PHB Dragonborn - fixing with ability bonus only

[dmhelp]

If you were not using TCE customizing and wanted to fix Dragonborn with an additional ability bonus only (no breathweapon change, no darkvision, no ancestry spells, no UA temp immunity, etc)....

How much would they need?

+1 con

+2 con

+ ?

[LudicSavant]

If you were not using TCE customizing and wanted to fix Dragonborn with an additional ability bonus only (no breathweapon change, no darkvision, no ancestry spells, no UA temp immunity, etc)....

How much would they need?

+1 con

+2 con

+ ?

Half-elves have better features than PHB-born (darkvision, 2 skills, charm resistance, access to better racial feats) and +2/+1/+1.

[Waazraath]

If you were not using TCE customizing and wanted to fix Dragonborn with an additional ability bonus only (no breathweapon change, no darkvision, no ancestry spells, no UA temp immunity, etc)....

How much would they need?

+1 con

+2 con

+ ?

Diffcult... I'd say you would need more than +1 con to bring it on par with good racial choices. But at the same time, the system is that racial modifiers are either +3 or +4 (rarely) in total, with the sole exception the human (6x +1). You could use the latter as a point of reference, give Dragonborn +2 con extra (and the unique feature that it gets +2 / +2 / +1), which should give it more than enough appeal for players, especially for melee build which also need charisma. At the same time, even with +1 con that's an improvement, and makes it more worth it - question is if you want to boost it up to the level of stronger races, or average ones. And if dragonborn gets +2 / +2 / +1, will anybody pick something like Triton (+1 /+1 /+1)?

[dmhelp]

Re: Triton

I guess I don’t care if every single race in every single book is worthwhile. But Dragonborn are a desired race in the PHB, so they should be up to snuff.

I was kind of thinking 2 str 2 con 1 cha. So they would be the 30 speed mountain dwarf alternative....

[Joe the Rat]

I would be disinclined for a +5, but I also think "raar, stats" isn't where the fix needs to be.

On the +4s: Mountain Dwarf's entire package leans martial - every dwarf can be a hammer-tossing, half-plate wearing badass. And the classes that benefit most directly from this end up with redundant proficiencies. Half-Elf is probably closest to VHuman in terms of flexibility - instead of a feat, they get +2Cha, darkvision, sleep resistance, and another skill proficiency. I think it says something about the value of flexibility - one feat of choice, vs a fixed ASI and racial abilities that would probably be passable as a feat package.

Floating stat mods are thus far near-human aligned, but ignoring that, a floating +1 is probably more valuable than a fixed +2.

I would go +2Con, +1 Cha, +1 free choice, but that's based on what best suits a draconic creature with Con (& Cha) based abilities, as opposed to being Paladin: The Species.

[Merudo]

Half-elves have better features than PHB-born (darkvision, 2 skills, charm resistance, access to better racial feats) and +2/+1/+1.

It's hard to quantify the value of elemental resistance. White & Silver Dragonborn get resistance to cold damage, which is extremely valuable in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. And Brass, Gold & Red Dragons get fire resistance, which is awesome in Descent into Avernus.

I think a fairer comparison would be to Tieflings, Goliaths and Tritons.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I would be disinclined for a +5, but I also think "raar, stats" isn't where the fix needs to be.

On the +4s: Mountain Dwarf's entire package leans martial - every dwarf can be a hammer-tossing, half-plate wearing badass. And the classes that benefit most directly from this end up with redundant proficiencies. Half-Elf is probably closest to VHuman in terms of flexibility - instead of a feat, they get +2Cha, darkvision, sleep resistance, and another skill proficiency. I think it says something about the value of flexibility - one feat of choice, vs a fixed ASI and racial abilities that would probably be passable as a feat package.

Floating stat mods are thus far near-human aligned, but ignoring that, a floating +1 is probably more valuable than a fixed +2.

I would go +2Con, +1 Cha, +1 free choice, but that's based on what best suits a draconic creature with Con (& Cha) based abilities, as opposed to being Paladin: The Species.

Joe's got the right idea here, I feel (if you're set on not touching the racial abilities). +2/+2 is an outlier, and Joe's beautifully illustrated why it can get away with it. +2 Con/+1 Cha/+1 free is a good compromise, and it makes a good paladin or Cha-Fighter as easily as it makes a good sorceror or bard.

