Dragonborn General

Let's talk about 4e's most controversial change to the racial line-up! Am I the only person in the world who actually likes the Dragonborn?

they're cool as long as spergs aren't trying to make them Scalies or jumped-up Lizardmen.

That includes being half-dragon, being an independent race gave the Dragonborn a lot more thematic spread.

Dragonborn lack personality, so I can't really love them or hate them. I really don't sense much in them beyond pride and honor warrior guys.
Lizardmen and half-dragons both have more spirit to them, for being extremist pragmatics and extremely powerful draconic bents.

You've obviously never read their Ecology article. It really expands a lot on who they are as a people.

Or their mini-PHB, which is also a huge expansion on who they are and how they think.

Razzafrazzing! Wrong book...

They're cool, I guess? I was surprised when I got both my Player's Handbook and the Monster Manual and saw separate entries for Dragonborn and Half-Dragons. I'm like: "... What the fuck is the difference?"

One is a true race, the other is the offspring of a dragon and something else. They're similar conceptually, but dragonborn are scaled to more manageable powerlevels.

As for OP: dragonborn were controversial only because the shitflingers were desperate to find anything against 4e. Draconic characters have always been popular with the players, and they really needed to be worked on to make them reasonable and not fetish bait.

So, seriously, did nobody read these? Because I thought they took the solid-enough "fantasy Russian-Klingon nomadic warriors" fluff that the PHB gave them and really made them shine as a distinctive race, Ecology in particular.

I think that the people who bitch about dragonborn are not going to read a book that would give them less reason to bitch.

I kinda like the idea of making them spartoi. Dragon men originally created from the sewn teeth of dragons, serving the god of war.

I'm just saying, Bane's original name = Archa, Dragonborn civilization = Arkhosa.

It was necessary. In literally every single campaign I ran before 4E I had someone demanding to play a half-dragon or some other form of draconic humanoid. Making them a base race was a boon to me as a DM because when someone inevitably said "I wanna be a dragonman!" it was right fucking there, the first race in the PHB, instead of having to finagle some homebrew or, god forbid, the dreaded ECL.

3e tried the most obtuse ways to play a dragonman, mostly involving unusable melee builds for the sorcerer. 4e Dragonborn were a boon.

Which makes you wonder if Draconians would have been more popular if they'd come out as playable in AD&D instead of 3e, or if Dray mightn't have been more loved if they hadn't been stuck in that one obscure adventure...

Nah dude! I love them!

Dragonborn are great. I tend to throw in a few extra scoops of draconic greed when I'm playing one or running a game.

Wasn't there a kind of dragonmen in Forgotten Realms too? Saurials, or something?
Really proves that the bitching about dragonborn was baseless...

Dragonkin were flying humanoid dragons used as evil minions by the Cult of the Dragon, although they weren't playable outside of 3e as far as I know.

Saurials were dinosaur-people who got a PC writeup in AD&D's Complete Book of Humanoids.

Don't forget the most important thing about Saurials, they were dinosaur men who communicated through farts

Shit. There're so many scaly races in D&D, it's hard to keep track. The greatest sin od Dragonborn is that females have boobs.

GREENWOOD!

Weren't draconians retconned into being dragonborn? I know Dray were.

I fucking hate dragonborn. They have so little flavor beyond their appearance.

But what if I want to be an animu dragongirl?

There are literally two posts right at the top of the thread that prove you wrong.

Take dragonborn mechanics and perhaps even dragonborn fluff, reskin the cosmetics so you like a dragongirl, and done. Even the vestigial wings are doable, since that's pure appearance and they don't grant you flight - or you can take the power that gives you flight.

Yes, there are a couple draconian subraces in a Dragon mag.

My first 4e character was a Dragonborn, and I enjoy them a lot. Their fluff is cool and their mechanics also give them a lot of character, I love messing with the various Dragon Breath improving feats to make the power do different things.

>or you can take the power that gives you flight.

Or be a draconian so you can fly like a pixie because the writers dropped the ball on Instinctive Flight.

You go to Hell for those sinful desires.

I dislike dragonborn because they detract from the majesty of dragons and the themes of lizardfolk.

I actually liked the dragonborn of 3e, this weird body horror thing that came from a humanoid making oaths of service to Bahamut and being transformed in giant egg sacs. They're like an affront to nature and a symbol of the twisting nature of dragons. It's also why dragonborn females had boobs, vestiges of their previous forms.

If I were to use them again, they're an awakened super soldier program by ancient dragon worshipping lizardmen combining the once primitive mudmen that were humans with draconic blood and letting them gestate in eggs. That that survived the fall of the Reptillian Empire were forgotten, to awaken sometime in the future, without memory of their origins or who they are or mean't to be.

