Pendragon Class (PEACH)

[DersitePhantom]

Previously called the Dragonmaster, until someone suggested this name.

Anyway, this is a class that started with the idea of having a character's primary source of damage be an at-will AOE attack. After creating a design skeleton based on that, I decided on a dragon theme, which was used to fill in the remaining features and fluff. The result is an interesting mixture of features and a class that is neither a full caster, nor martial.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3YOCPU_5TFvbzhvZG5hX1NjX00/view?usp=sharing

I'd love to get some feedback, so please look it over and tell me what you think.

[Dominuce2112]

I think it may be a little strong. You can cast spells, have more unarmed damage than the monk, barbarians ac + armor and thats just at lvl 3.

Then in comparison, on the other path you get a weaker familiar that cant really do anything but move around. Then if it dies, youre forced to spend 1000g to regain the class feature thats weaker than the dragonsouls.

As you read on, the comparison between soul and bound is huge. I dont really see any reason to take the wyrmling over better attacks, defense and mobility.

[PotatoGolem]

I don't think Dragonsoul is particularly OP. Re-read the AC- it lets you replace Dex with Con, not add Con to armor that doesn't allow it. You'll have worse AC than a full-plate fighter, and worse than a barbarian with a combined +8. In fact, you should have exactly the same AC as any other medium armor user- it's just based on a different stat. I think Dragonsoul is a reasonably balanced class pick.

Dragonbound, on the other hand, is terrible. I get that you based it on Beastmaster, but Beastmaster is universally considered the worst archetype in 5e. I'd look at BM fixes for how to improve it. Also, DEFINITELY allow them to ride the companion before level 20. That's probably the main reason to go Bound, and right now most people will never get to use it.

EDIT: Just noticed this doesn't get Extra Attack, which kind of kills it. Yes, Soul gets a quasi-extra attack, but it eats up your bonus action and requires you to use unarmed strikes exclusively. Not a good enough caster to be a caster, not a good enough fighter to hold up as a gish. Needs a serious boost.

[DersitePhantom]

Dragonbound, on the other hand, is terrible. I get that you based it on Beastmaster, but Beastmaster is universally considered the worst archetype in 5e. I'd look at BM fixes for how to improve it. Also, DEFINITELY allow them to ride the companion before level 20. That's probably the main reason to go Bound, and right now most people will never get to use it.

EDIT: Just noticed this doesn't get Extra Attack, which kind of kills it. Yes, Soul gets a quasi-extra attack, but it eats up your bonus action and requires you to use unarmed strikes exclusively. Not a good enough caster to be a caster, not a good enough fighter to hold up as a gish. Needs a serious boost.

Wow. I must say that I understand how Wizards must have felt given the feedback to Beastmasters, because this came entirely out of left field for me. Dragonbound do have a large number of advantages over Beastmasters: wyrmling dragons have higher AC, hitpoints, damage, and stats in general compared to CR 1/4 beasts, and the HP scales as six times level rather than four times it. When a Dragonbound has their dragon attack at level 3/4, they're doing pretty similar damage to a fighter attacking (1d10 + 4 in the case of the gold wyrmling for example), and I gave them the ability to spend their turn dashing, dodging or disengaging without requiring the Pendragon's action. The intent with this was to get away from the BM's "my beast does nothing unless I spend my turn instructing it" problem, and to give the subclass high battlefield mobility and tanking potential (adding 20-60 additional HP to the party seemed pretty significant when I was designing the class, especially when dodge is probably the default action).

I've looked at a number of BM fixes, and most seem to be either completely broken (allowing the beast to attack without the Ranger's action) or fix problems that the Dragonbound doesn't have (giving the beast saving throws/skills and such, which wyrmlings already have). So I'm not really sure how to improve the subclass further.

The problem with allowing riding before level 20 is that doing so requires the dragon to be a large creature, which then means that it can't go in many building/dungeons and would mean advancing the dragon to the 'young' stage, which is seriously overpowered at any stage before level 20 (and maybe even then, but balance kind of breaks down by then anyway.) If you have any potential suggestions for overcoming these problems, I'd be happy to bring it down to level 15, where an at-will flight feature is more suited.

The reason the class doesn't get 'extra attack' is because the class' primary damage source is supposed to be the breath weapon. That's why they get 'Improved Breath Weapon' at level 5, as well as an increase to the damage of the breath weapon. The idea is that if the breath hits two or three creatures, the Pendragon is doing similar damage to a martial, when they're able to position themself to get four or more creatures, they'll do more overall damage (but doing so without hitting any allies won't be too easy), and when they have a single target, they use their subclass feature, either attacking or having their dragon companion attack. In this way, the class really isn't wanting to use those features under normal circumstances, but as a fall back. It's the same way that a Valor Bard is still mainly a spellcaster, but has martial attacking to fall back on when spellcasting is impractical.


