of that is to homogenize everything and make classes meaningless. Everyone has their role to play, and no one is in competition with anyone else. Cross-niche abilities (like aoe on a martial) are always weaker than within-niche abilities (like aoe on a primary caster). Full-casters get what martials do not--the ability to meaningfully aoe at almost every level. On the flip side, martials get things that casters do not (by default)--durability, melee capability, and single-target damage.

Even if we take as a given that this ability must be inherently worse than a spell of 6th level (which I think is wrong, full casters aren't uniformly good at aoe, there's subclasses that enhance spells to make them good at it), the question then becomes how much worse? You don't like the Fireball comparison, but the closest thing we have to compare to right now is the 4e Monk, who at 11th level can cast Fireball for 8d6. And they can cast it a lot in a given day.

We can even look at the Sun Soul, Searing Sunburst fills a different design space: It's crazy long range and at will with a better damage type, but you can choose to enhance it with ki and at the level you gain it you can max it out 3 times per short rest for, you guessed it! 8d6




Sure, you can build elaborate multiclass/full-optimized builds that alter those niches, but unless you do so, martials will always deal better at single-target damage and casters will always do better at aoe damage. That's baked into the cake, by design. If <class A> can do what <class B> can do just as well...and also do other things that <class B> can't do, that's imbalanced.

That ^ is fine and dandy in a discussion about classes, subclasses shift the niche/open up new niches to the class. I'm also going to throw out there that no class has a niche of aoe damage, there are subclasses that support that as a niche, but no classes do outright.






Comparing it to the power of a third-level slot seems fair because that's what it's said to be worth -- Rangers getting fewer slots is specifically because spells are expected to be less of a focus!

Less of a focus in combat sure, but the design explicitly leans on spells for things that should have really been class features, like Hunter's Mark. Although this isn't about spells, it's about a class ability. In that context "use a spell slot of 3rd or higher" basically just translates into "your more expenisve resource" and imo should be treated like that. I'll again point to the Artificer, the value of spells slots varies wildly when you use them to fuel class/subclass abilities.


But for an alternative, instead of looking at what other classes with different designs get, looking at what other Ranger subclasses get:
- Hunter A (Volley): Make one regular ranged attack against any creatures in a 10-foot sphere (costing ammunition as normal). This costs your full Action. Unless you've got a lot to boost your damage, you aren't getting close to the same damage.
This is at will, why would this be competitive? It also stacks with Hunter's Mark (against one target), Hail of Thorns, Dex bumps and magic weapons.
- Hunter B (Whirlwind Attack): Make one regular melee attack against any creatures within 5 feet of you. This costs your full Action. Again, without big boosts from something, this isn't huge.
Again at will. Wouldn't these Hunter abilities also combine with the 3rd level ones to varying degrees for feature synergy?
- Beastmaster: Your beast companion can make two attacks when you command it to use the attack action (your beast is CR 1/4 or lower, but gets a boost equal to your proficiency bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls so... uh... still pretty likely to be feeble).
The Beast Master is iffy at best, though another way to look at his is that a TWF beast master is now putting out 4 attacks a turn, also at will
- Gloomstalker (Stalker's Fury): Once on your turn when you miss a weapon attack, you can retry. Value of 1 attack, and only on a miss.
Makes damage more reliable, especially on SharpShooter builds, also at will
- Horizon Walker (Distant Strike): Teleport up to 10 feet before each attack in the attack action, which is very cool. If you hit two different creatures, you can make one extra attack against a third creature (so net damage is +1 attack again).
Net damage is one attack, but the value of the ability is also in the teleportation. At will.
- Monster Slayer (Magic-User's Nemesis): Once per short rest counterspell/counterteleport attempt (lost even if you fail to counter them).
Basically a Counter Spell + in a lot of ways, limited yes but completely different kind of ability and arguably better than CS in a lot of ways
After the comparison, the Drake's looking even better than expected, actually. And like the others, it has "cool" points.

I think this is a flawed comparison and I've added my thoughts to the quote in bold.

The balance of an at will ability is going to be well below that of a limited or resource based ability every time, this does highlight that dealing with mooks isn't something new to the Ranger though.

[Unoriginal]

Because Dragonwarden screamed for it in my mind, here is a Heroforge colored PC link https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D11291202/


https://imgur.com/uC7KWWB.png


https://i.imgur.com/D9lX6BG.png

Pretty damn awesome!

Looks like a hero whose adventures I'd read/watch.

[stoutstien]

Having slept on this, the breath is not as crazy as I thought: in a single-target world, the lv11 breath is on par with the extra damage of a Flurry, or maybe a little lower, so it's kind of like having the ability to Flurry twice in a turn, at the cost of 1 ki each. That gives this subclass a "natural" damage bump heading into tier 3, where the Monk really needs one.

(On scaling, put your comments in the survey! I think they've decided that character level and proficiency bonus are the right "default" scaling mechanism, and only feedback to the contrary will change their minds.)

Edit: what do you mean by "3x prof"? It looks like we get 1x prof free uses per day.

In tier 4, it's fine for it to be "OP". The key compares are pretty insane anyway. (That said, I think the flavor is better if the delayed damage only triggers if they fail the initial save.)




Agreed. I think that the "spooky" subclasses (Spirits Bard and Undead patron) probably aren't in TCoE either, and that both of these UA batches are (were?) intended for 2021 setting books. Dragonlance would have been natural for these, but now who knows?

Disregard my fat finger typing. Was trying to imply 3 as the middle ground of free charges from 1-20 and that could probably be cut down to just wis mod so they could get a few more Early in the game but it caps lower as well.

