The Real Question on Everyone's Minds: Dragonborn Breath Weapon Damage Comparisons (For a Level 12 Fighter)

 My longtime D&D character, in a campaign that sort of collapsed under "most of this plot is built around the story of the character played by the guy who just became a dad and can't really play regularly anymore" issues, is/was a Blue Dragonborn Eldritch Knight Fighter (Plate + a +1 Shield + Defensive Fighting Style + the Shield spell = an effective AC of 27 until I run out of spell slots).

When Fizban's Treasury of Dragons came out last year, they introduced three "new" races - the Chromatic, Metallic, and Gem Dragonborn. Lorewise, of course, the Chromatic and Metallic were just a mechanical update of the existing Dragonborn, separating them out into different races and changing the way breath weapons work along with giving each a new (and distinct) Chromatic, Metallic, or Gem feature you can activate.

So, Jax, my Fighter, got updated with DM's permission from a PHB Dragonborn to a Chromatic Dragonborn.

While the Chromatic Warding thing is cool (if a bit situational) the thing I was most excited about was the change to how the Breath Weapon works.

In the PHB, your breath weapon starts at 2d6 damage and you add a d6 roughly once per tier (though I think you get the third at level 6 instead of 5). You need to use your action to breathe your element (lightning, in my case) and then they make a Dex save with a DC based on your Con modifier, taking full damage on a failure and half on a success. For Blue dragonborn, it's a 30-ft line 5 feet wide, though for some it's a 15-foot cone. (And for Silver, White, and Green Dragonborn, the save is Con instead of Dex, as is typical for cold and poison effects).

At level 12, therefore, to use my breath weapon, I spend my action and deal 4d6 damage (average of 14) with a DC of 14 (despite being a tank, he only has a +2 to Con, though I do have the Tough feat, so his max HP is 124). And I can do this once per short rest, so practically speaking about twice a day.

With his +1 Battle Axe and being a level 12 Fighter, he can make three attacks a round, with an attack bonus of +10 to hit, and dealing 10.5 damage on each hit, for a total of 31.5 average damage if all hit. As such, to make the breath worth it for damage output, I'd need to hit three targets (and even then, the low DC means the damage would often be an average of 7 instead).

Now, the Chromatic Dragonborn, which I switched him to, works differently.

First off, the dice are simpler - it's 1d10 per tier of play, so at 5 it goes to 2d10, at 11 3d10, and at 17, it's 4d10. Damage-wise, this starts off slightly below the old version, but by level 5, you're pulling ahead. My Fighter at his level would get 3d10, which is 16.5 damage on average - a slight boost.

Next, the use of the ability is now PB times per long rest, rather than once per short rest. In practice, this means that, past tier 1, you'll likely get more or at worst the same number of uses per day (I don't think I've ever seen a D&D day with three or more short rests - indeed, I think in Adventurer's League at least, they never let you take more than one per module).

So, my Fighter gets 4 uses per day instead of, realistically, 2.

But then, the most important change: rather than a full action, the breath weapon now only takes one of your attacks. For classes that don't get the Extra Attack feature, this makes no difference, but for a Fighter in particular, this is huge:

So, Jax can now breathe as his first attack for 16.5 average damage (hopefully hitting a secondary target with it too) and then follow up with two strikes that each do 10.5 average damage, giving me, on a single target, 37.5 damage per round when I use the breath.

So, more uses, higher damage - clear upgrade. The "as an attack" aspect of this is also particularly good for a Fighter. A Paladin with similar equipment would, of course, at this level, be getting their Improved Divine Smite d8, and miss out on fully half their regular attacks. So, we'd see one breath (16.5) and one attack (2d8+6, or an average of 15). This is still a little better than two regular attacks, but not the very clear boost that the Fighter gets. We should also note that a Great Weapon build would see things a bit differently - with the Great Weapon Fighting Style, a +1 Maul, for example, would hit for 14.33 on average. Three attacks would thus be 43 average damage, compared to Breath/Weapon/Weapon, which would be 16.5 plus 28.67, or an average of 45.2 - still slightly better, but again not as dramatically (again, hitting a second target with the breath makes it much more powerful).

Now, the One D&D Character Origins UA (I told you we'd be talking about this until the next one comes out) rebuilds the Dragonborn once more.

This Dragonborn embraces simplicity, returning to the model of the PHB Dragonborn while indisputably (unless you're a very short-rest focused party) buffing them.

Perhaps to compensate for returning to the PHB simplicity, these Dragonborn have Darkvision - the catch-all that I think maybe a majority of playable races have?

But again, the way that the breath weapon works has been redesigned.

First off, it once again requires an action to use - which, again, means nothing to classes without the Extra Attack feature, but is a definite nerf to my Fighter, if I were forced to switch to this version. (Given that I haven't actually had a chance to play with the new, Chromatic Dragonborn version, I'd be very sad.)

Another change that is easy to miss is that now, regardless of your element, the shape of the breath is always a 15-foot cone, and the save for it is always Dexterity. This is, honestly, kind of a big deal for a Blue (or Brass, Bronze, Copper, or Black) Dragonborn because it is far easier to hit two or more targets with a 15-foot cone than it is with a 30-foot line (though it's also easier to avoid friends with a line).

Like the Fizban's ones, the breath weapon is now PB times per long rest, which I consider a buff.

The damage has changed as well - but now, it scales at every level. The damage is 1d10 + your level.

So, let's compare it at different breakpoints. At level 1, it's 1d10+1, or 6.5 on average - lower than the original PHB version, but higher than Fizban's. At 6 (remember, the PHB doesn't quite use tier breakpoints) it's 11.5, compared with 10.5 with the PHB version and 11 for the Fizban's version.

For my guy at level 12, it's 17.5, compared with 14 in the PHB or 16.5 with Fizban's. At at level 20, it's 25.5, versus 17.5 in the PHB or 22 with Fizban's.

So, the damage is definitely a buff. The damage range is also much narrower - indeed, the higher level you get, the larger portion of the damage is already known.

But, again, it takes a full action. 17.5 damage is definitely more than 16.5, but the fact that the 16.5 comes with two additional weapon swings makes this, to my character, a pretty profound nerf.

    And that's sort of the oddness of this: if you showed me this version of the Dragonborn with only the 2014 PHB version to compare it to, it'd be a clear upgrade. But the Chromatic, Gem, and Metallic versions out of Fizban's are a lot more appealing.