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.

 

[Amphytrion]

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.

Here's what I am interpreting from your post. You simultaneously think that:

1. WotC does not care about complaints about lore and does not heed them;
2. WotC still reworked the class due to feedback;
3. Somehow the people who submitted complaints about lore are to blame.

Do you see the contradiction here? IF both (1) and (2) are true, and let's assume they are for the moment, then one of two things happened:

• (A) WotC couldn't or wouldn't discern between complaints about lore and complaints about mechanics, and therefore couldn't properly ignore lore comments as they wanted; or
• (B) WotC got a lot of negative feedback on the mechanics as well, and the pet-class didn't work mechanically regardless any lore comments.

What I defended, and you seemingly agreed at the end, is that (A) -- WotC not discerning between the comments -- is very unlikely. They can read the feedback just fine. This leaves (B) as the reason for the class rework, in which case there is no point in complaining about whomever was rubbed the wrong way about lore changes, since their lore feedback didn't matter anyway.

Of course, unlike you, I don't think that WotC ignores comments about lore. I don't see why they would; this whole process is a way to avoid upsetting potential customers and I can't imagine feedback needing to pass a purity test to be considered. So I think they could very well have reworked a subclass based on lore feedback, and that may have been what happened here. We won't know for sure until November.

 

[WanderingMystic]

Regardless of the lore change I know a few people, myself included that while they liked the idea of a dragon rider they felt that the pdk was not the best choice for where to put that. I wanted a dedicated dragon rider with an option of dragons that didn't care about leading and inspiring others as much. I also wanted a leader type character which is what the pdk used to be(was supposed to be but it failed). So to me the idea was that the two should be sperate. The pdks as a faction using dragons I'm fine with.

 

[Remathilis]

Here's what I am interpreting from your post. You simultaneously think that:

1. WotC does not care about complaints about lore and does not heed them;
2. WotC still reworked the class due to feedback;
3. Somehow the people who submitted complaints about lore are to blame.

Do you see the contradiction here? IF both (1) and (2) are true, and let's assume they are for the moment, then one of two things happened:

• (A) WotC couldn't or wouldn't discern between complaints about lore and complaints about mechanics, and therefore couldn't properly ignore lore comments as they wanted; or
• (B) WotC got a lot of negative feedback on the mechanics as well, and the pet-class didn't work mechanically regardless any lore comments.

What I defended, and you seemingly agreed at the end, is that (A) -- WotC not discerning between the comments -- is very unlikely. They can read the feedback just fine. This leaves (B) as the reason for the class rework, in which case there is no point in complaining about whomever was rubbed the wrong way about lore changes, since their lore feedback didn't matter anyway.

Of course, unlike you, I don't think that WotC ignores comments about lore. I don't see why they would; this whole process is a way to avoid upsetting potential customers and I can't imagine feedback needing to pass a purity test to be considered. So I think they could very well have reworked a subclass based on lore feedback, and that may have been what happened here. We won't know for sure until November.

I think the issue was a lot of people gave it the red light treatment. Remember, you couldn't leave comments on red or green on that UA, only yellow. So a red vote for "I don't think the PDK should have a dragon at all" and "I don't think the dragon works as currently envisioned" WAS THE SAME VOTE. It was telling WotC that it didn't work. So I can only assume that enough anti-dragon hate came though that they went back to the original and said "what can we do to punch this up?" Rather than "how can we save the dragon rider idea?"

Again, the interplay between whatever was already going into the FRAG (which if significant would force major rewrites, a timely and costly move considering we're over half done with the year and only have released two books, one itself a hold over from 2024) and the fact they needed a class to tie into the Cormyr/Dalelands chapter meant they couldn't cut or replace it. So my honest guess is that they are keeping much of the lore that will be in the DM book, but cropping it out of the player side for a more generic knight option based on the old PDK. It's a compromise that will satisfy nobody except the people who were yearning for a revision of the SCAG PDK they could use outside the Realms as well.

 

[Necropolitan]

Fans of the Forgotten Realms are the ones most likely to buy Forgotten Realms products.

They're also the ones who were most upset by the UA butchering the lore for the Purple Dragon Knights.

New fans would most likely have preferred a generic dragon rider subclass AND a Warlord-style subclass.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

1. WotC does not care about complaints about lore and does not heed them;
2. WotC still reworked the class due to feedback;
3. Somehow the people who submitted complaints about lore are to blame

No contradiction. The feedback was simply “do you like this y/n”. They don’t read the comments, it’s too expensive and difficult to analyse. Allowing comments is just a ploy to encourage people to participate. Thus the lore is still changed even though the reason for the change was voted into the bin.

 

[TiQuinn]

Fans of the Forgotten Realms are the ones most likely to buy Forgotten Realms products.

They're also the ones who were most upset by the UA butchering the lore for the Purple Dragon Knights.

New fans would most likely have preferred a generic dragon rider subclass AND a Warlord-style subclass.

Not all fans of the Forgotten Realms are alike when it comes to how they want the lore to be treated.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

No contradiction. The feedback was simply “do you like this y/n”. They don’t read the comments, it’s too expensive and difficult to analyse. Allowing comments is just a ploy to encourage people to participate. Thus the lore is still changed even though the reason for the change was voted into the bin.

I remember during the OGL debacle, a youtuber claimed he had an inside source telling him that WotC never reads feedback comments. Several WotC employees on the D&D design team responded that this was not true, and claimed that they absolutely do read the comments.

 

[TiQuinn]

I remember during the OGL debacle, a youtuber claimed he had an inside source telling him that WotC never reads feedback comments. Several WotC employees on the D&D design team responded that this was not true, and claimed that they absolutely do read the comments.

I think there's reading the comments and then there's deriving something actionable from the comments.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Fans of the Forgotten Realms are the ones most likely to buy Forgotten Realms products.

They're also the ones who were most upset by the UA butchering the lore for the Purple Dragon Knights.

New fans would most likely have preferred a generic dragon rider subclass AND a Warlord-style subclass.

Again, it has been 125 years and two planetary catastrophes since we've revisited the PDKs. A lot can change in that time, even to knightly orders, as I've detailed above with real-life examples. There is no "butchering" of the lore. The lore remains intact. But that lore is what the PDKs were, not necessarily what they are, especially after so much time has passed.

Things...can...change.

 

[pukunui]

Ugh I was almost ready to be okay with this lore change, assuming there might be a reasonable explanation. But based on the text you found… nope! That lore change is dumb as hell.

FWIW that lore snippet is from the 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".

You keep pushing this idea that not wanting X means wanting Y but that's not necessarily the case. You can not want X without really knowing what you do want instead. I do that all the time!

I personally wasn't as upset about the lore change as I was about the subclass ~ and the only reason I was upset about the lore change at all was that it felt in the UA like a retcon rather than an evolution.

I'm not a fan of pet classes, and I didn't like this one because it gave you a crappy "dragon" to play with. The drakewarden ranger is better because at least it's a draconic "spirit" that has taken the form of a lesser draconic creature. The drake isn't just a seemingly stunted version of an actual dragon, which is what the UA PDK's amethyst dragon pet was.

If the PDK faction allows PDK PCs to ride actual dragons as a reward for earning enough renown or similar, then I'll be a happy camper. That's how I would prefer to do a dragon rider in 5e. You earn it through play. You don't just get it for free!