Good point. Would probably have to roll really well, but if you are okay with a 13 in wis it could add to the flavor and mechanics. Proficiency in intimidation is nice, and setting a teamate for an additional attack could make you very popular at the table.
Back in 3.x days, I was a huge fan of playing a Marshal, from the Miniatures Handbook. My favorite was in Eberron. Good times. Yeah. Btw, How do you rate your Revised PDK?
I personally love the idea of the Purple Dragon Knights because it’s something I could genuinely see happening: An order of knights leaning on the glory of their predecessors like a crutch.
People (myself included) think the Banneret is bad because it doesn’t give the Fighter themselves anything more to do, just buffing friends. That’s why there are suggestions such as an extra Second Wind, so this subclass buffs the fighter as well.
I'm actually glad I found a video that doesn't outright trash this subclass, because I always thought the Lvl 1-10 features for this class would be fantastic boons to use for parties dependent on cooperative team-style play. I played a Champion Fighter in this long campaign a friend was DM'ing for - it was a premade character for high level play and the campaign itself was getting close to the end, so they needed a fill player and I was still relatively new to the game - and I think one thing I found frustrating in playing the character was how little the action economy I was working with would help the rest of the team (to be clear, I also don't think the Champion is a bad subclass, it really does depend on your play style as well as how you play the character). I think had I gone for a different class, I would have probably considered doing a multiclass with this or the Cavalier Fighter with either a Totem Warrior or Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, double-down on the tank role in the party while also put out some support buffs for the rest of the party when needed.
I hoped you'd cover this! I've never played a purple dragon knight, but the concept of sharing your core abilities are interesting to me, especially on a class that doesn't focus on buffing team members normally. A long time ago i pondered if a game where the party consisted of a champion, oath of the crown, purple deagon knight, and other classes like those, had to go out and take back land that was conqured by a conquest paladin and his war cleric right hand would be fun. A simple knightly order who adventure to save a kingdom or land from a tyranical overlord story really, but maybe it wouldn't be as fun as i imagined at the time.
Usually I multi class the purple dragon knight with the bard, because the bard is a charisma based class and usually when I see commanders chant out to their men I see charisma shining more than their strength and u don't have to sing as a bard, you can do a speech about fallen warriors and it does the same thing, but the best backgrounds I can see with this is Folk Hero, Royalty, Gladiator,
They get an extra person to target with their action surge at 18th level. I really like getting ten levels into PDK and then taking ten into Bard. Bard is imo the more enjoyable dip if you want to go with a more swords Bard type of build. I 100% agree that it's not bad at all. In fact, I kind of enjoy the heck out of it when I played it.
100% agree. I think the team designing the SCAG just didn't get enough time at the end to refine the design / play test which ended with them shipping a "safe" product.
This is why I think many people thinking subclasses suck is more not knowing the subclass. I did an arena thing using a Redemption paladin. The guy running it thought it was amazing how competitive I was even in free for alls using support abilities to shift the balance of the fight.
I'm running a pdk/celestial warlock for the new vecna campaign. Pact of the chain for maximum healing from second wind and cure wounds and I recovering everything on short rests
I’ve been wanting to play this subclass but always was hesitant to since I play with a few power gamers. I will be trying yours out next campaign if the DM allows.
With the pretty substantial buffs fighters got I really want to try this class out. I mean the Playtest Fighter and new Bigsby feats make fighter pretty insane. I mean all strength based melee characters pretty much have a prone on command and if you combine it with multi-attack and this classes ability to let your friends get in some wacks at advantage.
Whether Rallying Cry works on unconscious people isn't "up in the air", it just doesn't. It would be better if it did, but it unambiguously does not. An unconscious creature is incapacitated, can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings. Giving the rogue a free reaction attack is cool, but you can do that with Commander's Strike from the Battlemaster, way earlier than the Banneret. If you want to synergize with the rogue, you use Commander's Strike to trade one of your swings for a Sneak Attack. Bulwark, when you need it, really is that good though, and your rewrite is top-notch. Think I'm gonna subscribe.
Being unconscious doesn't deafen you. For example, if you are asleep (unconscious) you can still be woken up by a loud noise or an Alarm spell. So "unaware of your surroundings" just means the character isn't cognizant, but it doesn't stop them from hearing things. So the downed character would be healed by Rallying Cry, but they would have no recollection of what happened while they were downed or that Rallying Cry brought them back. Just like you have no recollection of what happened around you while you slept or what noise woke you up from your sleep.
The real issue is the class being called Purple Dragon knight. It's too long and it reminds me of a purple colored Dragonite. Should just be called Banneret.
