Upon entering a new town, I asked my players ‘What do you want to do while you’re here?’ One player suggested that he wanted to see if there was anywhere that he could possibly purchase some sort of animal companion. At the time I was unsure about which creatures I could have for sale there and so I said that after asking around for a short while, he found that there was no shop in this town that sells animals, but there used to be one in the next town, they weren’t sure if it was still open.
My party members are all level 3, almost level 4. Does anyone have a suggestion on what sort of animals could be for sale? All creatures that are CR 0 look like they’d be in a store like that but I can see them all being killed off within the first day of having them. The CR 1/4 animals like the giant lizard, giant frog or blink dog look like they could work pretty well but I don’t want them to be OP at this stage in the game. Thanks.
Well, do they want them for flavour, role playing or just as extra meat shields / means of attack in combat? Of course, all stuff will require animal handling skill rolls.
Useful animal companions could be: > guard dogs (will take over watches during the night in the wilderness, perhaps roll perception rolls on advantage) > hunting dogs (that will give them advatage on Survival rolls when hunting small game, like rabbits) > falcons (same as hunting dogs, but hunts birds like doves) > parrots / other singing birds (might give you advantage on performance checks) > special beasts of burden (for traversing the wilderness ahead), like lamas for mountain passes not suited for horses, mountain goats, if you want to go more exotic.
Currently Critical Role campaign two shows you how a tease for Laura and Marisha can go terribly wrong. They left Nugget (the blink dog) with Jester's mom (that was at least somewhat planned), the owl was forgotten and abandoned in Port Dumali by Marisha and they have probably drowned the weasel last week. (not to mention several horses that they left behind or that got eaten by giant bugs etc.)
I'd point out that a draft horse is CR 1/4, and I don't think it'd be OP for a party of level 3-4 characters to have a draft horse. So worry less about the CR rating and more about what logically makes sense in the world you've created. Ask yourself these questions when considering whether to make a creature available as a pet:
How rare is the animal/monster?
How intelligent is the animal/monster?
How dangerous is the animal/monster?
Generally speaking, the rarer, the more intelligent, and/or the more dangerous a creature is, the less likely it would be domesticated.
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
If they want pets that will participate in combat I'd recommend reminding them you would control the pet in combat (same as rules for summoned creatures), not the player, (though player can issue commands).
Pets that are trained for combat should be much more expensive that a pet not trained for combat.
Pets that are rare, exotic, or magical in nature should be much more expensive than common pets.
And those two factors should add up to make something like a combat trained blink dog VERY expensive.
Non combat trained pets in combat should run, panic, be unpredictable, and be hard to control. Disadvantage on animal handling checks, and maybe even treating the pet as if under a confusion spell would be appropriate, unless the player has the animal hide or run at the start.
I run a game for my granddaughters, who absolutely adore their pets. Since the Beast Master Ranger has an upper limit of Medium and CR 1/4, I have set the same standard for their choices while heavily favoring Small or Tiny beasts. It is easy to make exotic pets by describing bizarre selections like a purple & pink striped tabby cat or a small dog with horns and a barbed tail. The regular stat block works in both cases. My girls' decisions are motivated by role-playing and immersion, so we "house ruled" that the pets always keep a safe standoff distance during hostile encounters.
The best thing is to have an out-of-game discussion with your players to determine why they want a pet and what they intend to do. You don't want to diminish the value of a Ranger's beast companion or Wizard's familiar by letting everyone have that option. If that's what they're after, then they need to multi-class. Once you understand the motivation, it will be easier to give them appropriate options that everyone can enjoy. And it help you prevent breaking your game.
It's up to the DM. One of my players also wanted a pet companion so we worked it up in her story where the animal made sense. She's super happy with her purple baby wyvern.
So the options are unlimited when people work together.
The first campaign I ever played we had a mountain lion that was causing trouble for the town folk by eating live stock. None of the people in the party wanted to kill it so we decided (with the agreement of the DM) that we'd befriend the cat. I was playing a druid, but the DM was willing to let me use Animal Friendship on the lion. To permanently befriend the lion so it could become my companion, the DM required that I cast it for three days (giving the cat three chances to save). The DM allowed me to use the mountain lion in combat and the DM allowed us to find blacksmith that helped craft armor for the cat (we named Bast). We were playing Temple of Elemental Evil and left the cat outside the temple telling her we would be back but that it might take a while
Has anyone considered the train a pet concept from Pathfinder. Where as you can have a pet but it's like a watered down animal companion. You would have to take extra time and teach tricks to your pet dependent on animal handling checks.
