Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marandahir" data-source="post: 9791457" data-attributes="member: 6803643">While I agree that they could have provided more synergy in this one Origin Feat with the Background that triggers it, I actually think their 2-Feat Chains in the book go a long way to solving the problems with Subclasses kicking in at 3rd Level for classes where you'd have made your SC decision already during Session 0 (Cleric, Sorcerer, & Warlock come most to mind).The Spellfire Spark/Adept and Purple Dragon Rook/Commandant feats are the most well-integrated with their related Subclasses, feeling like 1st and 4th-level class features for Spellfire Sorcery and Banneret respectively, while also being loose enough in their Ability Score requirements to work with other classes. Oh, and Lords' Alliance Agent -> Lordly Resolve works as a set of alternate 1st and 4th Level class features for the Banneret, with Purple Dragon Knights emphasizing Str/Dex and Lords' Alliance emphasizing Str/Cha. Banneret wants either Str/Dex or Dex/Cha, and both Feat chains play nicely and enhance the Banneret's 3rd/7th/10th/15th/18th-level class features.I wouldn't be surprised if we get errata to change the Dragon's Terror part of the Cult of the Dragon Initiate origin feat to being based off your Int/Wis/Cha modifier (chosen when you take this feat) instead of just off your Wisdom modifier. The Dragonscarred feat, the second part of this feat chain, bumps either Con or Cha, and the Cult of the Dragon Faction doesn't give any particular classes as more or less likely to join the Cult of the Dragon, unlike some of the other Factions that very specifically call out certain classes (Bards with Harpers, Barbarians, Druids, Rangers with Emerald Enclave, Wizards, Warlocks, Sorcerers, and Eldritch Knight Fighters with Red Wizards, etc). Given that the other Faction feat trees mostly have synergy between the Ability Scores emphasized by their feat trees, their faction bonuses, and their backgrounds, I'd hazard a guess that WotC is deliberatly trying to show that Cult of the Dragon is not a specialized CharOps faction but all over the map with lots of different types of cultists and unwitting/unwilling characters forced into their service, and that often times their champions are more generalists than specialists.I'd also note that almost all Feats that grant magic spells allow choice of Int/Wis/Cha to use with their spell, even if it isn't the spellcasting ability of the class that they're emulating. But that doesn't mean Emerald Enclave Caretaker bumps Int/Wis/Cha in the Background even though the Origin and feat-tree feats let you choose from those three abilities. No, it bumps Int/Con/Wis (and not Cha) because those are abilities that the Emerald Enclave cares about regardless of whether you're a Druid or a Bard or a Barbarian. Barbarians might chose +2 Con, +1 Wis and in their Ability Scores array choose to put their highest rolls into Strength and Dexterity, but then rely on Emerald Enclave Caretaker to bump the abilities that are important for their secondary abilities. The Bard might not be able to have a 18 Cha at level 1 (if using point buy or standard array), but various Bard subclasses and skills care about each of these 3 other ability scores. But the Bard is NOT going to want to case the Emerald Enclave Fledgling spell using an ability other than Charisma. This is where I think Cult of the Dragon Initiate MIGHT HAVE slipped up -- the core feature is not a spell, so it didn't get the automatic Int/Wis/Cha choice. But at the very least, Charisma makes just as much sense as Wisdom here (if not more), and Path of the Berserker Barbarian's 2024 remaster shows that Strength could work here too (and I'd argue that you could make a case for Constitution). But while I'd allow that at my table, I think the intent was that Ability Score Arrays are not and should not be play-defining. This is part of what pulling it out of the Species choice was intended to do. They could have just attached it to Class like in one iteration of D&D Next playtests, but then we'd even more skew towards CharOp classes that had little reason to have unexpected secondary abilities used. By putting it on Species, 2014 D&D was following old traditions of D&D, but this led to people not playing the Species they wanted to play because of "unoptimal" ASI distributions. By locking it to Background, it grounds the ASIs to a narrative basis (Pirates may be more dextrous or charismatic or able to swim longer than they are wise or intelligent), while also not being so locked in that your background and your class are by requisite tied.I think here they're showing a fascinating evolution of Strixhaven UA's subclasses-for-multiple-classes concept, where Origin Feat + General Feat have synergy with one or more classes' subclasses and let you use your background to bring back that 1st-level subclass flavor, while also being loose enough that other classes and subclasses can play with these toys too. Feels like one of those "dials" that D&D Next was touting. I do think that Cult of the Dragon is trying to do too many things at once here because of the factions various incarnations pulling in multiple directions. This fits with Sammaster being statted in the DM-focused book, to give options of play, but along with the fact that Red Wizard Faction didn't get a Background & Origin Feat, I do wonder if this was a page-count thing that they had to cut back a page or two and did that by conflating some options.</blockquote>

Verification