Joey’s Musings

Response to Responses on 4e Characters

Two days ago I made a post called “Opinion on Character Creation in 4th Edition” It got a very active response from some of the community. I did post my response but since I do not have a way for people to subscribe to comments to a particular post (yet) I am posting my response here.

As I said I haven’t played a 4th edition game yet so my opinion of character creation in 4th edition can change when I finally play a game (It will probably be a long time because none of my group wants to try it but me).

No when I used bluff, diplomacy and Intimidate for an example I made a mistake. I got fixed on it because of something I was doing and misplaced it in my head and it ended up in here. That was just a stupid mistake on my part.

I agree that skills in 4th edition are probably more flexible. However I believe that to be a problem in its self. For example, look at Athletics. Someone who is good at climbing might not be a good swimmer. Someone might be a good swimmer but couldn’t jump more than an inch to save their life. In 4th edition if you take athletics as a skill you are good at climbing, jumping and swimming. Now there are some feats that will boost certain aspects of a skill, or at least appears that way. Example: Sure Climber. It allows you to climb at normal speed and +1 to all Athletic checks. So in 4th edition if you are good in one thing you are good in all things. 3x allows you to be good at one thing but not necessarily all. Now before you jump down my throat I am also away if the player is a good role player he will be able to decide on his and role play out if he is good at climbing but not at swimming. But that is still hard to do.

RE: Patriarch
I really like your idea of adding fluff to skills where characters explain how and/or why they are good at a skill.

My next 4th edition character should be out next week (classes just started so my time became more limited, and I am currently getting over a cold). I look forward to more comments so keep them coming.

Opinion on Character Creation in 4th Edition

I was supposed to post this article like two weeks ago and didn’t. So here it is now.

A few days ago I made the first of my Character Counts posts. I made a 3.5 and a 4th edition version of the character. It was my first time making a 4th edition character. I was very proud of myself for making one with as far as I can tell I didn’t make any screw-ups like not giving Arthur too many or too little powers, feats, trained skills or completely messing up HP or AC calculations. If I did, please leave a comment letting me know what I screwed-up.

Before I get into talking about my opinion of character creation in 4th edition vs. 3.5 let me share with you how I normally go about creating characters, whether a PC or NPC)

When I create a character, PC or NPC, I like to think about my character’s basic personality, goals and normal means of achieving those goals. The last of those three quite often leads me to choosing its class (at least one in the case if I [later] decide to multiclass).

Then I come up with ability scores. Sometimes I roll the dice (Normally 4D6 drop the lowest) and sometimes I just pull arbitrary numbers out of the air and place them. After that I start to think about (If I haven’t already) about the characters background. What are some of the events of a character’s history that leads them to being what they are by the time they are first level. This is also where I have chosen race for the character. Then I give the character its first level feats and skills.

Now if the character is going to be above first level (for NPCs this is almost always true) I look back at my initial vision of the character and begin leveling up the character. I normally level up to whatever level I want/need the character to be. Then I do skills and feats. If the character is multi-class or has a prestige class (there is proof that I still look at character creation through the eyes of a 3.5 player) I will level up one class at a time give skills and feats. For example, if I were making a 15 character that was a Bard [5]/Assassin [5]/Shadowdancer [5] (very similar to one of the characters I will be presenting in a few weeks in a Character Counts article). I will level the character to a level 5 bard and give skills and feats, then do the same thing for all 5 of the assassin levels and so forth)

After that I get the character equipment and spells if it is a spell caster (Remember for wizards some of that starting money will go towards learning spells that aren’t gained during the level up process)

Now that the basics of my character creation process is out there I guess it is time for me to give you my opinion of character creation in fourth edition compared to 3.5. I think character creation in 4th edition.

It SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The reason I say that is it doesn’t leave room for character customization other than for combat. Here is a simple example. It 3.5 let’s say I have a character (whether or not it started that way) who is good at speaking and convincing people of things. To get that in 3.5 when you create the character you would put some skill points in diplomacy and/or bluff (and/or intimidate) when you make the character and[/or] when you leveled up. I find that the combining of skills in 4th edition adds to this limitation.

No I haven’t actually played a 4th edition game. Now after I play a game Maybe I will feel differently but I feel 4th edition character creation is way too rigid and doesn’t lead to creativity as 3x editions did.