That way any character could potentially have a pet that would attack on command as long as you passed an animal handling check during combat. Say dc 10-15 dependent.
For instance I'm creating a fighter(town guard) that has a pet mastiff for a guard dog. Haven't worked out the full details with my dm yet. But my idea is that I can command my dog to take over night watch or help me sniff out clues or just perform random tricks for entertainment purposes.
Training a pet should be implied. My party kept a kruthik youngling alive after cleaning out the rest of its hive. They neglected it for the first week or so making it super depressed and reclusive. Increasing the DC of the training skill challenge. A Skill Challenge that was broken up in multiple parts. Where they needed to partake regularly in it over the period of weeks. Gradually turning the kruthik into their pet and having it evolve like a Pokemon along the way. When the party hits lvl 12-14 the kruthik can be max CR Hive Lord then. Keeping the CR of the pet in similar line to what a Moon Druid could Wildshape into for balance sake.
Since the Dwarf Barbarian stopped caring for the kruthik he wanted... The ranger decided to take custody and teach the kruthik. At least until it is old enough to take care of itself. Or however things develop as we play. The ranger has, through skill challenges, taught the kruthik two basic commands. "Burrow" to get away from danger and "Come" to heel. Not a lot of success in the "attack" department yet hehe.
The cleric wanted to buy a dog. But in the valley they're in a tropical climate is in play. Meaning only certain animals can be found there. Eventually got a dog. He too is spending time along the journey to train the dog. Had some medium armor with pockets made. Four pockets, each holding a healing potion. On command the dog can walk to an injured party member to bring a healing potion. Other commands are still being trained.
However as DM it's also a good idea to add a Feat of Animal Handling. So that the PC can take it eventually and thus give simple commands to the pet in combat. It is pretty much the same thing the ranger has, but you open up the possible use to everyone. If the player wants to use the pet in combat before the feat is taken... You can let that PC make an Animal Handling check. On a success the pet will do a basic command. On a fail it won't do a thing.
check the classes. for example, a rouge may have a pet mouse or something to snatch a coin or something. a fiend warlock may have an imp or something as a gift from its patron for doing good work.
You can go normal animal. Or you could give them something outlandish, but still in the realm of possibility. Like a rust monster. But that's just me. Dont give them something as broken as a tarrasque
My characters went into a pet shop and bought a puppy and a kitten. They have to pay for their food. Apart from that, it's pretty much just something that rides around in their backpack...until they day when I need to railroad them into a cave or lair or haunted house, and Kitty decides to run off into it ...
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Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) WoodElf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2 Last Tree StandingTabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1 Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
My characters went into a pet shop and bought a puppy and a kitten. They have to pay for their food. Apart from that, it's pretty much just something that rides around in their backpack...until they day when I need to railroad them into a cave or lair or haunted house, and Kitty decides to run off into it ...
Hasn't happened yet, it's just a potentially useful tool for the future. (But I can promise, Kitty will survive.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) WoodElf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2 Last Tree StandingTabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1 Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
not meaning to hijack this thread but it's relevant so here goes.
i'm a first-time DM and had a couple general questions about familiars. for one, how much "control" does the player have when giving commands to the familiar? like, could they drive it like a car, in and out of crevices or hovering to a height of exactly 100 feet, for example?
my gut instinct is to not allow that, make the player say it's command to the creature, and then i would determine how the creature responds/interprets that command. for example, the player had said, fly over there but not all the way down, and just circle around (it's an owl). so i rolled a d20 using intelligence to see if the creature would go rogue or follow commands relatively simply. terrible roll so i made it end up swooping low to the ground to catch a mouse. at which point it came back into range.
it's my first time DMing and having total control over it like a car seems wrong to me somehow. how do you play the familiar rulings? i am looking for RAW and RAI and some different ideas. i want to give the player what they want but i want to avoid over-playing/over-describing it. it's not really a problem right now - the players i have seem great - but it might in the future of the campaign.
The player has a psychic connection to a familiar, and if they wish they can turn off their senses to see and hear through the familiar itself, and to take more direct control.In those situations it makes sense for them to be able to take full control of their familiar. If they're not doing that I think it makes sense for their familiar to be basically under the DMs control, but it obeys all commands without question. If they choose to use their familiar in combat, however, it's generally easier just to let the player take full control of it, rahter than have to explain everything they want it to do to the DM.
Upon entering a new town, I asked my players ‘What do you want to do while you’re here?’ One player suggested that he wanted to see if there was anywhere that he could possibly purchase some sort of animal companion. At the time I was unsure about which creatures I could have for sale there and so I said that after asking around for a short while, he found that there was no shop in this town that sells animals, but there used to be one in the next town, they weren’t sure if it was still open.
