D&D: The Purple Dragon Knight Playtest Shows Room For Dragonriders and Improvement
One of the eight new subclasses in the Forgotten Realms playtest is the Purple Dragon Knight. Get a dragon friend for your fighter!
The Purple Dragon Knight is one of the new subclasses in the Forgotten Realms Unearthed Arcana Playtest. Purple Dragon Knights have been a part of 5E since the early days, but, they’ve also been one of the last popular subclasses.
There are a few reasons for that—mechanically, the subclass was noticably weaker than other Fighter options, but must importantly, it didn’t actually do what the subclass said it would do. The previous Purple Dragon Knight had shades of the old Warlord from 4th Edition—a martial leader who could rally the party and/or the troops. But sadly, had little to back up that flavor mechanically.
The new Purple Dragon Knight has a revised identity. It is now the dragon riding subclass. Which is a big promise to try and fulfill. Mounted combat is always a little tricky, especially when your whole identity revolves around it. The age old question of “what about when you have to go into a dungeon” is ever present. It’s why the Cavalier doesn’t come with a horse, in 5E. Mounted combat is optional. With that in mind, the Purple Dragon Knight has a delicate needle to thread.
Purple Dragon Knight Playtest – Identity Issues
The new version of the subclass, the playtest Purple Dragon Knight, if you will, is all about having an actual purple dragon following you around. Technically it’s an Amethyst dragon, but it’s still plenty purple. It’s baked into both the lore and the mechanics, but in a way that kind of raises the problem with the subclass in the first place. Here’s a look at the “lore” such as it is:
The Purple Dragon Knights are paragons of valor and leadership who partner with amethyst dragons. Such knights aspire to protect the innocent and rally fellow adventurers to the causes of justice and freedom. Although the Purple Dragons were originally founded in Cormyr, new recruits are enlisted from any realms where chivalry is in abundance, including the Silver Marches, Damara, and Chessenta.
Characters with this subclass are special among the order. Unlike most Purple Dragons, who partner with amethyst dragons who’ve already reached adulthood, a Purple Dragon Knight character psionically bonds with an amethyst dragon hatchling.
And right away, we hit the first big weird hurdle about this subclass. A Purple Dragon Knight NPC can just have a bigger, better dragon than you. In fact, most do. This stands to reason, because in D&D a dragon’s lifespan is measured in centuries if not millennia. And no PC is going to be an adventurer for 700 years while their baby dragon grows up.
But it does raise the question, “Why can’t I bond with an adult dragon?” Especially when others in the world already do. And technically, there’s nothing that says you can’t. In fact, there’s nothing that says anyone can’t. Which is the other big weird identity issue here. What if another character in the party, through roleplay, befriends an older dragon who lets them ride around?
All of a sudden, through roleplay only, you’ve picked up some of the significant benefits—and the core identity—of a whole subclass. It’s easy to imagine. What’s harder to imagine a roleplaying scenario that results in you being, say, an Echo Knight Fighter or a Psionic Warrior Fighter. It’s a weird side-effect of something extremely narrative being shoehorned into a whole subclass and nowhere else. I don’t particularly like it but your mileage may vary.
Your Dragon Companion
One thing for the Purple Dragon Knight is that you get your dragon best friend at level 3. It’s a cool idea! I love it for the flavor of it. And it’s a fantasy that many people have, being bonded with a dragon. That’s a staple of fantasy fiction from the Dragonriders of Pern to His Majesty’s Dragon to How To Train Your Dragon—all good stuff. The Purple Dragon Knight lives out a dream of many a player at level 3 with Purple Dragon Companion.
You get your own special Purple Dragon Companion stat block which is not at all the same as the Amethyst Dragon Wyrmling stat block available in Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons. Instead of a CR 4 creature with 10d8 hitpoints, an AC of 17, and a “singularity” breath weapon attack that can deal 5d8 damage and halt creatures in place, you get a “hatchling” that conveniently scales in level with you. Sort of.
As you can see, it’s got respectable stats—if your Intelligence is high enough. But for a Fighter, that Intelligence does little else, mechanically. You could be boosting it, sure, but you’re already going to be wanting to boost Strength (or Dexterity) as well as Constitution if you’re going to be on the front lines for your party. Still, it’s not the worst thing—but it does mean you have to plan to be a little weaker than other Fighters (or just roll for stats and hope you get good ones).
And you get to treat it like a slightly more souped up companion. It only Dodges on its own turn, unless you use your Bonus Action to give it a specific command. Unless you’re Incapacitated, in which case, suddenly the dragon can think for itself. You also get to resurrect it if it dies—spend a use of Second Wind and you can bring it back even from death with all its Hit Points restored after a minute. Don’t have a Second Wind? Don’t worry, an hour-long ritual can also bring your dragon back, and can be done as part of a rest.
But what the dragon lacks is damage. Even by level 3, a Fighter can typically find more damage for a Bonus action than 1d6 + Intelligence modifier. Still, it’s not bad to have for times when you don’t have anything else to do with your bonus action. But what about when you want to ride it?
Purple Dragon Knight – Dragon Riding For Fun, Not Necessarily Profit
Starting at Level 7, you can ride your dragon. It grows from a Small hatchling to a Medium hatchling—but a Medium hatchling with the explicit rule that even another Medium creature can ride it. But there are some caveats. The dragon will fall at the end of a turn if you’re riding it and the only thing keeping it up in the air is its fly speed. So no perma-flight for you at 7th level. Which isn’t bad. I get why they do it. But it feels weirdly limiting for a class that’s all about dragon riding.
The dragon also gets a better breath weapon, allowing it to dish out damage in addition to pulling enemies out of position with its gravity breath. It can even share your Second Wind, regaining 1d6 + your Fighter level hit points, as well as a use of Gravity Breath every time you use Second Wind.
At 15th level, you gain the final form of the dragon. Your purple dragon grows to Large and increases both its speeds by 10 feet. It also stops falling at the ends of turns if you’re riding it. Whcih is nice. You can also exchange attacks when you take the Attack action. Skip one of your attacks and the dragon can make a Rend attack. Or give up two attacks for a breath weapon.
But this runs into the problem of damage. Even at 3rd level, giving up your Bonus Action for 1d6 + Int modifier isn’t great. But by the time you’re 15th? You’re giving up your most powerful resource (your Fighter weapon attacks) for substantively less damage. Even the breath weapon only does 2d6 damage by this point, and at 15th level? That’s just not enough.
Your other two features, the level 10 Rallying Surge and level 18 Enduring Commander are fine enough. You can buff allies as part of your Action Surge, and you gain resistance to Force Damage along with your dragon. Fun. Easy. Good. But boy will you feel the lack of damage on that dragon at later levels.
Purple Dragon Knight Playtest – In Conclusion
Again. I think it’s a great idea to have a class that could work as a dragon rider. But it feels weird to know that another player could just befriend a dragon, ride it, and arguably come out better if you use the Independent Mount Rules. But again, a lot of that is up to the DM and my own personal weirdness.
Outside of that, I think the dragon’s damage anemia will drop off real fast. And then you’ll just be a Fighter who has a dragon along for the ride, occasionally throwing out a breath weapon or claw attack if you don’t have anything better to do with your Bonus Action. I think this one needs a bit of a rework before the final update. Whatever you think, you should let WotC know in the survey, now open at the link below!
Happy adventuring!
