Hello adventurers! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 12th episode of our dragonborn subrace series. Hopefully this is going to be the last of the dragonborn subraces at least for a little bit here, just so i can get caught up on everything else. We’re talking about the Ravenite Dragonborn which is found in the explorer’s guide to wildemount module.
It’s kind of cool, they got a little bit of a different backstory that balances out in a very interesting fashion with the dracon blood dragonborn. To make a long story really, really short the ravenites were essentially enslaved by the dragonbloods and they hold a long-standing grudge.
The dragonbloods if you don’t know what they are or how they operate mechanically check out the above link. Up above we’ll have the dragonborn playlist as well as their race playlist in general we’re going to be doing all of them relatively quickly here so just buckle in and check on the above given category link every once in a while so that you’re current. In any case let’s now dive right into the Ravenites mechanics here.
Mechanics
The following traits replacing the ability score increase and damage resistance traits.
Very similar to the dragonblood dragonborn the ravenite replaces the ability score increase and damage resistance that the original dragonborn has. Make sure you check out the original dragonborn article first so you kind of know what’s going on with this one.
So your ability score increase is a +2 to strength and a plus one to constitution which is just a wonderful combo if you’re playing a strength based character, absolutely perfect! And in an addition to that you gain darkvision up to 60 feet which was highly requested for the dragonborn to have and there you go.
They also gain vengeful assault: Once per long rest or short rest when you take damage from a creature in range of a weapon you are wielding. You can use your reaction to make an attack with that weapon against that creature.
Very cool stuff! I actually really really love this is essentially an attack of opportunity that isn’t procked by someone moving out of that five foot radius from you. Another interesting thing to state is the way it’s worded implies that it can be used with ranged weapons as well so do bear that a mind. in any case this is a good way to use a reaction especially at those early levels.
I get that it is only once prolonged or short rest. But you know an extra attack action every combat is certainly able to help you out. Especially if you’re playing in a campaign where you can take multiple short rest throughout the duration of each session which isn’t too hard to find because it’s really just an hour and it’s just specified as light activities you could still be doing stuff.
I don’t know i take lots of short rest in my game i find them to be incredibly useful. In any case overall just really nice and this of course balances out the more diplomatic essence that the draconblood dragonborn seems to have. So it is really interesting to see the two diametrically opposed to each other that plus two to strength and plus one to con though is absolutely perfect for any strength-based martial characters out there. Now let’s move on to my personal thoughts here.
Thoughts
If you can’t tell i’m a pretty huge fan of both of the dragonborn sub-races that were added in the explorer’s guide to wildemount. Whether or not your DM allows them in your game i mean who knows personally i don’t see a downside to either one. They’re certainly better balanced than a lot of the marked races which almost no DM allows.
But for the most part i find they fit in really neatly into the power scaling. They do kind of push you towards one element of play relatively early on. However as you get more class features and feats that’s likely to become less and less important.
By that what i mean is the dragonblood dragonborn pushes you war to mars the social elements of games by providing you with that advantage and the ravenite pushes you much more towards combat primarily because of vengeful assault.
So is it necessarily bad! You know it might be depending on what your party comp is but as you progress and level as your proficiency bonus gets higher as you gain more class features as you pickup more feats it’s likely to become less and less important.
However that plus two to strength and plus one the con is amazing and that alone i would consider worth of the loss of a damage resistance, a vengeful assault and darkvision is really just icing on the cake as far as i can tell. You still do get your breath weapon by the way that’s pretty neat. In any case i like it, i think it’s a nice build.
Conclusion
Let me know what you think down beneath in the comment section. Mention any thoughts, questions, comments or concerns you may have regarding it. In any case let me know all that good stuff down beneath and of course i hope you have a wonderful day and as always happy adventuring.