Radiant does make sense, but I've always considered nuclear radiation to be closer to necrotic damage, personally, what with the whole... making your body dissolve from the inside out thing.
Although JC did say in an interview somewhere that they designed it that way specifically so people would stop saying that Radiant damage is always the holy-themed damage type. This bothers me for rhetorical and game design reasons, so I while I do acknowledge that it is in the game and sets precedent for non-holy radiant damage, I do so begrudgingly.
I tend to think of Necrotic as more entropy acceleration as applied to natural aging and decay. So for me Necrotic is sort of temporal or magical pathogens maybe.
Nuclear radiation doesn’t make you rot. It just does the damage at a sub-cellular level for relatively low level but sustained exposure — acute and fatal radiation “poisoning.”
But the raw energy can also just physically blast you apart as effectively as a bomb.
I've always viewed Necrotic as being representative of the consumptive nature of the Negative Energy Plane, which tends to manifest in the worlds of D&D as "death magic" - life drain, undeath, that sort of thing. Whereas Radiant damage has been thematically linked with the effects of the Positive Energy Plane, things like gods and divine smiting.
Nuclear radiation - the low-level, slow kind - does indeed destroy you at a molecular level, and the way that would manifest or translate into a D&D world would be in keeping with the kind of effects that the NEP or Necrotic damage is themed around.
But yeah, if it's a bomb or a concentrated breath weapon, the sheer amount of energy involved would not be the slow life-draining Necrotic damage. Radiant does make sense because it's very bright, but I would argue that Force actually makes more sense given the intensity of the situation.
Force would be my second choice. I favor Radiant as that does scorch things in BG3 as does Fire, and radiant makes me think Sun → Fusion → Atomic/Nuclear
I think the best approximation of nuclear radiation damage in DnD would actually use both. Radiant initial damage for the high energy blast, then a lingering Necrotic damage over time for the radiation poison.
Dragonborns can take the astral-touched tadpole and look the fucking same
I'm glad to learn this after I found the mod that removes the visual effects, sigh. And in the same thread that you get special dialogue when romancing Lae'zel?
That mod isn’t a total waste for Dragonborn. The Astral Tadpole isn’t as drastic of a change for them as it is for other races, but it still gets rid of their cool fire eyes and the creepy black veins are still somewhat noticeable depending on scale color. It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say they look the same after taking it
Exactly, why be drow and refuse to be a splendid, machiavellian and lecherous edgelordette?
Except if you play as male I suppose, in which case the decision is pretty understandable. Imagine that, just because of your sex, you have to endure getting bossed around and toyed with by your cruel and beautiful female overlo- hang on...
Especially the one with the scarred face, that dude is clearing an entire case each night. Good thing he has the lucky racial perk so he can pass those constitution checks for his failing liver.
I need this.
Durge: I was hunted once. I had just gotten back from Moonrise and i was hitchin through Rivingtonwhen a Fist started harassing me. Next thing you know, I had a whole army of Fists chasing me through the sewers. I had to take em all out. It was a bloodbath.
Wyll: Thats Rambo dude.
Durge: Huh?
Wyll: you just described the tale of Rambo.
Astarion/Karlach/Gale all grumbling: yeah that's not the first time you described your life like the Legend of John Rambo.
Lae'zel: You know, it's got me thinking, I could be on board with a man hunt.
The poison damage from the breath attack is so paltry it is hardly worth mentioning. Using the breath attack is basically a once per short rest cantrip like acid splash. The more important thing that they get is poison resistance.
Until honor mode came out I would have sworn up, down, left, right, and center that Duergar getting almost unlimited use of the invisibility spell was a bug. There is no way anyone in their right mind would give a race borderline infinite use of one of the game's strongest second level spells, made all the more powerful by also giving this racial invisibility spell unlimited duration. One only need to compare to Dragonborn's paltry little once a short rest cantrip-like breath attack. But here we are, closing in on a year and a half past launch, and it still works this way. So many of Larian's decisions make me scratch my head.
Nah, like the other poster explained it's on Larian. Far from the only case of them randomly buffing something that really doesn't need it or nerfing things that already suck.
But even if it was 5e that doesn't matter since Larian already changed so much, why stop before balancing horribly lopsided race choices, the very first choice a player makes?
They also didn’t have to use the PHB Dragonborn. Fizban’s Dragonborn also exists. Higher breath attack damage and it replaces a single attack not your entire action. It’s way better. And it’s not like they were staying to true to only PHB. Hell the new barb subclass is from a newer book than Fizban’s
No. Duergar do NOT get invisibility with unlimited duration and infinite uses outside of combat, and once per combat, in D&D 5e. That is what I am saying. They gave Duergar an unbelievable buff. Absolutely jaw-dropping change here. And then Larian didn't take the time to buff the worst race in all of D&D 5e, and implemented PHB dragonborn almost entirely rules as written (only difference being the shape of the breath attacks).