My party members are all level 3, almost level 4. Does anyone have a suggestion on what sort of animals could be for sale? All creatures that are CR 0 look like they’d be in a store like that but I can see them all being killed off within the first day of having them. The CR 1/4 animals like the giant lizard, giant frog or blink dog look like they could work pretty well but I don’t want them to be OP at this stage in the game. Thanks.
Dungeon Master - PBP Lost Mine Of Phandelver (Closed)
Dungeon Master - PBP Out Of The Abyss (Closed)
Dungeon Master - The Chronicles Of Dantia (Home Game)
Forbi & Dorbi - Deep Gnome - Fighter/Rogue - PBP Into The Fire
Vosdred Ironeye - Hill Dwarf - Fighter/Wizard - PBP Game of the Last Chance
Well, do they want them for flavour, role playing or just as extra meat shields / means of attack in combat? Of course, all stuff will require animal handling skill rolls.
Useful animal companions could be:
> guard dogs (will take over watches during the night in the wilderness, perhaps roll perception rolls on advantage)
> hunting dogs (that will give them advatage on Survival rolls when hunting small game, like rabbits)
> falcons (same as hunting dogs, but hunts birds like doves)
> parrots / other singing birds (might give you advantage on performance checks)
> special beasts of burden (for traversing the wilderness ahead), like lamas for mountain passes not suited for horses, mountain goats, if you want to go more exotic.
Currently Critical Role campaign two shows you how a tease for Laura and Marisha can go terribly wrong. They left Nugget (the blink dog) with Jester's mom (that was at least somewhat planned), the owl was forgotten and abandoned in Port Dumali by Marisha and they have probably drowned the weasel last week. (not to mention several horses that they left behind or that got eaten by giant bugs etc.)
I'd point out that a draft horse is CR 1/4, and I don't think it'd be OP for a party of level 3-4 characters to have a draft horse. So worry less about the CR rating and more about what logically makes sense in the world you've created. Ask yourself these questions when considering whether to make a creature available as a pet:
Generally speaking, the rarer, the more intelligent, and/or the more dangerous a creature is, the less likely it would be domesticated.
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
If they want pets that will participate in combat I'd recommend reminding them you would control the pet in combat (same as rules for summoned creatures), not the player, (though player can issue commands).
Pets that are trained for combat should be much more expensive that a pet not trained for combat.
Pets that are rare, exotic, or magical in nature should be much more expensive than common pets.
And those two factors should add up to make something like a combat trained blink dog VERY expensive.
Non combat trained pets in combat should run, panic, be unpredictable, and be hard to control. Disadvantage on animal handling checks, and maybe even treating the pet as if under a confusion spell would be appropriate, unless the player has the animal hide or run at the start.
I run a game for my granddaughters, who absolutely adore their pets. Since the Beast Master Ranger has an upper limit of Medium and CR 1/4, I have set the same standard for their choices while heavily favoring Small or Tiny beasts. It is easy to make exotic pets by describing bizarre selections like a purple & pink striped tabby cat or a small dog with horns and a barbed tail. The regular stat block works in both cases. My girls' decisions are motivated by role-playing and immersion, so we "house ruled" that the pets always keep a safe standoff distance during hostile encounters.
The best thing is to have an out-of-game discussion with your players to determine why they want a pet and what they intend to do. You don't want to diminish the value of a Ranger's beast companion or Wizard's familiar by letting everyone have that option. If that's what they're after, then they need to multi-class. Once you understand the motivation, it will be easier to give them appropriate options that everyone can enjoy. And it help you prevent breaking your game.
But what types of pets can i have?
VD
It's up to the DM. One of my players also wanted a pet companion so we worked it up in her story where the animal made sense. She's super happy with her purple baby wyvern.
So the options are unlimited when people work together.
Ok. Thanks!
VD
The first campaign I ever played we had a mountain lion that was causing trouble for the town folk by eating live stock. None of the people in the party wanted to kill it so we decided (with the agreement of the DM) that we'd befriend the cat. I was playing a druid, but the DM was willing to let me use Animal Friendship on the lion. To permanently befriend the lion so it could become my companion, the DM required that I cast it for three days (giving the cat three chances to save). The DM allowed me to use the mountain lion in combat and the DM allowed us to find blacksmith that helped craft armor for the cat (we named Bast). We were playing Temple of Elemental Evil and left the cat outside the temple telling her we would be back but that it might take a while
Has anyone considered the train a pet concept from Pathfinder. Where as you can have a pet but it's like a watered down animal companion. You would have to take extra time and teach tricks to your pet dependent on animal handling checks.
