My players have recently beaten a wyvern and have bean conscripted to take all the eggs they find back to town. I know that they are going to keep one and try to tame it. Does anyone know an in depth way of taming a wyvern or other monsters.
Lots of animal handling checks and knowledge nature checks to know how to feed and care for the youngling, and create a bond with it. Start off with a high difficulty, and lower it over time if they do well and depending on how they describe their actions.I would start with one of each per day with a DC of 20 and take it from there.
Make it into a Downtime activity. And for samples of how to get a Wyvern to behave, look at the Parnast section of the Hoard of the Dragon Queen for the difficulties in harnessing and getting a wyvern to fly the way you want (and the consequences). You could easily extrapolate from that... maybe reduce the amount of the stinger damage a bit... and then figure out how many tendays it will take them to train it over the course of the next several years as the wyvern gets strong enough to support a rider. I would also look at some of the pricing of purchasing a mount as a guideline for pricing that you could discount from... maybe make it cost half as much as buying a mount, but also allow some animal tricks that they could do that a normal mount wouldn't. The key thing is to not give them instant success... even training a horse if you are working with a newborn foal is going to take time to grow until it can support a rider's weight.
It sounds possible, it would just take 3 things: time, skill, and resources.
In that way, I might treat the process much like crafting a magic item. Figure out just how long you think it'll take to train them (it won't happen overnight, try googeling how long it typically takes to train K-9 units for law enforcement or the military for a picture of how long it should take), and then have the characters spend some time daily practicing with it over that time period.
Then that's where skill comes in. Every time they have a training session, you should have an Animal Handling check for either a set DC that you determine based on how hard you want this task to be for them, OR you could have it be an Animal Handling check contested by some opposing skill roll by the wyvern itself. Up to you. This represents how well you're training it each time you try, much like how a wizard crafting a magic wand will have to make regular Arcana checks throughout the crafting process.
Resources when crafting a magic item represent gold spent gathering costly materials, running experiments, testing spells, essentially running the whole process, but mechanically the gold cost is there to make crafting not something you just hand-wave, but something you actually work towards. So running with the crafting comparison, training a baby monster should also have a total gold cost associated with the task. That final cost might go down if they roll high on their skill checks during training, or go up if training doesn't go so well. Narratively, this material cost represents buying different types of food to figure out what it likes to eat, regularly giving it treats to reinforce good behavior, medical treatment maybe for when it takes a swipe at one of the trainers, etc.
One further suggestion I might make is to require them to train it in tiers. I imagine that a baby/adolescent wyvern would be a lot more compliant than an adult, so maybe it requires more training as it ages (kind of like a Pokemon that doesn't listen to its trainer without the badge after a certain level). That way the training process isn't just one long grind that takes like a year during which anything could happen to the wyvern, potentially wasting all that time. Give them a certain amount of time to train to let's call it tier 1, then they have their trained baby wyvern and it's all fun, but then oh no more time passes and suddenly it's disobeying them again and acting all aggressive so they need to work with it some more and so on until you reckon it's fully trained.
If you're concerned about your party being OP having a trained adult wyvern eventually, you could always power down the trained one from the Monster Manual stat block and just tell the players that domesticated monsters aren't usually as big or ferocious as their wild counterparts. Maybe downgrade it to size Medium and nerf some of its attack either by lowering damage or simply removing its multiattack, but again, that's only if you're worried about it being OP. It would also be cool for the players to have a kickass flying wyvern mount.
If you wanna look at the rules for magic item crafting for comparisons on the time/gold required, I'd recommend the rules found in Xanathar's. I'd compare wyvern training to a Rare or Very Rare magic item.
I agree with the above... I'd allow them to try it but I would rule it would take years. I feel like I remember somewhere, someone did an estimate on growth rates for Wyverns for this purpose, and came up with 3 years to be big enough to start riding, 5 years to maturity -- the person compared them to some real-world animals of similar size and how long those things take to grow, if I remember. At any rate -- you are talking years here. For many games, the campaign will be long over before it grows large enough to ride/use in combat.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I agree with the above... I'd allow them to try it but I would rule it would take years. I feel like I remember somewhere, someone did an estimate on growth rates for Wyverns for this purpose, and came up with 3 years to be big enough to start riding, 5 years to maturity -- the person compared them to some real-world animals of similar size and how long those things take to grow, if I remember. At any rate -- you are talking years here. For many games, the campaign will be long over before it grows large enough to ride/use in combat.
