Any dragon the party would face before 10th level or so - give or take, depending on the edition - is basically a little kid.
I've never seen this perceived childkilling addressed in any book I've read, or by any player I've spoken to. Yet it's been bothering me ever since the beginning. How the hell are you supposed to justify taking their life? How can you ever even feel good doing it?
A dragon is not a human, therefore human values don't really apply.
The baby dragon is sentient, but it also a monster.
In my opinion killing a childlike dragon is very distasteful, but not evil or wrong.
>A dragon is not a human, therefore human values don't really apply.
There's a lot of nonhuman things in the game. Do you apply this logic to elves and dwarves as well?
That's actually why I never put true dragons in my low/mid-level games. For exactly that reason.
Well, plus it just seems a little stupid. How much glory is there to be gained by slaying a teenage dragon.
Not him, but it depends on the character. I played a racist dwarf (big surprise) once. Anything not dwarf wasn't people and didn't matter. DM had a hard time reconciling that with the alignment system.
To a lesser extent, yes.
The further away a species is the original species, the less I can sympathise with it.
Elves, halflings and dwarfs are still so very human, that applying human values to it is easy.
Not just appearance but also culturally, for example, I can relate more to a dragonborn that lives in a city and is integrated in human society.
Over a human tribe of cannibals that eats the flesh of the first born child.
Let me make a small and crude list of priorities.
Me > family and friends > My race > humanoids of my culture > humanoids of a foreign culture > sentient monsters > crazy batshit culture
It all depends on how much of an asshole the dragon has been.
Teenagers are always assholes, though.
Hell, you could probably justify killing a metallic dragon if it's a teenager. Some cheeky fucker that won't take shit form anyone, needs to be knocked down a peg.
A lot, actually.
That juvenile red dragon can murder a village, fully understands what it's doing (in fact it's been completely clear on this since around the time it hatched), LOVES what it's doing to those people, and can be a hell of a threat to low level players if played to its strengths and intellect. That's pretty much the low teens level for it, and it's CR11; a significant threat to a party of four level 5s or 6s.
Yeah, but a non-evil dragon can be reasoned and beaten, maybe driven off if necessary. Chromatic teens are both evil and stupid AND proud.
A teen blue would say he is leaving the area just to come back when the party leaves and destroying the town.
Their scale make good armor. Their entire body is ingredients. A dragon is worth a lot of gold. They attacked me without warning within their territory and I killed them for good measure because they would have done the same to other unwary traveler. I was hungry and it was the closest meal. It is in the way of my goal and will die for such foolery just like all the thing before it. My now dead beloved most precious locket was stolen by the juvenile fool and I seek vangence and to return what was hers. It has something in its hoard that I desire, but dragon are not known for sharing and neither am I. It is tormenting my family for the grudge my ancestor has sown and I will not suffer for it.
>for the grudge my ancestor has sown
>juvenile
Tell me you have not killed a den of dragon and leave some little dragon baby alive
OP certainly has.
His son or grandson will pay for his mistake.
It's like the orc baby dilemma except the orc baby has a lot of treasure and can fight back.
Also the orc babies could conceivably be adopted into a good family and raised to goodness. The dragon is too proud to take to the lessons.
You can't -not- kill them, and at least in this instance you also get gold out of it.
>Not raising the hatchling as your own
It's fairly easy to do, really.
I prefer to let nature take it course and steal from her later. the druid dislike me.
>raising any children at all
>easy
Then when the child is a belligerent fire-breathing monster...
Contemporary application of justice is that you can't condemn someone for a crime they haven't committed, no matter how likely they are to commit it in the future.
99 of 100 red whelps will grow up to be village burning, maiden kidnapping monsters, but the fact that it's possible for them to not be that means the Paladin falls, possibly right into a pit of 100 whelps, 99 of which eat him
Falling paladin because of that 1 percent is idiotic. And don't make this into a paladin falling thread. The 99 if he did let them live would he too fall for his arrogance for letting such an evil to grow? It is by his act of mercy after all. the dragon going to be come a hot head protagonist with distrust toward him until he prove the other wrong.
Say a one liner "be better than this" and ask if it want to come with it parent killer. If it refuse, leave some ration to for it to eat and walk away. The dragon might think you are cool brutal nice skilled killer and follow you to learn why you have killed it parent
The paladin can easily justify both slaying the dragon and letting it live, without falling in either way. What matters is that the paladin tries his best, and accepts full responsibility over how his choice alters the future.
...
Jesus Christ. That's terrible.
