Can a dragon use metamagic rods?

[HowFortuitous]

Pretty much the title. Can a true dragon use metamagic rods? I know a faerie dragon can use wands, so it would seem they could?

[Tom S 820]

Why could they not?

[HowFortuitous]

Tom S 820 wrote:

Why could they not?

I'm not sure if their claws count as hands for the purpose of holding and using items.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

HowFortuitous wrote:

Tom S 820 wrote:

Why could they not?

I'm not sure if their claws count as hands for the purpose of holding and using items.

For holding a rod or wand? It counts, it's no different than asking if a tentacle monster can use a rod or wand, they can most certainly carry them, and if they can cast spells, they can most certainly use them. There are creatures with tails who can carry them with a feat, and they're a lot less prevalent than a claw or tentacle. It's just with that rod or wand in hand, they can't use that limb for attacks unless they drop the item.

With that in mind, Gloves of Storing become very useful, and you can certainly make it fit the oddball creature's limbs without giving the PCs too much WBL, if any.

You want something more ridiculous, how about asking if a Dragon can drink a potion...

[Kayerloth]

What Tom said. Unless for some reason you don't imagine dragon claws as able to grab/hold something. And of course, unless this is for PFS, it's your world to imagine whether a given dragon can grasp a given Rod or not, but I'd hazard to guess that most GM's assume True Dragons can grasp even smaller objects such as coins and gems which are typically much smaller than a Rod would be (particularly coins).

[voideternal]

I can see people arguing that a colossal-sized great wyrm's claws being too big to manipulate rods meant for medium humanoids. Maybe colossal dragons can scoop up piles of coins and gems. But a colossal dragon using a human-sized metamagic rod would be the conceptual equivalent of a human trying to use a rod sized for comfortable use for a 6-inch humanoid.

Like, imagine there's a person the size of an iPhone. Now, imagine this teeny person holding onto a baton(read, magic rod). It's probably the size of like, a staple. I could certainly swing it around, but I might not notice if I dropped it.

That said, unless one of the players is a Colossal true dragon, I don't think addressing this issue is necessary. Otherwise, the GM could say that it somehow works in his world, and it works in his world.

[EvilPaladin]

voideternal wrote:

I can see people arguing that a colossal-sized great wyrm's claws being too big to manipulate rods meant for medium humanoids. Maybe colossal dragons can scoop up piles of coins and gems. But a colossal dragon using a human-sized metamagic rod would be the conceptual equivalent of a human trying to use a rod sized for comfortable use for a 6-inch humanoid.

Like, imagine there's a person the size of an iPhone. Now, imagine this teeny person holding onto a baton(read, magic rod). It's probably the size of like, a staple. I could certainly swing it around, but I might not notice if I dropped it.

That said, unless one of the players is a Colossal true dragon, I don't think addressing this issue is necessary. Otherwise, the GM could say that it somehow works in his world, and it works in his world.

And why isn't this dragon using an item meant for a Colossal-sized dragon?

[voideternal]

EvilPaladin wrote:

And why isn't this dragon using an item meant for a Colossal-sized dragon?

I dunno. You should ask the colossal sized dragon who decided to use medium-humanoid sized metamagic rods. But if he were to use colossal-sized metamagic rods, I don't think many players would complain, so that's probably a good solution for GM's looking for a way to outfit their colossal-sized dragons with metamagic rods.