I need an outside opinion.

[Mojake]

I want some kind of heroic order within my campaign. Something like Dragonknights; where an elite group of the order ride around on dragons, dealing out justice and looking after the realm. I'd also like at one point to have a PC to be asked to join the order, maybe as a Paragon path, then possibly becoming an elite at Epic tier.

My problems are:
1. I need a reason for the dragons to allow riders. I still want cunning dragons in the campaign, and thought perhaps these dragons could be stupid versions... Not a great idea though. Maybe some kind of ancient artefacts that the order try to hoard, that binds the soul of a creature to whomever consumes it. Is this any good? Do you have a better suggestion?

2. Dragon-Mounts can work for high end NPCs, but for a PC is this too OP? Are there any ways I could make it work?

3. If a single PC is asked to join the order, could this cause jealousy with the others? The order aren't a global superpower, more like contracted law-enforcers. They are loved by some, hated by others. The Dragonknights can also only ride Young or Adult Dragons, ensuring that Elders and Ancients are still a challenge.

[NecroRebel]

Rather than more traditional dragon knights, have you considered dragon samurai? Dragons are terrifying close-range combatants, but their long-range ability tends to leave something to be desired. Making the riders primarily archers and mages would give a good reason for the dragons to do this - the riders cover the one real weakness dragons have, long-range combat. A say dragon samurai because the samurai traditionally focused a lot on archery, but they also have a strong tradition of blademastery.

The first Adventurer's Vault has some rules for mounts and suggestions as to how much certain mounts should cost. You can probably reverse-engineer what a mount of a given level would cost, and consider the dragon mount as part of the player's "treasure," and it should be reasonably balanced. You might have to homebrew a standard- or elite-type monster dragon for this though.

Anything that makes one player obviously more important to the story can cause jealousy in other players if done poorly. Step carefully, talk to them about this idea before you implement it, and you should be fine.

[Mojake]

Some good points there, the Samurai one is a great idea! And yes, making the dragon a part of loot could work pretty well, but regarding making the character central, this is why I stated that the order aren't much of a superpower, and will only be a side-note in the campaign. I expect that after I mention them in the first session, the imaginations of a couple of my players will wander towards them.

[Silver0wl]

Make the order a preexisting thing, they raise dragons and dragon eggs in like a scholastic society made of high level professors and scholars and dragon experts. They hatch the dragons and turn them over to the military branch of the organization and have the military part hand select riders (your party) based on past deeds, (previous adventures)

Dragon thing is easy just dumb it down, and print them out a card/sheet with a bite, claw, and breath weapon and make the damage whatever you need to fit with your levels and desired damage

And IMO i believe that you should let your entire party join the organization as a team, it will build a team feeling, and becoming a rider and leaving the rest of the party in the shadows would be a big imbalance

[Kurald Galain]

Dragonlance has non-stupid dragons that still allow riders, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

[Tegu8788]

Pern has some answers here. Dragons have the ability to teleport vast distances, but need a human working with them in order to properly visualize the destination. Those dragons also need to consume a certain stone to produce flame, which the riders provide a supply of.

But here's an idea. What if, aside from casting and shooting, the PC buffs the dragon? A Leader could easily heal wounds incurred and increase DPR. I'm thinking like an astromech on an X-Wing, doing maintainence mid-flight.

A defender could help warm the dragon of attacks from different directions, and depending on how they work, even act as a shield for the dragon they ride. It could get silly, a fighter using a shield to block a giant fireball, but could work.


Another way to make it fun, is have some bad guys that fly, and "board" the dragon. It's the PCs job then to clear off the mobs, and let the dragon do its job.

[GPuzzle]

I'm imagining something like Starfox but with dragons. It sounds so incredibly awesome I might try to make something similar.

[Yakk]

I would make the paragon path features be all about the dragon.

Start with fey beast tamer. The dragon has HP equal to your bloodied value. When reduced to zero, can be revived by spendimg a minor action and a healing surge.

Next, grant it two sets of at-will attacks. One auto-hit when you make a melee or close attack (extra damage basically), and another that does an attack roll (when you do not make a melee or close, or when dismounted).

They should only do moderate damage.

Your encounter paragon path power is dragon breath.