Character Counts 1 – Arthur Dannenberg

Sometimes even the most experienced players and DMs experience a block when coming up with ideas for characters and NPCs. So here I hope to give you every week a new character pretty much completely fleshed out for you to use. For the 3.5 version of the character I am using is the SSA-X2 vs. 3 sheet which you can get at http://www.ssa-x2.com/ and for the 4th edition version of the character I used the Kiznit Character Sheet which you can get at Dragon Avenue.

Below you will find a link to a 3.5 version of the character and another to a 4th edition version of the character. These are full character sheets in an Adobe PDF file not just stat blocks. Please feel free to make simple stat blocks for your use.

Then I have any notes on my process of creating the character. After that is the background of the character. I tried to make it as complete as possible. After that is the characters personality and how it might react in some generalized situations followed by some physical descriptions.

Arthur Dannenberg - Level 1 - 3.5e
Arthur Dannenberg Level_1 - 3.5e Spellbook
Arthur Dannenberg Level_1 - 4e

Character Creation Notes

This was my first time making a character for 4th Edition. Besides being a new system I found it to be a lot more confusing than any other system I ever played for the first time before. So please be sure to double check that I put the correct information in the correct place. If I screwed something up please let me know so I make the appropriate corrections.

For Ability Scores I used PC Gens ability generator set to 4D6 reroll 1s and drop the lowest. Where it put the scores is where I left them. That is why I chose to make Arthur a wizard. I used the same numbers for the 4th edition. I did NOT give him the +2 to an ability score that humans normally receive in 4th Edition

For Starting money, height, weight and age I actually rolled the dice and used the charts from chapter 6 (Chapter 7 in the case of money) of the 3.5 PHB. The 4th edition version he got the standard 100gp.

The 4th edition sheet has no space for background, personality or description. So I put the physical descriptions in the Other Notes Section. I placed the Character Personality in the Notes/Photo Section. No space anywhere for the Background so I didn’t put it on the sheet. It is in the 3.5 sheet and on this post.

Character Background

Arthur was born to an average working class family in the city. When he was a young child he saw a wizard casting some spells on the street. He was amazed by what he saw and decided he wanted to be able to do that. Whenever he could get away from his parents he would try to find this Wizard and follow him around and always watch his performances. After a while Arthur was starting to mimic the gestures and vocals of the spells used in this Wizards performance. Obviously nothing happened when Arthur did this but his mimicry was just so perfect the Wizard took notice. The Wizards name was Dion Laughstrang and he went to Arthur’s parent’s and offered to take Arthur as an apprentice when he 8yrs old. Arthur’s parents reluctantly agreed, after all Arthur was their only living child. All of their other children died not long after child birth and were very protective of Arthur.

This apprenticeship was a little different from what most apprenticeships. Arthur continued to live with his parents and would meet with Dion two or three times a week for lessons. This is because Dion was a poor Wizard who blew most of the money he earned on Ale in one of the local inns every night and very often would forget to pay for a room and lived much of the time on the streets. Very often others would tell him not to listen to Dion. That he was a mediocre wizard at best, and that was when he was sober. However, Arthur refused to believe what they said about the man he idolized; the man who introduced, and teaching him the arcane arts, something no other wizard in the city would have done because of his families lack of social rank.

Both of Arthur’s parents were killed during a riot in the city when he was 13. He inherited the tiny home and invited Dion to move in with him which he did. The morning of his 20th Birthday Arthur had found that Dion was no longer there. He burned all of his items accept for a small wooden medallion of Boccob on a small copper chain, his diary and a note which read:

“When I came to this city 15 years ago I didn’t expect to stay for more than one or two months. Although I had all the coin I needed I decided to entertain the folk with some of my abilities and I noticed a small boy who was completely enthralled by what I was doing. So I stayed longer performing these mediocre tricks and found this boy was almost always there watching, completely mesmerized. I had to make many deals and sacrifices to do it, but it was worth it to stay here. But now I must keep up my end of the deal. It is ok though. I have taught you everything you need to know for now. The rest will come as you go along. I have left you my two most precious belongings. I hope they will serve you well.”

Arthur started to read the diary and couldn’t believe all the Dion has done, the people he met, the places he has been and how he may have influenced the world as they all know it today. He spent most of the year trying to convince the people, particularly the wizard’s academy and all the others who laughed at Dion. But they all continued to laugh saying it was just stories he probably heard at the inn of the doings of others. After a while Arthur gave up and though he had his doubts he decided to set off to see if what in the diary was true.