I thought of a concept of a hobgoblin (MMoM) PDK the other day, and it seems really interesting. gonna run it in a one shot soon, so lets see how it goes
Hear me out. multi class with mastermind rogue. bonus action help so whenever you are not actively using a bonus action bam...OR when inspiring surge is applied... your rogue or pally can do their thing WITH ADVANTAGE.... Master of intrigue is also not bad at all as that helps with social interactions. you also do get sneak attack but that does not come into too much play unless you build around that.
The 18th level ability is just another use of the 10th level ability ND it now affects 2 creatures instead of 1, because at 17th level you got another action surge, who could've guessed… I hate and love this subclass, I love the concept, I hate how it was realized and how weak it looks at someone's eyes. I agree that after 11 levels in fighter you get nothing more out of this subclass and therefore multiclassing is required, I hate this, I want a subclass to be compelling at all levels, another example like this could be the berserker barbarian, level 3 is not good, level 6 is good, level 10 is not good, level 14 is decent. It is not compelling with the flavor it wishes to give. Live the changes you made to your banneret! And next up we have… the echo knight if I'm correct about this?
I'm a bit confused. what's the idea behind the Resolute Captain feature's penalty? at level seven, the penalty is ignored, if mounted. or the fighter makes the party take twice as long to get anywhere if on foot. if the idea was to spend a minute to get the benefits of tweaked short rest, cool. but then just give the PDK the ability to, once per short or long rest to restore 1 use of their action surge or second wind. otherwise, I think that feature is very cool. and moving Royal Envoy to three? brilliant!
For the PDK, getting another Second Wind or Action Surge is an incredibly powerful ability. There had to be an offset not just for the fighter but for multiclassing purposes as well. On first draft, the PDK just did get an action surge or second wind back for free. Not only was it incredibly strong (since right before any fight the PDK would stall to get a feature back) but it was boring. Using the feature was clearly the best thing you can do and there were no drawbacks. Originally I tested having the subclass gain a point of exhaustion which totally went against the utility the subclass tries to provide. Then I began to test halving the PDK's movement. This got the feature back but also limited the potential of the PDK and other multiclasses. You couldn't run up, take 4 attacks, and get off to an amazing start for free. Also spellcasters at higher levels now had a harder time staying out of range of enemies. Even normal 30ft movement speed brutes could easily catch up to them, swing, and provide real threat. But you stumbled upon the loophole. I always like to throw in a way for smart players to skirt around drawbacks. A new player might consistently deal with the halved movement speed but a veteran can find ways around it. PDKs naturally gravitate toward being mounted on horses, griffins, or anything else they can find to offset Resolute Captain. Or they look for items like the Boots of Speed to set their movement speed back to normal. So, to answer your question, the penalty is there to nudge the abilities use towards a particular situation while also throwing in some complexity on when to use the mechanic. Since its not a point of exhaustion, it also allows crafty players to work around the drawback. A free action surge gave the PDK too much potential turn 1 in most combats with zero strategic choices to be made. But that's just my design philosophy. If you and your group would have more fun without the halved speed, honestly who cares? Just have fun I say.
The Purple Dragon Knight is my main litmus test for whether or not the design ideology behind any 5e subclass is bad or good. Here's the main points. 1. Does the subclass require you to take constant short rests to gain back uses of its features? 2. Do the unique features of the subclass require you to burn uses of the base class's unique features? If the answer to both these questions is yes, then the subclass is poorly designed. It might not be a bad subclass, but it is badly designed. This is less about the individual class or subclass and more about the state of 5e as a whole. Features that burn spell slots are iffy. Features that let you burn a spell slot to get extra uses of them are probably fine. Features that burn the finite resource your base class is built around are bad. What does this standard mean for other subclasses? Well, every monk subclass is bad. Which is reflected in the general view of the monk. Ranger subclasses are mostly fine, but the base class is what has always been the ranger's problem. Favored enemy and terrain choices should give the ranger tangible benefits in all three pillars of play, and they simply do nothing of value in 5e. Hunter's Mark is also a problem. Hunter's Mark should be the baseline for what you get whenever you are fighting any favored foe or anything in your favored terrain, but instead of being an always active part of the ranger's features it is a concentration dependent limited time effect that needs to be turned on by burning the pathetically small number of spell slots the ranger gets. Barbarian is a well designed class because none of their subclasses ask you to burn rage charges to turn on their gimmicks. Applying these standards to casters is interesting, but I think it still holds up. Sorcerer subclasses are a mixed bag and many are bad because they burn your finite sorcery points. This doesn't impair the sorcerer the way it ruins monk because sorcerer is still a full caster. Warlock is an almost inverse of these rules. Most of the subclasses are well designed, but the base class is terrible. 2 spell slots that depend on short rests for 95% of the levels the game is played at. That's not a caster. That's a cry for help. Druid is especially bad. Every subclass except shepherd revolves around a unique gimmick that burns their wild shape charges. For some insane reason shepherd gets to use their summon totem buff feature without forsaking wild shape. The rest give you a cool thing but make you give up the one cool thing that your base class is supposed to be iconic for.
