Dragnonborn & Tiefling (Becasue it had to be done eventually...)

[GameDoc]

My group us thinking of picking up the Neverwinter campaign I had started but using D&D Next instead of 4e. The first big challenge is that the party includes a Tiefling Warlock and Dragonborn Warlord. The player of warlord is fine remaking the character as a DDN fighter. The problem is the races.

So, here is my attempt at D&D Next dragonborn and tiefings, trying to balance them with the other demihuman races presented in the play test in terms of the number and power of racial traits.

I'm no game designer, so feedback is welcome (just be gentle )

Dragonborn Traits
As a dragonborn, you have all the following traits.

Size:Medium. Dragonborn average 6’2” – 6’8” in height and typically weigh between 200 and 300 lbs.

Speed:30 feet

Low-Light Vision: If there is no light within 30 feet of you, you treat shadows in that radius as normal light, and you treat darkness in that radius as shadows.

Dragon Breath: Your draconic heritage grants you a from of dragon’s breath. Choose one type of breath – acid, cold, fire lightning, or poison. As an action, make an attack using the ability associated with your draconic heritage (see below) against 1 creature that you can see within 100 feet of you. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 + 3 damage of the type associated with your dragon breath.

Resistance: You have resistance against the type of damage dealt by your dragon breath.

Scaly Hide: Your scales give you an additional measure of protection from damage in the from of a +1 bonus to Armor Class.

Languages: You speak, read, and write Common and Draconic.

Draconic Heritage: Choose a draconic heritage, either chromatic dragon or metallic dragon.

Chromatic Heritage Dragonborn
The blood of chromatic dragons dominates your ancestry, and you have inherited a modicum of their wrathful nature.

Ability Score Adjustment:Your starting Strength score increases by 1.

Draconic Fury:The first time you are hit for damage in combat, as a reaction you can make an attack on the creature that dealt the damage. You have advantage on this attack.

Metallic Heritage Dragonborn
The blood of metallic dragons dominates your ancestry, and you have inherited a portion of their insightfulness.

Ability Score Adjustment: Your starting Wisdom score increases by 1.

Draconic Vigilance: You may always act on your initiative in a surprise round. Additionally, you have advantage to all checks to detect a creature attempting to elude your notice. ​

A few notes on the dragonborn:

I tried to equate the breath weapon with what a high elf might get in a damage dealing cantrip. I used ray of frost as the base for it. It also stands in for weapon training, as I don't think dragonborn have any iconic weapons.

Tiefling Traits
As a tielfing, you have all the following traits.

Size: Medium. Tieflings average 5’6” – 6’2” in height and typically weigh between 140 and 230 lbs.

Speed: 30 feet.

Low-Light Vision: If there is no light within 30 feet of you, you treat shadows in that radius as normal light, and you treat darkness in that radius as shadows.

Beguiling: You are immune to the charmed effect and gain advantage on all attempts to deceive another creature.

Bloodlust: When you score a critical hit on attack, take the maximum damage as normal and roll an additional damage dice.

Fire Resistance: You have resistance against all damage dealt by fire.

Veil of Darkness: As an action, you can shroud yourself in mystical darkness, granting you concealment until the beginning of your next turn.

Rebuke: Twice per day, when a creature makes an attack, check, or saving throw against you and gets a result you dislike, you can force the creature to re-roll and take the result of your choice. If the creature had advantage or disadvantage on the roll, it only re-rolls one of the dice.

Languages: You speak, read, and write Common and Infernal.

Ability Score Bonus: Your starting Charisma score increases by 1.

A few notes on tieflings:

As with dragonborn, no iconic weapons, so I came up with the bloodlust to give them some capacity for increasing damage. Since it applies to all attacks, I limited it to critical hits. Its also evocative of 4e's bloodhunt.

I wanted to do two different tiefling bloodlines - demonic and diabolic. I could see the demonic one focusing more on destructiveness (vis a vis bloodlust) and the diabolic one more on deception and guile (vis a vis beguiling). Ultimately, I couldn't come up with which ability score the demonic one would increase, and i felt that if bloodlust and beguiling were attached to a subrance or bloodline, I needed to have one other standard racial trait and I couldn't come up with one. So in the end, I just melded it all back together.

