New Warlock Patron: The Dragon

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Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rich Hershey / Fat Goblin Games

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I’ve had the idea to make two new warlock patrons for a while now. I put it out there on Twitter and asked people to vote as to which I should make first: the dragon or the tarrasque.

The dragon managed to squeak out a narrow victory, so we’ll begin with that! The challenge with the dragon patron is to make it a subclass with different abilities and flavor from the dragon soul sorcerer.

Note that what is below is considered playtest material. This is not this subclass’s final form. Please let me know what you think!

The Dragon

You have made a pact with an ancient dragon, one who has outlasted entire civilizations and has knowledge far beyond most other creatures in the multiverse. Your dragon patron may be a chromatic dragon with evil desires, a metallic dragon with a good heart, or perhaps another kind of powerful dragon with aims that could be selfish, charitable, or inscrutable. Your pact gives you a taste of this being’s innate power and knowledge and also connects you to the pride and greed of dragon minds, qualities you might adopt.

Dragons powerful enough to make pacts with mortals include Iymrith the blue dragon and Klauth the red dragon from the Forgotten Realms, Borys the Dragon of Tyr in Dark Sun, and Niv-Mizzet of Ravnica. A cabal of powerful dragons could also become a warlock patron, like the Chamber in Eberron.

Expanded Spell List

The Dragon lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Dragon Expanded Spells

Spell Level Spells
1st chromatic orb, shield
2nd darkvision, levitate
3rd clairvoyance, slow
4th conjure minor elementals, polymorph
5th geas, legend lore
Draconic

Starting at 1st level, you can speak, write, and understand Draconic.

Draconic Senses

At 1st level, you gain proficiency in the Perception skill. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for skill checks made with this skill, and you can take the Search action as a bonus action on your turn.

Terrifying Blast

At 6th level, you gain the eldritch blast cantrip if you do not already know it. When you hit a creature with more than one attack granted by your eldritch blast cantrip on the same turn, that creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become frightened of you until the end of your next turn. If the creature’s saving throw is successful, the creature cannot be frightened by attacks from your eldritch blast cantrip for the next 24 hours.

Draconic Attunement

Starting at 10th level, you can choose one of the following damage types when you finish a long rest: acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. You gain resistance to that damage type until you choose a different one with this feature. In addition, you can choose to have the damage from your eldritch blast cantrip be the chosen type of damage instead of force damage when you cast the spell.

Draconic Transformation

Starting at 14th level, you can transform into a dragon. As an action, you can turn into any creature of the dragon type whose challenge rating is equal to or less than your level for 1 minute, until you revert to your normal form as a bonus action, or until you drop to 0 hit points or die. Your statistics, including mental ability scores, are replaced by the statistics of the dragon form. You retain your alignment and personality. You can’t use any legendary actions or lair actions of the new form.

You assume the hit points of your dragon form, and when you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. If you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. As long as the excess damage doesn’t reduce the your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren’t knocked unconscious.

You are limited in the actions you can perform by the nature of your dragon form, and you can’t speak, cast spells, or take any other action that requires hands or speech, unless your dragon form is capable of such actions.

Your gear melds into the new form. You can’t activate, use, wield, or otherwise benefit from any of your equipment.

You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Feedback

I’m definitely looking for feedback here, so let it rip in the comments. Thank you to those who do!

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