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

The class received poor marks during playtesting.
purple dragon knight.jpg


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.

 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


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Might be that this is part of the problem, no explanation was offered and the story online morphed into no explanation existing. Still WotC ain’t off the hook, they probably should’ve known people would expect to understand why.
WotC probably should have added a sidebar that says they were changing the lore, which has been my problem with the playtest system since Next. We get told what the mechanics are, but not the background for it. It's like a chef sticking a spoon of food on your mouth and telling you to say if it's good or not without telling you what it is. Is it stew, is it chili, is it gumbo? Doesn't matter, do you like it or no?
 

As it stands, it’s presented as “They’re Purple Dragon Knights, why wouldn’t they have purple dragons?” which is woefully under-explained.
FWIW, I'm open to the idea of this organization aligning with amethyst dragons and having it make sense in and be kind of interesting in context. Like, amethyst dragons are Neutral and are aloof and kind of arrogantly "above it all" - they don't necessarily care about this nation or its people, and they're not the kind of dragon to inherently care about what happens to human nations. It's pretty clear why Cormyr would ally with dragons (power! money!), but what do the dragons themselves want? Amethyst dragons in 5e lore are very curious about the planes, and specifically oppose the threat of the Far Realm (reflecting a bit of the 4e psionics story). I haven't played it, but it's possible this connects to events in Phandelver and Below? Maybe they're planning a big Far Realm adventure next year or something and this organization can then key into it pretty easily? Amethyst dragons connect to themes like psionic force, psychokinesis, planar divination, aloof neutrality...there could be interesting elements in that.

Like:
  • Sagacious amethyst dragons that watch the planes see a rift to the Far Realm building somewhere in Cormyr
  • Hoping to preserve planar integrity, the amethyst dragons abandon their usual neutrality to empower the humans best able to fight the Far Realm with psionic powers. They're building an army to prepare for an invasion. But, the exact details of the rift (where it is, what can seal it, what's creating it, what's...crawling through it...) aren't clear. The dragons and the humans need to work together to solve the problem.
  • The humans are happy to accept draconic help in part to avoid an apocalyptic Far Realm invasion, but also because while they're fighting the Far Realm, they can get the power and the money from amethyst dragons and their hordes. The leaders of Cormyr are pragmatic: they can use the dragons to advance the cause of their nation.
  • There's tension there between what the dragons want from the humans and what the humans want from the dragons. The dragons are single-minded and deliberate. They're used to aloof neutrality, and they don't care about Cormyr as much as they care about preventing an invasion of horrors from the Far Realm. They believe they've got the right priorities, and that the humans should listen to their betters for their own dang good. They look for what is effective, not necessarily what is honorable or right, and they find all the politics and chivalry as little ants playing at their little ant rituals while the time to prevent an invasion grows short.
  • For the humans, they definitely want to avoid the apocalypse, but what's good for the world is also what's good for Cormyr, and so they are more than ready and willing to use the power and money of the dragons for other purposes. Unrelated wars. Local conflicts. The dragons resent being entangled in these small concerns, but are also interested in protecting the world, so tolerate it (sometimes...most of the time....well, the stories of dragons turning on the armies they are supposed to serve are surely not becoming more common, right?!). Other factions and nations in the region are somewhat overwhelmed, and Cormyr's reputation for chivalry is tarnished because the amethyst dragons are not committed to noble ideals like compassion and mercy and honor. And power corrupts, so the leaders are also in tension, some wanting to preserve the old ways in the light of this amoral power, and others happy to use this amoral power for their own ends (sometimes justifying it as for the "greater good of Cormyr" because certainly a notable noble family falling from grace would just be a distraction from the greater fight against the Far Realm!) Sometimes, maybe the knights of the Purple Dragon sometimes fail to fulfill their side of the "fight the Far Realm" bargain in a way that could drop the region into aberrant chaos.
  • At the same time, an alliance with amethyst dragons is causing changes. Kids in Cormyr are being born able to move things with their mind, or seeing visions of a horrible future, or being able to speak without words. There's a variety of reactions. Sometimes, it's just a new kind of magic, not any more of a big deal than sorcery (not that this is a small deal, exactly). But some parents are like "What is this doing to my family? My kids are MUTANTS, the Dragons are a DISEASE that is INFECTING us, and turning us into MONSTERS" (and maybe sometimes this is true, the amethyst dragons might not be extremely careful and the occasional megalomaniac with psychic powers is just part of the price they're happy to pay to get that rift sealed). Maybe then there's like X-men style psionic orphanage-academies that might be producing some Future Protagonists that will fight the Far Realm.
That whole bag is not a nothing story. It's not really necessarily a Cormyr story (AFAIK, the Far Realm and Cormyr haven't been linked exactly), but since part of that story is about preparing for an alien invasion, that feels pretty apt (the more normal the world is that the aliens could wreck, the more effective the story about aliens wrecking it!). It's at least got some legs.

But this:
Screenshot 2025-08-03 191642.png


...this is pretty dumb. It tells me that the knights are chivalrous fighters for justice and freedom and protecting the innocent, which is all well and good. And then they also partner with amethyst dragons, which makes no sense without further context (amethyst dragons don't really care about chivalry, freedom, justice, or innocents). There's no reason for this pairing. It's just stated like it should be obvious.
 
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I wasn’t married to old lore, but I agree the new idea seems juvenile. The thought process clearly was “we have an organization that mentions a purple dragon. We also have purple dragons somewhere, somehow. Why aren’t they linked?”

I don’t think anyone cared that they weren’t linked. I’m willing to bet a substantial part of D&D players don’t even know amethyst dragons exist. The ones that do know of them would also know that amethyst dragons have no business being in a chivalric organization, especially not en masse.

That being said, I don’t think seeing art now means it will be in the book as is. Prior books have had multiple instances of missing art advertised beforehand. I do think the production process might have been too late by the time they got feedback, though if that were the case I’m surprised they’re willing to walk back the subclass this much. We’ll see once it comes out.

I see lots of complaints here hurled at those who previously complained about the lack of thematic fit in what’s meant to be a thematic subclass. That strikes me as uncharitable. We’ll have other chances to see a dragonriding fighter later; dragons are in the name of the game. This is the one chance for people who like the original FR Purple Dragon Knights to get something; we can let them have their turn. It’s going to be 1-3 pages out of 400+ anyway.
 


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