[LudicSavant]

It's hard to quantify the value of elemental resistance. White & Silver Dragonborn get resistance to cold damage, which is extremely valuable in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. And Brass, Gold & Red Dragons get fire resistance, which is awesome in Descent into Avernus.

Yes, but just because something's not easy to quantify doesn't mean we can't evaluate it and get a useful estimate of its value. That's what I and other game designers have to do all the time when balancing games.

I would classify Fire Resistance as one of the better elemental Resistances... but so is Charm Resistance. I count 92 monsters in core/supplements that inflict the Charmed condition, and over 100 if we include adventures -- that's comparable to the number of creatures that can inflict fire damage. And many of those charms are bad news, up to and including "take control of your character and make them spend all their nova resources on an ally" bad news. Plus you get immunity to magical sleep effects on top of that.

As such, I think it's fair to say that Fey Ancestry is of at the very least comparable value to Fire Resistance. Yes, how often you see fire damage vs charms will vary by adventure, but that's fine -- of course options are going to vary in effectiveness by adventure.

I can then move on to say that Dragon's Breath is quite situational when it comes to competing for your Action with Class features and the like. I think I'd usually be willing to take Darkvision and 2 skill proficiencies over it. Or Darkvision and a Wizard cantrip like Booming Blade. Or Darkvision and drow spellcasting. Depending on which half-elf variant we're looking at.

I can then move on to say that Half-Elves have access to better racial feats than Dragonborn do (I don't think I even need to explain this one).


Tieflings, Goliaths and Tritons.

The reason I'm using Half-Elves as an example is because they would likely be higher up the tier list than Dragonborn even if Half-Elves only had +2/+1, so it helps establish how far they have to go in terms of 'ability bonuses only.'

Anyways, if you want to compare against Tieflings, there's a lesson to take there as well. AFAIK, optimizers rarely use the Tiefling variants that get Burning Hands, because Burning Hands falls off at later levels compared to other uses of your Action (whereas, say, a Levistus Tiefling's spells are useful precasts at any level). And for most of your progression, a use of Burning Hands is better than a use of the Dragonborn's breath (even once it has the same dice, because Dragonborn breath uses a tertiary stat for the builds most suited to the Dragonborn statline, rather than a primary stat). Yes, you can use the Dragonborn breath more often, but that doesn't make it any more competitive for your action economy, and again, people aren't exactly leaping to take the Burning Hands tieflings. And those Burning Hands tieflings are still getting other stuff (like Darkvision, a cantrip, and a 2nd level spell).

[quindraco]

How valuable the resistances are relative to each other is not only quantifiable, the number one resource for quantifying it is a forum post from this forum. You can see the post here, at the top of the thread: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?379165-MM-Resistances-Immunities-Vulnerabilities-and-Damage

That's now outdated, but you can roughly simulate it here: https://5e.tools/bestiary.html As a bonus, this link will also let you look around for monsters that inflict charmed, but unfortunately there's no direct way to tell it you don't care if it's via spell or action, so you have to do two searches and combine them yourself.

You can see from the upper link that as of when that was posted, and not a whole lot has changed since in relative terms, fire and poison resistance were roughly equal, but you were far better off dealing fire damage than poison damage, so red and gold dragonborn were and are a better race to play than green dragonborn even before working out which is more common, good con saves or good dex saves (the answer is good con saves). You can also tell that Ludic is correct, and Fire Resistance is about as common as Charm Resistance in terms of being relevant (how they behave is completely and utterly different - one cuts fire damage to half, and the other is advantage on saves against an effect which is usually hard to determine, because most charm effects do more than just charm).

On a separate note, PHB Dragonborn are written with the laughable assumption that lines and cones are equal, when in practice, cones are radically easier to catch multiple opponents in.

If you want to fix Dragonborn with an absolute minimum of homebrew modifications, I recommend giving them the non-attribute halves of both Dragonborn racial feats, so they get built-in Mage Armor, useless natural weapons as a ribbon, and the ability to replace their breath weapon with a roar, and then one attribute half, which is +1 to Constitutio or Charisma (assuming you, as you indicated, refuse to embrace WOTC's new design of all new races being dealer's choice), since Dragonborn already have the max racial bonus to Str.

