3.5 Style Dragonborn in 5e

[Drewzer987]

Here's my attempt at loosely capturing some of flavour of the 3.5 Dragonborn in 5e:
Feedback is always appreciated!

Dragonborn

Rebirth: Those who wish to become a Dragonborn must undergo a rite of rebirth. When this rite is completed the character looses all racial features, such as Ability Score Increases, cantrips and resistances, except their size category and languages known
Ability Score Increase: +1 Charisma
Size: A Dragonborn retains the size they had before undergoing rebirth
Speed: A Dragonborns base walking speed is 30ft
Draconic Ancestry: Choose what type of dragon you have chosen to embody. This choice will affect the features of some of the subraces of Dragonborn more than others
Languages: You know Draconic

Subraces

Mind
Ability Score Increase: +2 Intelligence
Darkvision: You gain darkvision out to a distance of 30ft
Draconic Cunning: You have advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma saving throws against magic
Mental Resistance: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed and magic cannot put you to sleep
Sharpened Mind You gain proficiency in the Investigation Skill

Heart
Ability Score Increase: +2 Wisdom
Breath Weapon: You gain a breath weapon that corresponds to your Draconic Ancestry. You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your level divided by four (min 1/day). The DC for this saving throw is 8 + your constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus. The creature takes 2d6 damage on a successful save and half as much on a successful save. The damage increases by 1d6 at levels 8, 12 and 16
Brave: You have advantage on saving throws to avoid being frightened. You are also immune to the frightful presence of dragons
Combat Prescence: When you score a critical hit against an enemy, they must make a Will Save equal to 8 + your wisdom modifier + your proficiency bonus, or become frightened of you until your next turn

Scales
Ability Score Increase: +2 Constitution
Resistant Scales: You gain Resistance to the damage type associated with your Draconic Ancestry
Armoured Body: You gain a base Armour Class equal to 12 + your Dexterity modifier. This does not stack with any other source of physical armour
Endurance: Once per short rest you can use your reaction to reduce damage you take by 1d12 + your Constitution modifier
Claws: You gain claws that become a natural weapon for you. Your unarmed strikes do 1d4 damage and deal slashing damage

Wings
Ability Score Increase: +2 Strength
Draconic Wings You gain a set of draconic looking wings. You have a wingspan of twice your height, and you must have at least 10ft either side of you to use your wings. Your wings grant you advantage on checks made to jump vertically or horizontally. You can use your wings to slow your fall, halving any damage you take from falling and slowing the speed you descend at to 40ft per round. This ability does not function if you are incapacitated. Your wing inhibit your ability to wear armour, and you cannot wear any medium or heavy armour that has not been especially modified to accommodate your wings. It takes you 1 extra minute to don or doff any armour you are wearing, except shields.
At 6th level your wings have grown strong enough for you to gain the ability to fly with a speed of 30ft. You can fly for a number of rounds per long rest equal to your Strength modifier. You cannot use this ability if you have a level of exhaustion. Time spent gliding between rounds of flight does not count as flight. You cannot hover when flying, and must move at least 20ft a turn to stay aloft. You now also do not take damage from falling, as long as you use your wings to help slow your fall
At 15th level you can fly for a number of rounds equal to twice your Strength modifier and your fly speed increases to 40ft

[GaelofDarkness]

Oooh, I do love the flavor of the old dragonborn! I don't see anything that strikes me as broken here, seems fine. The only thing I'd wish for - and I know you specifically address it - is to have a way of representing draconic ancestry mechanically in each of the subraces but how in the name of Bahamut you're supposed to do that for the Mind or Wings subrace beats me.

I suppose you could have a white wings dragonborn be unaffected by snow or a blue one unaffected by stormy weather when they want to fly, but what do you do for say a black wings dragonborn - unaffected by smog? Unless you do something like making the breath weapon or damage resistance a core feature and giving the subrace you take it from a stronger version of it as replacement, but that does feek like you're taking away from the subrace.

Maybe you could add a core feature that lets the dragonborn ignore an environmental effect based on their draconic ancestry? Firebreathers don't worry about extreme heat environments, cold-breathers ignore extreme cold, lightning-breathers ignore strong winds/see in stormy weather (actually that sounds a little lame... maybe just give the blue and brass dragonborn an extra 5 ft of walking speed or something?), acid-breathers can ignore marshy terrain and any nasty swamp gases and poison-breathers have no trouble in forests (maybe they have a climbing speed?). Maybe ignoring an environmental effect is a bit narrow. Resistance to disease, say, could make sense for green dragonborn. The features wouldn't need to be perfectly equivalent since, for example, lightning resistance is a less powerful feature than fire resistance on account of how common sources of fire damage are. So having a slightly more powerful core feature for blue and bronze dragonborn than red, gold or brass dragonborn could be permissible as long as they were all pretty minor.


Heart
Combat Prescence: When you score a critical hit against an enemy, they must make a Will Save equal to 8 + your wisdom modifier + your proficiency bonus, or become frightened of you until your next turn

Do you mean Wisdom or Charisma there? There's good arguments for both - though I'd vote Charisma.

[Drewzer987]

I like the idea of giving the Wings Dragonborn some type of feature that means they aren’t slowed by difficult terrain in a specific environment, though it feels like a bit of a minor benefit. A possibility could be to give them a swim, climb or bonus to their fly speed, depending on their type. Black, Green, Bronze and Gold would have a swim speed, Copper, Brass, White and Red would have a Climb, and Silver and Blue would get a 10ft flight speed bonus. It feels fluffy and I think it fits with the other benefits of the wings

A possibility for the Mind Dragonborn actually could be swapping out Investigation for other ‘mental’ skills depending on draconic ancestry, such as Perception, Survival, Insight and possibly Persuasion or Deception (I may or may not be looking at the dragon shaman class for inspiration)


And, honestly, I felt as if a Will save made more sense than a Charisma, mainly due to the fact that Dragons Frightful Presence is a will save, and also because I wanted the ability to work off the Dragonborns wisdom modifier, so a will save seemed appropriate. I see where your coming from though with the charisma save, although I feel like having a charisma save against a will based DC is just a bit odd. That’s more of a personal thing though

[GaelofDarkness]

That sounds like it could work pretty well. It emphasizes the wings' mobility and the minds' utility - which is a nice way to look at it.