Or take the baby wyvern to temporarily meet a ghost (or whatever other monster ages you 10 years). :-)
Thank you for the advice. The player who wants to tame the wyvern seems like he wants more as a pet than a steed for battle. I think he just wants it to out do the party sorcerer/trader who owns a very reliable and surprisingly competent donkey.
here's a set of homebrew training rules - still has a few holes though. To tame a wild animal for use as a mount, first it must be calmed, and then it must be trained. I think there should be some kind of intelligence limiter or adjustment, but haven't really thought about it out yet (giants keep giant eagles as pets and they have 8 INT). Since an adult wyvern is a CR 6 creature, it'd take almost half a year of downtime to train. I think that's reasonable. Also, i think the DM should rule on what an animal is when it comes to the Animal Handling skill because a wyvern is a dragon, griffon is a monstrosity, etc. All 6 of the spells that refer to animals, such as speak with animals, are limited to just beasts. 'Animal' just isn't a defined term in D&D...but the Animal Handling description does focus on domesticated animals.
Calming. The animal must first be calmed to allow it to be herded back to an area where it can be contained and tamed.
A successful DC 20 (add 1 to the DC for every CR level the creature is above 1) Wisdom (Animal Handling) check to calm the animal. If the character caused damage to the animal, this check automatically fails.
Training. Once calmed and herded into a pen or other enclosed area, the animal may then be trained as a mount or work animal.
A character can spend downtime taming and training the animal. For each workweek spent, the character must role a DC 15 Wisdom (Animal Handling) check. A number of successful checks must be completed to successfully tame and train the animal. The number of checks required is equal to 4 times the animal's CR rating (minimum of 4).
Alternatively, and if available, an animal trainer with experience in that specific creature may be hired to train the animal for the character for a fee of 100 gp, requiring 6 workweeks. This option is limited to creatures with a maximum CR rating of 1.
Ability Check Adjustments. These adjustments apply when taming or training beasts.
Beast master rangers automatically succeed.
Circle of the shepherd druids and characters casting animal friendship have advantage.
Firbolgs alternatively may make a Charisma (Persuasion) check with advantage.
Forest gnomes have advantage if it is a beast of small or smaller size.
At DM discretion, certain races have advantage if the creature is a similar species such as lizardfolk for giant lizards, grung for giant toads, tabaxi or leonin for tigers, etc.
also (and probably better than my homebrew rules above), there are very specific rules in Rime of hte Frost Maiden on Griffon Taming...you could adopt those for wyvern.
Griffon Taming Goliaths of the Akannathi clan can learn to raise and tame griffons using secrets passed down through the generations. The clan's griffon trainer, Rahi, shares these secrets with clan members who show great wisdom. The goliaths don't ride the griffons; rather, they train them to hunt like falcons. The griffons are taught to respond to goliath whistles and never stray too far from their masters.
A goliath character who earns Rahi's respect can be taught the secrets of griffon taming over a period of 1 year, during which time the character is entrusted to watch over and protect a single griffon egg and, when it hatches, the emergent griffon youngling. At the end of the year, if the griffon is still alive, the character must make a DC 15 Wisdom (Animal Handling) check, with advantage if the character accepts Rahi's guidance. If the check fails, the character is unable to tame the griffon. If the check succeeds, the character tames the griffon and bonds with it for life. Control of the griffon can be given to the goliath's player at this time.
Modify the griffon stat block as follows to account for the young griffon's development:
At birth, the griffon is Tiny and has 5 (1d4 + 3) hit points, a flying speed of 40 feet, and a Strength score of 2. It has a +0 bonus to hit on its attacks and deals 1 piercing damage with its beak and l slashing damage with its claws. Its challenge rating is 0 (10 XP) .