Where's that from anyway?
Dragon babies are stronk
Cr 3 so they could kill a level 1 or 2 party with some luck
Also lol applying modern morality to monsters who are "always evil".
That would hold more weight of there weren't an extensive series of fantasy novels about a man from an always evil race adventuring with a pet jaguar
>Any dragon the party would face before 10th level or so - give or take, depending on the edition - is basically a little kid.
Dragons are canonically (at least in 2e) born with average (8-10) Intelligence, in-born knowledge of language, and natural weapons and armor.
Also half the Veeky Forums insisting on playing the goddamn kobolds all the time.
Tbh, it's not like they have a parent to teach them right and wrong. Children are always CE anyway.
That fag shold not exist
Unfortunately, we do not exist in a perfect world and must deal in terms of what we have.
I mean he's a pretty terrible character and all, but a member of a traditionally evil race trying to be a good guy, and be recognized as such, is some really great story fodder.
This I agree on, a responsible pal is a good pal. No matter how evil.
Whomever cracked open and not kill it just to hear it cries is evil and should be capture and be face in court of the Council of wyrm.
What the fuck man
Really, this many comments and no one pointing out that Order of the Stick addresses this? Does Veeky Forums just hate it?
Pretty sure the dragon in it was already an adult, so while it did raise questions about justification and hypocrisy, it wasn't outright baby-punting.
Horde of the Dragon Queen, the first official 5th Edition campaign. For reasons unrelated to what was posted, it's not very good (it's basically a long railroad) without significant DM investment to make it good.
For my own character's part, she - being a human-raised drow elf, CG, who considered herself living proof that nurture can beat nature - insisted on seeing to the safety of the black dragon eggs, and eventually had them handed over to a council of good dragons to see to their hatching and raising.
Christ, now I'm imagining some lawful good Paladin destroying what he believes to be a horrid group of future monsters, only to realize his mistake immediately afterwards and desperately trying to save the babies.
Maybe he only manages to save one and then has to raise it, wracked with guilt, until it's old enough for him to tell it the truth.
It was a not-teenager, and it led to baby-punting on a massive scale later on.
That's probably the best possible outcome. You're giving them to their own species which can best understand how to raise them and, given they're dragons, have the necessary power to stop them doing evil shit. Only issue will be if it's an actual thing - I've only read about it elsewhere - that metallic dragons absolutely fucking hate chromatic dragons, at which point it's more 'we gave the black babies to some very nice klan members to raise'.
If you're playing in FR, the default canon setting, then she's plain wrong. Tiamat's evil influence on chromatics means that the best you can hope for is for the dragons to turn out as neutrals. Same goes for Bahamut and metallics.
>mistake
What mistake? They grow up to be Evil. They live for hundreds of years. They eat people (often for fun).
Gem dragons would be the best options as foster parents.
>If you're playing in FR, the default canon setting, then she's plain wrong. Tiamat's evil influence on chromatics means that the best you can hope for is for the dragons to turn out as neutrals. Same goes for Bahamut and metallics.
Same should go for drow and Lolth, yet Drizzt and Liriel and others exist. Same should go for Maglubiyet and goblins, yet Nojheim and Bani Matruj al-Haddar and the goblins of the Horseshoe Temple Oasis in the Quoya exist. I refuse to accept that Bahamut or Tiamat have any stronger influence on dragonkind than the other gods have on humanoids.
And besides all that, "neutral" isn't a bad place to be anyway, and the point isn't necessarily to prevent them from turning out Evil - it's to ensure that they have a positive upbringing and that any choices that they make will fundamentally be their own.
I refuse
I will live in happy ignorance and pretend he does not exist
Is it possible to write a dragon wyrmling that isn't completely full of herself, and can be scared away or taught lessons that stick? By my understanding even the youngest ones are incorrigible douchebags.
>How the hell are you supposed to justify taking their life?
They are aggressive.
>How can you ever even feel good doing it?
They would kill innocents.
>Be DM
>Party comes across wyrmling when theyre low level
>Hard encounter, they manage to knock it to disabled status
>It's threatening them, hissing and whatnot
>Ranger asks to try a handle animal skill check
>Make up some hard-to-do DC for it, he rolls a 19 and starts adding his numbers up
>Beats the DC
>Proceeds to spend the next couple of months with this dragon, disciplining it and teaching it proper behaviors, reinforcing it with a series of positive-reinforcement tricks
>It's expensive, it took a while, but now the ranger has a black dragon wyrmling as a pet, it's alignment shifted to Chaotic Neutral
>the players eat this stuff up, but they're gonna have a bad time when big momma finally finds out who took her baby.