[x3n0n]

Disregard my fat finger typing. Was trying to imply 3 as the middle ground of free charges from 1-20 and that could probably be cut down to just wish mod so they could get a few more Early in the game but it caps lower as well.

Ah, ok--that makes sense.


Unrelated: What do people think about the lv6 flight? It's come up a few times in the discussion. It seems like it may look better than it plays, given that
* it only lasts for your turn, not the round,
* Unarmored Movement Improvement (wall- and water-running) is coming at lv9, and
* Step of the Wind already doubles your jump distance.

Maybe that's fine, since it's still a way to attack outdoor flyers?
Also, do you provoke an opportunity attack when you (Slow-)fall at the end of your turn if you used Step of the Wind to Dash? (I assume so.)

[EggKookoo]

Pretty damn awesome!

Looks like a hero whose adventures I'd read/watch.

Side note: Someone should start a HeroForge showcase thread.

[Amechra]

Unrelated: What do people think about the lv6 flight? It's come up a few times in the discussion. It seems like it may look better than it plays, given that
* it only lasts for your turn, not the round,
* Unarmored Movement Improvement (wall- and water-running) is coming at lv9, and
* Step of the Wind already doubles your jump distance.

Maybe that's fine, since it's still a way to attack outdoor flyers?
Also, do you provoke an opportunity attack when you (Slow-)fall at the end of your turn if you used Step of the Wind to Dash? (I assume so.)

Sometimes you have to fight enemies on a featureless plane!

In all seriousness, though, I feel like it'll be more useful outside of combat - a Wood Elf Monk could use it to fly to any point within 100' at 6th level, which could be useful for reaching stuff like floating islands or skipping over buildings in a rooftop chase.

Also, you do not provoke an opportunity attack - there's a specific exception for falling through people's reach in the rules for opportunity attacks.

[Dork_Forge]

Ah, ok--that makes sense.


Unrelated: What do people think about the lv6 flight? It's come up a few times in the discussion. It seems like it may look better than it plays, given that
* it only lasts for your turn, not the round,
* Unarmored Movement Improvement (wall- and water-running) is coming at lv9, and
* Step of the Wind already doubles your jump distance.

Maybe that's fine, since it's still a way to attack outdoor flyers?
Also, do you provoke an opportunity attack when you (Slow-)fall at the end of your turn if you used Step of the Wind to Dash? (I assume so.)

Not if you grapple and bring them down with you (size permitting of course).

[nickl_2000]

Side note: Someone should start a HeroForge showcase thread.

Done and done.

[Joe the Rat]

My coppers:

Overall, I like. tight theming, useful abilities, and they continue to refine the Beast Buddy system.

Tying dragon tricks to martial arts dies is a clever way to add scaling. I think the breath weapon ought to be 2ki after free uses are up - it just seems a little to... cheap at 1.

The Drake - The stats look more in line with a Medium sized beast (since there are few small creatures with a 16 strength in the books). Either that was an error, or they forgot to add "is medium sized" at one of the intermediate levels.

[stoutstien]

Ah, ok--that makes sense.


Unrelated: What do people think about the lv6 flight? It's come up a few times in the discussion. It seems like it may look better than it plays, given that
* it only lasts for your turn, not the round,
* Unarmored Movement Improvement (wall- and water-running) is coming at lv9, and
* Step of the Wind already doubles your jump distance.

Maybe that's fine, since it's still a way to attack outdoor flyers?
Also, do you provoke an opportunity attack when you (Slow-)fall at the end of your turn if you used Step of the Wind to Dash? (I assume so.)

It seem like a nice way to get a good angle for the AOE attack. The monk can strafe over enemies and land in good position but it mostly redundant on the base monk mobility.

[Scarytincan]

I like the option for monk to grapple then fly straight up.

For the ranger, I feel like there should be a medium size at some point in there before large. I'm sure they're trying to avoid everyone wanting to take small races with this to fly sooner, but jumping from small to large all at once seems... jarring...

[Scarytincan]

Red dragon pet for githyanki ranger could be fun

[jaappleton]

So, if I made a Tortle Dragon Monk

Specializing in Cold

....did I make Blastoise?

[Tvtyrant]

So, if I made a Tortle Dragon Monk

Specializing in Cold

....did I make Blastoise?

Amazing!

I'm playing a Ninja Turtle of the Long Death right now, and I really want to switch subclasses to Dragon Monk. I have too much invested in the current setup, maybe in a year or two.

[stoutstien]

So, if I made a Tortle Dragon Monk

Specializing in Cold

....did I make Blastoise?

Bowser or better yet, gamera who had breath attacks, solid Melee power and spinning flight.

[jaappleton]

Bowser or better yet, gamera who had breath attacks, solid Melee power and spinning flight.

Dang it, I should've gone with Bowser.

Always felt he'd be more Strength based, though. Ah, whatever, its still a great concept!

Can tortles have hair, though?

[Segev]

Dang it, I should've gone with Bowser.

Always felt he'd be more Strength based, though. Ah, whatever, its still a great concept!

Can tortles have hair, though?

Maybe Bowser is a member of Hair Club for Koopas?

[Ganryu]

And a spell caster using fireball can potentially call for 10 rolls in a turn. Are you seriously complaining because of this? Geez..

No need to be an ass. A wizard gets one action, and generally don't use their BA. Everyone is going to making the same saving throw, it rolls pretty quick in most combats. Don't have to decide the type of throw, movement, positioning, what to change if it goes off, etc. It doesn't take much time if the wizard is halfway competent. There are a few things like Prismatic spray, but here's my point, they get very few of those. The monk can be doing this EVERY turn! It slows down combat. I DM, yes this is annoying. And it was a minimum of 7 throws, AoE, you can get more.