Tbf druid's alternatives to wildshape are honestly more of a saving grace to me. Because the likes of Stars and Spores not taking away your ability to spellcast is better than running around as a wannabe furry, and spores tanks better as a result so. Honestly getting self inflicted polymorph just isn't really good if you think about it. You're always reliable in combat because the stats of your shape are different from yours but they also don't increase. And outside of combat the times I've seen the dm make use of the possibilities of Wildshape was just lacking.
Why did he say that you heal 9 hit points at level three with rallying cry when the description says “Each one regains hit points equal to your fighter level” so I would imagine that you’d heal three people for three hit points at level three
It's a bit late but it's due to each person getting three plus yourself getting 3 plus 1d10 so it heals on average 17 hp at 3 and goes up by 4 with every level added to the class
If you're okay playing the Champion fighter you are 100% okay playing PDK. Fighter as a class is one of those things that even their worst subclass is actually not horrendous (Arcane Archer eat your heart out you underbaked little gremlin) they're just not revolutionary. I came looking for this kind of video specifically because the subclass really ISN'T Bad. It's just... not well constructed by contrast to other more successful subclasses like Battle Master or Samurai.
Being unconscious doesn't deafen you. For example, if you are asleep (unconscious) you can still be woken up by a loud noise or an Alarm spell. So "unaware of your surroundings" just means the character isn't cognizant, but it doesn't stop them from hearing things. So the downed character would be healed by Rallying Cry, but they would have no recollection of what happened while they were downed or that Rallying Cry brought them back. Just like you have no recollection of what happened around you while you slept or what noise woke you up from your sleep.
Unconscious. An unconscious creature is incapacitated, can’t move or speak, and is *unaware of its surroundings*. 3:09 Due to how the creature needs to hear or see you for Rallying Cry, I think the last part makes it clear enough that they have to be conscious. At least in terms of RAW. Arguing the SCAG is written inconsistently is fair, but I would not say that makes this ability act differently.
Being unconscious doesn't deafen you. For example, if you are asleep (unconscious) you can still be woken up by a loud noise or an Alarm spell. So "unaware of your surroundings" just means the character isn't cognizant, but it doesn't stop them from hearing things. So the downed character would be healed by Rallying Cry, but they would have no recollection of what happened while they were downed or that Rallying Cry brought them back. Just like you have no recollection of what happened around you while you slept or what noise woke you up from your sleep.
Interesting take, I personally consider Champion the worst fighter subclass, with the Banneret being 2nd worst. Also, where is the "1 short rest/combat" assumption coming from? The DMG expects 2 short rests per adventuring day (p. 84) with 6-8 combats per day.
The SCAG was in development before 5e's rules were fully completed. A lot of the items, subclasses, and feats within are not using the same design philosophy. I will also note that the DMG expects 6-8 encounters and not combats. An encounter is any "scene" in which the party depletes their resources whether that be hit points, spell slots, or consumable items. Therefore, something like a trap or having to burn a suggestion spell on a guard also count towards this number.
@@enterthedungeonFair point regarding possible non-combat encounters. Still, I don't see where/how the SCAG itself advocated for a short-rest-per-combat design. Although, I do welcome this approach, as it would buff the short-rest classes greatly.
Being unconscious doesn't deafen you. For example, if you are asleep (unconscious) you can still be woken up by a loud noise or an Alarm spell. So "unaware of your surroundings" just means the character isn't cognizant, but it doesn't stop them from hearing things. So the downed character would be healed by Rallying Cry, but they would have no recollection of what happened while they were downed or that Rallying Cry brought them back. Just like you have no recollection of what happened around you while you slept or what noise woke you up from your sleep.
In the world of dungeons & dragons on faerun,a purple dragon knight is the equivalent to a US army special forces soldier... You're known as one of the best fighters on any battlefield....
I 100% agree, I love Sub-Classes that synergise well or combo off with other classes. Imho the entire game design should be more focused around, and even more, discouraging to play the loner or main character. PDK sounds really not that bad there are much worse sub-classes, I think you need the right group and hell it has also a lot of multiclass potential. Really love your changes to the PDK, if my next GM agrees I gonna play this exact version.