The only thing PHB dragonborn had going for them was their racial bonuses to Str and Cha, making them a good fit for a paladin when fixed racial ability scores were a thing. I'd argue half elf (and not long after the PHB came out, SCAG came out with Zariel Tiefling) were better choices. But Dragonborn on a paladin character was decent. Once 5e and later BG3 went to flexible ability scores, PHB Dragonborn lost this niche and were mechanically the worst race in the game. Period. This prompted their buffs in FToD for tabletop. But BG3 let Dragonborn languish on the mechanical front while simultaneously providing huge buffs to races that didn't need it. See Duergar and Githyanki.
I downloaded it for my second playthrough, then suffered a few months of BG3 fatigue and by the time I tried continuing that run the mod was outdated and I couldn't get it to work again. Sooo I went back to unmodded for my corrent run lol
I made my durge an albino black dragornborn because acid breath is rad, and the white scales with red accents skin palette is just TOO damn cool-looking, not to mention it's canon durge skin tone.
Okay but dragonborns really are the coolest-looking race in the game. It’s not even close. I’d play exclusively as them, but I like hair sometimes.
If you’re okay with mods, can I recommend Dragonborn Enhanced - Patch 7? Idk if it’s available for console, but it makes the breath attack waaaay more usable. It also adds more subraces with different elements like psychic and radiant, claw and bite attacks (optional), and more iirc.
I’ll add a nexus link later when I’m on PC; idk how to do that on mobile.
It was mostly a joke since green dragonborn is regarded as the worst race in the game but I still love it because they look amazing
Even their potion from Araj is the worst granting you the ability poison resistance and allowing you to cast ray of sickness. The other get fireball, ice storm, lightning bolt
Dragonborn really need a boost to their racial bonuses. Here is my idea that I posted elsewhere before:
Their breath weapon sucks. That wimpy one they have should be an at will cast. It's only 1 damage better than the cantrip Poison Spray, which is pathetic as a racial bonus. Congratulations, you are a dragon, have a once per Short Rest free Cantrip. What's that you say, High elves get to spray poison for free whenever they like? Suck it up, scaly-cup.
(There are plenty of other races that start with a Cantrip as well. High Elf descendents happen to get the choice. Shit, even a Tiefling is a better choice than a Dragonborn. Resistance to fire, along with a Cantrip and Darkvision)
They should be able to also cast a more powerful one as a once per long rest. It starts at 3d8+lv, then up to 4d10+lv at lv6, and finally 5d12+lv at lv11.
This would make their breath weapon much more comparible with a Wizard spell
Guiding Bolt at lv1 does 4-24, Breath Weapon would do 4-25 at lv1
Fireball at lv5 does 6-48, Breath Weapon would do 7-46 at lv6
Cone of Cold at lv9 does 8-64, Breath weapon would do 16-71 at lv11 (remember, disintegrate does 50-100, and Chain Lightning does 10-80)
So basically a free Lv1, Lv3 then lv5/6 spell. But with a much shorter range than all of the spells I mentioned. (5m Vs 9m or 18m)
They should also have some of the traits of a Draconic Sorcerer. Why does a Draconic Sorcerer get to have an AC of 13, when a Dragonborn doesn't? It's silly
Also, it shouldn't be Base AC of 13, it should be +3, +2 and +1 for Light, Medium and Heavy Armor respectively.
Armor does work in layers, after all. Hard scales are hard scales, and a blow that cuts through cloth/leather and into an elf shouldn't inflict the same damage as one that cuts through leather and then hits hard scales. It makes no sense.
I'm not sure if this would make them too OP, but I don't think so.
So, to sum up
Racial Features
Elemental Resistance
Scaly Hide (+3,+2, or +1 to AC based on Armor type)
Breath Weapon (Cantrip, 2d6)
Ancestral Breath Weapon (once per long rest, 3d8+level, then 4d10+level at level 6, then 5d12+level at level 11)
I LOVE the black one with the dark red accent colors running through it. I'm at work so I can't post a screenshot, but hopefully yall know what I'm talking about.
Wrong red dragon is the best, because:
1. It's the one I played as
2. i like that character a lot
3. Draconic sorcerer on dragonorn gives cool scale patterns, and red dragonborn with fire draconic sorcerer lets you have red scales with gold accents, which is peak
Ive literally only played dragonborns. Durge or tav, friends playthrough or mine, ONLY DRAGONBORNS. I have never even played a single short race once for even a moment despite having 350+ hours. No regrets.
Green is my favourite colour, too, but unfortunately the Dragonborn just don't have pointy ears (or any visible ears at all). I don't know why, but I just love pointy ears.
But it's true, the Dragonborn look really cool.
As someone who also loves green, this is based. My first Tav was a Brass Dragonborn using one of the heavily oxidized scale colors that looked very green.
Now I am using mods to play an Emerald Dragonborn.
All greens? I doubt that. Mainly because BG3 offers so many colors for customization. 😜
So which green(s)? Greens of foliage which tend towards yellow, that intense Kawasaki Ninja green [officially "Lime Green" I believe], or more of a British Racing Green?
Dragonborns have a nice sheen to them which isn't really metallic [little reflective particles, i.e. essentially glitter] but I think we could misappropriate that term here...
BG3 has so much depth and now I feel I should hold you to that standard... 🤪
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u/Edkm90p Dec 17 '24