Introduction
The Purple Dragon Commandant makes you extra dangerous when you’re Bloodied and lets you grant temporary hit points to your allies. It’s a good mix of front-line martial capability and support.
Compare this to the Chef feat: Chef lets you increase Constitution or Wisdom and provides a splash of extra healing during Short Rests, but the real appeal is the snacks, which grant Temporary Hit Points. Chef’s snacks grant fewer THP, but you can use them on yourself, and you can replenish them throughout the day. If you just want THP, Chef may be a better choice. But the Last Stand feature may be why you’re here.
Purple Dragon Commandant requires Purple Dragon Rook.
Ability Score Increase
This works for that vast majority of martial characters.
Encourage Ally
A good amount of Temporary Hit Points usable several times per day. Unfortunately, you can’t use it on yourself.
Last Stand
For a martial character with a lot of hit points, this is a fantastic way to get easy Advantage, and it puts you at your best when you’re in danger.
Advantage is enough that it can offset falling behind on the ability score which you normally attack with, which might justify making Constitution your primary ability score, though Purple Dragon Commandant doesn’t let you choose Constitution. Add in Tough and you have a mountain of hit points. Have someone cast Aid to extend your HP max even further, and add Temporary Hit Points and maybe Heavy Armor Master to become even more durable. Half of your HP might still be more than the rest of the party’s HP maximums.
Dhampirs get a similar ability, though it only applies to their bite attack. I wouldn’t take this on a Dhampir due to the redundancy, though.
