Anyone read Pern? I need a dragon!

[DrizztFan24]

So in seeing the nearly impossibility of getting a regular dragon for my mount and actually using it I was going to make a dragon variety from the Dragonriders of Pern series.

The dragons grow to about 45 feet long at the largest, but most would be closer to the 30-35 foot range (the actual size of the dragon depended on its variety). The dragons are impressed with one individual at birth and then the two are in a state of constant telepathic communication.
The most noted ability of the dragons is an ability similar to blink. They are able to blink out of existance is raction to danger and reappear approximately 8 seconds later. The time "between" depends on the distance that the dragon is travelling, most of the time though 8 seconds is fairly standard. (their smaller version, fire lizards, travelled several thousand kilometers in 8 seconds) The dragons all breathe fire.


Anything else you want to know? or suggestions for the creation of such a critter?

[Iku Rex]

That's pretty unusual. I mean, I've seen some odd porn, but...

[reads op]

Oh, right. Pern. Never mind.

[Talya]

Shouldn't Sovereign Press's now defunct Dragonlance campaign setting give you options for being a dragonrider?


I know the pernese dragons, the big ones are far more impressive physical specimens than D&D dragons...

[Saph]

I'm guessing the usual route of taking the Dragon Cohort feat won't work for some reason?

- Saph

[Hal]

This would probably work best if the dragon leveled up with you. Maybe Dragon Rider becomes a class?

I've never touched the Draconomicon, so I can't say anything about racial levels and what not for dragons.

Still, I think you'll get the approximation you're looking for by removing the sorcerer abilities of the dragon, including polymorph, and replacing it with SLAs for telepathy and teleportation.

Work with your GM on this, though. Even if it's a "smaller" dragon, you're still riding a dragon with a breath weapon and the ability to teleport at least some number of times a day (if not at will). That could become very broken very quickly unless it is balanced properly for the party/campaign.

I haven't read any Anne McCaffery in ages, so your idea is intriguing.

[RTGoodman]

Shouldn't Sovereign Press's now defunct Dragonlance campaign setting give you options for being a dragonrider?

The WotC-published Dragonlance Campaign Setting has a Dragon Rider PrC. Still, the biggest dragons you can get are Young Adults, which is only Large-sized. Also, because they're all small, most of your options won't work because only Small-sized riders can ride Medium dragons.

All in all, I'd say the best bet would be to talk to your DM about just attracting a Dragon companion without having a specific PrC. Maybe you just spend some feats to get it and then let it get bigger, and that's it. As long as it isn't dominating the game, you should be good. If you can figure something out though, a homebrewed full base class seems like it'd also work.

Oh, and (as others have said) dropping Sorcerer casting is probably a good idea and cuts down on the strength of Dragons a little bit, helping to balance it.

[Meat Shield]

Yeah if balance is a concern, then drop the spellcasting from them. They never did anything like that, just flight, breath fire, and the blinking (which I think actually was closer to teleporting, as they could go wherever they could picture in their mind).

I would actually treat the dragon (flavor wise) as an animal companion or familiar, since they were bonded at hatching with their riders right?

To further avoid brokeness, I would skip the ability (spoilered for those who have not read)

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the part where they can also go through time, like that princess (name escapes me) went to bring back the lost legions of dragons to help out

[Alleine]

The thing about Pern dragon teleportation was that you still needed to have been there, or a relatively good picture of where you were going, I think. Its been awhile.
The dragons also needed to eat some form of rock-like stuff to start the chemical reaction for fire-breathing, but I'd take that bit out.

[Keld Denar]

To further avoid brokeness, I would skip the ability (spoilered for those who have not read)

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the part where they can also go through time, like that princess (name escapes me) went to bring back the lost legions of dragons to help out

Her name was:

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Lessa, right...hehe...I knew that...

My mother read all of the Anne McCafery books to me and my sister when we were really young. I blame her for the fact that I play D&D now.

[DrizztFan24]

My mother read all of the Anne McCafery books to me and my sister when we were really young. I blame her for the fact that I play D&D now.

Haha what a horrible burden, I am sure she feels the guilt

So the "dragon" cannot
-be aquired at anytime other than hatching
-cast spells as a sorceror
-*above ability spoiler*

"Dragon" can
-blink/teleport at will (must be area previously visited or have a mental image of area to be arriving at, can also teleport to certain people)
-be ridden after 6 months, must be trained, saddle is un-needed but suggested for combat
-communicate telepathically
-breathe fire

By "teleporting to certain people" I mean that the dragon can teleport to an area using a person or animal as an anchor (they want to "go to" Uncle Bob in some distant land, so they use Bob as the waypoint even though they don't know the surrounding area)

[Charlie Kemek]

I am rereading those books now, so this should be pretty accurate.

Give the dragons telepathy with all living beings, as long as they are about as close as the moon(s) (yes, they only usually spoke with their own riders and dragons, but they could speak with other people, and they couldn't). Cut spellcasting ability. Make all dragons Good or Neutral. Breath fire only after swallowing firestone. Queens can't breath fire. sizes and amount of each as follows. They may plane shift back to a different time and/or space at will, however, they must have a seen the time/place, have to have a description vivid enough, or they may not come out of between, or go to the wrong time. They go between in relationship to the distance in time/space, and they and anyone take non-lethal damage equal to the # of seconds. (seconds between-5)/3. 1 second to go in or out, and 1 second to go anywhere approximately on pern. 1 second every year you go forward or backwards.
{table=head] Color | Size | ~% | Breath Fire? | Gender
Green | smallest | 45% | Yes | female
Blue | 2 smallest | 25% | yes | male
Brown | middle | 15% | yes | male
Bronze | 2 largest | 10% | yes | male
Gold | largest | 5% | no | female
[/table]

not the greatest, but I think it will do.

