The title's a bit misleading but it's the best way I thought of to lead my question:
A friend of mine made a draconic bloodline sorcerer, and I went and mentioned to him all the other different types of dragons there were in 2e's other bestiaries since the first one, and he got really hooked on Sovereign Dragons.
So he started asking me if he could make a sorcerer with a bloodline tied to a Sovereign Dragon. RAW says no, but there's also an argument to be made that the draconic bloodline sorcerer was written at a time when Primal and Imperial dragons weren't added to the bestiary yet. Adding to the point, the Wyrmblessed Bloodline does include Primal and Imperial dragons into its listed of possible draconic lineages, so it's wholly believable to me that the draconic sorcerer description just hasn't been updated to include the complete list of possible dragon options, either because for the sake of keeping the same page count or because nobody's mentioned it so they haven't circled back around to it.
Regardless of the reason behind it, is there anything stopping me from acting on this? Make his sorcerer an Occult caster since spellcasting Sovereign Dragon would be an Occult caster and make the damage type tied to his bloodline spells mental based off the Sovereign Dragon's breath weapon? Arguably this is more of a homebrew question, but the point of asking this in rules is to bring to light and hopefully get an answer on whether Draconic bloodline was meant to be applicable to all existing dragon types the same way that Wyrmblessed is. Maybe it'd still be arcane since Wyrmblessed is consistently divine regardless of the lineage, I dunno. Any input is appreciated.
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Yep the sorcerer draconic bloodline don't expect you to use divine/primal spells from some other dragons but If your GM is not averse to homebrew you can create a bloodline variant with him/her.
For example, to do a gold dragon bloodline you can switch:
Tradtion: Arcante -> Divine
Granted Spells: true-strike -> fear, chromatic wall -> banishment, Prismatic Wall -> divine aura
Keep the rest same of draconic bloodline.
Do these changes probably won't do break any balance and allows to make a more specialized draconic bloodline.
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Regardless of the reason behind it, is there anything stopping me from acting on this? Make his sorcerer an Occult caster since spellcasting Sovereign Dragon would be an Occult caster and make the damage type tied to his bloodline spells mental based off the Sovereign Dragon's breath weapon? Arguably this is more of a homebrew question,
It is homebrew - at least currently. But there isn't any balance problem with it. The Sorcerer already supports all traditions in their feat selection and such, so you won't have to worry about that like you would if trying to make a Divine tradition Magus, for example.
You would need to pick things for the rest of the bloodline entry: focus spells, repertoire spells, second trained skill (the first always matches the skill of the magic tradition), and blood magic effect.
The only input I can offer is that, no, I don't think you would change the tradition of the bloodline. Gold and silver dragons are already divine casters, but nevertheless offer arcane spells with their bloodline.
This is a painfully clear case of me not checking all the facts. Thank you for the input. Though as long as Draconic sorcerers are all arcane casters, is it still possible to have inherited that bloodline from an Imperial or even a Primal dragon?
Yep the sorcerer draconic bloodline don't expect you to use divine/primal spells from some other dragons but If your GM is not averse to homebrew you can create a bloodline variant with him/her.
For example, to do a gold dragon bloodline you can switch:
Tradtion: Arcante -> Divine
Granted Spells: true-strike -> fear, chromatic wall -> banishment, Prismatic Wall -> divine auraKeep the rest same of draconic bloodline.
Do these changes probably won't do break any balance and allows to make a more specialized draconic bloodline.
I guess I didn't make it apparent, but I am the GM in this scenario. But I do appreciate the homebrew tips. Though there does lie a greater question for whether the Arcane Draconic Sorcerer can base their bloodline off a dragon that is not chromatic or metallic. My heart says yes, and it's just that RAW hasn't caught up to modify the list of options.
The only input I can offer is that, no, I don't think you would change the tradition of the bloodline. Gold and silver dragons are already divine casters, but nevertheless offer arcane spells with their bloodline.This is a painfully clear case of me not checking all the facts. Thank you for the input. Though as long as Draconic sorcerers are all arcane casters, is it still possible to have inherited that bloodline from an Imperial or even a Primal dragon?
I don't see why not. Imperial dragons can Change Shape like all other dragons merging their blood with other races or some magical influence can create sorcerer lineage as well.
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So he started asking me if he could make a sorcerer with a bloodline tied to a Sovereign Dragon...
Wyrmblessed includes Sovereign dragons...
