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Dragon Riders as a D&D Campaign Option

I have been toying around with this option for a long time now. If, like me, you are a fan of Dragon Riders of Pern, How to train your Dragon, or Dragon Lance, then perhaps you would like to play a game as a Dragon Rider in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. But how?

If you rule out anything that is over a CR 7 and is not large you are not left with a lot of options. I do not think that True Dragons would be willing to serve as simple mounts without some kind of benefit for the dragons. So I would toss them out of the options as well. This leaves us with the Dragonnel, Wyvern, or reduced threat Wyvern.

Creating a suitable dragon for the D&D player’s character to ride.

I am a huge fan of modifying things that already exist within a ruleset. So first off in order to ride a dragon you have to allow the players to ride a dragon, right? With Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons released we have lots of Dragon options. If you are looking for a low-power option the Dragonnel is a good example to start off with. It is a challenge 2 monster with a good amount of HP and even has a rider in the picture. This works for low to medium levels but with only 58 hit points so at higher levels 58 health can easily be dropped and taken out of the fight. If you are doing aerial combat that can be worse than fatal. The reduced threat wyvern has the same problem with Hit points as the dragonnel.

That truly only leaves the wyvern. With over 100 hit points it has the ability to withstand even a power word kill. So let’s get to modifying. The wyvern is pretty powerful and the joy is having a cool mount but having it not overshadow the players. In order to make this not happen let’s remove the poisonous stinger. In its place, we add a tail attack that can do 1d8 +str damage. But if it is a dragon and we want to replicate How to train your Dragon, then we should certainly have some kind of breath weapon attack.

So if there are as many variations of wyverns as there are true dragons then our revised wyverns could have a large number of options. Doing damage like cold, fire lightning, poison, thunder, acid, or even psychic damage. If you are ok with adding the even rarer type then you could have the options of necrotic, radiant, or even force damage.

Add the following section to each revised wyvern

Damage resistance – Your wyvern has resistance to one energy type.

Breath weapon. [Recharge 6] Upon selecting your wyvern choose either a 20-foot cone attack or a 30-foot line attack. This damage is 4d6 damage of a type associated with the type that your wyvern is resistant to. Once used roll a d6 at the start of your turn. If you roll a 6 the breath weapon attacks.

Elemental Attack. Ranged attack +4 to hit. 4d6 damage of a type associated with your resistance. It has a range of 60 feet and no long range.

This idea is in development because, Shh it’s a secret, But I will be heading back to England for DnD in a Castle in July. Book me – Here or Nerdarchist Dave – Here

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This is one option that I am putting forward and allowing all the players to be bonafide dragon riders. Between now and then I will be revising and making my official rule set for these drakes. So be on the watch as there will either be a post on our Patreon, an update here, or a new product on our store.

Thanks for reading. Until Next Time, Stay Nerdy!