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.

 

[TiQuinn]

I keep feeling that there is a story we're not seeing because it's in the Forgotten Realms Adventure Guide, not the Player Guide and while the lore is linked, we're not supposed to be playtesting the lore.

WotC wanted to know if the subclass fit the fantasy of a chivalrous knight and his dragon steed. They didn't give a flying fig if the fantasy of a chivalrous knight and his dragon steed fit the prior lore of the Purple Dragon Knight because their is probably a decent explanation of why the two are now linked. Or maybe they don't, but it doesn't matter because they spent a whole chapter in the FRAG describing PDKs with amethyst dragons and they aren't rewriting it because of a poorly received UA.

What WotC asked was "does this dragon knight do it for you?" Not "does this dragon knight align with the established lore of the PDK?" So when people told them that the lore made no sense, WotC heard "no, we don't want a dragon knight, we want a diet coke warlord instead".

WotC isn't going to learn the "don't mess with established lore" lesson, or they would have after after Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Eberron and now the Realms have all messed with the established lore. They're going to learn "people don't want cool dragon riders, they want warlord knockoffs".

Trying to keep lore built over a 40 to 50 year timespan in check when your goal is to put out an exciting product that people want to play seems like a bad idea to me. Especially when it's lore that you have full control over, and you've already made several very clumsy attempts at trying to bake lore into mechanic changes at various points over the decades that have never moved the needle except with people who feel that they absolutely 100% need that lore to move on in their own personal campaigns.

It's a very comic book mindset - recalling the numerous attempts to reboot universes in Marvel and DC over the same span of time.

 

[Valetudo]

That's coke zero bro. Trust me, there's a difference.

 

[Mournblade94]

I hope it means people on Forgotten Realms subreddit will stop acting like this subclas personally pisses in their cereal now.

They wouldn't do that if the designers paid more attention to the lore.

 

[Amphytrion]

WotC wanted to know if the subclass fit the fantasy of a chivalrous knight and his dragon steed. They didn't give a flying fig if the fantasy of a chivalrous knight and his dragon steed fit the prior lore of the Purple Dragon Knight because their is probably a decent explanation of why the two are now linked. Or maybe they don't, but it doesn't matter because they spent a whole chapter in the FRAG describing PDKs with amethyst dragons and they aren't rewriting it because of a poorly received UA.

What WotC asked was "does this dragon knight do it for you?" Not "does this dragon knight align with the established lore of the PDK?" So when people told them that the lore made no sense, WotC heard "no, we don't want a dragon knight, we want a diet coke warlord instead".

WotC isn't going to learn the "don't mess with established lore" lesson, or they would have after after Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Eberron and now the Realms have all messed with the established lore. They're going to learn "people don't want cool dragon riders, they want warlord knockoffs".

This is some serious underestimating of WotC’s staff’s faculties.

The UA process has many flaws, and I am not a fan of it. Responders aren’t really representative of the wide player base, it wastes energy on minutiae, it sometimes leads to baffling design choices, and the conversation around it is fairly exhausting. Nonetheless, that is the process WotC chooses to abide by, and it has done so for a long, long time.

If, as you claim, they only ever cared for one particular question, and they can’t parse the noise, that’s a failure on their part, not on the people responding the survey. I don’t think that’s what happened at all.

The subclass got poor marks, WotC heard the complaints, and the subclass was retooled. I’m certain they’re used to UAs by now and can read the feedback well enough. If it is true that the most frequent complaint was a fairly elementary one about its theme (it doesn’t tie into the preexisting organization in the FR setting after which it was named), I’m sure they’re perfectly capable of understanding that.

 

[Mournblade94]

Potentially that and also the Absolute situation/Nautiloid crash in Baldur's Gate 3.

Yes let's please not make it like a Marvel Celestial popping out of a planet and it not really bothering anyone.