DRAGON TYPE
At 1st level, choose the type of dragon that influenced your bloodline. You can't change your dragon type later. This choice affects how some of your bloodline spells function. The good metallic dragons and their damage types are brass (fire), bronze (electricity), copper (acid), gold (fire), and silver (cold). The evil chromatic dragons and their damage types are black (acid), blue (electricity), green (poison), red (fire), and white (cold). The primal dragons of planar origin and their damage types are brine (acid), cloud (electricity), crystal (piercing), magma (fire), and umbral (negative). The imperial dragons and their damage types are forest (piercing), sea (bludgeoning), sky (electricity), sovereign (mental), and underworld (fire). For the dragon breath focus spell, the area is a 60-foot line for a brine dragon; a 30-foot cone for a ... sovereign, or umbral dragon; and a 10-foot burst within 30 feet for a sea, sky, or underworld dragon.
(Emphasis added.)
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Though there does lie a greater question for whether the Arcane Draconic Sorcerer can base their bloodline off a dragon that is not chromatic or metallic. My heart says yes, and it's just that RAW hasn't caught up to modify the list of options.
I also expect that there will eventually be more Draconic Bloodlines that have the remaining magic traditions. The first in the CRB is Arcane. Wyrmblessed from the Mwangi Expanse is Divine. The other two will likely follow at some point.
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Also for homebrew tips, take a look at the differences between standard Draconic and Wyrmblessed bloodlines.
Differences:
Tradition (obviously)
Spell slot spells granted
Blood Magic
Same:
Skills are actually the same: Intimidation and {tradition skill}
Focus spells: Dragon Claws, Dragon Breath, Dragon Wings
I guess I didn't make it apparent, but I am the GM in this scenario. But I do appreciate the homebrew tips. Though there does lie a greater question for whether the Arcane Draconic Sorcerer can base their bloodline off a dragon that is not chromatic or metallic. My heart says yes, and it's just that RAW hasn't caught up to modify the list of options.
You're the GM. In a very real way, this sort of question is your domain. It's you're world, you decide the underlying metaphysics. You get to make the call about what does and does not exist, and how it works under the hood.
Of course, there's benefit to letting your players have the thing that they think is awesome (as long as it doesn't break game balance). Players who feel like their characters are awesome are players who are more engaged, and having your players be more engaged means that you're getting more energy back for the energy you're putting in. My suggestions...
- If you can't fit it into your world - if it's going to break some part of the way you want things to work behind the scenes, and you can't easily adjust to allow it while making the world work as well or better, then sorry but no. Internally consistent world lore is going to have to come first.
- If it's just a matter of backstory, and it can fit into your world without real difficulty, let them have it. (this covers things like "I want a sorcerer who is mechanically identical to standard dragon sorcerers in every way, but his bloodline is actually from a primal dragon")
- If it requires a bit of nudging the rules around, but it's pretty straightforward to do it while maintaining balance, and it can still fit into your world without real difficulty, houserule. (this covers stuff like letting them be descended from a primal dragon and fiddling with their spell list to make it fit that and work well).
- If it requires changes that could warp game balance, but that particular player is not the sort that would abuse this inappropriately, then still houserule. (I'm notably less flexible when offering houserules to CharOppers. They don't need the help. On the other hand, if someone is putting together a build for RP reasons that's going to wind up kind of weak, then nudging the rules a bit to let them have the lore stuff they *really* want while bumping them back up a bit isn't a bad thing. There's balance there.)
- If it's going to make one player notable stronger than the others, or give them powers that the game is not prepared to handle, then no. Having a balanced game is really useful, and the fact that one of the players wants to be game-breakingly OP isn't a good reason to let them be game-breakingly OP.
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Since we've already seen dragons get expanded in one source book, it's reasonable to expect that it might happen again. There's nothing inherently broken about the idea.
Likewise there's nothing that would really be that broken about just letting your Sorcerer be an occult caster, but it's worth noting from what we've seen so far that draconic lineage and sorcerer spellcasting tradition aren't connected at all. Draconics are arcane and Wyrmblessed are divine regardless of what sort of spellcasting the dragon you select is associated with.
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Raven Black, unless you are a kobold, you'd have to take the draconic bloodline to get into dragon disciple.
Access is not the same as Requirements. If Raven's GM (or whoever's) allows it, anyone can be a Dragon Disciple. Just that the kobolds and the draconic-facing class options don't need to even ask, they just get granted access.
Raven Black, unless you are a kobold, you'd have to take the draconic bloodline to get into dragon disciple.Access is not the same as Requirements. If Raven's GM (or whoever's) allows it, anyone can be a Dragon Disciple. Just that the kobolds and the draconic-facing class options don't need to even ask, they just get granted access.
One of the most commonly confused rules.