>The baby defends the party from the mother
Was thinking this yeah, but for bonus measure what happens if it takes a blow that should have been dealt to the ranger if he pisses her off by trying to reason with her and failing miserably?
> for the dragons to turn out as neutrals.
Sounds like a sound win, imo.
It takes time, most likely.
Dragons tend to have -MUCH- longer age phases. They stop to be babies/newborns at the age of 5 for saying one.
Expect that for each year you'd need to teach an human manners, you'd need to teach the dragon for 5/6 or so. Making a good upbringing possible if you manage to keep your shit together for 50/60 years I guess.
You'd have better odds to accomplish that if you're an elf or something.
>anthropomorphism the post
Dragons aren't like humans. They reach sexual and mental maturity before they reach full physical and mental power.
>They reach sexual and mental maturity before they reach full physical and mental power.
That's boring as hell, though: it makes very little sense in-universe and denies many good plot hooks about raising a member of a traditionally evil race into goodness. Is there any other justification for that besides making it morally okay for low-level parties to kill wyrmlings?
Are you retarded? The stat block of a red dragon wyrmling in 5th edition D&D is:
Str 19
Dex 10
Con 17
Int 12
Wis 11
Cha 15
A red dragon wyrmling is likely to be smarter than many party members.
How does that answer my question?
If only modern politicians had your priorities.
If a red dragon wyrmling wasn't mentally mature it'd have a lower intelligence and wisdom.
Dragons tend to be born self aware, fully intelligent, and in full knowledge of its place in the world. They're functionally adults, even if they are not physically adults
...
Again, how does that answer my question? Did you even read it? Do you have some trouble understanding? If so, then how can YOU call me retarded?
Let me ask again: WHY do dragon wyrmlings mature so fast? What sense does it make in-universe, when elves and such need to go through a century of childhood? What does it add to the game, in return for denying us of a good story of raising an evil creature into goodness? Was it just put there so that the lower-level players can kill infants and feel really great and powerful in doing so?
They're intelligent and aware, but they're still children and new to existence as an individual. They may know many things, but that doesn't make them less formative or more adult than a particularly well-read 12 year old.
Dragon wyrmlings mature fast because their genetic memory allows them to avoid a lengthy period where they learn and acquire experience.
>itt: Veeky Forums argues about arbitrary stuff instead of using homebrew and rule 0 to create varians and customized unique worlds with their own rules instead of being yet another cog in the machine.
Why do they have a genetic memory, then? Why do elves don't get it? I thought genetic memory was an aboleth thing.
He's got the term wrong, its actually "Soul" memory. THe way that it works is in dark souls when u kill them bad guys u get xpee pee to in the they are soul s right? but comlecting them lets you get stronger... but at a const
if u die u lose them souls but ur memory still exists and u get pared up with highr levle stuff cuz dakrsouls is bullshit.
...
Because fucking Ao went fuck I want to have dragons with genetic memory
As of when is this the case?
That's just Forgotten Realms, though. What about Greyhawk, Mystara, Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Eberron, etc.?
>An angry bird with a twinkie in his mouth flips you the bird .jpg
Since AD&D.
They're technically not really dragons.
How upsetting, they're intruding on the Aboleth's coolest gimmick.
>Since AD&D.
Where there? I play AD&D and have never seen this mentioned anywhere.
One of the monster manuals I think.
Well, I read the Monster Manual of dragons just earlier today in preparation for a session. I didn't see a thing about any genetic memory.
Ctrl-f genetic
The fuck?
Wyrmlings need to be very intelligent because dragons mature very slowly and live to very long ages. Having an IQ of 6 for 500 years is not a recipe for survival.
Catoblepas and owlbear have some genetic shit. Dragons, none.
*falls*
>I refuse to accept that Bahamut or Tiamat have any stronger influence on dragonkind than the other gods have on humanoids.
Then you're retarded. At the end of the day, humanoids have the same basic wants (food, shelter, companionship), fears (death), and life expectancy (even humanoids that can live to be 100+ rarely get so old). Drow are also a bad example because Corellon created them and Lolth corrupted them.
A dragon is a sentient WMD and even the best (i.e. Good) among them are greedy and proud. Dragons live for centuries longer than the average humanoid and warp the societies around them. The are demigods (in a practical sense) spawned from two dogmatic gods often regarded as exemplars of their respective alignments.