@lussmanj

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are you kidding me? It was Lessa! not Moretta. fix that spoiler, and you may as well get it right.

[Thane of Fife]

Technically, Golds can breathe fire - they just don't, as Firestone induces sterility. It's the same reason why Greens don't lay eggs.

And I don't know about the Telepathy - sure, a dragon can talk to anyone, but the person won't be able to speak back unless they can do it vocally (or can talk to any dragon, a la Lessa).

Also, why I'm not absolutely certain, I seem to recall that Pernese dragons wouldn't hurt people - at least, not voluntarily. I might be wrong about that, though.

[Collin152]

Technically, Golds can breathe fire - they just don't, as Firestone induces sterility. It's the same reason why Greens don't lay eggs.

Naw, that's a myth. Kit Ping designed the Golds to be incapable of breathign fire. All in Dragonsdawn.

[Thane of Fife]

Huh. I'll have to reread that one, then.

[Eldritch_Ent]

Ehh, pretty much it's all been said already.

Replace Spellcasting with a few supernatural abilities, namely telepathy, Dimension Door (minus the disorientation) and blink (Minus the miss chance for you) at will, and Teleport at will once it gets up in HD,. (DnD already has rules for "teleporting places you havne't been", just follow those.) Give it the regular fire-breathing qualities of a dragon. Make it smaller.

Dragon alignment matches the rider's alignment.

Just for kicks, make the two linked by a "Share emotions" effect. Or share thoughts. Share pain? Stuff like that. Maybe tack on a special "Riders can be the same size class as the dragon" rule.

Voila, you're set.

[Charlie Kemek]

How far do you want us to go in books, because there is a book that they gain additional abilities.

[DrizztFan24]

is that a question for me or everyone else? I'd go from the ending. I never liked picking something from the middle of a set of books and going with that if you know something else happened later on to change it.

[Lupy]

Well, I think you need a charisma of maybe 14+ to communicate with them, have x ranks in ride, x in handle animal, feat Dragon riding, maybe aeiral combat feats?

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Lessa went back in time! Jeeze, 1st book. Moreta saved pern from the plauge.

[dspeyer]

I highly recommend cutting out the spoilered special ability, because:

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The universe functions on a single timeline basis. No one perceives their lack of free will, but somehow they keep deciding to do what characters from the future knew they would. It works in a novel with an omniscient author, but PCs with that power would start killing their ancestors.

Other than that, I think teleportation would be best modeled as an at-will plane shift to and from the Between plane (with the from requiring knowledge of the target). If anything interferes with your leaving Between, you're in big trouble.

[Hal]

I'd either make it a bigger penalty for teleporting within a certain period, or make it an X/day, where X is some pre-conceived number (CHA modifier, etc.). You run the risk of making it too powerful otherwise and having your party members hating you. Plus, then your GM has a dragon riding PC who can never, ever be damaged because his mount will instantly teleport out of harm's way.

[MorkaisChosen]

As with anything like this, the easiest way to balance it is to give it to everyone... That means no-one gets overshadowed, and the DM can always change encounter difficulties on the fly if they need to.

May not be feasible in the situation, I admit, just mentioning it.

[Blackadder]

Quick rundown of Pern Dragon ability drawbacks

Teleportation:
Per the books they can go "Between", they can only go someplace their Rider has been before or has a perfect picture of(IE Scrying), The teleport itself takes between two to a max of six seconds depending on distance, never less than two seconds.

In the books we have times when Dragon's teleport multiple times a day, but it does seem to tire them, once they can fly they can go between and they must be flying in order to go between.

I'd say Teleport or Dimension door 5x/day increasing by 1 per every level


Firebreathing
They don't have Red-Dragon firepower, they have to eat "Firestone" prior to breathing fire and they need a few minutes between chewing and starting to flame things. They also unlike D&D Dragon's have a limit on how much they can flame. Pern dragon's have in the past brought Firestone along with them, so you can treat flaming as some sort of home-brewed X per day with the eating of whatever you want to use for Firestone as a reload of that ability.

So 3x/day for each 10 pounds of Firestone they eat, they can't eat more than X pounds per day depending on level

Telepathy/Mental
They sense feelings and in some cases thoughts, they can communicate both feelings and thoughts to anyone. I'd say treat them as having Detect Thoughts as a free action but only surface thoughts


Dragon Fighting and Pain
A huge plot people in the books is that the Rider and the Dragon are both linked, irrevocably so, to the point that if the Rider dies the dragon will suicide, if the Dragon dies, the Rider's will attempt suicide however if they fail(Which Dragon's won't since they can simply go "between' and always succeed) the Rider can survive but they seems to be much weaker and permanently @#$@4 over mentally.

Also that link means strong feelings(Like pain are shared) if a Dragon is wounded the Rider is affected as well, if the Rider is hit the Dragon is to.

Pern Dragon's can fight, but due to politics on Pern never really have(Even if they have come close a few times)


So there you have it, Pern Dragon's need Teleport/Dimension Door, they can fly, breath fire(But I'd say 1/2 a Red Dragon progression), they can see your feelings, detect your thoughts, but so help you if either you or the dragon takes a hit.

[MorkaisChosen]

There's quite a lot of emotional linkage (cf. the bit in the first book were Lessa's dragon is mating...).

[Karma Guard]

There's also the fact that teleportation (or D-Dooring) is also very tolling on the rider.

The whole between thing is bitterly, impossibly cold, and riders have to wear thick, warm clothes and leather protectors. Don't forget that. If you go between without protection, you're going to at least take some cold damage.