 

[slobo777]

These look pretty good.

On the dragonborn . . .

I think the power level of the dragon breath is reasonable and fitting. I miss the per-encounter and use-alongside nature of the 4E racial power design, and would have gone for something like burning hands requiring a 10 min rest between uses, but the 5E races haven't gone for that as a general approach.

Advantage on the draconic fury will synergise (perhaps a little weirdly given the concept) with rogue sneak attack. I'm not too sure whether that's the intent?

 

[Quickleaf]

I'd shorten the range on the dragonborn's breath (100 feet?!?), and I'd nix the rebuke ability of the tiefling. Besides that looks good though.

Points of Light blog has an interesting take on the tiefling here: Points of Light: D&D Next: Tiefling Homebrew

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I think you need to narrow down 'Beguiling' - Tieflings probably shouldn't get advantage to disguise themselves for instance, what with the horns and all.

 

[GameDoc]

These look pretty good.

On the dragonborn . . .

I think the power level of the dragon breath is reasonable and fitting. I miss the per-encounter and use-alongside nature of the 4E racial power design, and would have gone for something like burning hands requiring a 10 min rest between uses, but the 5E races haven't gone for that as a general approach.

Advantage on the draconic fury will synergise (perhaps a little weirdly given the concept) with rogue sneak attack. I'm not too sure whether that's the intent?

It wasn't intended for the breath attack. Perhaps I should make it a melee attack only? Kinda nerfs it for wizards. But I'm also not sure I want to let a dragonborn wizard cast his higher level attack spells this way either.

 

[GameDoc]

I'd shorten the range on the dragonborn's breath (100 feet?!?), and I'd nix the rebuke ability of the tiefling. Besides that looks good though.

Points of Light blog has an interesting take on the tiefling here: Points of Light: D&D Next: Tiefling Homebrew

I think that's a good call on the range.

The Tiefling at Points of Light is similar to my original idea. I was going to give charm person to diabolical ones and cause fear to demonic ones, but I really didn't want to get into granting spells.

 

[GameDoc]

I think you need to narrow down 'Beguiling' - Tieflings probably shouldn't get advantage to disguise themselves for instance, what with the horns and all.

Yeah, that was really meant more for bluff checks.

 

[the Jester]

Definitely a nice start.

I'm not a fan of giving advantage via draconic fury.

Ditto on the range of the breath; it should be a pretty short range attack IMHO.

Also, I'm not quite sure where the rebuke ability came from; I don't recall anything like it from prior tiefling lore, but I am not an expert. Does it have a source, or is it new? I'm not really a fan.

 

[GameDoc]

Definitely a nice start.

I'm not a fan of giving advantage via draconic fury.

Ditto on the range of the breath; it should be a pretty short range attack IMHO.

Also, I'm not quite sure where the rebuke ability came from; I don't recall anything like it from prior tiefling lore, but I am not an expert. Does it have a source, or is it new? I'm not really a fan.

4e Tieflings had a power called "Hellish Rebuke" which was basically a reaction to attack an enemy that had just wounded them. I did the dragonborn first and felt I'd already used the concept for draconic fury. Then I recalled that Tieflings originally had a more creepy, unsettling motif and I thought about how to mechanically represent the idea that they bring misfortune or curses upon others. From there, I just reversed the halfling "Lucky" trait.

 

[GameDoc]

One goal I had for dragon breath is that it be equivalent to a damage dealing cantrip a high elf could get as a racial trait. That said, the range is all wrong (I just used the range and damage for ray of frost).

I like making it akin to burning hands in terms of range. A cone fits a breath weapon much better. So what about a hybrid? It's range is that of burning hands, but it does damage of magic missile (1d4 + 1) and a save results in no damage.

I thought about keeping damage at 1d6+3, but given that the attack can hit multiple targets at once, that damage might be too high. I also considered just saying it deals damage equal to your strength or wisdom modifier depending on your heritage.