D&D 5E What is the price for a red dragon's egg?

[Lackhand]

We can consider the price in a few ways:
* As an objet d'art
* As a mount when it hatches
* As a magical item of "Summon Dragon"
As an art object, we can compare it to other art objects. The top tier of art prices at 7500 gp and I think dragon eggs fit there, or maybe below. 10,000 gp feels higher than I'd like in a world of 500 gp +1 swords. Call it 5000 gp for a super-fancy geode. If the super-fancy geode has some magical effect, like maximizing spells, treat it as a one-use magic item instead.

As a down-payment on a mount, we can look at the prices of similar vessels, charge half up-front for the egg and the rest ongoing as maintenance (say a recurring lifestyle expense of +5 gp). The young adult dragon is a warship, more or less; more maneuverable (... she can fly) but less cargo capacity. That'd put the egg at 12500 gp.

Finally, as a one-use magic item I'd have to call it very rare, giving a base sell price of 25,000 gp. As a magic item I'd be inclined to say the hatchling is docile from birth, bonding to whoever hatches it.

So, figure out which model you want and there's your price.

 

[doctorhook]

As a magic item I'd be inclined to say the hatchling is docile from birth, bonding to whoever hatches it.

I like your systematic approach to estimating a price, but I disagree with your assessment that a red dragon hatchling would be docile from birth; the little bastard has arrogant, vicious, and conniving bred into his bones! Someday, eventually, that hatchling/wyrmling/young adult red dragon is going to see the perfect opportunity to attack, humiliate, and utterly ruin its former "master". I say treat the egg as a magic item with a curse or major drawback.

 

[Wik]

I like pretty much all of the answers here. Here's how the situation would crop up in my own world, to show that the answer really depends on your own setting.

There's a group of knights called the knights of the scale. They let any dragon, regardless of scale colour, drop off their eggs on "Dragon Island". The knights raise these hatchlings, and protect them until the dragons reach "young" age (5 years? 25 years? I don't recall right now).

They did this because 250 years ago, a bunch of demons were unleashed on the world, and the dragons couldn't protect their eggs from demonic possession, but the knights could. 100 years ago, the demons were destroyed (last batch of PCs), but the arrangement still stands. Dragons can be lazy.

Anyways, the knights They teach the hatchlings about fair play, honour, etc. They also make it a point that when dragons start roasting settlements (but just human life - herds are fair play), the knights of the scale are the first to out there and kill dragons.

So, in my campaign, the knights would demand the egg, at no cost. If the PCs tried to get money for it, they'd be dealing with some angry paladins and sorcerers. Who can call in favours from dragons of every colour (even the evil ones!). This would happen until the PCs "rescue" the egg and bequeath the egg to the knights of the scale.

 

[Athinar]

deleted, Momma said "if you can not say something nice about some one, write it down on Facebook"

Paladins protecting red dragon eggs, yea right

will end the action with 5000 gp

 

[slightlyprime]

i struggle to see why you would sell it, as a player and a dm i would rather see the dragon raised and looked after, eventually you have a pet dragon and a flying mount.would be such a fun game element as a dm. you could then send bandits to try and steal the dragon, the players will have to go on a quest to learn more about dragons from an old dragonborn draconic sorceror sage, they will have to feed their dragon andprotect it, deal with any problems that a baby dragon would cause like fire. Also imagine the fun in your battles now that the players have a small dragon. personally i would make the dragon age faster than normal due to magic just so it will be more powerful quicker and have an affect on encounters. I love the idea of eragon being a pc. personally if for some weird reason the players don't want a pet dragon i would offer 10,000 gold for it by a stranger with one eye and is hooded, however, they instead get the egg stolen due to an encounter as it was a shady buyer. Thus giving the players a chance to take the egg back and the money for vengence and hopefully influence them to raise the dragonas a pet. A PET DRAGON WOULD BE EPIC!!