Council of Wyrms. Hatchlings (as in "just cracked out of the shell") already have their alignment, breed language, and instinctive knowledge that they must hoard.
>muh justification
>muh story
>muh feels
Go play Safespaces & Dragons: Dungeon World Edition, special snowflake.
>i only like Angsty peanut butter
(You)
IDK about anything else, but I just assumed it was a simple "you don't have to learn the basics" package. So they know elves are a thing, know what types of things taste best, probably some stock knowledge of what valuable and what to do with valuables, etc.
Children with int 10+ and a heavily abridged copy of Wikipedia.
No, but it doesn't mean the dragon is emotionally mature either.
>Go play Safespaces & Dragons: Dungeon World Edition, special snowflake.
Baby dragons knowing everything from the start makes no sense and takes more from the game than it adds. Refuting the arguments with "muh X", adding setting stuff you take as gospel for some reason, and buzzwords about "safe space" and "snowflakes", does not make you right.
Modern politicians are the crazy batshit culture.
You have a Chinese knock off monster manual and have been playing with knock off monsters this whole time.
Real American made dragons have genetic memory.
>muh rigid, draconian tradition
Int 12, Wis 11 and Cha 15 means more emotionally mature than most commoners.
Yes, their stats have been pointed out several times. I never asked about the fucking stats. I asked why the stats are as they are, what sense it makes, and what it adds.
I could also decide all my elves also pop out of the womb with int 12 for some reason. That doesn't make that a good argument.
You sound like a massive fucking autist.
Dragon's dont have genetic memory, everyone knows they have one soul that's shared between their entire species.
How about this you fucking autist. Stupid babies is very specific to bipedal apes who can't squeeze large skulls through their vaginas. There is no reason to suspect dragons would have any difficulty passing large brained baby dragons out their cloaca.
Well that also doesn't mean they should pop out fully knowledgeable of all moralities and ethics and with absolute responsibility over their actions.
You should just stop. You're only making a fool out of yourself you stupid man-ape. It says IN THE FUCKING BOOK RIGHT THERE that everything I've said is right, you're only arguing because "MUH SPESHUL SNOWFLAIK!"
Fuck you!
>Baby dragons knowing everything from the start makes no sense
All PCs having literacy, the presence of the printing press, absence of guns, lack of ethnic tension, lack of tension, and egalitarian politics in a world based on 1500s Europe makes no sense and takes more from the game than it adds.
And yet you're still playing Forgotten Realms.
Are you fucking dense? It doesn't matter if you like or if it "makes sense". If the canon says X is Y then your opinion, unless your DM changes it.
>I want to play in a setting but I want to ignore everything about that setting waaaaaahh
I play forgotten realms because it is a great, bland backdrop for roleplaying.
It's like rice. It has little flavor, but it absorbs flavor from other ingredients.
First, I haven't seen shit on "the fucking book right there" where it says so. Second, no one says it couldn't be changed anyway if the alternative might make better sense and/or be more fun. Third, there's a whole lot of difference between helpless infant and adult - for instance, a six-year-old. Fourth, I'm not arguing about snowflakes and I have no idea where you got the idea from. Fifth, no, fuck you.
>And yet you're still playing Forgotten Realms.
I never brought up Forgotten Realms in the first place. I don't even like Forgotten Realms. If this is really just a Forgotten Realms thing, then what the hell are we even arguing about?
>Are you fucking dense? It doesn't matter if you like or if it "makes sense". If the canon says X is Y then your opinion, unless your DM changes it.
So? 12 intelligence =/= emotional maturity. A particularly precocious child can have 12 intelligence.
>I want to play in a setting but I want to ignore everything about that setting waaaaaahh
What setting are we talking about again?
Those stats don't reflect age, user.
No, it doesn't. It just means more intelligent, more perceptive, and more charismatic.
You are retarded and your argument is stupid. You are literally screeching autistically (*and* incorrectly) about fantasy make believe creatures because you don't want to lose an argument to a random anonymous stranger on the internet.
FUCK YOU
U
C
K
Y
O
U
The fuck other statistic would you use to measure emotional maturity? Because there aren't any other ones in D&D.
>m-muh emotional maturity!!
They are FIRE BREATHING, MAN EATING REPTILIAN FORCES OF DESTRUCTION. FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR FEEFEES YOU FUCKING TWINK
You're the one calling me retard, autistic, telling me to fuck you, and giving me no arguments beyond "m-muh book!" (that I haven't even read of myself despite owning the exact same damn book).
I don't know... age? Anything below adult is immature?
Calm down.