Talk:Venerable Dragon (5e Otherworldly Patron)

A Bit Strong

Howdy folk, it's me, TK-Squared again - and I'm coming at you from the Otherworldly Patron 'Venerable Dragon' to give you my HOT TAKE on this. I saw this up and comer in the recently changed list and I thought that I'd check it out and well... Here's my opinion before I do any kind of rating: I think this Patron is a bit strong. I'm mostly comparing it against the

The Fiend is a otherworldly patron of the Warlock class.

You have made a pact with a fiend from the lower planes of existence, a being whose aims are evil, even if you strive against those aims. Such beings desire the corruption or destruction of all things, ultimately including you. Fiends powerful enough to forge a pact include demon lords such as Demogorgon, Orcus, Fraz’Urb-­luu, and Baphomet; archdevils such as Asmodeus, Dispater, Mephistopheles, and Belial; pit fiends and balors that are especially mighty; and ultroloths and other lords of the yugoloths.  

Expanded Spell List

The Fiend 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.

The Fiend Spells

Warlock Level	Spells
1st	burning hands, command
3rd	blindness/deafness, scorching ray
5th	fireball, stinking cloud
7th	fire shield, wall of fire
9th	flame strike, hallow

 

Dark One’s Blessing

Starting at 1st level, when you reduce a hostile creature to 0 hit points, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + your warlock level (minimum of 1). 

Dark One’s Own Luck

Starting at 6th level, you can call on your patron to alter fate in your favor. When you make an ability check or a saving throw, you can use this feature to add a d10 to your roll. You can do so after seeing the initial roll but before any of the roll’s effects occur.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. 

Fiendish Resilience

Starting at 10th level, you can choose one damage type when you finish a short or long rest. You gain resistance to that damage type until you choose a different one with this feature. Damage from magical weapons or silver weapons ignores this resistance. 

Hurl Through Hell

Starting at 14th level, when you hit a creature with an attack, you can use this feature to instantly transport the target through the lower planes. The creature disappears and hurtles through a nightmare landscape.

At the end of your next turn, the target returns to the space it previously occupied, or the nearest unoccupied space. If the target is not a fiend, it takes 10d10 psychic damage as it reels from its horrific experience.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

, which I believe is the SRD available Warlock patron. None of my complaints are that something is OBVIOUSLY overpowered, but just the individual components are strong and culminate in a very strong patron.

So, firstly, I'm going to start with my opinions on the spell-list because it includes the one spell that I never wanted to see on a Warlock spell-list and that's [[SRD5:Polymorph}}. The rest seems fine (Dragon's Breath is perfect obviously, I love Dragon's Breath). But Polymorph is just a spell that is specifically missed off every Warlock spell-list because it can be attained via an invocation (Sculptor of Flesh, PHB p111). I believe that the decision for Polymorph to be an invocation-level spell is because of the power of Polymorph itself, or something to that effect. I can see an argument for it to be added, but I feel like it's just not meant to be. This isn't a super deal breaker for me, it's just a complaint so far.

Draconic Blessing. Giving proficiency to Con out of the gate just seems a tad strong to me. I don't know of any class precedence about giving out saving throws at 1st level. I'll never base my thoughts on multiclassing problems - as multiclassing is an optional rule - but I don't know anyone that gets three saving throws out of the gate. Constitution is also a strong saving throw for spellcasters due to Concentration checks. The Fiend gets to get temporary hit points for killing people - which is quite a strong initial feature, but I don't know if it's as strong as Draconic Blessing.

Legendary Resistance. Eeeeeeeeeeeeh. Legendary Resistance three times a day is super strong. This is the class feature that I have some SERIOUS issues with, especially when the Fighter has Indomitable (re-roll failed saving throws) only twice per day at this point. Once a day, I could deal with this (The Fiend gets to throw someone through hell once per day), but three times a day? Oof, that feels very strong to me and I would want this to be nerfed down or changed.

Hopefully, that gets across my point just as a way to open a dialogue about the patron. --TK-Squared (talk) 08:40, 3 June 2019 (MDT)