 

[ExploderWizard]

i struggle to see why you would sell it, as a player and a dm i would rather see the dragon raised and looked after, eventually you have a pet dragon and a flying mount.would be such a fun game element as a dm. you could then send bandits to try and steal the dragon, the players will have to go on a quest to learn more about dragons from an old dragonborn draconic sorceror sage, they will have to feed their dragon andprotect it, deal with any problems that a baby dragon would cause like fire. Also imagine the fun in your battles now that the players have a small dragon. personally i would make the dragon age faster than normal due to magic just so it will be more powerful quicker and have an affect on encounters. I love the idea of eragon being a pc. personally if for some weird reason the players don't want a pet dragon i would offer 10,000 gold for it by a stranger with one eye and is hooded, however, they instead get the egg stolen due to an encounter as it was a shady buyer. Thus giving the players a chance to take the egg back and the money for vengence and hopefully influence them to raise the dragonas a pet. A PET DRAGON WOULD BE EPIC!!

Or would it be?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUCUQJBmpdQ

 

[Lackhand]

... I disagree with your assessment that a red dragon hatchling would be docile from birth; the little bastard has arrogant, vicious, and conniving bred into his bones!...

I don't disagree with you, but that's why I listed all the different ways to derive the price; find the one that fits how eggs work in your campaign. I didn't say it, but I feel like the DM has a lot more leeway to hang an ongoing antagonistic plot (vicious, conniving, etc) off of a large investment like a ship, property, or dragon-as-mount than they do on a purchased dragon-as-summoned creature, material component one egg.

That's kind of reflected in the differing ways of evaluating the price of the egg. Like most D&D magic, magic is super reliable but technology misfires on a 1. That's why a +1 sword costs so much, but arquebuses explode.

Long story short: were I you, I'd price the egg as in option 2 and keep all the mess of dealing with the dragon in the foreground (you know, when a player tries to raise the wyrm. Since they're selling it in this case, this is kind of a digression). In other games, you might just want to gloss over most of the difficulties and just treat it as a reasonably loyal henchperson; that's the works-like-magic higher price.

Digression: we now have several ways of evaluating the worth of an effect; spell level and magical item rarity. I wish item rarity had used the relatively fine-grained 9 levels (like spells) instead of the relatively coarse 6ish they wound up with. Then we could say "okay yes super powerful dragon, but I'm going to drop it a level because there's a 1-in-20 chance each time it gets damaged it turns irrevocably CE from now on."
As is, seems like too far a step to drop the price.

I should make my own treasure tables and fix it.

 

[Chocolategravy]

* As an objet d'art
* As a mount when it hatches
* As a magical item of "Summon Dragon"

Seriously no one in this thread knows what people do with eggs? The kingdom has to have some 3 star restaurants around that will hand you a bag of gold, shake your hand and ask you to keep 'em coming. They'll turn that egg into 100 500GP omelettes.

 

[Wik]

deleted, Momma said "if you can not say something nice about some one, write it down on Facebook"

Paladins protecting red dragon eggs, yea right

will end the action with 5000 gp

So... you write something, get edited, and then re-write it? What're you getting at? Are you shocked that other players would play the game differently than you?

And of COURSE paladins would try to curb the evil of red dragons, preferably without resorting to violence. That's what paladins SHOULD do - try to spread good without drawing your sword. I wanted a dragon-slaying organization in my campaign world that wasn't just about slaying dragons. So far, it's worked admirably, and it feels a helluva lot more "lawful good" than "We're gonna go out, hunt down dragons, destroy their eggs, and steal their treasure".

 

[thalmin]

Seriously no one in this thread knows what people do with eggs? The kingdom has to have some 3 star restaurants around that will hand you a bag of gold, shake your hand and ask you to keep 'em coming. They'll turn that egg into 100 500GP omelettes.

Mmmmmm! Spicey hot!

Or would you have to eat them raw, because red dragon eggs are resistant to heat and can't be cooked!