Hi, I'm running Dragon of Icespire Peak with my vert green party. I'd quite like them to be able to harvest the scales of the young white dragon and have the opportunity to get a smith in Neverwinter to make them a set of armour out of it.
I'm guessing making it affordable at level 7 would be handing them a "very rare" item far too early . Am I right on that point?
Assuming I am, does anyone have any recommendations for a sensible crating cost. I figured I could use that as something for them to save for in the long term.
A sensible cost would be relative to a portion of what the party can afford without having to spend all their coins for caster, smith and armorer to make the Dragon Scale Mailwith harvested maretial. You want it to be a costly reward requiring weeks of exceptional work by which only few individual can accomplish in the area but done in record time of few dozen hours ideally. 2,500 gp could be reasonable if they were able to get the bell from the Shrine of Savras for example. Otherwise, i'd go with less especially if they can't trade anything else of value in exchange, perhaps few hundread gp, with may be a service, like escorting someone or delivering something back to Phandalin or some place else on their way.
To give you an idea the value such very rare magic item in the 2024 Dungeon Master Guide is 40,000 gp.
A sensible cost would be relative to a portion of what the party can afford without having to spend all their coins for caster, smith and armorer to make the Dragon Scale Mailwith harvested maretial. You want it to be a costly reward requiring weeks of exceptional work by which only few individual can accomplish in the area but done in record time of few dozen hours ideally. 2,500 gp could be reasonable if they were able to get the bell from the Shrine of Savras for example. Otherwise, i'd go with less especially if they can't trade anything else of value in exchange, perhaps few hundread gp, with may be a service, like escorting someone or delivering something back to Phandalin or some place else on their way.
To give you an idea the value such very rare magic item in the 2024 Dungeon Master Guide is 40,000 gp.
Thanks, they did get the bell and have got quite a bit of gold. I added a couple of extra quests in for their personal stories so they've made a bit more than the base campaign. Do you think the armour would be appropriate for a level 7 character?
Thanks, they did get the bell and have got quite a bit of gold. I added a couple of extra quests in for their personal stories so they've made a bit more than the base campaign. Do you think the armour would be appropriate for a level 7 character?
agreed, the problem with dragon scale armors is that they are scale armors - AC 15 (scale) +1 (for the dragon scales, etc) and then the resistances. vs Plate: AC 18 and no resistances for 1500GP. Dragon scale mail sounds wonderful but its really a bit of a trap as, unless your facing dragons regularly, its actually a downgrade in AC from what you could be wearing. I tend to think of it as a "prestige" armor - you wear it for special occasions where you are allowed to wear armor to remind everyone that your a dragonslayer and they aren't. Alternatively, I homebrew Dragonskin (skin not scale) leather and studded leather armors. +2 to AC with the resistances for about the same price as the dragonscale. makes much more sense to me that this is what the skin of a dragon would be used for rather than the very stiff scales (they are small and mobile on the dragon's body but large and stiff on yours. better to use the scales as shields (large) granting +1/+2 AC bonus and resistances on top of the basic +2 shield bonus. say 2000 GP for a dragon leather/studded leather suit (I think I have one in the homebrew already) and 1000 GP for the dragon scale shield.
Dragon Scale armor is essentially half-plate of resistance (scale +1 == half-plate) with an additional benefit of advantage on saves and dragon detection. That's pretty dubious for very rare (even armor of resistance, at rare, is usually worse than normal or no attunement armor plus a ring of resistance, also rare), so you could just change its rarity and call it done. I would also be willing to just go for scale armor of resistance as an Uncommon (yeah, armor of resistance is rare, but between it being a bad rare, and attaching it to a bad base armor type, it seems totally fine to set it to uncommon).
My thoughts: You skin your fellow sentient (that's the dragon), and get a bunch of workable material: Skin, scales, horns and skull. The dragon has smaller scales around joints and along the neck, larger scales where on the chest and body, and so on.