Character Personality

Arthur is very passionate about everything he does. He wears his emotions on his sleeve.

He would have words with anyone who would say anything against his mentor, Dion Laughstrang.

Wherever he goes he follows the laws of the city he grew up in, even if he were thousands of miles away and those laws and the principles and intent of them had no meaning where he was.

He is relatively naiveté about the greater world

Character Description

Arthur’s brown hair is short and always messy.

Hanging off of his belt is a copper chain which is connected to a wooden medallion bearing Boccob’s (Ioun’s) symbol which is tucked into his belt pouch.

His clothes, though cleaned whenever possible always seem to be dirty and to those who don’t know him he would appear to be a homeless beggar.

Congrats to the 2008 ENnie Recipients

Last Friday was the ENnie Awards. You can get a complete list of the winners from the front page of EN World. But I just wanted to congratulate Yax and Expy of DungeonMastering for there Gold Medal in the category of Best Fan Product.

If you are one of those few people who live under a rock and have never been to the site run by a Red Dragon and his pet you should head out to it and give it a read. It is definitely one of the, if not the, best RPG blogs out there.

Again, Congrats to Expy, Yax and all the other winners of this year’s ENnies.

From Those Other Guys - 08/15/2008

Here are some great articles that I have over the past few months. I hope you find them as enjoyable and interesting as I have.

Greywulf’s Lair – If I was the King of Wizards
Greywolf list many of the problems he sees with D&D 4 Edition, the minis and Wizards of the Coast in General. I can’t help but to agree with each one. It is a great read no matter what you think about 4th Edition

The Geek Gazette – 4e is perfect! Well, except for the mistakes…While at it go check out the Geek Gazette who gave us a response to Greywulf’s post and expanded upon it

SciFi Wire - Wire Cracks Stargate Command
For those of you who are fans of Stargate, War Games, Jeremiah as well as many other shows this may be an interesting article for you because it is all about the actual Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base.

Critical Hits - Forget OD&D and AD&D: Play DD&D
This is an old post but it is definately worth looking at; especially if you are like me and love you some alcohol because it is a D&D Drinking Game which is going to be play tested at GenCon this weekend. (they actually played it at least once so far)

Gnome Stew - Stat generation
An article about a new system that will even out your player stat scores a little bit. I know I am going to try it out.

Greywulf’s Lair – The value of Dungeons & Dragons
Greywulf gives us solid economic reasons as why we should all play D&D (and other RPGs in general)

Stupid Ranger - How to move from DM to Player Character…
Dante tells us DMs who to go back to being just a PC. Something that I know from personal experience is a hard transition.

Dries Buytaert - PHP is dead … long live PHP!
As many of you have probably heard by now I have been a wannabe web developer since 1997. PHP is a web development language I have been using liek many others, professional and amatuers alike since 1999. If you read any blogs besides this one you will notice many of the pages end with .php instead of .html (or htm). That because it is one (if not THE) most popular scripting language of the web. This is an interesting article on it the current version of the language and why people (mainly servers) are not transitioning to it even though it has been out for over 2 (3?) years.

Greg’s Blog - So Many Untapped PHP Features
This article is related to the above one with some additional information

Story Hour 1.01 - Mysterious Client

Gwen was sitting on a table as she was convincing all the Gnomes and Halflings to keep buying drinks for her. In one corner of the room was the smelliest thing in the world, Stenchfeng who as usual was drinking, eating and making a mess as loudly as possible all by lonesome. Sitting at a shady table along the wall by himself was Razeal; who like the other few tainted she had met was trying to be inconspicuous as possible. At another nearby table was Darren Leclare sitting in clothing which made it very clear which god he venerated above all others. He had pinned down an older of her kind and was questioning him trying to find out all he could in his quest for knowledge.

Suddenly her attention was grabbed by two figures walking into the tavern. Not too many of the bigger races live in the Gnomish city of Grubbelthorpe. Admittedly the few who did came to this tavern since it was the only one tall enough for the bigger races. One was a little taller than the other with blond hair and a longsword hanging off his hip. Not bad looking for a human. The other was a bit more mysterious she thought to herself. He was wearing a black cloak with its hood up and kept tight around his head that she couldn’t see his face and his hands were covered by black gloves. Very unusual clothes for the summer, but mysterious cloaked figures in this tavern were not unusual.

