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.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

When has he pushed back on anything other than 4e blowing it all to hell?

I saw an interview with Ed Greenwood where he talked about how both TSR and WotC don’t understand how polytheism works and that the rules for clerics don’t represent how the pantheons are worshipped in his setting.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I saw an interview with Ed Greenwood where he talked about how both TSR and WotC don’t understand how polytheism works and that the rules for clerics don’t represent how the pantheons are worshipped in his setting.

This is absolutely true. Typical D&D approach to religion is Christianity but with multiple deities. You see temples depicted with pews and pulpits and hierarchical clergy and rules to follow and antipathy to other deities. I'm sure Ed knows a lot about real world polytheism and uses that in his games.

But Ed's Forgotten Realms is very different to what was published, and always has been.

 

[Mournblade94]

Well, then you'd know the only edition that gave them a malus to int was 3E. They were normally either Dex or Charisma negatives, 3e changed it up

Yes I do.

Regardless though, orcs uh. Been playable in every edition of this game so you're a little behind the curve on that one. Like, playable orcs aren't new. They've been playable longer than I've been alive. Orcs of Thar isn't a good book, but its official. We're also in a world were Warcraft exists and crushed D&D's multiple attempts to make an MMO

Incorrect. They became officially playable with the optional Complete Humanoids Handbook.

Every single edition of this game has botched FR's lore. What, going into the future with 4E was your cutoff point rather than jamming "These literately do not fit in this world on a thematic perspective" places like Kara Tur or Maztica back in 2E?

The only thing 2nd edition did was take away monks and assassins. Kara Tur, Zakhara, and Maztica did not alter the realms in any way except for 2 book series.

This is way, way off-topic for the thread but, you are, once again, arguing about a race that has been playable in this game for 37 years. Playable orcs aren't new. They've been playable every single edition. They're a legacy race at this point

Half Orcs are the legacy race you are quite mistaken. There are plenty of options books that let you play any monster race. You might as well say Ochre Jelly is a legacy race.

Good and evil being tangible is stuff for Saturday morning cartoons, and even as cheesy as He-man could be it got that you can switch things up. Either way, no, you're not going to have 'inherently evil races' in any setting that takes itself seriously because that isn't realistic in the slightest and makes your world seem like... Oh, right, a Saturday morning cartoon.

In a world where solid boned dragons fly, magic is thrown around all the time, and people travel through dimensions, I think it is OK to also have the unrealistic inherently evil races. There's literally no difference. Every aspect of D&D have something unrealistic about them. Treating Monsters tied to alignment is not any worse. If you think your world isn't like a saturday morning cartoon you might want to look at it a bit closer. Who cares if its like a saturday morning cartoon, its an RPG world it is GOING to be.

 

[Mournblade94]

Considering you decided to describe in detail the exact same pair of two pictures, no, I do not think you can actually deal with them. If you can deal with something, you don't drop unhinged rant about it twice in span of two paragraphs.

Oh I'm sorry I didn't realize that posting on a forum meant you were having a mental breakdown. Posting your thoughts and feelings in a forum about games is a perfectly fine magnitude of reaction to the magnitude of the problem. Its a forum for games not a formal dinner.

I like how you claim nature vs nurture is complicated and then immediatelly reject any scenario where the nature is not the sole defining factor and compare nurture to slavery.

I KNOW the complexities of nature vs nurture. I'm not rejectinig all (Any) scenario. I'm rejecting YOUR scenario. I'm also very familiar and work in a career involving the science of it. So you can cut the snark there. You are objectively incorrect in saying nurture is more of a factor. If anything, the sociogenomics are showing Nature leads to the environment that provides the nurturing. It reallly doesn't matter in this context until someone thinks alignment equals scientific nature. It doesn't but you've demonstrated you don't really know how people that use alignment apply it.

Was it tragic, or did you just took all of player's effort, undid it to "teach them a lesson" about your worldvie, and then told yourself their sad looks meant it was a great tragedy, and not that they were disappointed to see all their hard work and excitement squandered?

