Dragon tactics

[hcobb]

Can Wyvern recharge "wizard only" items such as missile rods?

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Can Wyvern recharge "wizard only" items such as missile rods?

Wyverns explicitly do not[1] use magical spells, per RAW, so I reckon Wyverns cannot be wizards in any sense I can understand and so cannot recharge rods.

And, I suppose, if they use the rod, they suffer a -4 DX penalty.

As usual, I'm talking about garden variety wyverns, not exotic wyverns who were orphaned and raised by wizards in the wilds of Dran.

[1] I reckon "do not" and "can not" are not always synonymous, but I have trouble imagining a wizard who does not use spells.

[Droll]

The bestiary is not dead!
The latest Scientific American issue with a groovily uncharacteristic fantasy portal suggesting that wingless dragons might be venomous (as has been proposed in other rulesets), flying dragons' tails should have some rudderlike outgrowths, and that typical dragon (particularly hippogriff) wings, as not vestigial (ref gargoyles), are powerful enough to act as weapons in themselves.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ghts-of-fancy/

[Steve Plambeck]

To paraphrase Tolkien from a similar context, "Dragons don't use magic, dragons are magic."

I'd never let one cast spells, nor use talents other than what they are born with. My notion is more, they are so intelligent they know how all that and more works, could dictate a chemical formula to you or teach you a spell if they wanted to for some reason, point out which mushrooms do what, etc, etc, but they would rarely have any motive to do so. Every dragon should have a personality and present some role-playing opportunities, except of course for the summoned and illusionary versions which are mindless.

I fancy a dragon would probably speak every language too, making it impossible to have a secret conversation around one of them. And their vast, yet personally useless knowledge, should make them great kibitzers -- that is, when they aren't killing you first. If one were tolerating your presence for some reason, it would probably be a nag about everything.