They walked right up to Old Jack, the human owner and barkeep of the tavern. They asked him something and he pointed out Gwen and each of her companions. They followed Jack finger towards each of them, then asked him who the leader was. Gwen spoke up quite loudly to ensure her companions would take notice. “I’m the one you talk to.” Gwen had spent years training her ears to hear that which doesn’t want to be heard. Apparently they didn’t know this, or at least the blond one didn’t. They walked over and Gwen was able to get a closer look at the one with the hood. But she couldn’t see much since he was wearing a veiled mask which effectively kept his face hidden. “We have a job which requires the talents of you and…your party.” Said the blond one.

“Well first I need a drink. Jack, get me a drink…” Stecnhfeng spoke up, “ME TOO!” “And put it on their tab, well his tab.” Said Gwen pointing at the masked figure. “I don’t like people who wear masks and keep their face hidden.” The hooded figure grunted and nodded at Jack. The serving wench brought over a drink and handed it over to Gwen and then brought one over to Stenchfeng as quickly as she could as not to be close to the 7’ tall Half-Orc for more than a few seconds. During this time Razeal was slowly walking around to get a better view of the coming conversation. No one seemed to notice.

“So what is your name?” The blond one spoke up “My name is Thomas.” “And your friend’s name?” “His name is Stephan” Gwen then asked if his friend can speak.

The masked guy finally spoke up in a very deep voice said “yes I can and if this useless banter is done I have a job for you.” Gwen shifted and made a slightly more serious face. “I would like you to retrieve an item for me. “Does it involve stealing …or killing?” Thomas pulled out a small purse and emptied a lot of gems onto the table and Stephan responded “Will that be a problem?” “No, it won…..”And Stenchfeng screamed out “Killing good!”

Darren stood up with his eyes glowing and moved behind Stephan and Thomas and looked them both up and down. Gwen hated when he did that. It didn’t matter which divine power he was tapping into, it was never good for her when he did that. It always meant more work for her and potentially less money in her purse. Stephan pulled out a scroll from his sleeve and unrolled it on the table. It had a color picture of a scepter. It was made of gold with 3 gems on one end and a red gem on the other. The handle had a ring of gems going around it. “So who has this item and where do we find it?” It is currently in the possession of Kerrasslor…” Thomas pulls out a scroll and unrolls it. “he is located in a mountain West of Mount Yetternach.”

“So do we have a deal?” asked Stephan. Darren walked between Stephan and Gwen and tapped the golden end of his quarterstaff up and taps it against Stephan just under the neck. It made a small clank. “What is this?” Darren asked. “It is a family heirloom and is of no importance to you.” He replied. “Does it have anything to do this scepter you want us to look for?”
“It is not a scepter. It is a key and belongs to my family! Now do we have a deal or not?”
“How much does this job pay?” piped up Gwen.

Stephan looked over and nodded towards Thomas and Thomas pulled out a decent sized purse. He opened it up spilled its contents on the table. As its contents fell onto the table Gwen’s eyes opened in amazement which was quickly replaced by her normal greedy eyes when ever so much money was laid out before her. “It pays twenty thousand in gems, ahead of time plus you can keep whatever you find amongst Kerrasslor’s possessions, minus the key.” Said Thomas.

“Yes, we….” Gwen was cut off by Darren. “Before we can agree we would like to see the amulet you are wearing around your neck. You don’t need to even take it off” Stephan and Darren stared each other down, or at least Gwen thought they were. It was hard to tell since Stephan was wearing a mask. Thomas went to shove the gems back into the purse. Gwen quickly rushed out one hand and grabbed his hand while her other hand grabbed the hilt of GWEE. “I wouldn’t. We didn’t say we didn’t have a deal.”

Stephan then said “It’s ok Thomas, I will show them. I will be right back.”Gwen and Thomas both relaxed their arms, Gwen palming one of the gems as she did, and Stephan walked out of the bar. Darren pulled out his journal and began making some sort of notes.

“So where are you and he from?” Gwen asked Thomas.
“We’re from Corinath”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been there. It’s in the north right?”
“That is north of Mount Yetternach isn’t it?”
“Yes it is.”
“Does Stephan ever take that mask off?”
“I’m sure he does, but I have never seen him without it on.”
“Do you know why he wears it?”
“Some sort of deformity that supposedly runs in his family.”

