Turning evil dragons good

[Derren]

Dragons have an ancestral memory (= the memories of their parents which includes their parents and so on) so its nearly impossible to change the alignment of dragons as you have to overcome thousands of years of "education".

The only real way is magic. Either keep the dragons improsined till the helms are ready (if your DM allows crafting cursed items) or you need the exalted spell Sanctify the Wicked which brainwashes a evil creature into good (you probably need a wish spell to emulate it).

 

[Vorput]

or you need the exalted spell Sanctify the Wicked which brainwashes a evil creature into good (you probably need a wish spell to emulate it).

Hmmm... when I think exalted, I don't tend to think of brain-washing creatures... lol

 

[Derren]

Hmmm... when I think exalted, I don't tend to think of brain-washing creatures... lol

Yes, this spell was the responsible for a lot of discussion about how good the exalted spells really are. I also think that this spell is not exalted. I just mention it as the spell exists and does what the player wants. (Although over the course of one year imprisonment).

 

[Corsair]

And it is a 9th level spell which requires the caster to sacrifice an entire character level. Good luck convincing an NPC spellcaster to do that.

 

[XO]

Free Will

For purposes of simplification, and as a general belief on how the world might work, not all creatures are free-willed...

As a matter of fact, few are.

For a chromatic dragon, alignment is already set at birth unless the adventurer acquired the egg early and nurtured it much time before it hatched... The venom spoken by an evil female dragon as she protects her egg rubs off. It imbues the future hatchling with a distorted and quite malevolent view of the universe.

That would be my tack!

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

A similar situation arose in my campaign very recently. The party (actually, my wife's PC and a minor horde of NPCs, as we have no other players) defeated the "older brother" very young red dragon and found two red dragon eggs. One was bartered to the PCs sometime nemesis who was acting as ally at the time in exchange for their share of their treasure. The other was stuffed in a bag of holding until the group could figure out what to do with it.

Fast foward a few months later. While taking refuge in the castle/lair of a silver dragon during pregnancy/childbirth/first few months of life of NPC druid's half-dragon (also silver, you do the math...) child, the red dragon egg hatches.

Is the conversion possible? In my campaign, yes. I subscribe to the "one-in-a-million" philosophy, which means it is possible. Patience testing...absolutely. I played the little bugger with an adult human's intelligence, a teenager's "tude", a 2 year old's temper tantrums, and a wyrmling red dragon's abilities and powers (the main hall's banquet table had to be replaced after one scorching).

And, after all was said and done, it was the silver dragon who was left with the raising of the thing. The primary reason: even with patience, skill, patience, magic, patience, etc...the dragon will be a child for longer than many PCs are alive.

Quentin

The wife...

My bit of advice...if the DM allows it, make sure you use the dragon's inborn proclivities and reasoning capabilities to your advantage.

Marie

 

[Slife]

The main issue with the helm of opposite alignment is that 1) we don't have one, and 2) it would probably take much longer to craft than we have time before they hatch. We don't have access to 8th level spells for temporal stasis, so I'm not sure what we'd do with the evil buggers in the mean time.

You don't have a week?

Creating an item requires one day per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price, with a minimum of at least one day.

Base cost for the helm: 4000 gp. Add in a restriction:

Item Requires Specific Class or Alignment to Use Even more restrictive than requiring a skill, this limitation cuts the cost by 30%.

And it drops to 2800 gp of cost.


Three days per helm should not be too long a time to wait.

 

[Derren]

Y Add in a restriction:

Item Requires Specific Class or Alignment to Use Even more restrictive than requiring a skill, this limitation cuts the cost by 30%.

If the DM allows such cheese. A sensible DM wouldn't.

 

[Herobizkit]

If the DM allows such cheese. A sensible DM wouldn't.

I disagree. The item creation rules are there for players who wish to create items, regardless of what they're intended to do. Now, there's something pretty sinister about wanting to make a cursed item and forcing an unwilling creature to don it with the intention of "redeeming" it, and I would tend to believe most Good creatures wouldn't try it.

But in changing the alignment of a Dragon, unless it's [Evil] (as opposed to Evil as an alignment), I would rule that it's possible. I mean, we had previous editions for a reason; it's just a shame most of their wisdom wasn't carried over.

Plus, you have to consider the in- and out-of-game reasons for allowing such a feat.
1) What are the motivations of the character?
2) What are the motivations of the PLAYER?
3) Is it cool, and does it add something interesting to the story?

Those would be my criteria. Hell, you could have a whole campaign arc about trying to raise baby Dragons in a world where Green Dragons are evil and slain on sight by just about anyone, on principle. What's the projected survival rate of a Good Green Dragon in a Dragon's world? What are the poor little darlings going to eat? Who's going to teach them all about their innate spell-like abilities? Where are they going to stay? Oh yes, lots of chaos, lots of potential.

I ran a solo campaign where one of the NPCs was a hatchling "Space Dragon", I think they were called (from Spelljammer). My player had a hoot of a time trying to teach her the ways of the world... but it's not for everyone.

 

[Wolfwood2]

(paraphrased)

"In Hackmaster, anything is possible. But nobody is going to hand you what you want on a silver platter. You have to go out there and fight for it!"

So ideally, any possible solution should involve some adventuring.

Ask your DM for a quest.