My D&D games are not my "world view". Unlike the current zeitgeist I don't put my world view in my games. What I put in is my FICTIONAL view on the Forgotten Realms I run. Which is a different view than the Elderscrolls I run with UESRPG Rules. Also different from my technical Traveller game view. And that will probably be different from the Exodus Game I will be running when WOTC publishes it. Because I am capable of recognizing that Orcs can be inherently evil in the Forgotten Realms but with the world building of Elder Scrolls it is clear they are not. You have no idea what happened in that campaign. You have no idea about the conversations that occurred around it. You're welcome to your assumptions because you can't imagine alignment being used well. If they hated it they would not be using me as their DM 20 years later.

 

[Mournblade94]

It would be really funny if Ed says something like "I really like the direction they've taken with the Purple Dragon Knights, so I'm officially endorsing the changes."

It could happen but its unlikely given the discord attitude about it. He is doing 1500's realms lore. Unlike WOTC he won't contradict what has already been published.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I saw an interview with Ed Greenwood where he talked about how both TSR and WotC don’t understand how polytheism works and that the rules for clerics don’t represent how the pantheons are worshipped in his setting.

Ed Greenwood doesn't understand how polytheism works either though.

 

[Mecheon]

Incorrect. They became officially playable with the optional Complete Humanoids Handbook.

Orcs of Thar pre-dates Complete Book of Humanoids. They were playable in Basic first

Its not a good book, sure, but, its the first time they're playable.

The only thing 2nd edition did was take away monks and assassins. Kara Tur, Zakhara, and Maztica did not alter the realms in any way except for 2 book series.

Adding entire continents to the world who interact with the main part of it absolutely alters the Realms. If Ed was going to add his own versions of those (which, he's said he wouldn't do and doesn't consider KT, Zakhara or Maztica to be part of the realms), it'd fit in with the Realms more

Half Orcs are the legacy race you are quite mistaken. There are plenty of options books that let you play any monster race. You might as well say Ochre Jelly is a legacy race.

Orcs have been playable in this game since 1988. If that isn't legacy enough for you, then apparently Dragonlance isn't a legacy setting your standards, or apparnetly the 4 year gap between the two is where we cut legacy at

Ochre jellies have never been playable, not even among all of 3E's choices, so its irrelevant

In a world where solid boned dragons fly, magic is thrown around all the time, and people travel through dimensions, I think it is OK to also have the unrealistic inherently evil races. There's literally no difference. Every aspect of D&D have something unrealistic about them. Treating Monsters tied to alignment is not any worse. If you think your world isn't like a saturday morning cartoon you might want to look at it a bit closer. Who cares if its like a saturday morning cartoon, its an RPG world it is GOING to be.

And I disagree. One unrealism doesn't mean you can just slap every single one on. Plus, well, the Warcraft defense remains in place, where I can just point at Warcraft which has the same, yet doesn't have inherently evil races. Same with Elder Scrolls, which even goes harder given the whole organic time machine dragons and esoteric Deep Lore side that'd make any way D&D's ever handled polytheism stare in awe. There's quite a lot of difference given the powerhouses those two are. Even the most popular D&D thing of the current era, Baldurs Gate 3, hasn't hit either WoW's "In its peak, it caused notable drops in the number of people buying MtG and D&D" power or Skyrim's sheer availability

Any time I hear about inherently evil races, I think of this scene from He-Man, when instead you're also losing out on stuff like the scene where the orc who damned his people instead gives his life to defend them.

 

[tombowings]

My guess is we got the lore to support the UA subclass, but not the UA subclass itself because they reverted the old SCAG template. So dragon lore, but no dragon riding player characters.

Apparently, the WotC posse doesn't understand player feedback.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Apparently, the WotC posse doesn't understand player feedback.

They don’t read it. To employ people to read through and analyse all the text responses would be much much more expensive than looking at the basic numbers.

 

[tombowings]

Orcs have been playable in this game since 1988. If that isn't legacy enough for you, then apparently Dragonlance isn't a legacy setting your standards, or apparently the 4 year gap between the two is where we cut legacy at

Players have been playing orcs (and Vampires) since before OD&D was published. Orc PCs are nothing new.