After 1 year, the griffon is Small and has 13 (2d6 + 6) hit points and a Strength score of 8. It has a + 1 bonus to hit on its attacks and deals 2 (1d4) piercing damage with its beak and 2 (1d4) slashing damage with its claws. Its challenge rating is l /4 (50 XP) .
After 2 years, the griffon is Medium and has 32 (5d6 + 15) hit points and a Strength score of 12. It has a +3 bonus to hit on its attacks and deals 4 (1d6 + 1) piercing damage with its beak and 6 (2d4 + 1) slashing damage with its claws. Its challenge rating is 1 (200 XP). After 3 years, the griffon is fully grown and tame enough to be ridden as a mount.
Lots of animal handling checks and knowledge nature checks to know how to feed and care for the youngling, and create a bond with it. Start off with a high difficulty, and lower it over time if they do well and depending on how they describe their actions.I would start with one of each per day with a DC of 20 and take it from there.
And lots of time.
Taming a wild animal (well, as tame as it can be - a tamed animal is still a long way from a domesticated animal) takes months to years.
I'd do a downtime activity, maybe one ability check each month, starting at a really high level (DC 25 for the first month) and droppintg difficulty every two or three months.
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My players have recently beaten a wyvern and have bean conscripted to take all the eggs they find back to town. I know that they are going to keep one and try to tame it. Does anyone know an in depth way of taming a wyvern or other monsters.
Lots of animal handling checks and knowledge nature checks to know how to feed and care for the youngling, and create a bond with it. Start off with a high difficulty, and lower it over time if they do well and depending on how they describe their actions.I would start with one of each per day with a DC of 20 and take it from there.
Make it into a Downtime activity. And for samples of how to get a Wyvern to behave, look at the Parnast section of the Hoard of the Dragon Queen for the difficulties in harnessing and getting a wyvern to fly the way you want (and the consequences). You could easily extrapolate from that... maybe reduce the amount of the stinger damage a bit... and then figure out how many tendays it will take them to train it over the course of the next several years as the wyvern gets strong enough to support a rider. I would also look at some of the pricing of purchasing a mount as a guideline for pricing that you could discount from... maybe make it cost half as much as buying a mount, but also allow some animal tricks that they could do that a normal mount wouldn't. The key thing is to not give them instant success... even training a horse if you are working with a newborn foal is going to take time to grow until it can support a rider's weight.
It sounds possible, it would just take 3 things: time, skill, and resources.
In that way, I might treat the process much like crafting a magic item. Figure out just how long you think it'll take to train them (it won't happen overnight, try googeling how long it typically takes to train K-9 units for law enforcement or the military for a picture of how long it should take), and then have the characters spend some time daily practicing with it over that time period.
Then that's where skill comes in. Every time they have a training session, you should have an Animal Handling check for either a set DC that you determine based on how hard you want this task to be for them, OR you could have it be an Animal Handling check contested by some opposing skill roll by the wyvern itself. Up to you. This represents how well you're training it each time you try, much like how a wizard crafting a magic wand will have to make regular Arcana checks throughout the crafting process.
Resources when crafting a magic item represent gold spent gathering costly materials, running experiments, testing spells, essentially running the whole process, but mechanically the gold cost is there to make crafting not something you just hand-wave, but something you actually work towards. So running with the crafting comparison, training a baby monster should also have a total gold cost associated with the task. That final cost might go down if they roll high on their skill checks during training, or go up if training doesn't go so well. Narratively, this material cost represents buying different types of food to figure out what it likes to eat, regularly giving it treats to reinforce good behavior, medical treatment maybe for when it takes a swipe at one of the trainers, etc.
One further suggestion I might make is to require them to train it in tiers. I imagine that a baby/adolescent wyvern would be a lot more compliant than an adult, so maybe it requires more training as it ages (kind of like a Pokemon that doesn't listen to its trainer without the badge after a certain level). That way the training process isn't just one long grind that takes like a year during which anything could happen to the wyvern, potentially wasting all that time. Give them a certain amount of time to train to let's call it tier 1, then they have their trained baby wyvern and it's all fun, but then oh no more time passes and suddenly it's disobeying them again and acting all aggressive so they need to work with it some more and so on until you reckon it's fully trained.
