D&D (2024) Rewarding PCs with Unbalancing Power

While I agree that most griffons would fly away, I wouldn't recommend deciding this until the PCs have had a go at the scenario. Maybe someone rolls a 20 on Animal Handling or something and the group's really enthusiastic.

The training time is a good idea - by the time the PCs are, what, 5th level or so, the griffon won't be any more powerful than a sidekick and you can just include him in encounter building.

Also, as to feeding it, remember that griffons' primary prey is horses.
 

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Let them have the griffon. It will be more fun in the long term.

Level 3 IS on the low side for such a creature. But you can reduce its combat viability if it becomes problematic by making the thing distractable, become disobedient when injured beyond a particular threshold, and/or constantly try to eat horses or smaller creatures like halflings - unless strictly controlled. Or similar behavior. Just make sure you don't render the thing useless or too much of a hassle for the players.. And you can always tone down the issues with the thing as the PCs rise in level; perhaps it becomes better trained as time goes on. Or bonds more strongly with the PCs.
 

One other thing to consider is that the unusual usually get blamed for all of people's troubles. You can use this to cause problems but also as adventuring hooks/leads on what the party is doing.
 

I have blown the power level a few times in campaigns and it works out ok. A griffon is nothing. It is more a NPC of follower to a singular PC. Yes it can fly and transport people and such, much alike a magic item.

Back in 2e and 3e we opened campaigns with one just about following the 80s cartoon and giving out cool items to 1st level PCs. Another time it was retired characters from one campaign having offspring in the new campaign and cool items coming back to 1st level PCs to try out. These examples likely bumped the power level of the party by a few levels, but things leveled out some they higher in level we went.
 

I'm with those who think the Griffin is too wild to tame and would, likely fly away.

BUT

In the Prydain Chronicles, the protagonist, Taran, comes across a wounded wyvern. While these creatures aren't innately evil, they've all been trained/tainted by the evil King Arwyn and he can see through their eyes and stuff. So they're pretty bad and you usually kill them on sight.

Everyone tells Taran to kill the wounded creature. Instead, Taran nurses it back to health. When it's finally healthy enough, it takes a swipe at one of the party members and flies away. Everyone in the party is, like, "I told you so. Now it's going to go tell its master about us"

Fast Forward: I'm not sure if this event happens in the same novel or if it happens in a separate one, but as the heroes are fighting an almost impossible fight(I think it's against a flock of evil wyverns or something), the wyvern returns and helps them right when it's needed most and helps to turn the tide of the battle.

It was pretty cool.

I think it would be neat if that griffin flies away as soon as they free it and then shows up to help them at a later time.
 
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Waterdeep has griffon cavalry, so they are trainable, and there may even be tack and harness available. The PC is going to have to make a hard (DC 20) Animal Handling skill check (it's a monstrosity, so speak with animals doesn't work) to stop it flying off, and until it's trained, if they want to command it it will require an action plus a skill check every time they want it to do something in combat (apart from defend itself). It will take a couple of months to train, by which time the party will probably will have levelled up some, so it's not going to be that big a power boost.

Whilst the standard D&D Griffon has animal intelligence, sentient griffons are common in fantasy, so you might want to consider tweaking griffons in your setting.

10 gp/day seems reasonable. They would need at least one fat sheep every four days (that's what an adult male lion eats, a griffon would need more since flying expends a lot of energy). If they are going somewhere where the griffon won't be able to hunt for itself, they will need to bring it's food with them.
 
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