D&D General Thoughts about Purple Dragon Knights


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Sometimes I'm really disappointed by the literal-mindedness of the D&D designers, and really reductive ideas about creating color and themes. Purple Dragon Knights are military order, not a bunch of fighters with pet dragons. This reminds me of when in 3e they took away Heironeous's association with the battle axe and gave him a longsword, because he was associated with paladins and paladins often... use longswords? Or in 4e when they made driders just another drow type, and not outcasts cursed by Lolth to create fear in her people.

I'm not saying the game can't change or there is anything sacred about any given piece of lore, but every time you change something completely, you throw out all the work done up to that point. I don't see a fair trade when you give up the PDK classic archetype in order to introduce a subclass that is weird and kind of doesn't work.
 


Another point to ponder --- how many actual Purple Dragon Knights are there? It's really a question of how many amethyst dragons are signed up. More specifically, I think this must be something almost exclusively limited to Wrymlings (Medium, and able to carry Small riders) and Young dragons (Large, so they can carry Medium riders). Adult dragons are probably ready to do something else. For a Young dragon, a decade or three with the PDKs is just a cool broadening experience, like a gap year doing volunteer work.
 

Another point to ponder --- how many actual Purple Dragon Knights are there? It's really a question of how many amethyst dragons are signed up. More specifically, I think this must be something almost exclusively limited to Wrymlings (Medium, and able to carry Small riders) and Young dragons (Large, so they can carry Medium riders). Adult dragons are probably ready to do something else. For a Young dragon, a decade or three with the PDKs is just a cool broadening experience, like a gap year doing volunteer work.

In older material thousands.

They're basically the army.

This town has 700, that castle 1100 sort of thing.
 

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