Knights of the Griffin

[jml]

I'm setting up to run a Turakian Age campaign that starts in Mezendria. One of my players wants to be a Knight of the Griffin -- bully for him.

 

Players are to be built on 75+75 Heroic. To be a Knight of the Griffin, my player would have to buy his griffin as a follower (81 points) and also buy the Knight package deal (63 points). After paying for the appropriate TF to be able to ride said griffin (2 points), our aspiring knight has only 5 points to play with.

 

I've yet to speak to the player, but I'm certainly not happy with this situation. What are my options?

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

I'm setting up to run a Turakian Age campaign that starts in Mezendria. One of my players wants to be a Knight of the Griffin -- bully for him.

 

Players are to be built on 75+75 Heroic. To be a Knight of the Griffin, my player would have to buy his griffin as a follower (81 points) and also buy the Knight package deal (63 points). After paying for the appropriate TF to be able to ride said griffin (2 points), our aspiring knight has only 5 points to play with.

 

I've yet to speak to the player, but I'm certainly not happy with this situation. What are my options?

 

Have him be a Knight in training, or an "Knight-Aspiring", with a young Griffin that is a bit less powerful than a fully grown one, and a watered down version of the Knight Package.

 

As he gains experience, the player should allocate their points appropriately to fill out the Knight Package and bring the Griffin up to snuff as they both get older and wiser.

[War Cry]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

Wow, this is an awesome set-up for character motivation. Another option is to write up the knight character without the griffin at all. maybe even work it into his background that he had a griffin, but it fell in battle. Now he has to go out and find a suitable replacement. He could leave a few points unspent and save XP to buy the follower at a later date.

[Eosin]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

I don't think he can do it and have a viable "party member." The griffin is too expensive for a follower at these points. You can't shunt 65% of your character points elsewhere and not end up a cripple.

 

That means you have to solve the issue more creatively. You can just allow the mount and let it go ~ afterall knights don't generally buy their horses. If you wanted to establish a bond then the character might be required to purchase Mind Link with Bonded Mount only. Another way would be to require Animal Empathy with Griffins. Both of these routes require a small chunck of change but are survivable.

[Hermit]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

I'm setting up to run a Turakian Age campaign that starts in Mezendria. One of my players wants to be a Knight of the Griffin -- bully for him.

 

Players are to be built on 75+75 Heroic. To be a Knight of the Griffin, my player would have to buy his griffin as a follower (81 points) and also buy the Knight package deal (63 points). After paying for the appropriate TF to be able to ride said griffin (2 points), our aspiring knight has only 5 points to play with.

 

I've yet to speak to the player, but I'm certainly not happy with this situation. What are my options?

I notice you say starting out in Mercendia, which to my mind means you'll probably take out the group out to other kingdoms eventually but if I'm reading the sidenote correctly "If the PC wants to take his riding griffinn away from Mezendria, he should buy it as a follower." So give him the griffin for free, but the inform him the creatures are far considered too valuable to risk lightly in foriegn lands so it only is available to his character in the home country. Ask if he's cool with that, it works.

 

Another option would be to allow access to the griffin not as a follower, but a membership Perk.

[Labrat]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

I've been batting this idea around myself for a little while. I like the concept of Griffins as cultural icons, they would feature prominently in the banners, the everyday life, the legends, the jokes, etc. It seems like a rich place to start an adventure.

 

My advice is to run the Griffin as an intelligent NPC so the PC doesn't have full control over it, but you do. That way it's a friend to the party and not merely to the knight who it serves with as a fellow soldier. Would that work?

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

I'm not familiar enough with the whole kit'n'kaboodle to make a decent pass at this from a purely informed state. However, I know that a horse costs a PC about 15 points - you can revise it to a "flying horse" and improve it over time. And, as KS says, you water down the various packages that are needed until you can what you need to do. Then, of course, the PC starts paying the added points to improve himself, get out of 'squire' status and improve his mount.

[monster]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

My advice is to run the Griffin as an intelligent NPC so the PC doesn't have full control over it, but you do. That way it's a friend to the party and not merely to the knight who it serves with as a fellow soldier

 

I am totally with labrat on this one. A variation is to give the player the full knight package, but he has to locate an egg of a regional griffin as part of his final test as a night of the griffin.(this is great in the fact that there is your first adventure arc ready for the playing!).