Part of the mythos is a life link. The hatchling gains access to your life force, which is how it recices itself. Actually maybe it auto-drains a healing surge when reduced below 0 hp (no minor action) to match that: the deal is that the dragon is draining your life force in order to mature faster than normal, and cannot be killed until you die first. :)

[unwise]

I suspect that a lot of the world building issues here might be avoided by replacing dragons with winged drakes, pegasi or gryphons. A bunch of knights flying around on gryphons is pretty scarey and badass. This has the upside of keeping dragons scarey and the PCs seeming comparatively powerful to their mounts. A gryphon is a nasty combatant, but not real bright and by mid paragon tier the PCs will overshadow them in combat ability, which is good.

A group of knights that send 2-3 guys flying in on pegasi/drakes to fight dragons is still really badass, but at the same time keeps dragons as a formidable foe. It also avoids the problem of wondering why those guys don't just rule the world. If they all have dragons, how do the local kings feel about this? What about the other world powers? Why do the PCs have to be the guys to go save the world when they can just call upon the dragon riders to do it for them. There are very few problems a handful of dragons cannot handle.

[Epinephrine]

The Githyanki entered a pact with Tiamat (or, more accurately, Gith did) and in doing so secured the use of pact dragons. If you look at them, they are much weaker versions compared to the Solos out there. Perhaps a similar agreement was reached in this case, between Bahamut and a noble order, lending them the aid of a lineage of dragons. Over time, this breed has become more and more suited to being mounts, typically becoming smaller, more maneuverable, etc. The pact dragons the Githyanki ride have developed teleportation, as well as some specific abilities tailored to serving as a mount.

It's 4e, so even the most powerful of foes often comes in various types (minion, standard, elite, solo). There is nothing wrong with this, some giants are the grunts of their army, and have exploitable gaps in their training, while others are solos, leaders who can stand against whole parties of adventurers. You see it with dragons, too - most of the main dragons are solos, but there are a variety of elite dragons, and I believe a bunch of the pact dragons are standard.

If I were designing a mount for the PCs I'd base it off the Animal Companion for druids; i.e., defenses/HP based on the PCs, with an attack the PC can choose to use as a standard action (or two), as well as some generally helpful trait or special ability that gets use 1/encounter (I'd probably choose a blast 3 dragon breath once per encounter). I'd also include a few feats that (one could qualify for a paragon path) that might add additional abilities or allow power swaps, giving the player some options (swap an encounter power for an attack that allows your dragon to do a flyby attack while you can make an attack as well at any point in the flyby; a power that allows a PC and the dragon to make a combined attack, with the dragon breathing (this can be used even if the dragon has already breathed this encounter, and doesn't count toward breath usage) and the PCs attacks gaining bonus damage of the type of the breath weapon, etc.)

[The_Ditto]

I always enjoyed the PC game Drakan from a few years back. It's entire backstory might help you with ideas.

Here's sampler of the story .. you'll need to do some searching to dig up the rest :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMgwWblbBOs#t=1m17s

in short:

- dragon and rider are "bonded" - they share damage, if 1 dies, the other "suffers a fate worse than death".
- in the game, you encounter one such rider - they are basically a ghost ...
- there were good and evil dragons and riders - the conflict is what caused a large war that almost wiped them all out.

[is_Wayside]

You also might want to look at the Vadalis Griffonmaster Paragon Path from the Eberron Player's Guide to see what kind of balanced flying mount that comes with a PP looks like.

[Echobeats]

The Temeraire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temeraire_(series)) series reimagines the Napoleonic Wars with French and British soldiers flying on dragonback. They are short reads. Pick them up for some inspiration. If you don't get any, they're still lovely books :).

[Havelocke]

Have the rider be a support weapon specialist. For example, mount a ballista on a harness on the dragon's back, or have some arcane shield envelop the dragon. Depending on the character, they could do any of a number of things. Fighters could use harness weaponry like giant crossbows or harpoons or bombs. Rogues could use nets and "board" the enemy or otherwise incapacitate them. Leaders would obviously buff and heal the flyers. If you use a variety of mounts for the rest of the party and make the dragon young and inexperienced so it is not overly powerful in comparison, that should maintain party cohesion. Maybe a flying carpet for one, a pegasus for another, make them all unique so no one is left out. If the mount is a creature (heck even the carpet) give it some personality so that each player feels like a part of a team even though only one is the dragonrider. A flying carpet that doesn't like to be rolled up could be amusing, a cranky Hippogriff that only eats fish, A Pegasus that is actually afraid of heights. A griffon that is allergic to dwarves...the options are endless.