Dragons as Player Characters (Use Chrome)
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Hi everyone. Back on the WotCommunity boards, back in the days of 3E and 3.5E, I was a prolific homebrew poster. I spent 4E playing and DMing rather than brewing (I loved the system, but found it harder to create for). With 5E, I've been wanting to make content again, but I got dazed and distracted by life's responsibilities and the draw of the DM's Guild telling me I could make money. After sitting on this 'supplement' I starting working on nearly 3 years ago, I've decided to just post it to the community.
Here, I present Scale, Flame, and Spell: Dragons as Player Characters. Inside is presented a race and class combination to play as a True dragon from nearly after hatchling at 1st level through to a young adult on the cusp of dragon adulthood at 20th. The ten Monster Manual true dragons are presented as the subraces, the subclass archetypes focus on different ways to be a dragon. This whole work was inspired by the monstrous classes in Savage Species, and the Vampire class of 4th Edition.
I believe it is balanced against other options. Throughout revisions, I have tried to keep it side by side with existing classes. In it's current incarnation, I believe it balanced well against an example Dwarf Fighter. The Fighter has more AC, better single target damage due to being able to focus Action Surge and one's regular action on a single target, and better ranged potential. The Dragon has more mobility (which costs AC to use until later), more robust saves, and better multitarget damage when they can catch multiple enemies in their breath weapon. Playtesting has found the Dragon fills a party role similar to a Barbarian, but one who relies a bit more on hit and run tactics than the barbarian's face tanking.
The initial design was built off the Sorcerer chassis. Its Breath Weapon was fueled by spell slots, and it was built comparable to a martial subclass like the Wizard's Bladesinger. Initial playtesting showed it had way too much base damage potential, and that was before cracking into all its spell stacking. It was far too much spells to be on top of base dragon features.
The second version was built on the half-caster chassis. This structure worked, but subclass design became difficult. The need for differentiation through subclasses brought me to the current version, where spells are optional.
The third version was built on the fighter chassis and even had the extra ASIs at 6th and 14th level. I removed those and moved Short Flight and True Flight from the age category increases to those levels. I felt like the third version was balanced against the fighter, but it felt like it excelled in too many areas. This way, maxing Str and Con or Str and Cha will feel like more of a restriction instead of giving the opportunity of extra feats.
Please let me know what you think. Editing corrections, balance concerns, all constructive criticism is welcome. I intend to add more to this, such as some more subclasses (I'd like a subclass for those dragons who spends more time in their humanoid form). I'm also considering building it into a larger document, with draconic subclasses for the other classes (dragon riding paladins, dragon pet rangers, draconic barbarians, and the like), as well as new versions of the true dragons.
I hope you like it.
