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It could work, but do note that magical aging does not bestow the experience that would normally be gained in those times. Successfully aging your new friend would make him in effect a young child in an adult body. This is much more dangerous than it sounds. Furthermore, magically aging someone to such an extent is drastically shortening their lifespan. I don't know whether I'd call this an evil act, but it most certainly is not good.
Considering the power of some tiny dragons (enough to wipe out most low level parties), it would not matter a lot to a dragon to be a baby or a bigger baby.
Most dragons would prefer to be a bigger baby I think.
Watch the Tom Hanks movie Big for ideas on what would happen. The dragon would only gain abilities based on physical age so most of the dragon’s special abilities would not be gained. I would only give things like physical stats, HP AC and the like.
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There aren't really any rules to go off of, only what you think as a GM is right.
But as others have suggested I would at best increase its physical stats, but wouldn't progress spell casting or special abilities. That's just my personal opinion on it though.
I remember asking this question back in second edition D&D, when the haste spell used to age you by a year. Seemed like something every dragon would want to learn.
If you're just houseruling anyway, just say dragons are immune to magical aging effects.
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It could work, but do note that magical aging does not bestow the experience that would normally be gained in those times. Successfully aging your new friend would make him in effect a young child in an adult body. This is much more dangerous than it sounds. Furthermore, magically aging someone to such an extent is drastically shortening their lifespan. I don't know whether I'd call this an evil act, but it most certainly is not good.For sure, in this case they'd be willing, and for a lot of dragons, especially the less intelligent White dragons, trading a lot of their vulnerable, younger years for an early adulthood would probably be very attractive.
And I mean, arguably, their MIND would still mature at the same rate, it would jsut be their level of experience that would be left behind? I don't know. Maybe you're right.
If I remember right, a lot of age related effects give you the age related penalties, but not the age related bonuses (which usually means the mental bonuses).
It is safe to assume that the wyrmling's mental stats would remain the same. I'd also argue that they don't get the spell casting that would come from the category. Otherwise, I'd allow it. If I, as a GM, let you have a dragon, then I would at least allow you to keep it (Which somewhat implies at least some room for growth, so it doesn't just instantly die from having low HD). Just that it would simply be a big dumb lizard that only has a bit of physical ability. No, I am probably not going to let you have a melee/spell casting powerhouse like a dragon.
Anyway, I've seen this idea played with in one D&D inspired work- that dragons have options to magically age their children up so they can be useful now... but doing this basically stunts the thing's brain development and just leaves you with a dumb brute (growth and slow development is important, afterall, particularly when you are trying to build something as high grade as a proper dragon). These brutes are useful if you need to mass produce cannon fodder RIGHT NOW, and certainly something an evil dragon might look into.
This is a toughie. Honestly, I might be inclined to say that Dragons are Immune as per the [3] Sands of Time Spell, (i.e., they do not age as per the standard Aging rules, only benefitting from aging, gaining Abilities through age rather than Experience, nor is a max. age limit given, so are generally seen as Ageless/non-invincible Immortals). If your group feels that it should be affected, then the part about the Target not receiving the benefits of aging is still relevant. It is also interesting to note that [7] Bestow Curse, Greater loses the [Curse] descriptor, (despite still being referred to as a Curse), making it fall more in-line with [3] Sands of Time before instigating the Curse. Curse of the Ages deals in years and is not temporary, so it is distinctive enough to argue that it does not have to follow the same precedent. If so, I would also agree with others' comments that only the Dragon's physical body (and related Abilities) would be affected. Even if you take a look at the Major Artifact Sceptre of Ages, it is down to G.M. adjudication when it comes to gaining age-related Abilities from magical aging.
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If this were possible without any downside I'd see no reason why dragons wouldn't take the shortcut to get stronger at least to a certain point. I can't see an in-game reason not to do it, so for internal consistency I wouldn't allow it unless I had some metagame/plot reason as to why it's good for this dragon, but not other dragons to follow the same path.
I am not familiar with this module- did they rescue the wyrmling from someone that wanted to use it? Perhaps as a minion?
If so... I would personally play with the 'speed up growth at a terrible cost' idea- the villain took the wyrmling as potential minion, and performed some horrible experiment to both speed up its growth (and make it strong enough to be useful) and to stunt its mind so it is easily manipulated.
Given the draconic nature of the party... I think you could make a story line where they care for the poor thing. Invoke the kind of sympathy that we usually feel when we see a blind kitten.
I am not familiar with this module- did they rescue the wyrmling from someone that wanted to use it? Perhaps as a minion?
If so... I would personally play with the 'speed up growth at a terrible cost' idea- the villain took the wyrmling as potential minion, and performed some horrible experiment to both speed up its growth (and make it strong enough to be useful) and to stunt its mind so it is easily manipulated.
Given the draconic nature of the party... I think you could make a story line where they care for the poor thing. Invoke the kind of sympathy that we usually feel when we see a blind kitten.
It's a popular 3.5 adventure from WOTC. The dragon was never going to be a major villain.
It's a popular 3.5 adventure from WOTC. The dragon was never going to be a major villain.
I realize it would not be the villain...but I was curious about why they had to set it free- and if they released it from the villain, I wondered what the villain's plans were with it. Was it set to be a minion, or was it just a passing set piece?