Dragon Prince Campaign?

[Spiritchaser]

So... my kids just love the Netflix tv series “the dragon prince”

Which is a pretty solid kids show, and quite frankly better watching for the rest of us than a lot of things out there.

Not surprisingly they’d like to play in that world.

5e actually does a pretty good job of dealing with this universe, right up to the point where magic comes in. Sure Elven racial bonuses need to be very different (racials in general can be stronger to balance all this out) but it’s all workable.

The magic system in dragon prince is interesting and a bit different than anything in D & D. Primal magic is very powerful, but narrower, and the way dark magic works is very cool as well.

Plus you can use it to make pancakes.

Has anyone else tried to adapt 5e to this world?

How did it go?

[Sparky McDibben]

I would use wizards as Dark Magic and innate casters as primal magic. Either use elemental spell metamagic from the class variants UA or reskinning to get the right elements on the spells. No idea on how to do the crazy fire elves, though. Maybe a feat?

[Spiritchaser]

I would use wizards as Dark Magic and innate casters as primal magic. Either use elemental spell metamagic from the class variants UA or reskinning to get the right elements on the spells. No idea on how to do the crazy fire elves, though. Maybe a feat?

It’s an ability that only some sunfire elves have, it’s crazy OP, and if any of my kids want to play such a character, they obviously have to be able to take it. Something like + proficiency to strength score and immunity to fire and minor fire damage to anyone grappling you x times per day.

I’m actually not so worried about things like that because there just aren’t that many.

Primal magic too isn’t that bad, but trying to figure out a whole menagerie of creatures, each with it’s arcanum of particular type and strength for dark magic seems daunting.

[Sparky McDibben]

Then don't most of the works already done for you in the spell components. I mean Claudia basically has a spell component pouch already. As for the strength of a given creature for Dark Magic, just flavor it as Arcane Recovery: "As the others rest, youdraw power out of an unsuspecting butterfly, restoring a measure of your power."

Or, just tell them they can't take wizard, and leave Dark Magic the purview of the DM.

As for aligning the creatures with an Arcanum, don't. Just make a template for each one. Then take a creature (brown bear) and apply the template (sun bears do +1d6 fire damage and regeneration 3 as long as they are in direct sunlight). Simple.

[Catullus64]

Better bust out that pseudo-Latin dictionary for the primal magic, and start writing out all the names of spells backwards for dark magic.

If you haven't already, check out the official website. It gives descriptions for the general purview of each Primal Source's magic. Using that as a guide, I would write out custom spell lists for each type of primal magic. After that, I would just let your kids use the existing classes, but selecting from those spell lists instead of the standard class lists.

Trying to figure out Dark Magic, on the other hand, just reignites my bitterness at the fact that we're five years into this edition and still have no #@$%& Dark Sun content. If we did, I could just say "Use the Defiling Rules."

As for races, I would reskin various non-elf races rather than use Elf as a template. Maybe keep Wood Elf for Moonshadow and High Elf for Startouch, but then do Aarakocra for Skywing Elves, Tieflings for Sunfire elves. We haven't actually seen any Earthblood or Sea Elves (I think? Still partway through season 3), but Firbolgs and Triton could probably work.

[VonKaiserstein]

It’s an ability that only some sunfire elves have, it’s crazy OP, and if any of my kids want to play such a character, they obviously have to be able to take it. Something like + proficiency to strength score and immunity to fire and minor fire damage to anyone grappling you x times per day.

I’m actually not so worried about things like that because there just aren’t that many.

Primal magic too isn’t that bad, but trying to figure out a whole menagerie of creatures, each with it’s arcanum of particular type and strength for dark magic seems daunting.

Do you happen to have access to any 1e or 2e monster manuals? I've got the Hackmaster Hacklopedias, which were heavily influenced by 1 and 2e- and their monsters list which components can be used in spellcasting. Generally they strengthen or empower spells in some way. It's generally just a one sentence thing per monster, and one interaction. If you can get a hold of some of those, the work of what parts can be used in magic might be mostly done for you. I'd also dig up some Bloodmage tables and force them to be used with Dark magic casting- some of those resulted in killing the grass around you, draining hit points permanently and dropping constitution points. It seems like exactly the sort of price those human mages play.

[Anderlith]

You might want to run it through FATE instead of 5e. Not only does Fate have Six Elemental Magic stuff, but it would handle conflict much more like the show. The creators of Avatar & Dragon Prince really like to push pacifism & non confrontational conflict resolution, & D&D does not.

Character example could be
High Concept: Moonelf Assassin of Xadia
Trouble: An Elf in Human Lands/Bound to Kill the King/etc
Aspects: Switchblade Knife Expert, Stealthy, Elven Acrobat

Things like the Sunfire Elf Rage would be a stunt. Same with some of the other powers & abilities

[Evaar]

It’s an ability that only some sunfire elves have, it’s crazy OP, and if any of my kids want to play such a character, they obviously have to be able to take it. Something like + proficiency to strength score and immunity to fire and minor fire damage to anyone grappling you x times per day.