As for the person making the 'grappling' argument, yes, that does slow down combat, but with grappling you don't have to see if you hit, THEN roll.

My entire point is at least in my experience, this is annoying in addition to being overtuned.

[stoutstien]

Dang it, I should've gone with Bowser.

Always felt he'd be more Strength based, though. Ah, whatever, its still a great concept!

Can tortles have hair, though?

Tortle are solid picks for str based monks. Can nab a 16 in str/wis or 17/15 if you don't mind having a slower start. and have nat armor so the dex starting at 12 won't hurt.

[Joe the Rat]

Dang it, I should've gone with Bowser.

Always felt he'd be more Strength based, though. Ah, whatever, its still a great concept!

Can tortles have hair, though?
Coincidentally, my current game has a Tortle bard with (apparently natural) pink hair. She's also silvery, so there's a whole host of weird going on there.

Bowser, Gamera, Blastoise, Torkoal... there's probably a passable Dragon Turtle take.


Lizardfolk is also a good play here. Get you some death breath and go stomp on a gnome village.

[Tvtyrant]

No need to be an ass. A wizard gets one action, and generally don't use their BA. Everyone is going to making the same saving throw, it rolls pretty quick in most combats. Don't have to decide the type of throw, movement, positioning, what to change if it goes off, etc. It doesn't take much time if the wizard is halfway competent. There are a few things like Prismatic spray, but here's my point, they get very few of those. The monk can be doing this EVERY turn! It slows down combat. I DM, yes this is annoying. And it was a minimum of 7 throws, AoE, you can get more.

As for the person making the 'grappling' argument, yes, that does slow down combat, but with grappling you don't have to see if you hit, THEN roll.

My entire point is at least in my experience, this is annoying in addition to being overtuned.

In my experience 90% of the time in combat is taken up by people who don't pay attention on other people's turns and don't know what their sheets say. So they are always fumbling for the right numbers, take several minutes to take actions, etc. My turns rarely take more than a minute because I know exactly what I am going to do, and rolls only take a few seconds. Adding more rolls adds what tens seconds to the game?

[PhoenixPhyre]

In my experience 90% of the time in combat is taken up by people who don't pay attention on other people's turns and don't know what their sheets say. So they are always fumbling for the right numbers, take several minutes to take actions, etc. My turns rarely take more than a minute because I know exactly what I am going to do, and rolls only take a few seconds. Adding more rolls adds what tens seconds to the game?

Yeah. Not paying attention > looking things up > figuring out what to do >>>>> actually rolling. Unless you're rolling 10d10 with only a single d10 or something.

[KorvinStarmast]

Is it a given that canceling the novel series with H&W means a Dragonlance sourcebook is also canceled? Unclear, and yet I hope so. (Apologies to all DL fans, I just don't want to see DL again ...)
Red dragon pet for githyanki ranger could be fun Oh, yeah. The trick is to survive to level 15 and then to have the actual game last that long.

In my experience 90% of the time in combat is taken up by people who don't pay attention on other people's turns and don't know what their sheets say. So they are always fumbling for the right numbers, take several minutes to take actions. Yep.
Yeah. Not paying attention > looking things up > figuring out what to do >>>>> actually rolling. Unless you're rolling 10d10 with only a single d10 or something. Wait, people only have one d10? What???? :smalleek:

[Teaguethebean]

So... am I the only one who dislikes the monk intensely?
A) Causes an ungodly amount of rolls on your turn, slowing down the game
B) Compare it to draconic sorcerer, switching between damages of any dragon type seems unthematic. I feel you should pick one, and stick with it.
C) The damage increase with a dragon's breath EVERY turn! I doesn't even really consume a resource, you get 2-6 free uses, and then it's just 1 ki point, for a decent cone size, and straight increase of damage. I'd be fine if it took an action, but as just one attack is a bit much.
D) Aspect of the worm is insane. It's an 11th level ability, so I guess I could forgive it somewhat, but it lasts a whole combat, is basically free, is only a bonus action. Everyone gains a use of their reaction. Everyone. Everyone gets hit by an AoE? That's 4-6d10.
E) Now your breath sets things on fire. While that's funny, it's now 4d10 for an attack action again a host of creatures, and the repeated saving throws are going to slow down combat even more. And you'll be doing it every turn...


A) Really that's only a problem with new players a half experienced monk will just roll 2 attacks at a time in most cases.
B) The monk isn't infused with dragon powers it taps into them, so they have more general dragon abilities.
C) It isn't a large increase unless you consistently can target multiple people with poor saves. Hell before you get a d8 martial arts die a normal attack does more damage against 1 target being 1d8+3/4 vs 2d4/2d6.
D) It is one free use and then takes 4 ki, admittedly yes it is very strong but monk isn't necessarily a class that will get crazy strong from one good feature.
E) That's fair, I cannot really argue there.

[Teaguethebean]

Because Dragonwarden screamed for it in my mind, here is a Heroforge colored PC link

You Inspired me, but the subclass that captivated me was the monk.

https://imgur.com/qBtQ04Ahttps://imgur.com/QFz1hj4
https://imgur.com/qBtQ04A

[Nidgit]

I like the Monk a lot. Most of it seems fine to me, but my reading of the 17th level ability suggests that you can stack a MA die of each damage type of you cast a different element breath each turn. Probably not the way it's meant to be used, and it's a fairly niche case where that damage is lasting that many turns.