Dragonborn in particular suffer from being racially MAD - their racial buffs don't apply to their breath weapon! If you want to lean towards stat flexibility rather than fully embracing it, give Dragonborn 2/2/0 or 2/1/1 to Str, Cha, or Con, to match how the Dragonborn feats are written.

However, without more work, red and gold will remain the best dragonborn after taking into consideration breath weapon shape, breath weapon save, breath weapon damage, and damage resistance.

[Man_Over_Game]

I've always liked the idea of just making them +2 Con, then +2 Charisma or Strength based on if they're a Chromatic or Metallic Dragon. It definitely felt validating when I found out that they took a similar approach for the recent Dragonborn UA.

[LudicSavant]

Yet more info re: the usefulness of Dragonborn and resistances and such.




Psychic, Fire, Necrotic, and Poison are the most common damage types inflicted by monster abilities (note, this tally does not include spells -- if someone could find an updated and accurate tally that DOES include spells cast by monsters, I'd be interested). Of these, Necrotic and Psychic are generally harder to get resistance to from non-racial means (for example, Absorb Elements will protect you from fire, and Poison Resistance and Immunity is all over the shop).

Frightened and Charm are both common and used for an awful lot of things, but Charm is more notable in that many of those cases have severe consequences for failing a save.




Overall, Dragonborn are a pile of... not good. Their best (and nearly only) feature is their elemental resistance, and... well, Necrotic is as good a Resistance as any of the kinds they cant get (arguably better, since it's harder to pick up from sources like Absorb Elements), and Aasimar get that and Radiant resistance, and a ton of other useful features. Shadar-Kai, also get Necrotic Resistance and a whole bunch of other Nice Things.

They don't have skills, they don't have darkvision, nothing. They just get that weakly scaling breath weapon that competes for your Action, and even when it is a worthwhile use of your Action, is rarely a big improvement over what you could have done instead. It basically always has a low save DC because it's Con-based, which means it's a secondary stat at best (and it's a tertiary stat for Paladins). Oh yeah, and the Dex-based breaths allow creatures to get cover bonuses to their saving throws (including from standing behind other creatures), which is troublesome when you have a line/cone shape.

The breath weapon never really gets better than a level 2 Burning Hands utilizing a primary stat (e.g. what some of the least optimal tiefling subraces get at level 3). Even at level 16 where it scales to 5d6, because it's not using your primary stat. Yes, it's on a short rest cooldown rather than long rest, but Burning Hand isn't the only spell a Tiefling gets.

There are ribbons I would take over that breath weapon.

[Merudo]

Yes, but just because something's not easy to quantify doesn't mean we can't evaluate it and get a useful estimate of its value. That's what I and other game designers have to do all the time when balancing games.

I would classify Fire Resistance as one of the better elemental Resistances... but so is Charm Resistance. I count 92 monsters in core/supplements that inflict the Charmed condition, and over 100 if we include adventures -- that's comparable to the number of creatures that can inflict fire damage.

I'm curious how you got to the 92 number. In an earlier thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?628457-Did-anyone-list-the-creatures-that-can-cause-the-Frightened-Charmed-condition), I counted about 50, excluding adventures and MTG & Critical Roll content.

[Merudo]

How valuable the resistances are relative to each other is not only quantifiable, the number one resource for quantifying it is a forum post from this forum. You can see the post here, at the top of the thread: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?379165-MM-Resistances-Immunities-Vulnerabilities-and-Damage


That thread lists how prevalent *monster* resistances are.

It tells us nothing about the value of resistances PCs can get from their player race.

[LudicSavant]

I'm curious how you got to the 92 number. I counted.

[Merudo]

I counted.

Where's your list?

[LudicSavant]

Where's your list?

This question was answered earlier.


