Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

This is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

Dragonborn are a 4e original! The name appears in 3.x, but it was used for a different concept there. They’re introduced as a PC race in the Player’s Handbook, and in this entry we get stats for them as possible opposition for a range of levels. They’re present on both the Monster Manual and the Monster Vault.

The introduction of dragonborn was one of the many things that fueled the edition wars, as traditionalist fans complained about how these newfangled dragon-people had replaced gnomes in the PHB lineup. They dropped this particular complaint from their repertoire pretty quickly, though! It turns out the ability to play a dragon person from level 1 was really, really popular among the majority of the player base, far more than the ability to play a gnome. It helps that dragonborn are really interesting on their own, too!

The Lore

Dragonborn have a special creation myth. While most other races were pretty much all the direct creation of a deity or another, they were created from the blood of Io when he was split in half by the King of Terror. Whether this is true or not depends on the GM, as with all creation myths.

Whatever the truth might be, you can’t deny they share a lot in common with dragons. There is of course their appearance - tall and muscular with draconic-looking heads, scale-covered skin. There’s also the elemental breath weapon possessed by each individual. Dragonborn scale colors vary, but they don’t stick to the usual dragon pallete or have any relation to the element of their breath weapon.

Their culture was heavily influenced by this draconic connection. In ancient times they used to run the world-spanning empire of Arkhosia, which eventually fell due to a cataclysmic war with the human empire of Bael Turath. Today they don’t have a nation to call their own, and live both in small communities and intermingled in more diverse societies. The value Arkhosia placed on personal honor and martial excellence still remains a strong trait of the surviving dragonborn communities.

Many dragonborn adventurers are paladins or other champions of justice - their emphasis on honor makes this a popular path for them. However, “honorable” doesn’t always mean “good”, so they’re just as likely to appear as opposition for a group of Good adventurers as members of any other sapient race.

The Numbers

All dragonborn are Medium Natural Humanoids, and despite their draconic connection they do not have the Dragon keyword. This doesn’t mean much, but I thought I should note it. Their signature abilities are the same as those of PC dragonborn - an elemental breath weapon usable once per encounter, and an ability that grants them +1 to all attacks while bloodied. The MV entries are both unaligned, but all the ones in the MM have an alignment of “Any”, which is really something that should appear more in D&D monster entries.

Going in order of level, our first entry is the MV-only Dragonborn Mercenary, a Level 2 Skirmisher with 38 HP. It wears hide armor and fights with a battleaxe, whose attacks allow it to shift 2 squares on a hit in addition to their damage. Once per encounter it can use an Overwhelming Strike that does roughly double damage and causes the target to grant combat advantage (save ends) on a hit. On a miss, it still does half damage. The mercenary also breathes lightning.

For passive traits, the mercenary has Skirmish, which is shared by some other skirmisher monsters: if he ends a move on his turn at least 4 squares from his starting position, he gains +1d6 damage with all attacks until the start of his next turn. This incentivizes him to keep moving around and charge whenever possible. He also gains +1 to all attacks while bloodied.

Next we have the Dragonborn Soldier, present in both books. This is a Level 5 Soldier with 63 HP. It wears scale, wields a light shield and a longsword, and breathes cold. It has a couple of triggered abilities to go with its basic longsword attack: Impetuous Spirit is at-will and allows it to make a free basic attack against an enemy that leaves its reach, even when that enemy does so by shifting; Martial Recovery allows it to essentially reroll a missed basic attack, and recharges when the soldier uses Impetuous Spirit. A few of these in formation would be pretty awesome!

All other entries from here on are MM-only.

The Dragonborn Gladiator is a Level 10 Soldier with 106 HP. It wears scale, wields a bastard sword, and breathes fire. The gladiator has a distinctive fighting style expressed in a couple of passive traits: Lone Fighter grants it a +2 attack bonus when adjacent to only one enemy; Gladiator’s Strike makes its opportunity attacks knock the target prone on a hit. Against a bloodied target, the Gladiator can use a Finishing Blow, which does extra damage and gives its allies +2 to hit the target for a turn. This is an at-will power!

The gladiator really wants to isolate a weak PC from the rest of the group and sword it to death. You should pair it with some different soldier monsters to make it harder for the PCs to help their buddy and with some artillery to take advantage of Finishing Blow.

The Dragonborn Raider is a Level 13 Skirmisher with 129 HP. It wears leather, wields paired katars, and breathes acid. Katars are a High Crit weapon, so the raider’s basic attack has that property as well. If it doesn’t perform move actions in a turn, it can shift 1 square and attack twice with the katars, in any order. If it has combat advantage, it deals +1d6 damage on its attacks.

Finally, it has an Infiltrating Stride ability that allows it to shift 3 squares. This recharges after it uses the twin katar strike, and it’s a move ability (so it can’t use both abilities on the same turn).

To close this entry, we have the epic Dragonborn Champion, a Level 26 Soldier with 239 HP. It wears plate, wields a heavy shield and a bastard sword, and breathes lightning. It also has 30 resistance to every chromatic dragon element (acid, cold, fire, lightning and poison)!

Its basic bastard sword attack allows a secondary attack against Fortitude on a hit, which stuns the target for a turn and knocks it prone. The champion also does extra damage against prone targets. When first bloodied, it can attack everyone in a Close Burst 1 with the sword (though that doesn’t have the secondary attack). Its final ability is Shake it Off, a free action that allows it to immediately succeed on a saving throw against a (save ends) effect. This recharges on a 2-6, so it’s almost always ready but wouldn’t allow it to shake multiple effects off.

Amazingly, the champion good at both fighting and helping chromatic dragons, since they would have little to fear from their breath weapons either way. Dragons also tend to have powers that knock people prone, and an at-will stun is an excellent thing to use against a dragon.

Sample Encounters

The MM has two sample encounters for this whole lot:

  • Level 6: 1 dragonborn soldier, 2 tiefling darkblades, 1 rage drake and 5 human lackeys. Some sort of bandit gang, probably.

  • Level 13: 3 dragonborn raiders, 1 firebelcher dragonspawn and 1 ogre warhulk. The dragonspawn there clearly indicates this is a task force of Tiamat cultists.

Final Impressions

I like dragoborn! I pretty much enumerated the reasons for this back at the start. They make an excellent addition to the roster of playable character races, and WotC obviously agrees with me since they kept them around mostly unchanged for 5th edition.

The specific stat blocks here work well enough, and I particularly like the soldier and the champion (if its damage is fixed).