The one other thing that catches my eye is the 6th level ability. The direct comparison is the Shadow Monk ability, which is more limited in its application but is free, unlimited, can't provoke opportunity attacks, and grants advantage. That reads as better and more fun than this. If it's going to remain limited like this, I would give you a neat dash-through effect where any enemies within 5 ft of where you move takes 1 MA of elemental damage. But it's not a terribly big problem since the rest of the Monk is so good.

The Drakewarden looks great at higher levels (finally) but underwhelming at low levels. A bonus action to deal a normal attack's worth of damage clashes with the Ranger's already extant bonus action economy problems without really providing an upgrade, and the 1d6 reaction damage is neat if it only didn't compete with opportunity attacks. It's only about as good as a durable familiar until 11th level, aside from a single resistance. I'd love to see more abilities, particularly at low level, that involve you deriving benefits from your drake beyond simple resistances.

Also, make the breath smite a bonus action to order your drake to do it. Make it an action only if it's you casting it.

[Chaosmancer]

Posting my thoughts from another forum

I find myself agreeing with Leatherhead and Acerak about quite a few of the details about these classes. To get it out of the way, both classes are swimming in flavor, and flavor-wise I want them right now.

Mechanics.....

I think it is important to note that the main power of the Monk 3rd level is coming from that Breath of the Dragon. The ability to "for free" turn one of your attacks (let us say at 5th level a 1d8+4) into an AOE of 2d6? That is not bad. One thing I am curious about is on the potential to burn two uses to use it twice in the same turn. I don't think it would be too broken, but is would lay down some wide hurt.

Compared to that the elemental damage, draconic and re-roll are just sort of ribbons. Though I think I would have their monk weapons be able to deal the damage by 6th level.

Wings Unfurled? Yeah, just improve Step of the Wind to give it flight. In practice, that is what is going to happen, since needing flight more than three times a day is going to be rare. Honestly, I'd almost want to add something else here, but I can resist.

The aura is... thematically neat, but mechanically too weak. Most of my allies likely won't want to use their reaction, plus it only works if they get hit in melee or very close range, because the attacker has to be in the aura as well. Too easy for archers or even melee people who are 30 ft away from you to circumvent this, even if your ally is willing to use their reaction, and even if 1d8 was worth it.

Though, counter-point, group wide resistance to a common element is potentially very powerful. Everyone in 30 ft getting cold or fire resistance can turn a fight by itself. So maybe it is best to think of this as a buff spell, with a minor counter.

The ascendant Aspect.... I feel it is lacking. Sure, blindsight is fun, but everything else is just adding improvements to what you can already do. Now, granted, those are some nice improvements. Your AOE doing "burn" damage every turn to everything? Not bad, especially if you can use it twice and stack those, that could be very devastating. But the 4d10 from the daily aura is a little less impressive, especially since if you are using it for the resistance, at those levels most things dealing elemental damage are resistant or immune to it, making that a real hard set of damage to land.

Though, countering myself again, it doesn't say it has to be the same damage. So, you could set fire resistance and deal cold damage.



And now... the Dracowarden

Man I want to love these mechanics more.

The gift is a ribbon, and a decent on. The lack of spells hurts a lot. But the companion is just kind of bad.

First off, lasting only two hours is a severe limitation. You are going to end up spending at least one spell slot to get it back. Then, it lacks flight to start with, so it is basically just a scaley cat in terms of infiltration or utility. No stealth bonus, so that is going to be hard to do. So, this is purely combat pet, and it doesn't stack up.

First turn, (if not pre-summoned) is summon and bonus action have it attack for 1d6+2.
If it is already summoned then you can attack for, let's say 1d8+3+1d6+2 which is 13? Let's be kind, and say that you get that extra 1d6 from infusing the essence into an attack. So, 16.5.

Dual Wielding alone gets us 2d6+6 which is 13. If I am a hunter ranger I could get colussus slayer for 1d8 extra, bringing me to 17.5. If I could spend a spell slot and get hunter's mark, then by round two I've got 4d6+1d8+6 for 24.5.

And the Familiar never catches up in my opinion.

And like was said, everything in this subclass relies on your familiar being out, and it's hp is decent, starting at 20 and increasing by 5 every level isn't something to scoff at, but the AC isn't great. mediocre really.

And, let's look at the absolute best thing the Drake can do in combat. At 15th level you can use your bonus action to command it to attack for 3d6 damage. That is the max, at 17.5. While, Dual-wielding as a Hunter can get you 2d8+5 which is 14... by as early as 4th level if you roll stats and get a high dex. 13 guaranteed by 8th level no matter what.

The Fire Breath is neat, I won't deny it. I like that ability, but all the rest of it needs to be looked at again, because it is being billed as an offensive option, and it simply does not stack up at all.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Thinking about the more general discussion here about the Ranger AOE... I don't see a problem with upping the damage to 8d6 then 10d6. I do think that at 11th level, 6d6 is a bit on the low side.

I don't think it is required or anything, but I certainly think it would help make it a better option for ranged rangers, since they need to abandon their bows and charge in to use this ability effectively.

[Dork_Forge]

And now... the Dracowarden

Man I want to love these mechanics more.

The gift is a ribbon, and a decent on. The lack of spells hurts a lot. But the companion is just kind of bad.

First off, lasting only two hours is a severe limitation. You are going to end up spending at least one spell slot to get it back. Then, it lacks flight to start with, so it is basically just a scaley cat in terms of infiltration or utility. No stealth bonus, so that is going to be hard to do. So, this is purely combat pet, and it doesn't stack up.

First turn, (if not pre-summoned) is summon and bonus action have it attack for 1d6+2.
If it is already summoned then you can attack for, let's say 1d8+3+1d6+2 which is 13? Let's be kind, and say that you get that extra 1d6 from infusing the essence into an attack. So, 16.5.