After a minute or two Stephan came back in but now the amulet was hanging outside of shirt and mask. Darren began examining the amulet and Gwen jumped off of the table and onto Darren’s shoulder. She too was staring at the amulet. Darren reached out his hand towards the amulet just a little and looked up at Stephan. “May I?” Stephan grunted and nodded. Slowly Darren reached around the amulet, felt around all the edges and bumps in it. He looked as closely as he could without actually ripping the thing off of the big man’s neck.

Darren and Gwen both slyly glanced over to the shady spot on the far wall where Raziel was sitting and he nodded towards Darren and Gwen. “We have deal” Said Darren as he let go of the amulet and sat down. “May we keep this scroll?” “No, I need it back.” Darren started copying the picture of this scepter like key into his notes. Gwen hopped off of Darren’s shoulder onto the floor. “So how do we get this key to you once we have it?” Gwen asked. “Thomas here will be staying in town. Just bring it to him once you have it.”

Darren finished copying the drawing into his notebook and handed it back to Stephan. Stephan began rolling it up and Darren noticed that there was writing on the back. “Wait a second.” Darren jumped out of his chair and as he did Gwen jumped up onto his shoulders and Stephan stopped rolling up the parchment. “Let me see that parchment again?” Stephan handed it to Darren. He turned it around and started to copy the text. He just two characters down when Stephen took back the parchment and rolled it up and put it up his sleeve. “That has no bearing on your job.”

Stephan took a deep breath and sounding much calmer then he did a second ago. “Thomas our business here is done. Leave them their pay and let us go.”

Story Hour 1.00 Introduction

After DMing for just about 3 years (with a 1 adventure reprieve) I now get to be just a player. It is a nice and needed break. So now Mike is now the DM and running the first adventure in our new homebrew campaign world called Krydel.

So I thought it would be interesting to post in character story of the adventure. However I am a slow writer. Even slower when it comes to writing stories like this. We started the adventure about a month and a half ago; unfortunately he had to cancel several games. We cancelled one week for Billy’s wedding, one week because Mike was sick and one week because Mike’s transportation was hijacked by his family and he didn’t find out until it was too late to do anything about it.

So before we get into the adventure we should probably meet the Characters.

Gwurcyn: Female Gnome Thief played by me
Daren Leclare: Male Human Cleric of Darren played by me
Stenchfeng: Male Half-Orc Fighter
Raziel: Male Tainted (a Homebrew Race) Monk Played by Domenick
Gorath: Male Half-Orc Fighter played by Domenick

As you may have noticed some of us are playing 2 characters. There are reasons for that. Our group became smaller during the summer. We lost Ron for a variety of reasons. We lost Greg, at least temporarily because his job gave him Saturday Evening shifts and Billy got married so we figured he won’t be around as much as he was, despite what he says.

Dragons! – Part 3 – Encounter of the Good Kind

Most adventurers lead towards being good. So putting them up against evil dragons in an encounter makes sense. Go in kill the dragon, take its hoard and save the damsel. But, what about an encounter with a good dragon? No good character would go and willingly fight a good dragon unless being threatened by it. Not all encounters have to necessarily have to involve combat. The following encounter ideas can be for any level, just make sure you choose an appropriately aged dragon to match the level of the party.

Village Rivalry
Two neighboring villages (towns, cities, kingdoms whatever floats your boats) have had a rivalry longer than anyone can remember. Unknown to either village they are both at the edge of territories of two different pranksters, Cooper Dragons to be precise. These two dragons have a rivalry of their own. These two villages have become the latest targets of the rivalry of the two dragons. The villages keep blaming each other for the recent troubles. If the pranks don’t stop soon there may be a battle between the two villages. So it will be up to the PCs to find out who is behind the problems and find a way to stop it.

Here are three possible ways the players can stop the Cooper Dragons
Obviously combat is possible, but Cooper Dragons prefer not to fight and if they do it can be very dangerous for the PCs
Speak to the dragons and convince them that they are harming the villages greatly
Defeat the dragons using wit, humor and riddles because Cooper Dragons take wit, humor and riddles very seriously

Missing Bard
A bard (or any charismatic person) has gone missing and the PCs are hired to find them. The bard is known as a decent conversationalist. He went traveling around a nearby dessert and found his way into a Brass Dragons lair. So the Brass Dragon has been keeping the Bard for conversation.

