Purple Dragon Knight Retooled as Banneret in D&D's Heroes of Faerun Book

The much-maligned Purple Dragon Knight Fighter subclass is being retooled towards its original support origins in the upcoming Heroes of Faerun book. Coming out of GenCon, an image of a premade character sheet of a Banneret is making its way around the Internet. The classic support-based Fighter subclass appears to have replaced the Purple Dragon Knight subclass, which received a ton of criticism for not resembling the Purple Dragon Knight's traditional lore.

The Banneret's abilities includes a Level 3 "Knightly Envoy" ability that allows it to cast Comprehend Language as a ritual and gain proficiency in either Intimidation, Insight, Performance, or Persuasion (this appears unchanged from the Purple Dragon Knight UA), plus a Group Recovery ability that allows those within 30 feet of the Banneret to regain 1d4 Hit Points plus the Banneret's Fighter Level when the Banneret uses its Second Wind ability. Scrapped is the Purple Dragon companion that the UA version of the subclass had, which grew in power as the Purple Dragon Knight leveled up.

The Banneret was the generic name for the Purple Dragon Knight in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. The Banneret/Purple Dragon Knight was originally more of a support class that could provide the benefits of its abilities to its allies instead of or in addition to benefitting from them directly. For instance, a Banneret's Action Surge could be used to allow a nearby ally to make an attack, and Indomitable could allow an ally to reroll a failed saving throw in addition to the Banneret.

 

[Mournblade94]

This is better. Making Purple Dragon Knights attached to Amethyst Dragons was lore ignorant. Purple Dragon Knights were named so for the Black Great Wyrm that ruled the territory before it became Cormyr.

There's a whole trilogy written about it. Likewise if they wanted Dragon Riders there's Damara. Again a novel featured them.

This is getting back to Realmlore.

 

[Mournblade94]

It's as ridiculous as the idea that the Red Wizards, a notorious group of zealot arcane spellcasters dedicated to a tyrannical lich far to the East would show up in every town, city, and village selling potions and minor magical trinkets and not be chased out on a rail the second they showed up in Waterdeep or Silverymoon. But they were. Then they weren't. And now they are again. Lore changes.

There was good reason for that. Economy. Some lore changes make sense like the red wizards and others are ignorant. The purple dragon knight amethyst dragon pets was lore ignorant. Not a good change.

Silverymoon did not have a red wizard enclave. Water deep certainly did and its focus on commerce made sense.

 

[ECMO3]

If it were me, I'd have had an Amethyst Wyrm dragon leader shows up in Cormyr, offer up some prophecy that "the knights of the purple wyrm" were supposed to defend Faerun against an upcoming calamity, and offer their services and the services of their kin in helping the knights (hence the bond with Amythest dragons) in order to facilitate the prophecy. The PDKs go from a one-kingdom knighthood into a full-on multi-state faction using the power (and funding) of said dragons, with the intrigue on if the great wyrm was being 100% truthful or benevolent.

This seems really cheesy and weak. This sounds to me like lore made up to justify the subclass, not a subclass made to fit lore and to me it is similar to the pathetic backstory attempt players sometimes make in justifying an off-brand multiclass combo or subclass choice. This is especially true considering the nature of Amethyst Dragons and the fact that the Dragon pet is not really an Amethyst Dragon as it is far weaker, ages/grows a lot faster, does not have similar stats and can be raised from the dead using second wind.

I think making a new creature called a Purple Dragon is actually a far better idea. You have weak Dragons like Dragonells, Faerie Dragons, Pseudo Dragons etc. The Purple Dragon would fit right in alongside those other Dragons, you could design the monster to match the pet with different power levels (hatchling/young/adult/ancient) that it would gain as you advance levels and you would have no problem fitting it into the existing lore as you would be creating the monster itself from scratch. You could actually do a lot better in terms of lore by making it a magical creation/binding of the War Wizards or something like that, which would explain how you can just get another one when yours dies.