I think it may be a little strong. You can cast spells, have more unarmed damage than the monk, barbarians ac + armor and thats just at lvl 3.

Then in comparison, on the other path you get a weaker familiar that cant really do anything but move around. Then if it dies, youre forced to spend 1000g to regain the class feature thats weaker than the dragonsouls.

As you read on, the comparison between soul and bound is huge. I dont really see any reason to take the wyrmling over better attacks, defense and mobility.

As PotatoGolem said, the AC thing is a replacement, not an addition. I though I'd made that clear with the examples, but it is admittedly a bit of a complex feature to word. The unarmed damage thing is accounted for by the fact that Monk's get to use DEX (an overall better stat than STR) and make up to two attacks with unarmed strikes as bonus actions, and get an extra attack: if you want to be an unarmed fighter, Monk is still definitely the way to go

The dragon companion can do much more than just move around and certainly has greater capabilities than a familiar, which can't even attack and has much lower HP and AC. The cost on the resurrection is to ensure players don't send their companion to die knowing they can easily bring it back later, but the price may be too high. Its hard to tell when there's no "expected wealth by level".

The companion is great for locking down melee combatants, as it can fly, has blindsight, has a decent AC, and can freely dodge. This combined with an immunity to the Pendragon's breath weapon (if the wyrmling is the same type as the Pendragon, which most should be) allows the companion to freely lock targets within range of the breath weapon, which is great battlefield control.

That was my intent is designing the class; if either of you think my reasoning on any of this is faulty, then please do say so, but I want to confirm that we're on the same page first.

[Ralanr]

Why monk damage die cap at level 3?

[PotatoGolem]

It still seems weak. This may just be the way I (and the other DMs in my group) run things, but being able to take out a bunch of mooks efficiently doesn't really make up for the low single-target damage. After a while, charging through minions isn't really a problem- they're just some minor speed bumps. Against a BBEG (or just a couple big threats), this class seems pretty lackluster. OTOH, I could see that it would be reversed if you prefer to throw hordes of weaker enemies at your players as opposed to fewer, bigger foes. It's very DM-dependent, so it may be fine for your games.

[DersitePhantom]

Why monk damage die cap at level 3?

Mechanically, I just wanted to give them something similar to martial weapon proficiency and better armor (like Valor Bards get at level 3), but that also made flavourful sense. As I said in my previous post, Monks still do way better at unarmed combat overall, so I don't think it's a problem.


It still seems weak. This may just be the way I (and the other DMs in my group) run things, but being able to take out a bunch of mooks efficiently doesn't really make up for the low single-target damage. After a while, charging through minions isn't really a problem- they're just some minor speed bumps. Against a BBEG (or just a couple big threats), this class seems pretty lacklustre. OTOH, I could see that it would be reversed if you prefer to throw hordes of weaker enemies at your players as opposed to fewer, bigger foes. It's very DM-dependent, so it may be fine for your games.

You're definitely right that it is to some extent variable on the type of campaign (though if the associated Aspect is chosen at level 11, the subclass damage isn't insignificant), and I wouldn't suggest that a DM make this an option if it couldn't keep up in that particular campaign. That said however, I've always heard the advice that, due to the importance of action economy in a bounded accuracy system, combat should basically never be the party against a single strong enemy; even the BBEG should have a bunch of minions. The encounter generation guide in the DMG supports this by suggesting that monsters of a higher CR than the party's level should usually be avoided. This matches my experience DMing and as a player (even at high levels, a kobold takes an attack/spell to take out, so taking out hordes easily is valuable), but I recognize there are campaigns where, for both flavor and mechanical reasons, the Pendragon would not be appropriate.

[Ralanr]

While that's true, it's still the damage die cap for monks. And it's also the damage die for two handed weapons and versatile weapons held in two hands.

I'd argue 1d8.

[DersitePhantom]

While that's true, it's still the damage die cap for monks. And it's also the damage die for two handed weapons and versatile weapons held in two hands.

I'd argue 1d8.

So I've got one person arguing that I need to reduce the damage of that subclass and another arguing that without good single target damage, the class isn't worth playing in a lot of games. I hope you can see my conundrum here.

How about starting at 1d8 and increasing to 1d10 at a later level? If this could work, then level 10 seems appropriate (close to the mandatory level 11 power bump). Around that stage, the Monk's goes to 1d8, so the difference is more minimal and gradual. I'm worried about adding too many small features like that for complexity reasons, but if it's important for balance, then I can probably swing it.