4th Edition Note
The Monster Manual does mention good dragons but does not give stats for any. They do not mention Brass or Bronze Dragons and add Iron and Adamantine Dragons to the list. So you will have to wait for their 4th Edition Dragon Supplement to really run a 4th edition Metallic Dragon encounter.

Have a link

I decided it was a good idea to post some links to some things I have seen and found interesting on the past few days. I don’t think I am going to make this a weekly thing like many other sites do, but who knows. Anyways, here are some cool links for you.

DDI
Throughout the marketing campaign used by Wizards of the Coast they have been pushing DDI (Dungeon and Dragons Insider) and said it would be out and available to use when 4th Edition came out. Well, let’s face it. That didn’t happen. However today (well yesterday technically I guess) part of DDI has become available, in a limited fashion at least. The Online Rules Compendium is up. I gave it a quick test drive, but wasn’t impressed, however when more supplements come out and are added I think it will be more useful. Go give it a try by clicking here and then let us all know how it went by leaving a comment about it here

HOT GIRL – Grace Park!
If you are anything like me you are a fan of Battlestar Galactica. Continuing along that path if you are like me you think the actress who plays Boomer/Athena/Skinjob Cylon #8 is really hot. Well we aren’t the only ones. Complex Magazine made her the cover girl and has an interview with her and several of the pictures taken of her on their website, as well as a video. Damn she hot. It brings a whole new use to the term “Frack Me”

What are you cooking for dinner? Why Gnome Stew of course
Gnome Stew is a great RPG blog from the creators of the now defunct Treasure Tables. It has multiple posters which means there are always plenty of articles. Just today they posted an article about using Defensive Rolls for a 3.5 D&D game as well as announced their new forums for GMs called You Meet in a Tavern.

One Line NPC for prizes
Chatty at Musings of a Chatty DM has a contest going on where you come up with an NPC in only one line. There are multiple prizes. SO give it a whirl and win some prizes

It’s Villainous
Yax over at dungeonmastering.com (yes the site run by a Red Dragon) had a great article on Uber-Villans for your D&D campaign. And yesterday’s Sunday quiz is testing your knowledge of the many different versions of D&D from the 1973 Basic D&D all the way through this month release of 4th Edition. So go and see how knowledgeable you are.

Earth, Wind, Fire and Water
An old series of articles from RPG Thoughts, but these articles on using Elementals in your RPG are really good and worth reading. They are called Elemental elementals and Elemental Elementals part 2 - “Burned to the ground”. Good job Maikl

Dragons! – Part 2 – Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad…Dragon?

So the last time I stated that Dragons should be used in campaigns and that even a 1st level party can get into combat with dragons and win. So here is a possible encounter a 1st level party can have with a Dragon. Now I can’t take credit for this encounter. Inspiration came from an adventure made by the good people at Wizards of the Coast.

The Encounter

Your PCs have entered some buried ruins. They are controlled by two factions. One is a faction of Kobolds and the other a faction of Goblins. The Kobolds have somehow gotten their hands on a wyrmling White Dragon which they planned to use against the Goblins to gain control of the ruins. Unfortunately for the Kobolds is that they can’t actually control the Dragon and it killed one of its handlers and walked off. At the same time a Goblin war party was heading to attack the kobolds and saw the raging dragon and tried to run away. Somehow they managed to lock the Dragon in a room.

There are several possible ways to have your players come across this Dragon.

• The first is they randomly come across this room.
• They meet the Kobolds and they offer the PCs an assortment of treasures (at least one of which should be a minor magic item of some sort) to get their pet back for them
• They meet the Goblins who offer the PCs an assortment of treasures to kill the Kobolds horrible monster

Maybe you don’t want them to fight a Dragon. Maybe you want to make it more enticing to help the Dragon. Hey, a Dragon getting out of being imprisoned can have a long term affect on your campaign world. It could also be a helpful friend (though more likely for long lived races like Elves and Dwarfs, not short life spanned races like Humans or Half-Orcs). So instead of a White Dragon make it a good Dragon (I suggest not a Gold Dragon) and the PCs have to assist it in escaping.