I count 92 monsters in core/supplements

Here they are:


Succubus
Dusk Hag
Mind Flayer Psion
Titivilus
Neogi Master
Abhorrent Overlord
Lich
Yuan-ti Malison
Demogorgon
Lazav
Sibriex
Mind Flayer Arcanist
Fey Spirit
Sahuagin Warlock of Uk'otoa
Blood Drinker Vampire
Stone Giant Dreamwalker
Merrenoloth
Drow Priestess of Lolth
Morkoth
Radiant Idol
Booyahg Slave of the Archfey
Gloom Weaver
Elder Brain
Death Tyrant
Baphomet
Geryon
Deathlock Mastermind
Ulitharid
Kobold Scale Sorcerer
Beholder
Tsucora Quori
Alseid
Elder Oblex
Annis Hag
Fraz-Urb'luu
Star Spawn Larva Mage
Vampire
Vampire Warrior
Naiad
Red Abishai
Belashyrra
Yochlol
Drow Arachnomancer
Adult Green Dragon
Vampire Spellcaster
Aboleth
Nagpa
Hashalaq Quori
Alhoon
Satyr
Mind Flayer
Tortle Druid
Autumn Eladrin
Grung
Green Abishai
Grung Elite Warrior
Yuan-ti Nightmare Speaker
Bheur Hag
Archon of the Triumvirate
Master of Cruelties
Booyahg Slave of the Great Old One
Harpy
Yuan-ti Anathema
Gazer
Archdruid
Warlock of the Archfey
Ultroloth
Warlock of the Great Old One
Bael
Illithilich
Spring Eladrin
Yuan-ti Abomination
Deathpact Angel
Amnizu
Core Spawn Emissary
Moloch Fiend
Yuan-ti Pit Master
Zegana
Nilbog
Mind Drinker Vampire
Cambion
Oinoloth
Neogi
Drow Matron Mother
Ancient Green Dragon
Satyr Reveler
Sul Khatesh
Graz'zt
Adult Oblex
Incubus
Zuggtmoy
Dryad

[quindraco]

That thread lists how prevalent *monster* resistances are.

It tells us nothing about the value of resistances PCs can get from their player race.

Did you not read the first column? It covers monsters that deal damage of the indicated type. Also, my second link lets you do the search yourself for monsters that deal damage of the indicated type.

[Merudo]

This question was answered earlier.



Here they are:


Succubus
Dusk Hag
Mind Flayer Psion
Titivilus
Neogi Master
Abhorrent Overlord
Lich
Yuan-ti Malison
Demogorgon
Lazav
Sibriex
Mind Flayer Arcanist
Fey Spirit
Sahuagin Warlock of Uk'otoa
Blood Drinker Vampire
Stone Giant Dreamwalker
Merrenoloth
Drow Priestess of Lolth
Morkoth
Radiant Idol
Booyahg Slave of the Archfey
Gloom Weaver
Elder Brain
Death Tyrant
Baphomet
Geryon
Deathlock Mastermind
Ulitharid
Kobold Scale Sorcerer
Beholder
Tsucora Quori
Alseid
Elder Oblex
Annis Hag
Fraz-Urb'luu
Star Spawn Larva Mage
Vampire
Vampire Warrior
Naiad
Red Abishai
Belashyrra
Yochlol
Drow Arachnomancer
Adult Green Dragon
Vampire Spellcaster
Aboleth
Nagpa
Hashalaq Quori
Alhoon
Satyr
Mind Flayer
Tortle Druid
Autumn Eladrin
Grung
Green Abishai
Grung Elite Warrior
Yuan-ti Nightmare Speaker
Bheur Hag
Archon of the Triumvirate
Master of Cruelties
Booyahg Slave of the Great Old One
Harpy
Yuan-ti Anathema
Gazer
Archdruid
Warlock of the Archfey
Ultroloth
Warlock of the Great Old One
Bael
Illithilich
Spring Eladrin
Yuan-ti Abomination
Deathpact Angel
Amnizu
Core Spawn Emissary
Moloch Fiend
Yuan-ti Pit Master
Zegana
Nilbog
Mind Drinker Vampire
Cambion
Oinoloth
Neogi
Drow Matron Mother
Ancient Green Dragon
Satyr Reveler
Sul Khatesh
Graz'zt
Adult Oblex
Incubus
Zuggtmoy
Dryad


Thank you for the list!

Off the top of my head, the 5 Yuan-ti cannot inflict the Charmed condition to PCs. I'll have to double check for the other creatures.