Feature Request: Proper Familiar/Companion Support for Arcana Unleashed

With the release of Arcana Unleashed, I think D&D Beyond really needs proper character-sheet support for familiars and other companions.

I understand from the official Arcana Unleashed support thread that D&D Beyond currently cannot support companions and that, as a result, some of the benefits granted by the new familiar feats cannot be implemented. However, these limitations now have a significant impact on character options contained in a sourcebook being sold directly on D&D Beyond.

For example, Familiar Friend's Fortified Familiar increases the familiar's maximum Hit Points based on the character's level. There is currently no way for a familiar in Extras to inherit that bonus from the character, so the player has to recalculate and manually edit the familiar's HP every time the character gains a level.

Battle Familiar is even harder to represent. Its statistics depend on information belonging to the caster, including the character's spell attack modifier and the level of the spell used. There is no Battle Familiar companion generated on the character sheet, and creating a homebrew monster does not really solve the problem because its statistics are static rather than linked to the character.

There is also no Temporary Hit Points field for familiars or other creatures in Extras, despite Battle Familiar granting Temporary Hit Points that need to be tracked separately from the familiar's normal HP.

Ideally, I would love to see a proper companion system in which a familiar or companion can:

• receive bonuses and modifications from the owning character's feats and features;
• use values such as character level, proficiency bonus, ability modifiers and spell attack modifier in its statistics;
• scale statistics according to the level of a spell used to summon or transform it;
• track Temporary Hit Points separately from normal Hit Points;
• have attacks and other actions correctly calculated and rollable from the character sheet;
• support temporary transformations such as Battle Familiar without requiring the player to create and maintain separate homebrew monsters.

Even a more limited implementation specifically supporting the familiar options introduced in Arcana Unleashed would be a major improvement.

At the moment, I can add my familiar to Extras, but I still have to maintain several of its most important statistics manually outside D&D Beyond. For a character option that is now directly supported by an official D&D Beyond sourcebook, it would be very useful if the digital character sheet could actually represent those mechanics.

I hope companion support can be prioritized for the character sheet, particularly now that official material is increasingly making use of familiars and similar companion mechanics.

Quote from Jayce_Danathar >>

With the release of Arcana Unleashed, I think D&D Beyond really needs proper character-sheet support for familiars and other companions.

I understand from the official Arcana Unleashed support thread that D&D Beyond currently cannot support companions and that, as a result, some of the benefits granted by the new familiar feats cannot be implemented. However, these limitations now have a significant impact on character options contained in a sourcebook being sold directly on D&D Beyond.

For example, Familiar Friend's Fortified Familiar increases the familiar's maximum Hit Points based on the character's level. There is currently no way for a familiar in Extras to inherit that bonus from the character, so the player has to recalculate and manually edit the familiar's HP every time the character gains a level.

Battle Familiar is even harder to represent. Its statistics depend on information belonging to the caster, including the character's spell attack modifier and the level of the spell used. There is no Battle Familiar companion generated on the character sheet, and creating a homebrew monster does not really solve the problem because its statistics are static rather than linked to the character.

There is also no Temporary Hit Points field for familiars or other creatures in Extras, despite Battle Familiar granting Temporary Hit Points that need to be tracked separately from the familiar's normal HP.

Ideally, I would love to see a proper companion system in which a familiar or companion can:

• receive bonuses and modifications from the owning character's feats and features;
• use values such as character level, proficiency bonus, ability modifiers and spell attack modifier in its statistics;
• scale statistics according to the level of a spell used to summon or transform it;
• track Temporary Hit Points separately from normal Hit Points;
• have attacks and other actions correctly calculated and rollable from the character sheet;
• support temporary transformations such as Battle Familiar without requiring the player to create and maintain separate homebrew monsters.

Even a more limited implementation specifically supporting the familiar options introduced in Arcana Unleashed would be a major improvement.

At the moment, I can add my familiar to Extras, but I still have to maintain several of its most important statistics manually outside D&D Beyond. For a character option that is now directly supported by an official D&D Beyond sourcebook, it would be very useful if the digital character sheet could actually represent those mechanics.

I hope companion support can be prioritized for the character sheet, particularly now that official material is increasingly making use of familiars and similar companion mechanics.

 As of this date, scaling stat blocks cannot be supported due to the janky coding inherited from the previous 2 owners.

HOWEVER:

This IS one of the things that is part of the site revamps coming in the next 3-7 months.

Please remember to check the official roadmap on DND Beyond.