Dual Wielding alone gets us 2d6+6 which is 13. If I am a hunter ranger I could get colussus slayer for 1d8 extra, bringing me to 17.5. If I could spend a spell slot and get hunter's mark, then by round two I've got 4d6+1d8+6 for 24.5.

And the Familiar never catches up in my opinion.

And like was said, everything in this subclass relies on your familiar being out, and it's hp is decent, starting at 20 and increasing by 5 every level isn't something to scoff at, but the AC isn't great. mediocre really.

And, let's look at the absolute best thing the Drake can do in combat. At 15th level you can use your bonus action to command it to attack for 3d6 damage. That is the max, at 17.5. While, Dual-wielding as a Hunter can get you 2d8+5 which is 14... by as early as 4th level if you roll stats and get a high dex. 13 guaranteed by 8th level no matter what.

The Fire Breath is neat, I won't deny it. I like that ability, but all the rest of it needs to be looked at again, because it is being billed as an offensive option, and it simply does not stack up at all.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Thinking about the more general discussion here about the Ranger AOE... I don't see a problem with upping the damage to 8d6 then 10d6. I do think that at 11th level, 6d6 is a bit on the low side.

I don't think it is required or anything, but I certainly think it would help make it a better option for ranged rangers, since they need to abandon their bows and charge in to use this ability effectively.

Agreed on the rbeath needing a bump,the Drake's damage is a bit more complicated I think:

It's not out of line with the bump other Rangers get (it's actually a little better and scales better), it's certainly inline/better than the Steel Defender (which it clearly takes several pages from).I just don't know if it's good enough to warrant burning a slot (or two) to ensure that you always have it around at first (later on it's basically mandatory so you don't fall behind), I feel like maybe a dragocnic smite option (that burns spell slots) would have been welcome maybe (though it makes it a bit busy).

Damage wise though it isn't behind at all:

3rd level:

TWF Hunter: 2d6+1d8+6= 17.5
Dueling DW: 1d8+5+2d6+2= 18.5

and on the extreme end, well most Rangers don't get a significant damage boost, but I think the strongest comparison point is a Gloomstalker on the first round using Hunter's Mark:

15th level:

Dueling Gloom: 4d8+21+3d6= 49.5

Dueling DW: 2d8+4d6+19= 42

But over the course of the average 3 round encounter:

Dueling Gloom: 109.5

Dueling DW: 126

(Although the DW gets another prof bump, the Gloom Stalker topped out on this damage back at level 8)

So not a bad showing, if they want it to be the damage Ranger though then there needs to be something else (maybe 1d4 elemental on the Ranger's hits?)

[MaxWilson]

The aura is... thematically neat, but mechanically too weak. Most of my allies likely won't want to use their reaction, plus it only works if they get hit in melee or very close range, because the attacker has to be in the aura as well. Too easy for archers or even melee people who are 30 ft away from you to circumvent this, even if your ally is willing to use their reaction, and even if 1d8 was worth it.

My first thought on reading this aura was "like giving Fire Shield to all of your minions." Which incidentally makes Sun Soul monk very sad, since Fire Shield as a reaction is Sun Soul's 17th level capstone ability (!) and here you are handing it out to everyzombie and his conjured animal buddy.

(To be clear: in this case I think that means Sun Soul's 17th level ability needs to NOT have a reaction cost. Wouldn't hurt to slightly de-buff Ascendant Dragon Monks at the same time, but definitely buff Sun Soul.)


So not a bad showing, if they want it to be the damage Ranger though then there needs to be something else (maybe 1d4 elemental on the Ranger's hits?)

Did you notice that the Drake already adds 1d6 elemental damage as a reaction when an ally hits? I couldn't tell if you had already factored that in or not.

[Dork_Forge]

Did you notice that the Drake already adds 1d6 elemental damage as a reaction when an ally hits? I couldn't tell if you had already factored that in or not.

I factored that in, but besides costing the Drake's reaction, realistically that's just replacing Hunter's Mark for the Drake Warden (with additional summoning eating the slots that would normally go to HM).

[Chaosmancer]

Agreed on the rbeath needing a bump,the Drake's damage is a bit more complicated I think:

It's not out of line with the bump other Rangers get (it's actually a little better and scales better), it's certainly inline/better than the Steel Defender (which it clearly takes several pages from).I just don't know if it's good enough to warrant burning a slot (or two) to ensure that you always have it around at first (later on it's basically mandatory so you don't fall behind), I feel like maybe a dragocnic smite option (that burns spell slots) would have been welcome maybe (though it makes it a bit busy).

Damage wise though it isn't behind at all:

3rd level:

TWF Hunter: 2d6+1d8+6= 17.5
Dueling DW: 1d8+5+2d6+2= 18.5

Sorry to nitpick, but where are you getting the +2 from on the DW?

My reading says it should be 1d8 (from weapon) +5 (from mod+2) +2d6 (one from the Drake's attack, one from the reaction)


Edit: Oh! I see, it is +2 of an element. Okay, that is weirdly written. Seeing that the Drake ends up at 4d6+6 for their max per round does make them better then just straight duel-wielding, but it is still a bit closer than I'd like.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



My first thought on reading this aura was "like giving Fire Shield to all of your minions." Which incidentally makes Sun Soul monk very sad, since Fire Shield as a reaction is Sun Soul's 17th level capstone ability (!) and here you are handing it out to everyzombie and his conjured animal buddy.

(To be clear: in this case I think that means Sun Soul's 17th level ability needs to NOT have a reaction cost. Wouldn't hurt to slightly de-buff Ascendant Dragon Monks at the same time, but definitely buff Sun Soul.)