Smaller scales remain on the skin, making leather armor. Larger scales are cut and shaped, making either scale armor or plate (plate requires a very large dragon, ancient or wyrm or whatever). On the other hand, the skull of a very large dragon isn't much use, but a smaller one could become a fancy helmet. Horns can become daggers or even fancy curved swords.
Anyways, you sell the greater part of the material to finance your fancy armor. The smith gets the lot of it, and in return you get ... say, a suit of armor and a shield.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
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Hi, I'm running Dragon of Icespire Peak with my vert green party. I'd quite like them to be able to harvest the scales of the young white dragon and have the opportunity to get a smith in Neverwinter to make them a set of armour out of it.
I'm guessing making it affordable at level 7 would be handing them a "very rare" item far too early . Am I right on that point?
Assuming I am, does anyone have any recommendations for a sensible crating cost. I figured I could use that as something for them to save for in the long term.
Thanks in advance.
A sensible cost would be relative to a portion of what the party can afford without having to spend all their coins for caster, smith and armorer to make the Dragon Scale Mail with harvested maretial. You want it to be a costly reward requiring weeks of exceptional work by which only few individual can accomplish in the area but done in record time of few dozen hours ideally. 2,500 gp could be reasonable if they were able to get the bell from the Shrine of Savras for example. Otherwise, i'd go with less especially if they can't trade anything else of value in exchange, perhaps few hundread gp, with may be a service, like escorting someone or delivering something back to Phandalin or some place else on their way.
To give you an idea the value such very rare magic item in the 2024 Dungeon Master Guide is 40,000 gp.
Thanks, they did get the bell and have got quite a bit of gold. I added a couple of extra quests in for their personal stories so they've made a bit more than the base campaign. Do you think the armour would be appropriate for a level 7 character?
Yes i don't see why not.
agreed, the problem with dragon scale armors is that they are scale armors - AC 15 (scale) +1 (for the dragon scales, etc) and then the resistances. vs Plate: AC 18 and no resistances for 1500GP.
Dragon scale mail sounds wonderful but its really a bit of a trap as, unless your facing dragons regularly, its actually a downgrade in AC from what you could be wearing. I tend to think of it as a "prestige" armor - you wear it for special occasions where you are allowed to wear armor to remind everyone that your a dragonslayer and they aren't. Alternatively, I homebrew Dragonskin (skin not scale) leather and studded leather armors. +2 to AC with the resistances for about the same price as the dragonscale. makes much more sense to me that this is what the skin of a dragon would be used for rather than the very stiff scales (they are small and mobile on the dragon's body but large and stiff on yours. better to use the scales as shields (large) granting +1/+2 AC bonus and resistances on top of the basic +2 shield bonus. say 2000 GP for a dragon leather/studded leather suit (I think I have one in the homebrew already) and 1000 GP for the dragon scale shield.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Dragon Scale armor is essentially half-plate of resistance (scale +1 == half-plate) with an additional benefit of advantage on saves and dragon detection. That's pretty dubious for very rare (even armor of resistance, at rare, is usually worse than normal or no attunement armor plus a ring of resistance, also rare), so you could just change its rarity and call it done. I would also be willing to just go for scale armor of resistance as an Uncommon (yeah, armor of resistance is rare, but between it being a bad rare, and attaching it to a bad base armor type, it seems totally fine to set it to uncommon).
My thoughts: You skin your fellow sentient (that's the dragon), and get a bunch of workable material: Skin, scales, horns and skull. The dragon has smaller scales around joints and along the neck, larger scales where on the chest and body, and so on.
Smaller scales remain on the skin, making leather armor. Larger scales are cut and shaped, making either scale armor or plate (plate requires a very large dragon, ancient or wyrm or whatever). On the other hand, the skull of a very large dragon isn't much use, but a smaller one could become a fancy helmet. Horns can become daggers or even fancy curved swords.
Anyways, you sell the greater part of the material to finance your fancy armor. The smith gets the lot of it, and in return you get ... say, a suit of armor and a shield.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.