Dragon’s Breath: Can I Offer You a Mint?
Spell Level: 2
School: Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: 120 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Components: V, S, M (a hot pepper)
You touch one willing creature and imbue it with the power to spew magical energy from its mouth, provided it has one. Choose acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. Until the spell ends, the creature can use an action to exhale energy of the chosen type in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 3d6 damage of the chosen type on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 2nd.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
A handful of spells have graced character sheets over the years that fundamentally change what you do for an encounter. Anytime a spell gives you a new action, you have to ask yourself “Is this better than other actions I could take right now?” and in the case of spells like Vampiric Touch, the answer is typically “Probably not”. Dragon’s Breath smashes those expectations. Not only is this something you’ll gladly use on yourself and spam round after round, this can go on a buddy that is in the market for a new action should they need.
The easiest comparison for Dragon’s Breath is Burning Hands. Burning Hands is a 1st level spell that gives you one 3d6 fire damage cone. Dragon’s Breath, the turn you cast it, does basically the same thing; you spend a bonus action casting it, and an action breathing the weapon. What then steps this up above Burning Hands is you can basically recast it for free as long as you can concentrate on it, which can be superb. Areas of medium HP enemies that you’re starting to face around third to fourth level often can take just one Burning Hands. Instead of needing to sink more slots into blowing away the group of three to four orcs, you can now just cast a single Dragon’s Breath and get a good AOE damage effect as many times as you need.
Even if you’re killing most of a group with the initial cast, subsequent casts hitting single targets is still a great upgrade over most damaging cantrips in the early tiers. Going from 1d10 to 3d6 puts you a lot closer to the average damage of even the best martial weapons. While this isn’t something you’ll likely want to hit just one creature, if you can hit a group once, any additional uses of it are absolutely good enough to justify the cast.
Dragon’s Breath is a great natural stepping stone from Burning Hands, and is a huge flavor win for all the dragonborn out there looking to make their breath weapon and draconic ancestry a larger part of their identity. This is a spell that can slot onto a lot of sheets early, and be something you’ll happily cast well into the mid tier of the game.
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