So last night, my PCs stumbled on a kobold sorcerer who was in the middle of preparing a ritual that I expected them to stop. They chose not to since combat last night was going very well for them. They assumed the sorcerer was summoning more help and my PCs welcomed the challenge. The party later found out that the sorcerer was conjuring a guard drake egg. After the egg was summoned, the party leapt out and slew all the kobolds in the room. The druid rolled to see what the egg was and she rolled a nat 20. She's now ready to adopt a guard drake since she knows the first person to feed it binds the two together indefinitely. All the kobolds were red scaled serving an ancient red dragon so it'd be safe to assume it'd be a red guard drake once hatched.
So, I'm not sure how to proceed, how the drake will act, how civilians will react to seeing it in public, how they'll use it, should it gain xp and level up with them, how they'll handle the baby drake as it matures over the next 2-3 weeks that it needs to mature fully, etc. I'm still new to DMing so any and all help is greatly appreciated.
For reference, all PCs are level 3 1,600xp (1,100xp short of level 4). They include:
1. Half-Orc Paladin 2. Elven Druid 3. Human Barbarian 4. Dragonborn Barabarian (who I might expect would go into an existential crisis upon having a guard drake as the party 'pet', similar to the Goofy/Pluto conundrum)
I would say let it play out, you could add some story effects in to the game, and could even have a side quest or two about it needing medicine or food or protection. Whenever the paladin uses find steed... boom. Guard drake. Plus you have a druid!
I really like the side quests idea and the find steed usage as well, though I am pretty unsure about the paladin riding it since he's an armored half-orc and might way down the drake! My druid already called dibs on feeding it as well.
Do I just reference the guard drake stat page or tinker with, maybe bump a stat up a bit? Do I level it up with the rest of the party?
Since the druid called dibs on it.... why not alter the rules of the existing druid? They can wildshape into a specific CR creature themselves. Why not use that CR as a guideline for the stats of the Guard Drake? Have it start as a baby drake around 1/4 CR. When the druid levels up have it go to 1/2 CR, next lvl up is 1CR and then it is matured and just scales with the CR the druid can wildshape herself into as the Guard Drake ages naturally. On top of that the CR also provides a guideline for the stats of the beast.
Treat is as an extra PC in the group that the player can control. Or you can use the henchman rules for it instead.
Well, just because your Druid knows that the first to feed the thing creates a bond doesn't mean they will be successful in feeding it...that's gonna be a high DC Animal Handling check since it is a magical entity that can sense that the party isn't what created it and is mistrusting even as a hatchling.
Now assuming that they succeed in getting it to take food from them early on rather than trying to flee due to a very poor roll, they still gotta make a series of Animal Handling checks to properly train it, and the window to train properly is three weeks...now I imagine that the Kobolds would be taking a lot of time to train this thing over that three week period, while a group of adventurers isn't as likely to take the time to properly train it meaning that it isn't going to have the same efficacy as if it were trained properly.
Now if you put the group through all that, and they do take the time to properly train it and succeed on a majority or all of their rolls, then they totally deserve to have a guard drake...now if they fail a lot of the rolls, maybe it acts more like a puppy in its demeanor and is more timid in combats and becomes a liability to them.
So last night, my PCs stumbled on a kobold sorcerer who was in the middle of preparing a ritual that I expected them to stop. They chose not to since combat last night was going very well for them. They assumed the sorcerer was summoning more help and my PCs welcomed the challenge. The party later found out that the sorcerer was conjuring a guard drake egg. After the egg was summoned, the party leapt out and slew all the kobolds in the room. The druid rolled to see what the egg was and she rolled a nat 20. She's now ready to adopt a guard drake since she knows the first person to feed it binds the two together indefinitely. All the kobolds were red scaled serving an ancient red dragon so it'd be safe to assume it'd be a red guard drake once hatched.
So, I'm not sure how to proceed, how the drake will act, how civilians will react to seeing it in public, how they'll use it, should it gain xp and level up with them, how they'll handle the baby drake as it matures over the next 2-3 weeks that it needs to mature fully, etc. I'm still new to DMing so any and all help is greatly appreciated.
For reference, all PCs are level 3 1,600xp (1,100xp short of level 4). They include:
1. Half-Orc Paladin
2. Elven Druid
3. Human Barbarian
4. Dragonborn Barabarian (who I might expect would go into an existential crisis upon having a guard drake as the party 'pet', similar to the Goofy/Pluto conundrum)
I would say let it play out, you could add some story effects in to the game, and could even have a side quest or two about it needing medicine or food or protection. Whenever the paladin uses find steed... boom. Guard drake. Plus you have a druid!
I really like the side quests idea and the find steed usage as well, though I am pretty unsure about the paladin riding it since he's an armored half-orc and might way down the drake! My druid already called dibs on feeding it as well.
Do I just reference the guard drake stat page or tinker with, maybe bump a stat up a bit? Do I level it up with the rest of the party?
Since the druid called dibs on it.... why not alter the rules of the existing druid? They can wildshape into a specific CR creature themselves. Why not use that CR as a guideline for the stats of the Guard Drake? Have it start as a baby drake around 1/4 CR. When the druid levels up have it go to 1/2 CR, next lvl up is 1CR and then it is matured and just scales with the CR the druid can wildshape herself into as the Guard Drake ages naturally. On top of that the CR also provides a guideline for the stats of the beast.
Treat is as an extra PC in the group that the player can control. Or you can use the henchman rules for it instead.
Well, just because your Druid knows that the first to feed the thing creates a bond doesn't mean they will be successful in feeding it...that's gonna be a high DC Animal Handling check since it is a magical entity that can sense that the party isn't what created it and is mistrusting even as a hatchling.
Now assuming that they succeed in getting it to take food from them early on rather than trying to flee due to a very poor roll, they still gotta make a series of Animal Handling checks to properly train it, and the window to train properly is three weeks...now I imagine that the Kobolds would be taking a lot of time to train this thing over that three week period, while a group of adventurers isn't as likely to take the time to properly train it meaning that it isn't going to have the same efficacy as if it were trained properly.
Now if you put the group through all that, and they do take the time to properly train it and succeed on a majority or all of their rolls, then they totally deserve to have a guard drake...now if they fail a lot of the rolls, maybe it acts more like a puppy in its demeanor and is more timid in combats and becomes a liability to them.
She is Circle of the Moon so technically, she can wild shape into CR 1