The "themes of lizardfolk"? Do they HAVE themes beyond being the most primitive and cultureless humanoid race around? I mean, seriously, GOBLINS have figured out metalwork. And let's not get into the whole "we must shun intelligence so we can devolve back from a thinking race into a singular hermaphroditic god-beast and mate with our patron god-beast again".

>Do they HAVE themes beyond being the most primitive and cultureless humanoid race around?

Only shit Lizardfolk are like that, Good ones are like the Lizardfolk of Warhammer or my biggest influence, the Reptites of Chrono Trigger. They're an ancient advanced civilization.

Oh, you mean the themes that lizardfolk in D&D have never had like, ever? I think the closest thing they have to that in any D&D lore is the whole "abandoned slave workers of the sarrukh elder race" thing they have in Forgotten Realms.

>Oh, you mean the themes that lizardfolk in D&D have never had like, ever?

Did I ever give the impression I cared about not changing lore or status quo in D&D?

My first campaign was a DM running the Living Arcanis campaign setting which had the Ssethregoran Empire. I always like that, and the Reptites. Not to mention Kull and Conan with the serpent men. You can even draw on modern conspiracy theory stuff with Reptillians masquerading as major political figures.

Lizardfolk and Reptillian people are too interesting to just make them fucking primitives.

I'm just saying, you can't accuse dragonborn of stepping on lizardfolk's themes when the CANON lizardfolk have never had those themes.

Your game =/= all D&D canon. Your changes to lizardfolk for your games aren't bad, but you cannot justifiably get in a snit when D&D goes on to make other decisions that don't take your home canon into account.

>dragonborn of stepping on lizardfolk's themes

Sure I can, because those themes suit lizardfolk and not dragonborn.

And you can use dragonborn to the same effect.

I loved what 4e did with dragonborn so much I ported them over to PF when 4e died out. They have an empire thats a mix of mesopotamian, akkadian, persian, and bits of other middle east culture.

>And you can use dragonborn to the same effect.

No it dilutes the themes. they're all that and also like dragons?

No thanks. Some worship dragons, and some have founded bloodlines of draconic sorcerers, but they aren't dragonborn.

You're already diluting the serpent men theme by using lizards. Instead, why aren't you using actual serpent men? And reptilians are very different from lizardfolk. And why wouldn't they try incorporate draconic blood, it would boost their bodily and intellectual power.

I like PF for the fact you can find reptilians (reptoid), ancient serpentfolk from a bygone empire, survivalist lizardfolk (without the silly 5e devolving lore), nagaji (snake people without yuanti silliness, that serve their naga overlords in notAsia), and several other races I can't remember off the top of my head and don't feel like looking for.

Serpent men are part of the Reptillian Empire and I like Lizards better.

> What a retard.

So, random question; anyone else out there think the artwork from the OP is fucking awesome? I mean, seriously, 4e actually sold me on the Barbarian as a class, and pics like that are part of the reason why.

I don't mind them, I just think their design is rubbish. They could look a lot better than how they're drawn.

Saurials were dinosaur-men, but yeah they were sort of similar conceptually.

>expect a monstrous and ferocious beast man thing
>get furry shit
T-thanks

I legitimately love Dragonborn as an idea, and I really like how they fit both into PoLand's history with the ancient war between Arkhosia and Bael Turath as well as how they fit into modern society as essentially wandering samurai paladins.

I personally prefer LIzardmen because Dragonborn are less "Mundane"
Now im not calling em special snowflakes i know that in 4E they were made into a fairly mundane race. But i prefer the less magical (breath attack) lizards to the more high powered Dragonborn.

That beeing said. 4E Dragonborn with the Dragonfear alternative racial trait make a great way of representing these guys on the table.

Yeah, I've never really gotten how nobody seems to pick up the Samurai-esque elements to Dragonborn fluff. I mean, their primary method of rearing kids is straight out of Lone Wolf & Cub!

No fucking clue.

In my homebrew setting, I wanted the primary races of the 'civilized' world to be predominantly human so I sort of combined 3.5's dragonborn with the 4E version while also tweaking their religion. So instead, I had a state that predominantly worships the two halves of Io, Bahamut and Tiamat. Each are five-headed dragons that embody the Five Virtues which were kitbashed from chivalry and bushido and the Five Vices which were likewise gotten predominantly from Buddhism. The dragonborn themselves are simply the upper echelons of society, with their actual origins shrouded in mystery and rumors to outsiders.

>Dragonborn mothers nurse their young until weaned

Did this book fucking confirm dragonborn have breasts? I'm mad.

They always did.
Dragonborn are not lizard base, but mammalian, with traits more like marsupials than reptiles.

Yeah you needed a book to confirm it, instead of looking at the thousand pictures of them.
Sure is 2008 in here.