Hmmm, I hadn't thought about it in the context of minions. Most of my tables tend to avoid minions for ease of play reasons, but this could scale decently with a minion swarm around you.

Still, I think the attacker having to be within the aura as well makes this difficult to hit with that retaliation damage. Thinking about it like a mass "Protection from Elements" without concentration makes more sense to me for it being a high level ability.

I may agree with you on the sun monk, gotta go and double check.

[Dork_Forge]

Sorry to nitpick, but where are you getting the +2 from on the DW?

My reading says it should be 1d8 (from weapon) +5 (from mod+2) +2d6 (one from the Drake's attack, one from the reaction)


Edit: Oh! I see, it is +2 of an element. Okay, that is weirdly written. Seeing that the Drake ends up at 4d6+6 for their max per round does make them better then just straight duel-wielding, but it is still a bit closer than I'd like.


It definitely needs polish, the original d6 needs to either be or become magical as well or the damage will be questionable. I wonder if making it d8s instead of d6s would be suitable? It's only adding 1-3 damage on average (keeping the reaction a d6) but would definitely help in tiers 1 and 2 where the prof bonus is, well pretty poor at best.

[animewatcha]

When it comes to the monk. 2 things.

With a little refluffing, could you do 'way of the dragon' be mechanically the same, but be similar as the Avatar in The Last Airbender? Or some sort.

Also..

When the survey comes out, please vote positively for the 'prof use before ki usage' portions. Mainly cause this could be a precedent for future things. Such as ( and give this suggestion in comments in the survey ) fighters gettting second wind prof. times per long rest. Prof. times per long rest barbarian goes into ferocity without exhaustion.

[Dork_Forge]

When it comes to the monk. 2 things.

With a little refluffing, could you do 'way of the dragon' be mechanically the same, but be similar as the Avatar in The Last Airbender? Or some sort.

Also..

When the survey comes out, please vote positively for the 'prof use before ki usage' portions. Mainly cause this could be a precedent for future things. Such as ( and give this suggestion in comments in the survey ) fighters gettting second wind prof. times per long rest. Prof. times per long rest barbarian goes into ferocity without exhaustion.

In general proficiency is a pretty bad way to scale abilities because it creates disproportionately powerful multiclass dips. Tying things like that to Wis mod would probably be best (though I'm not sure we'll ever see a double Second Wind Fighter).

[stoutstien]

In general proficiency is a pretty bad way to scale abilities because it creates disproportionately powerful multiclass dips. Tying things like that to Wis mod would probably be best (though I'm not sure we'll ever see a double Second Wind Fighter).

Aye. With you 100% here. While I can't find anything too bad with these particular cases using proficiency eventually something will be added that will pull a hex blade again.

I'm not saying that you could never use proficiency to scale additional mechanics than they do now but they should limit to things that are universally useful such as saves, attack bonus, and skills.

Could probably safely have a feature that amplifies the effects of hit die recovery using proficiency bonus.

[NorthernPhoenix]

The one thing that stood out to me more than anything is that they actually let the Ranger pet reach Large this time (if incredibly late). Good job! It baffles me that even the most recent rework in Tasha doesn't dare this for Beastmaster. That said, it going from small to large is a strange jump, so i think it should go from small to medium and some point in-between.

[x3n0n]

The one thing that stood out to me more than anything is that they actually let the Ranger pet reach Large this time (if incredibly late). Good job! It baffles me that even the most recent rework in Tasha doesn't dare this for Beastmaster. That said, it going from small to large is a strange jump, so i think it should go from small to medium and some point in-between.

Someone mentioned that they may want to avoid the (significant) incentive to choose a Small race, which could use it as a flying mount as soon as it moves to Medium.

[NorthernPhoenix]

Someone mentioned that they may want to avoid the (significant) incentive to choose a Small race, which could use it as a flying mount as soon as it moves to Medium.

That's certainly a valid concern, but i think putting it in at, say, 7th level, which is close to druids flight (and after the Fly spell is available) would be reasonable. Or if it has to be later, at 11 when Ranger can summon a flying mount anyway.

[Dork_Forge]

The one thing that stood out to me more than anything is that they actually let the Ranger pet reach Large this time (if incredibly late). Good job! It baffles me that even the most recent rework in Tasha doesn't dare this for Beastmaster. That said, it going from small to large is a strange jump, so i think it should go from small to medium and some point in-between.

I would think the Beast Master one would be for two reasons, the main one being grappling and a minor one being that at that point it's basically 'Steed Master' which is the Paladin's schtick.

[animewatcha]

In general proficiency is a pretty bad way to scale abilities because it creates disproportionately powerful multiclass dips. Tying things like that to Wis mod would probably be best (though I'm not sure we'll ever see a double Second Wind Fighter).

I can see what you mean. Second wind is atfirst mainly based on the 1d10, but later becomes more dependant on fighter level. Hexblade curse... while I would like for it to be useable more than once per short rest, but not prof times per short rest.

[Kane0]

Someone mentioned that they may want to avoid the (significant) incentive to choose a Small race, which could use it as a flying mount as soon as it moves to Medium.


That's certainly a valid concern, but i think putting it in at, say, 7th level, which is close to druids flight (and after the Fly spell is available) would be reasonable. Or if it has to be later, at 11 when Ranger can summon a flying mount anyway.

Aye, that would have been me.



Bond of Fang and Scale: Good stuff, I would like to see the option of making your Drake medium sized instead of an additional movement mode for the second point. Infused strikes never scales which strikes me as odd because the bite does.

