u/MAD1Unknown

I'm brand new to dnd. First game DMing or playing at all, though ive been interested in the game for years and have read many stories and anecdotes over that time. Im playing with my spouse and 2 kids.

Tldr: Am i just creating more headaches for myself allowing a semi-permanent npc "tank" to join the party? Would appreciate hearing if it worked well at your table or if it was a nightmare. If i do let him stay, id scale him down to match party strength and hp.

So, session 1, they captured a kobold dragonshield who was leading a handful of smaller kobolds. I was expecting them to use a guard tower ballista to 1-shot or severely damage him, but of course they shot one of the weaker flying kobolds instead. I ruled to let the Bard use Charm Person on the kobold dragonshield (yes i know RAW it doesnt work on goblins or kobolds in 5.5e) and had him surrender, throwing down weapons and asking to be spared. He's now shackled and under control of the party, still under charm for the next hour.

The dragonborn ranger doesnt know draconic due to character background reasons. He wants to let the kobold join up and teach the player the draconic language over time. I thought that sounded like a cool idea, but thats where we ended session. I can just as easily require them to turn-in the kobold to the town guard. Or the kobold might dislike his clan and the new dragon giving them orders, so he joins the party. And now they have a dragon bbeg for later on.

I personally dont feel that including this npc (again he will be nerfed) will cause me headaches for balancing encounters.... but im new. I have no idea. I figured i could also give the kobold a Deck of Many Things just for fun.

Just kidding. Or am i?... lol, Thoughts?

edit: we kept our new kobold friend. Since kobold sounds like cobalt, his name is Blue. As one of these commentors suggested, hes hoing to be cowardly and greedy, but will follow his new dragonborn master's commands.

I'll be careful not to have him outshine the party. Thanks for all the advice!

I'm running in to this issue where i look up a spell or something on mobile, and then on PC the spell is just... not available. When i go into the search filters to reset them, the sourcebooks are just NOT THERE are all to select or deselect.

One example is the spell 'Ancestral Communion'. If i search that spell, it will appear in the search bar with a clickable link to the spell, as you would expect. But clicking that spell link returns an invalid page that redirects to the generic spell list.

I can access the spell on mobile and I can see the spell is from the sourcebook 'The Crooked Moon'. I've tried resetting my filters, but on PC, that TCM sourcebook is just entirely missing. The spell can be searched, 5etools shows me a link for it, and then just... nothing. I've tried resetting cache. I've tried the search on different PCs on web version. No matter the device, the web version just seems to somehow have a different list of sourcebooks.

I've tried to manually add sourcebooks, but i couldn't figure that out. Any ideas?