I'd reflavor one of the Tiefling options. Descendent of Zariel gets +2 Cha, +1 Strength, resistance to fire, and some inherent Smite spells. And if they want to go full Janai, they can pick up the Flames of Phlegethos feat.

[Throne12]

D&D is pretty close.

Dark magic: you use Components from magical creatures, hand gesters, and a incantation.

Primal magic: you need to be connected to a primal source or make a connection to one. But to cast a spell you need incantation and draw the rune.

D&D you use v,s,m or a arcane focus

Dark magic: use v,s,m
Primal magic: v,s or arcane focus.

As for races fine ones with abilities in D&D books Closest to PoD races abilities and just reskin. Dont worry about classes too much I would say no multi classing though but this is for your kids so that's shouldnt be a problem.

[Damon_Tor]

It's hard to imagine certain aspects of the races being both faithful to the source material and balanced. For example, Moon Elves are invisible during a full moon. As far as we can tell, that's not a racial feat or a "if you're a spellcaster, add Greater Invisibility to your spell list at level X", they talk about it as if it works this way for all Moon Elves. And frankly, even if it were a racial feat it still would be impossible to balance: the game isn't designed for abilities that function above and beyond normal gameplay expectations one night every 28 days. Would there be penalties during the other 27.5 days of the year, relative to other races? How severe? How would you keep the players from simply waiting to do anything until their once-per-lunar-cycle racial ability was active?

I don't think we've seen enough of the other elves to say for sure how they would shake out as playable races, but then again I'm not fully caught up with the series yet. I did see a Sun Elf walk right through Lava like it was a feaking water feature, which seems to strongly imply they are immune to fire.

[Sparky McDibben]

It's hard to imagine certain aspects of the races being both faithful to the source material and balanced. For example, Moon Elves are invisible during a full moon. As far as we can tell, that's not a racial feat or a "if you're a spellcaster, add Greater Invisibility to your spell list at level X", they talk about it as if it works this way for all Moon Elves. And frankly, even if it were a racial feat it still would be impossible to balance: the game isn't designed for abilities that function above and beyond normal gameplay expectations one night every 28 days. Would there be penalties during the other 27.5 days of the year, relative to other races? How severe? How would you keep the players from simply waiting to do anything until their once-per-lunar-cycle racial ability was active?

These are all really good points, but I don't think that would actually impact much? At-will invisibility doesn't change the CR of a creature, and the moon elves' only works when they are in the light of the full moon. Not during the full moon, but when it shines directly on you. So just add it as a racial ability, maybe level locked at 3? At most make a "lunar cycle" random table with entries for new, crescent, half, gibbous, and full moons. When you're under a full moon, you're under a no concentration greater invisibility spell. Unfortunately, when your enemies go inside, or if the clouds scud across the moon (DM fiat), that goes away. I see this as a great way to get your PCs to overextend themselves chasing fleeing enemies into a building...where the fleeing enemies have a trap set! Or, maybe your moon elf PC says, "How long until the full moon?" You could do a lot of fancy math, or, if the lunar cycle table comes up with something other than "full moon," you can roll 1d4 weeks. Like, no one knows that the lunar calendar of Xadia is. This is a setting that has fart flowers, for God's sake. Let's not overthink it.

Now, if we're worried about the PCs saying, "Let's wait for two weeks and then hit them when we're at full strength!" that's a whole other problem. Now, you could run that as downtime, right? "Yep, you've got two weeks, what do you do?" Your players can do recon, develop a plan, and gather equipment. But that also gives your enemies two weeks to prep, respond, or try to force you to attack them prematurely. This doesn't have to reduce playtime to a crawl or increase nova, rather, it can be used to slowly build tension as the PCs have to weather the countermeasures of their enemies before picking the best time to strike!


I don't think we've seen enough of the other elves to say for sure how they would shake out as playable races, but then again I'm not fully caught up with the series yet. I did see a Sun Elf walk right through Lava like it was a feaking water feature, which seems to strongly imply they are immune to fire.

Unsure of this. In Season 3, Amaya pulls one of the fire elves up from a ledge that would have dropped her into lava, implying that either the immunity is temporary or that lava still poses some sort of threat. Also, this might get level locked or require a feat, given that we don't see the rest of the Sunfire elves acting like this. Good point, though.

[Contrast]

I feel like City of Mists or some other descriptor based system will work much more comfortably with the more intuitive magic (and general themes) of the show.

On a separate note, strongly recommend getting your kids to watch Avatar if they haven't already.

[Spiritchaser]

I don't think we've seen enough of the other elves to say for sure how they would shake out as playable races, but then again I'm not fully caught up with the series yet. I did see a Sun Elf walk right through Lava like it was a feaking water feature, which seems to strongly imply they are immune to fire.

I agree, anyone who can walk through lava is immune to fire, no ifs ands or buts. Plus that moment was ridiculously awesome.

I don’t actually think this is too terrible. Make it once a short rest and only for 5 turns (or whatever). Make sure everyone gets something similarly cool...

Again, I’m really not too worried about the racials. Yes they’ll be strong, but that’s fine. It’s capturing the feel of the magic that seems like a lot of work to do faithfully.