Dragon Domain-Opinions Welcome!

[RustyDemiGod]

Dragon Shaman Domain

Dragon Shaman’s follow the Draconic deities of creation, wisdom, and primordial power. To these disciples dragon hordes are heavenly hosts, and they seek to emulate them through their faith. Like dragons, their followers are diverse and varied. Whether banded together by a church, isolated in cults, or simply wandering alone, Dragon Shamans are not to be trifled with.

Dragon Shaman Domain Spells
Cleric Level Spells
1st Absorb Elements, Command
3rd Flock of Familiars*, Dragon’s Breath
5th Protection from Energy, Counterspell
7th Polymorph, Elemental Bane
9th Summon Draconic Spirit, Commune
*Summons Pseudodragons

-Draconic Disciple: When you choose this domain at 1st level, you learn to read and write Draconic. Additionally, you become proficient in 2 of the following skills: Deception, Intimidation, Persuasion, or Insight.

-Draconic Arcana: Also at 1st level, you gain the Draconic Breath cantrip. This counts as a Cleric cantrip for you, and does not count against the number of cantrips that you know. You also gain the Find Familiar ritual spell. When casting this spell you may summon a Pseudodragon as your familiar. This spell does not count against your number of spells known.

-Channel Divinity-Scale Mail: Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to cloak yourself in protective spectral scales.
As an action, you invoke the protection of your patron Draconic deity and become resistant to one type of damage that you choose. This fine spectral scaled armor lasts for 1 minute before vanishing.

-Dragon Fear: At 6th level, you become a source of primordial dread while becoming unshakeable yourself. You become immune to Charm and Fear effects. Upon reaching this level, you gain the ability to cast Fear once per short rest. This does not count against the number of spells that you know, and does not require material components.

-Divine Strike: At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 fire, cold, lightning, thunder, poison, or acid damage (your choice) to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.

-Flight of the Wyrm: At 17th level, you gain a flying speed equal to your current walking speed, and gain the ability to hover.




Draconic Breath
Evocation Cantrip
Casting Time: Bonus Action
Range: 30ft
Components: S
Duration: Instantaneous

Elemental power builds up in your chest and you exhale it at an enemy within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 damage of one of the following damage types: fire, cold, lightning, thunder, poison, or acid.

At Higher Levels: This spell’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), and 17th level (4d6).

Spell lists: Cleric, Druid, Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard

[P. G. Macer]

I’ll admit I’m biased, given that I have a Dragon Domain of my own, but this seems really unbalanced. I think for the Channel Divinity you’re underestimating the power that the versatility of choosing a type of damage to be resistant to brings, especially as you have not excluded bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

I also think the Domain Spells are questionable in places, namely counterspell and flock of familiars*. I’d suggest the spell incite greed (from Acquisitions Incorporated) instead of the former, and maybe alter self or darkvision for the latter.

Immunity to two common conditions at 6th level is a bit over-the-top, and would cause me as a DM to reject this out of hand of a player came to me with this as-written.

The ability to hover at 17th level doesn’t really fit well with the theme you’re going for in my opinion.

Finally, don’t let my above critiques get you down, there’s a good chassis here, it just needs some rearranging.

*Keep in mind that the ability to summon a pseudo dragon familiar in base 5e is reserved for a Pact Boon; combining it with flock may lead to some unforeseen consequences

[Vogie]

I agree. It sounds like a collection of neat abilities, but if you hadn't put the word "Draconic" in the titles, it'd be relatively generic. Thankfully there are ways to get around it, using the existing dragon-lore characters and features that have direct connections to dragons.

First off the spells - like PGM said, they don't feel very dragon-y. There aren't dragons that summon pseudodragons, cast elemental bane, and the only dragon that can use counterspell is Niv-Mizzet from the Magic: The Gathering crossover world. If you go through spells that dragons actually have, you see things like sending, divination, control weather, or other spells related to their element. I would also look through Fizban's for more information, beyond just Summon Draconic Spirit. Even giving the ability to cast spells such as Fear and/or Create Fear would me more thematic than many of these.

With the first level features, you want to give the character something that makes them feel the connection to their domain. A more powerful but shorter range Spiritual weapon really doesn't feel like it, even if the damage is coming out of the character's mouth. Even dragons don't use their breath every turn - in fact, they're rather melee in fights. If you want to grant a very draconic-feeling change, I'd swap the cantrip out for Primal Savagery, but give the ability to change the damage type. I'd also include the additional health scaling that is present in the Draconic Sorcerer feature, as you're encouraging the player to claw and bite their targets. You don't need additional AC as clerics can already wear medium armor.

The channel divinity seems like there should be an ability to gain an elemental resistance and blindsight up to 10 ft for a minute. You can also include some innate scaling in this as well, allowing it to go longer at, say, 8th (10 minutes) and 14th levels (1 hour).

I like the vibe of the 6th level, but it's too powerful. However, we already know what this ability should look like, as it was printed on many dragon cultists from HotDQ and RoT -

Dragon Fanatic - The creature has advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened.
It's also called "Brave" on a couple, and others have an added ability to become immune, but only if they can see an allied dragon or higher level dragon cult member.

I would also make it more versatile by allowing it to give the character an additional Channel divinity to give the character a flying speed - Much like the Ascendant Dragon Monk Subclass. If you don't want to add an additional channel divinity, this could be augmenting the 2nd level existing channel divinity. Then you can start the fights by giving yourself a flying speed, then spend the rest of the spell slots on Dragon Breath as you swoop around.

The 8th level feature should be modeled over the Blessed Strikes from TCE

You are blessed with divine might in battle. When a creature takes damage from one of your cantrips or weapon attacks, you can also deal 1d8 radiant damage to that creature. Once you deal this damage, you can't use this feature again until the start of your next turn.
I'd probably keep it as radiant damage - you are a cleric after all.

The 17th level ability should be much more grandiose than just "you can fly". I would want it to be more along the lines of Illusory Dragon, Draconic Transformation, or True Polymorph into a Dragon for a minute when you use the Channel Divinity.

[Herbert_W]

In addition to what P. G. Macer said, the ability to chose the damage type of your breath weapon on the fly makes this domain stronger - and is potentially at odds with the theme of the domain if it was inspired by 3.5e dragon disciples, each of whom worshiped only one type of dragon.