Perfected bond: Your drake can never be medium size, it goes straight from small to large (see my note on Bond of Fang and Scale). The other two bullets are fine if a bit boring.

[MaxWilson]

Someone mentioned that they may want to avoid the (significant) incentive to choose a Small race, which could use it as a flying mount as soon as it moves to Medium.

Why does this matter? You don't need to be mounted on a creature in order for it lift you/drag you. Grapples are a thing for example, and so are ropes. Sled dogs manage to pull sleds despite not having any hands. Etc.

As long as the flying creature has enough lifting capacity, you now have access to flight. Everything else is just details.

[Thunderous Mojo]

In general proficiency is a pretty bad way to scale abilities because it creates disproportionately powerful multiclass dips. Tying things like that to Wis mod would probably be best (though I'm not sure we'll ever see a double Second Wind Fighter).

It creates a different feel to multi-classing. I'm inclined to like it.
It is a thematic move away from 3e multi-classing, by having class features from your various class features still advance, even without taking further class levels in it.

Tying class or subclass abilities to Attribute modifiers just exacerbates the differences between those with good stats versus those without.
Tying class abilities to one's Proficiency modifier, reduces the importance of ability statistics.

Reducing the stat dependency for a character to be "viable", means more types of characters and themes can be tried. Increasing the number of character types that are playable is an admirable goal.

[Luccan]

Proficiency scaling isn't a bad idea in theory, but it's definitely inconsistent with previous subclass design. Barring the unlikely arrival of 5.5 or Advanced 5e, WotC is not going to standardize this at all, so the level to which it actually increases multiclassing diversity is up for debate. If only a few subclasses actually benefit from this new system, then it seems more likely those will just show up more. Maybe in combination with classes you wouldn't expect, but if all multiclass Monks are now Dragon Monks I would argue what they're attached to doesn't matter as much as the fact that they're all the same subclass.

IMO, Dragon Monk is only a good 4Elements replacement if what you thought 4e needed was specifically more elemental damage. It's not a bad subclass by any means, but 4e definitely has more abilities that feel like actually manipulating the elements rather than just punching with ice or spitting fire.

[Dork_Forge]

It creates a different feel to multi-classing. I'm inclined to like it.
It is a thematic move away from 3e multi-classing, by having class features from your various class features still advance, even without taking further class levels in it.

Tying class or subclass abilities to Attribute modifiers just exacerbates the differences between those with good stats versus those without.
Tying class abilities to one's Proficiency modifier, reduces the importance of ability statistics.

Reducing the stat dependency for a character to be "viable", means more types of characters and themes can be tried. Increasing the number of character types that are playable is an admirable goal.

Differing opinions here then, advancing in a class you're no longer taking levels in neither makes much sense to me nor is something I'd want in the game. Tying things to prof mod makes them more lack luster in the most played levels and makes certain dips even more powerful (part of the many problems with the Hexblade). That it's creeping in this late in the 5e lifecycle just leads to asymmetry in the design and most definitely leads to power creep.

[Chaosmancer]

It creates a different feel to multi-classing. I'm inclined to like it.
It is a thematic move away from 3e multi-classing, by having class features from your various class features still advance, even without taking further class levels in it.

Tying class or subclass abilities to Attribute modifiers just exacerbates the differences between those with good stats versus those without.
Tying class abilities to one's Proficiency modifier, reduces the importance of ability statistics.

Reducing the stat dependency for a character to be "viable", means more types of characters and themes can be tried. Increasing the number of character types that are playable is an admirable goal.

This is mostly where my thoughts lay.

Certain abilities are incredibly powerful no matter when you get them (ie, Action Surge) But others are more powerful early and less powerful later.

To use the Dragon Monk as an example, by level 3, getting a large 20 ft cone dealing 2d4 damage is fairly decent.

By level 11, 3d4 is not really even worth it, even if you do get to do it four times instead of two. But, a pure monk is dealing 3d8, which is still a little low for a spell, but being able to do it four times is fair enough.


I know this is kind of specific, but that is how I am looking at this, an acknowledgement that an ability can be more impactful early, but ends up less impactful later and therefore can be done more times. (Also, tying it to ability score means it is highly likely to have it usable 4 times by level 4, double the current amount.)

[Amechra]

5e was basically designed from the ground up to make dipping and multiclassing tricky. That's why most classes get big features at 2nd, 3rd, and 5th levels, and why ability score increases are tied to your class levels. That 2/3/5 progression is actually kinda important - it means that most people aren't going to multiclass in Tier 1 (unless they're dipping one of the classes that actually get sizeable features at 1st level, like Clerics or Warlocks), and that most multiclasses are going to be in multiples of 4 (because taking 3/7/11/15 levels in a class means that you probably lost an ASI).

Let's be honest here - neither of these subclasses is going to be problematic in the same way that the Hexblade is, because they "cost" 3 levels instead of 1, and both the Monk and the Ranger have two required stats for multiclassing. My real issue is that basing things off of your proficiency modifier prevents you from building around them in the same way that you can with stat-based abilities. If you got [Wisdom] free uses of Dragon's Breath instead of [Proficiency] free uses, that would be extra incentive for a Wisdom-based Monk - at early levels, when your ki pool is pretty small, every extra "free" ki point you get is that much better.

Also, would it have killed them to make the drake more permanent? I don't want the ability to summon a dragon, I want a dragon buddy!

[Thunderous Mojo]

- it means that most people aren't going to multiclass in Tier 1

I have no idea how representative the statistics from D&D Beyond are for the broader D&D Community, (my instinct is to say DDB captures one segment of the community, only), but on the rare occasion I see a screenshot showing what classes are being played, at least 50% of the characters are multi-classed.