The whole PDK is an Amethyst Dragon riding knight is just lame from every angle.

 

[Mournblade94]

I guess I care more about the default setting being straightforward and accessible than being deep and meaningful, or not "juvenile" (whatever that means for this elf game that I've often played with literal children).

Once again, to me the whole appeal of the Forgotten Realms is that it is a setting that's cosmopolitan enough to accommodate basically any character option or any monster, which has giant piles of lore easily accessible, which everyone is slightly familiar with, but which, critically, nobody I play with is invested enough in the lore of to care if we change up many or most things to suit our needs or whims. If I wanted lore I care about I'd use my own setting, but then I'd have to either tell players "no" or accept the lore consequences when they wanted to play a cat person in a psyonic subclass. The Forgotten Realms just says yes to everything, and has the sort of lore that comes from that. I don't particularly respect it's lore "vision", but that's part of what makes it useful.

I get that someone's going to be invested in any setting, it just seems a little silly when its a setting that every new non-setting specific bit of content just gets thrown into willy nilly and which has clearly been substantially reinterpreted over the decades to suit changes of edition and such. There has not really been a grand coherent vision for Faerun for a long, long time, and honestly when WotC tries to have some big event ongoing that produces the worst content; I really hate when a published adventure derails the flow to feature something that is just there to be a cool moment for people who played some other published adventure or read some novel (without even the courtesy of a DM note that that's why its there and here's how to skip it if it's not relevant to your group).

In any case as someone who loves the Forgotten Realms because I don't have to care about its lore it's odd to encounter people who love it because they do. Makes me feel like it's time to get a new generic fantasy setting as the default for those of us who just want to roll dice and not have to make up every bit of lore on the fly, and maybe the Forgotten Realms can be preserved as it is for you lore-curating afficianados.

I use FR and disallow a ton of races and options that are published. FR was not the arbitrary lore dump until the awful 4e realms became the default setting.

It was literally said by WOTC they needed to dumb the realms down. Where lore wouldn't matter.

Want Dragon Riders? There's a precedent fir that with King Gareth in Damara. Don't just take the name of the Order of Knights based on a rich history and change it for "kewl".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's as ridiculous as the idea that the Red Wizards, a notorious group of zealot arcane spellcasters dedicated to a tyrannical lich far to the East would show up in every town, city, and village selling potions and minor magical trinkets and not be chased out on a rail the second they showed up in Waterdeep or Silverymoon. But they were. Then they weren't. And now they are again. Lore changes.

Nah, that seems far more realistic than most things in FR. Business interest triumphing over ethics. Like it basically is very clever (probably accidental) social commentary.

 

[CreamCloud0]

personally from what i can parse, with backgrounds being given more weight with origin feats i feel like PDK would probably fare better as a background with Inspiring Leader as it's origin feat, leave banneret as a more generic support fighter, though identify it as the 'traditional' PDK archetype.

 

[Mournblade94]

personally from what i can parse, with backgrounds being given more weight with origin feats i feel like PDK would probably fare better as a background with Inspiring Leader as it's origin feat, leave banneret as a more generic support fighter, though identify it as the 'traditional' PDK archetype.

This is all you need to do to cover it. Well said.

 

[Weiley31]

I think the hardcore lore enthusiasts are making a big deal outta nothing. It's your table. Stick with the old lore. If we want to massacre it and cause our cats to silently judge us even more than they already do, then that's how our tables work.

 

[GarrettKP]

personally from what i can parse, with backgrounds being given more weight with origin feats i feel like PDK would probably fare better as a background with Inspiring Leader as it's origin feat, leave banneret as a more generic support fighter, though identify it as the 'traditional' PDK archetype.

PDK is a background now. Its origin feat is called “Purple Dragon Rook” and gives them a rallying cry that can be used when rolling initiative to give up to two allies heroic inspiration.

 

[chlopac]

right now on facebook, so they change the lore or not, bcs this looks like amethys dragon a that guy is riding on it.