 

[doctorhook]

Trying to keep lore built over a 40 to 50 year timespan in check when your goal is to put out an exciting product that people want to play seems like a bad idea to me. Especially when it's lore that you have full control over, and you've already made several very clumsy attempts at trying to bake lore into mechanic changes at various points over the decades that have never moved the needle except with people who feel that they absolutely 100% need that lore to move on in their own personal campaigns.

It's a very comic book mindset - recalling the numerous attempts to reboot universes in Marvel and DC over the same span of time.

It’s a strong argument in favour of creating some new settings. Unlike in comic books, TTRPGs aren’t all about established characters—although WotC has really shifted to marketing based on tie-in media moreso then than ever before.

 

[Remathilis]

This is some serious underestimating of WotC’s staff’s faculties.

The UA process has many flaws, and I am not a fan of it. Responders aren’t really representative of the wide player base, it wastes energy on minutiae, it sometimes leads to baffling design choices, and the conversation around it is fairly exhausting. Nonetheless, that is the process WotC chooses to abide by, and it has done so for a long, long time.

If, as you claim, they only ever cared for one particular question, and they can’t parse the noise, that’s a failure on their part, not on the people responding the survey. I don’t think that’s what happened at all.

The subclass got poor marks, WotC heard the complaints, and the subclass was retooled. I’m certain they’re used to UAs by now and can read the feedback well enough. If it is true that the most frequent complaint was a fairly elementary one about its theme (it doesn’t tie into the preexisting organization in the FR setting after which it was named), I’m sure they’re perfectly capable of understanding that.

My point was they are only interested in the feedback on the subclass, not the greater lore change. WotC does not playtest lore. They weren't concerned if people felt the knights of Cormyr x amethyst dragons was a betrayal any more than they cared about changing Ravenloft domains, making Spelljammers use the astral sea, or allowing any species to get any dragonmark. They care of the subclass passes the vibes check. Even if the UA PDK got miserable numbers, it wasn't going to cause anyone at WotC to say "jeez, maybe we should scrap the whole idea that the PDKs are aligned with amethyst dragons. Let's take the Dalelands chapter back to the drawing board."

Instead what we got was a subclass that no longer reflects that theme rather than a rejection of the theme itself. That's what I mean by the limited scope of the UA process. They don't care much if the community rejects the dragon x knight idea because it's too late to remove it. They only cared if the subclass felt fun to play as a knight with a dragon. And the answer they took away is not "don't change the lore of Cormyr", it was "we'd prefer the knight without the dragon."

I never accused WotC of not being able to parse the difference, I am accusing them of not caring if you hate the idea of PDKs on amethyst dragons and only caring if you liked this specific implementation of the idea.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

We'll see when the book actually comes out. If the PDKs are still described as an order of dragon riders, we know they only listened to feedback about mechanics, not lore.

I doubt there's more than a couple of paragraphs of lore about the PDKs in the original draft, so if they have time to rewrite the subclass they have time to rewrite the lore. Or even cut it completely, with the PDK now renamed to Banneret, there's no need to mention the PDKs at all.

 

[Nikosandros]

We'll see when the book actually comes out. If the PDKs are still described as an order of dragon riders, we know they only listened to feedback about mechanics, not lore.

I doubt there's more than a couple of paragraphs of lore about the PDKs in the original draft, so if they have time to rewrite the subclass they have time to rewrite the lore. Or even cut it completely, with the PDK now renamed to Banneret, there's no need to mention the PDKs at all.

Isn't PDK a faction with also an associated background?

 

[GarrettKP]

We'll see when the book actually comes out. If the PDKs are still described as an order of dragon riders, we know they only listened to feedback about mechanics, not lore.

I doubt there's more than a couple of paragraphs of lore about the PDKs in the original draft, so if they have time to rewrite the subclass they have time to rewrite the lore. Or even cut it completely, with the PDK now renamed to Banneret, there's no need to mention the PDKs at all.

They already confirmed the PDK are in the book and that they are a full faction you can join and gain renown for. They were not a small part of the book nor were they easy to cut out.