That way any character could potentially have a pet that would attack on command as long as you passed an animal handling check during combat. Say dc 10-15 dependent.
For instance I'm creating a fighter(town guard) that has a pet mastiff for a guard dog. Haven't worked out the full details with my dm yet. But my idea is that I can command my dog to take over night watch or help me sniff out clues or just perform random tricks for entertainment purposes.
Training a pet should be implied. My party kept a kruthik youngling alive after cleaning out the rest of its hive. They neglected it for the first week or so making it super depressed and reclusive. Increasing the DC of the training skill challenge. A Skill Challenge that was broken up in multiple parts. Where they needed to partake regularly in it over the period of weeks. Gradually turning the kruthik into their pet and having it evolve like a Pokemon along the way. When the party hits lvl 12-14 the kruthik can be max CR Hive Lord then. Keeping the CR of the pet in similar line to what a Moon Druid could Wildshape into for balance sake.
Since the Dwarf Barbarian stopped caring for the kruthik he wanted... The ranger decided to take custody and teach the kruthik. At least until it is old enough to take care of itself. Or however things develop as we play. The ranger has, through skill challenges, taught the kruthik two basic commands. "Burrow" to get away from danger and "Come" to heel. Not a lot of success in the "attack" department yet hehe.
The cleric wanted to buy a dog. But in the valley they're in a tropical climate is in play. Meaning only certain animals can be found there. Eventually got a dog. He too is spending time along the journey to train the dog. Had some medium armor with pockets made. Four pockets, each holding a healing potion. On command the dog can walk to an injured party member to bring a healing potion. Other commands are still being trained.
However as DM it's also a good idea to add a Feat of Animal Handling. So that the PC can take it eventually and thus give simple commands to the pet in combat. It is pretty much the same thing the ranger has, but you open up the possible use to everyone. If the player wants to use the pet in combat before the feat is taken... You can let that PC make an Animal Handling check. On a success the pet will do a basic command. On a fail it won't do a thing.
check the classes. for example, a rouge may have a pet mouse or something to snatch a coin or something. a fiend warlock may have an imp or something as a gift from its patron for doing good work.
You can go normal animal. Or you could give them something outlandish, but still in the realm of possibility. Like a rust monster. But that's just me. Dont give them something as broken as a tarrasque
My characters went into a pet shop and bought a puppy and a kitten. They have to pay for their food. Apart from that, it's pretty much just something that rides around in their backpack...until they day when I need to railroad them into a cave or lair or haunted house, and Kitty decides to run off into it ...
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) Wood Elf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2
Last Tree Standing Tabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1
Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive
Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth
Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Did the kitty survive?
Hasn't happened yet, it's just a potentially useful tool for the future. (But I can promise, Kitty will survive.)
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) Wood Elf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2
Last Tree Standing Tabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1
Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive
Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth
Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Phew... Lets Hope so.
hi all,
not meaning to hijack this thread but it's relevant so here goes.
i'm a first-time DM and had a couple general questions about familiars. for one, how much "control" does the player have when giving commands to the familiar? like, could they drive it like a car, in and out of crevices or hovering to a height of exactly 100 feet, for example?
my gut instinct is to not allow that, make the player say it's command to the creature, and then i would determine how the creature responds/interprets that command. for example, the player had said, fly over there but not all the way down, and just circle around (it's an owl). so i rolled a d20 using intelligence to see if the creature would go rogue or follow commands relatively simply. terrible roll so i made it end up swooping low to the ground to catch a mouse. at which point it came back into range.
it's my first time DMing and having total control over it like a car seems wrong to me somehow. how do you play the familiar rulings? i am looking for RAW and RAI and some different ideas. i want to give the player what they want but i want to avoid over-playing/over-describing it. it's not really a problem right now - the players i have seem great - but it might in the future of the campaign.
thanks in advance!
DM - And In The Darkness, Rot: The Sunless Citadel
DM - Our Little Lives Kept In Equipoise: Curse of Strahd
DM - Misprize Thou Not These Shadows That Belong: The Lost Mines of Phandelver
PC - Azzure - Tyranny of Dragons
The player has a psychic connection to a familiar, and if they wish they can turn off their senses to see and hear through the familiar itself, and to take more direct control.In those situations it makes sense for them to be able to take full control of their familiar. If they're not doing that I think it makes sense for their familiar to be basically under the DMs control, but it obeys all commands without question. If they choose to use their familiar in combat, however, it's generally easier just to let the player take full control of it, rahter than have to explain everything they want it to do to the DM.
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