Zardnaar
Legend
Aware. The PDKs are military order. Dragonrider tie in is stupid imho.
D&D General Thoughts about Purple Dragon Knights
- Thread starter JPL
- Start date
Aware. The PDKs are military order. Dragonrider tie in is stupid imho.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
It’s currently popular, in the way pseudo-medieval knights were 40 years ago. Ditching the dragonrider subclass was stupid imo.
pawsplay
Legend
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.
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.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
D&D is about being cool and fun, not about being fossilised in the past. If something is no longer cool it needs to change.
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.
I guess my head canon is that "Purple Dragons" or "Purple Dragon Knights" are acceptable terms for the organization as a whole, but only the ones who have paired up with dragons are "Knights" per se. Pendragon sometimes uses the title "Esquire At Arms" for someone who is a former squire and now a professional warrior but isn't a full knight for whatever reason. I think some of the Crusades era knightly orders used the term "sergeant" for a non-knight warrior of the order.
So true Knights . . . I dunno, fifty? And maybe only ten or so within Cormyr proper at any given time, while the rest are knights errant? Ten knights on Young amethyst dragons is a pretty solid line of defense, I would think.