Now my actual play experience has been, very few people have availed themselves of the multi-class rules, in the games I have participated in.

It is also possible that the DDB statistics underrepresent how much multi-classing occurs..(I don't think this is likely, but I have no evidence).

If 50% of all characters are multi-classed, then statistically, it is nigh impossible that everyone is waiting to after 5th level to start multi-classing.

The DDB stats don't match my lived experience, but I am, almost certainly, a statistical outlier.

Available evidence indicates facilitating multi-classing might be servicing the needs of the mass of D&D players.

[Amechra]

Blech, this is what I get for posting too quickly and being all lax with my phrasing.

You do see people multiclass before 5th level, but honestly you shouldn't outside of a small number of exceptions (dipping a level in Cleric/Sorcerer/Warlock to get those really nice 1st level features, or something like a Paladin 2/Full Caster X). Multiclassing in those first four levels A) delays your first ASI (which sucks if you have a specific feat you want, and you aren't a VHuman) and B) it delays the massive power bump that all classes get at 5th level.

It's like how the general rule for building Wizards is "don't dump Intelligence". That doesn't mean that people never dump intelligence when they're building a Wizard, but it'd be a pretty unusual choice.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Blech, this is what I get for posting too quickly and being all lax with my phrasing.
.

Your phrasing was fine. There is clearly a wide variance though, at least compared to the D&D Community on DDB, between how you should play the game versus how they are actually playing it.

The dominant paradigm of D&D, might have very little representation on this board.

[Segev]

Blech, this is what I get for posting too quickly and being all lax with my phrasing.

You do see people multiclass before 5th level, but honestly you shouldn't outside of a small number of exceptions (dipping a level in Cleric/Sorcerer/Warlock to get those really nice 1st level features, or something like a Paladin 2/Full Caster X). Multiclassing in those first four levels A) delays your first ASI (which sucks if you have a specific feat you want, and you aren't a VHuman) and B) it delays the massive power bump that all classes get at 5th level.

It's like how the general rule for building Wizards is "don't dump Intelligence". That doesn't mean that people never dump intelligence when they're building a Wizard, but it'd be a pretty unusual choice.

Quibble: I don't think Rogues, at the very least, get much of a power boost at 5. Uncanny Dodge isn't terrible, but it's hardly a game-changer.

[Gignere]

Quibble: I don't think Rogues, at the very least, get much of a power boost at 5. Uncanny Dodge isn't terrible, but it's hardly a game-changer.

It’s a sneak attack dice + uncanny dodge. But yes it’s a relatively weak level compared to other classes.

[Dork_Forge]

Quibble: I don't think Rogues, at the very least, get much of a power boost at 5. Uncanny Dodge isn't terrible, but it's hardly a game-changer.

Rogues are an outlier here becuase their damage ramps up gradually throughout the entire scope of levels (I imagine how the Monk is meant to feel), so level 5 for them is business as usual in the damage department but a significant boost in the defense department.

[Segev]

It’s a sneak attack dice + uncanny dodge. But yes it’s a relatively weak level compared to other classes.


Rogues are an outlier here becuase their damage ramps up gradually throughout the entire scope of levels (I imagine how the Monk is meant to feel), so level 5 for them is business as usual in the damage department but a significant boost in the defense department.

I'm just conscious of it because I'm juggling ideas on a grappler build that uses Rogue and Ranger, and I'm debating my exact mix of levels (especially the first three, as the game it's for starts at 3). So the fact that I have zero interest in rushing to Rogue 5 made me feel the need to bring this up. (Specifically, Gloomstalker Ranger to try to get a second attack reasonbly early while still getting Expertise and maybe Cunning Action.)

[Dork_Forge]

I'm just conscious of it because I'm juggling ideas on a grappler build that uses Rogue and Ranger, and I'm debating my exact mix of levels (especially the first three, as the game it's for starts at 3). So the fact that I have zero interest in rushing to Rogue 5 made me feel the need to bring this up. (Specifically, Gloomstalker Ranger to try to get a second attack reasonbly early while still getting Expertise and maybe Cunning Action.)

Have you considered throwing some Battle Rager Barbarian in there? They're pretty great grapplers and give your a bonus action attack entirely independent of the attack action.

[Segev]

Have you considered throwing some Battle Rager Barbarian in there? They're pretty great grapplers and give your a bonus action attack entirely independent of the attack action.

The race is a unique one for the setting, and works best unarmored since it has chameleon skin. (Think Ursela from Little Mermaid, with octopus color-changing.) So no armor. I had considered barbarian, but the race comes with most of what I'd get for grappling from it. (Not the spiked armor, though.) Might work well in a different race, though!

What I'm thinking gloomstalker for primarily is the opening round extra attack. Might go for 5 ranger after getting at least 2 levels of rogue, though. Grapple, shove, and all's good.

Basic concept is "horror monster." Hides and pulls people into the dark to disappear.

[Unoriginal]

The race is a unique one for the setting, and works best unarmored since it has chameleon skin. (Think Ursela from Little Mermaid, with octopus color-changing.) So no armor. I had considered barbarian, but the race comes with most of what I'd get for grappling from it. (Not the spiked armor, though.) Might work well in a different race, though!

What I'm thinking gloomstalker for primarily is the opening round extra attack. Might go for 5 ranger after getting at least 2 levels of rogue, though. Grapple, shove, and all's good.

Basic concept is "horror monster." Hides and pulls people into the dark to disappear.

Barbarian might help the horror monster concept, for their capacity to take an absurd ammount of punishment if the victims ever manage to fight back.

Not to mention Reckless Attack + Sneak Attack is vicious.