[monster]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

ooops he should save some xp to buy the griffin egg/hatchling plus whatever he gets finding it then the egg hatches and becomes an npc/follower.

[JmOz]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

If you want to have some fun with it (Note this can BE EXTREMLY ABUSIVE):

 

You know, if the griffen causes more problems than it solves, it would techncaly be a DNPC (More Powerful, Useful)...Just make sure it is more problem than use (IE, no where to stable it, out of the country people distrust him, etc...)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

I thought about that.

 

Then I thought, yes, but at the end of the day, not only do you have to buy off the DNPC, you ALSO have to pay for the mount.

 

Yuck.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

If you want to have some fun with it (Note this can BE EXTREMLY ABUSIVE):

 

You know, if the griffen causes more problems than it solves, it would techncaly be a DNPC (More Powerful, Useful)...Just make sure it is more problem than use (IE, no where to stable it, out of the country people distrust him, etc...)

 

I go into all of this and more in this document under "Step 5". The document is intended to help people convert from D&D to HERO but the advice is generally sound:

 

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Conversion3e/conversion3e.shtml

[sbarron]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

I can think of a couple options...

 

1)You could take a page from the optional magic item rules. Rather than making the PC pay the full price for a griffin, have him pay the difference in price between his griffin and the traditional mount, which I assume is a heavy war horse.

 

The heavy war horse is 133 pts, the griffin is 200 (plus whatever you added to his griffin that's different than a regular one). The difference is 67+ pts. Have the character only pay 67+/5 = 13+ pts. That I'm guessing would get you at most to around 20 pts or so, unless you went crazy on adding to the beast.

 

2) My official recommendation...You could also only make the PC pay the /5 cost of the whole griffin, rather than making him pay 1 for 1 for everything over the characters point total. Near as I can tell, that's why the 200 pt griffin follower is so expensive. Those 50 pts between 150 and 200 were 1 for 1. Just keep them 5 to 1, and you character only has to spend 40 pts for this mount, not 81. Even if you've added on some extra abilities to the standard griffin, at 5 for 1, you still will save points from your first option.

[prodigyduck]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

Does the griffon -have- to be an adult? Make the griffon young, a hatchling, until the player can afford it as a sidekick.

[Rapier]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

Does the griffon -have- to be an adult? Make the griffon young' date=' a hatchling, until the player can afford it as a sidekick.[/quote']

 

He's so CUUUUUUUUUTE!

[Rapier]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

My first question is, how much utility is this griffin going to be?

 

Obviously, not all characters are going to have griffins. So the knight would fly around and everyone else would ride a horse?

 

What happens when they enter a tower, dungeon or crypt?

 

Do the rest of the players have to pay for their horse?

 

I would be tempted to just call it a Perk: Membership and make sure that the Perk has an additional Contact or something so that he can pull some strings and get a griffin (or some kind of flying mount) for the rest of the party.

[Labrat]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

1)You could take a page from the optional magic item rules. Rather than making the PC pay the full price for a griffin, have him pay the difference in price between his griffin and the traditional mount, which I assume is a heavy war horse.

 

The heavy war horse is 133 pts, the griffin is 200 (plus whatever you added to his griffin that's different than a regular one). The difference is 67+ pts. Have the character only pay 67+/5 = 13+ pts. That I'm guessing would get you at most to around 20 pts or so, unless you went crazy on adding to the beast.

 

This would be an ok solution, along with Rapier's observation that other PCs don't have to pay 'points' for a horse, just money. The griffin is bound to join the battle just as horses sometimes do. If the Griffin dies, then the assumption behind paying points is that a new Griffin will be discharged to the knight (a fair assumption), at no CP cost to the player (they could always demand a monetary retainer).

 

Sbarron's second point about the /5 cost structure could work too, just like a vehicle, making the Griffin still an impact on PC points but diluting the impact such that it doesn't cripple the PC when the Griffin isn't around.

 

You could do all of this and still play the Griffin as the GM, but as long as points are spent it would be more like a PC-controlled NPC with fierce loyalty.

[LordGhee]

Re: Knights of the Griffin

 

hey the griffon has disadvantages that should help defray the cost of the mount.

 

just throwing this in to add to the pot.