[Adventure] The Mine-Militia Identity. (DM: horticulture; Judge: covaithe)

[horticulture]

OOC: I'm willing to hold Felix's action until we see how the dragon reacts. I'm pretty sure the rules for L4W won't allow for him having a White Dragon, but I could be wrong. Horticulture, would you allow it to be a readied action: dragon attacks anyone?

GM: I'll have to ask @covaithe step in for a judgement call on this. If it were a tabletop campaign, I'd be more than willing to let the check succeed, especially with such a compelling argument from Sharpe. However, seeing as this is a living world, I'll defer to the judge(s). twilsemail, you (and anyone else who's willing) can ready an action until we can get a judgement.

 

[Luinnar]

OOC: LOL, I did not know this would work We could have the dragon for the this adventure, after that it could turn into a plot device or something for his (or everyone's) characters. Something a DM could pull out if he/she wanted too.

 

[Someone]

twilsemail, you (and anyone else who's willing) can ready an action until we can get a judgement.

OOC: Well, my attack won't kill the dragon, and those extra 5 HP will come in handy, so I don't see the need to hold the action. Even then we could simply beat the dragon unconscious, (IIRC the rules allowed to declare your attacks to be non-lethal without penalty).

 

[horticulture]

OOC: Well, my attack won't kill the dragon, and those extra 5 HP will come in handy, so I don't see the need to hold the action. Even then we could simply beat the dragon unconscious, (IIRC the rules allowed to declare your attacks to be non-lethal without penalty).

GM: That's no problem, Someone. The next attack will either knock unconscious or kill the dragon.

 

[covaithe]

[sblock=on the care and feeding of dragons]

Haha, you guys are awesome.

With my judge hat on, the thing I want to avoid is having Sharpe (or anyone else) get a permanent mechanical advantage that isn't balanced. A permanent draconic ally would certainly qualify; I wouldn't want to do that to Sharpe's next DM.

However, that leaves a lot of room to work with. There's a couple of ways we could go with this. First,

We could have the dragon for the this adventure, after that it could turn into a plot device or something for his (or everyone's) characters. Something a DM could pull out if he/she wanted too.

...this works for me. horticulture can have the dragon act as he sees fit for this adventure, including letting Sharpe run him in combat as an NPC if that's what you want, and we all agree that after the adventure we'll find a reason for him to go offstage. Sharpe can still talk about his dragon, even list him as an ally on his character sheet, but doesn't get to bring him along on future adventures.

Another thing we could do is award the dragon to Sharpe as treasure to use as a mount, using the mounted combat rules. That's balanced, because it wouldn't give Sharpe any extra actions (as it would if he had an npc ally a la 3.5e leadership feat), and any extra powers available would be "paid for" out of his treasure budget. We'd have to find an appropriate mount in the compendium to use as stats for him. Are there any low-level mounts with breath weapons? It wouldn't have to fly; we could just say that this dragon isn't big enough to carry a passenger in flight yet. If we can't find one with a breath weapon, we can just say that it can't / won't breathe on command. Maybe it injured its throat in this fight? I don't currently have DDI, and I'm at work, so I can't go poring through the mount lists at the moment. We can haggle about the details later, if this is interesting.

We could even do both: the dragon works as an ally for this adventure, but goes offstage at the end. Sharpe can later take the dragon as a mount by paying the appropriate amount. Depending on its stats, that might be many levels down the road.

Other ideas, now that you know roughly what I think is appropriate?
[/sblock]

 

[twilsemail]

OOC: I like option C a good deal. Dragon now with a possibility of Dragon later. My suggestion on later would be to use an adjusted profile for a white dragon. Reduce HP to 20%, remove APs and other solo type stats. It would require a proposal, but that's what we've got the system for, neh?

 

[horticulture]

OOC: I like all of the ideas and I'd like to turn this into a skill challenge as getting a dragon ally is a pretty big deal - whether it's as a companion for this adventure and then as a plot device, or as a permanent mount. Unless the party is grossly against a skill challenge here and just want to gut the overgrown lizard, I'll post the challenge soon'ish.

 

[MetaVoid]

Also, don't forget, the dragon is inteligent and (possibly) evil so betrayal or flight should be considered.

 

[horticulture]

Also, don't forget, the dragon is inteligent and (possibly) evil so betrayal or flight should be considered.

OOC: Indeed, you are correct. And that's one of the main reasons for the skill challenge. : )

 

[Luinnar]

OOC: I'm fine with either of the choices and skill challenge. What book is rules for mounts in? I don't believe I have any that lists the rules, bit I do have a semi up to date character builder.