If you're concerned about your party being OP having a trained adult wyvern eventually, you could always power down the trained one from the Monster Manual stat block and just tell the players that domesticated monsters aren't usually as big or ferocious as their wild counterparts. Maybe downgrade it to size Medium and nerf some of its attack either by lowering damage or simply removing its multiattack, but again, that's only if you're worried about it being OP. It would also be cool for the players to have a kickass flying wyvern mount.
If you wanna look at the rules for magic item crafting for comparisons on the time/gold required, I'd recommend the rules found in Xanathar's. I'd compare wyvern training to a Rare or Very Rare magic item.
Hope that helps!
I agree with the above... I'd allow them to try it but I would rule it would take years. I feel like I remember somewhere, someone did an estimate on growth rates for Wyverns for this purpose, and came up with 3 years to be big enough to start riding, 5 years to maturity -- the person compared them to some real-world animals of similar size and how long those things take to grow, if I remember. At any rate -- you are talking years here. For many games, the campaign will be long over before it grows large enough to ride/use in combat.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Or take the baby wyvern to temporarily meet a ghost (or whatever other monster ages you 10 years). :-)
Thank you for the advice. The player who wants to tame the wyvern seems like he wants more as a pet than a steed for battle. I think he just wants it to out do the party sorcerer/trader who owns a very reliable and surprisingly competent donkey.
EDIT: read the next post before this one
here's a set of homebrew training rules - still has a few holes though. To tame a wild animal for use as a mount, first it must be calmed, and then it must be trained. I think there should be some kind of intelligence limiter or adjustment, but haven't really thought about it out yet (giants keep giant eagles as pets and they have 8 INT). Since an adult wyvern is a CR 6 creature, it'd take almost half a year of downtime to train. I think that's reasonable. Also, i think the DM should rule on what an animal is when it comes to the Animal Handling skill because a wyvern is a dragon, griffon is a monstrosity, etc. All 6 of the spells that refer to animals, such as speak with animals, are limited to just beasts. 'Animal' just isn't a defined term in D&D...but the Animal Handling description does focus on domesticated animals.
Calming. The animal must first be calmed to allow it to be herded back to an area where it can be contained and tamed.
Training. Once calmed and herded into a pen or other enclosed area, the animal may then be trained as a mount or work animal.
Ability Check Adjustments. These adjustments apply when taming or training beasts.
edit: based on this, you'd think a nature or survival check would be more appropriate than an animal handling. https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/tcoe/dungeon-masters-tools#MonsterResearch
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
also (and probably better than my homebrew rules above), there are very specific rules in Rime of hte Frost Maiden on Griffon Taming...you could adopt those for wyvern.
Griffon Taming
Goliaths of the Akannathi clan can learn to raise and tame griffons using secrets passed down through the generations. The clan's griffon trainer, Rahi, shares these secrets with clan members who show great wisdom. The goliaths don't ride the griffons; rather, they train them to hunt like falcons. The griffons are taught to respond to goliath whistles and never stray too far from their masters.
A goliath character who earns Rahi's respect can be taught the secrets of griffon taming over a period of 1 year, during which time the character is entrusted to watch over and protect a single griffon egg and, when it hatches, the emergent griffon youngling. At the end of the year, if the griffon is still alive, the character must make a DC 15 Wisdom (Animal Handling) check, with advantage if the character accepts Rahi's guidance. If the check fails, the character is unable to tame the griffon. If the check succeeds, the character tames the griffon and bonds with it for life. Control of the griffon can be given to the goliath's player at this time.
Modify the griffon stat block as follows to account for the young griffon's development:
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
And lots of time.
Taming a wild animal (well, as tame as it can be - a tamed animal is still a long way from a domesticated animal) takes months to years.
I'd do a downtime activity, maybe one ability check each month, starting at a really high level (DC 25 for the first month) and droppintg difficulty every two or three months.