Ok, so I have a bit of a problem as a DM. I have this awesome idea to help add more 'personality' to one of my player's characters. Basically he is a level 5 Pact of the Blade Warlock and he really loves dragons, and so do I. I know he would love a pseudodragon, but I don't want it to just be an accessory, I want it to be necessary for the character. While I was thinking about this I thought of a crazy/awesome idea. What if his character was blind and he had to use the special trait that allows him to see through the pseudodragon's eyes to be able to see? I thought this was pretty cool, so I talked to the player in private and he kind of liked it, but he also brought up a few issues. First of all if the pseudodragon died (which it most certainly would if it was caught in an AoE effect) he would be blind and without access to healing which would just be a huge inconvenience. Second of all he had just taken a feature that would allow him to see in any darkness, magical or otherwise, and this would completely negate that. The second one is easy, I can just say that the skill caries over to the Pseudodragon. The first one presents a bit of a problem though, and I have thought on it for a while now. I do not want to just handwave it, I want to have a proper mechanics based solution. everywhere else I have looked has not provided any useful advice and so I wound up here. Any Ideas?
The blind thing is an overdone trope, I'd recommend not doing that. It's rarely done well and is mostly just a headache for the DM.
Give the pseudodragon a personality, mention what it does, how it acts, how it behaves. Like a pet, they can show lots of personality and create many memorable and funny moments -- Youtube is flooded with funny pet videos showing the hilarious ways some pets demonstrate their personality or how they interact with the world. This will make the pseudodragon more than an accessory.
The pseudodragon also grants scouting options and magic resistance. So, there's already some huge mechanical benefits to having the pseudodragon. So with that and RP, the player gets a familiar, gets lots of benefit, and is far, far more than some mere accessory. And you don't have to give players a disability or adjust encounters (as you've now made things more difficult for them) and all is nice, simple and RAW.
I genuinely fail to understand why you need to blind the player. Even with the pseudodragon benefits and sense sharing - you're just making things harder for them. Just give them the familiar and be done with it - all the benefits, no drawbacks, extra fun, more RP options and more.
Just remember to also give your other players something, so you keep things fair.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Pets, familiars, and followers are notoriously squishy. That is probably why WotC eventually added sidekick rules as a way to make them more durable and more useful as the party leveled up.
Alternatively, you can homebrew/house rule. Like give the familiar evasion, an AC boost (like PC's proficiency bonus), maybe an equivalent save boost, and transfer any damage it takes to PC or give it an extra hit die+con equal to the PC's level. Stuff like that.
Generally, items that are worn or carried are exempt from 5E's usual rules. Most spells that affect items specifically leave out items that are held; and when's the last time your DM made you roll to see what contents of your backpack were destroyed by a Fireball? In other words - if the pet is passively riding in a backpack, they can be left out of damage considerations. If they're flying around contributing to combat, then they're fair game.
Just don't do this. There have been volumes written about creating chars with disabilities and then creating circumstances to overcome those disabilities. The vast majority of the time, this ends is clunky mechanics. Like in this case. Does the Hexblade now get all the benefits of having said Pseudodragon, including Magic Resistance? And yes, unless you buff the HP to some ridiculous level, 7 HP goes bye bye.
+1 to don’t do the blind thing. It ends up meaningless, and not for nothing, the player seems lukewarm on it. Maybe use it for an NPC.
If the players wants the pseudo dragon as flavor, I’d let them do what they like with it, and treat it like a piece of gear; no one attacks it, it doesn’t take damage, it’s just a prop. If they want to use it to help them with challenges — combat or non-combat — then it’s fair game as a target. Kind of an out of character deal you make with the player.
If the player wants a little dragon, you could just give them a tiny dragon. It exists because magic - a gift from / spy for their patron. It rides in their pack or on their shoulders and is counted as undamagable equipment. It never flies on its own, its wings are too weak and it is scared. To represent its dragon breath, perhaps grant the player a new elemental cantrip and when they cast that it is presented as the little dragon firing it from a shoulder.
No need for the actual stat block of a pseudo-dragon, nor any stat block at all. No balance problems beyond one cantrip.
If the player wants a little dragon, you could just give them a tiny dragon. It exists because magic - a gift from / spy for their patron. It rides in their pack or on their shoulders and is counted as undamagable equipment. It never flies on its own, its wings are too weak and it is scared. To represent its dragon breath, perhaps grant the player a new elemental cantrip and when they cast that it is presented as the little dragon firing it from a shoulder.
No need for the actual stat block of a pseudo-dragon, nor any stat block at all. No balance problems beyond one cantrip.
Ummm...because a player wants something, the DM should give it to them?????? But besides this, the DM was the one pushing it on the player, not the other way around.
If the player wants a little dragon, you could just give them a tiny dragon.
Ummm...because a player wants something, the DM should give it to them?????? But besides this, the DM was the one pushing it on the player, not the other way around.
I'm not sure what about my suggestion requires a 3-M ummm, nor six incredulous question marks. If we believe the OP, both DM and player love dragons or something. If the player wants a thing, and the DM wants to give a thing, then there are only a few reasons not to give a thing. The big two would be making other players feel ignored, and messing with balance too much. Thus my suggestion to tone down the gift to a minimal-mechanic role-play thing. If it makes the game more fun for the people involved, then good.
I have not seen this mentioned, so, why doesn't the player switch to Pact Of The Chain? It gives them exactly what they want. Few Pact of the Blade Warlocks are anything other than Hexblades, who are powerful enough. Why give them all the benefits of the Chain without cost?
If the player wants a pseudodragon as a familiar, they should have been a pact of the chain warlock. If you want to give them a pet pseudodragon that is great. The player should be aware that having the creature with them will bring it into danger. You (as the DM and controller of the creature) can always have it run and hide when combat starts so it is not ever in direct danger unless you specifically want to be targeting it.
You can also utilize the new "Dark Gifts" thing from Ravenloft and give them "The Watchers" gift, which has its own mechanics so that you don't have to come up with something new.
Ok, so I have a bit of a problem as a DM. I have this awesome idea to help add more 'personality' to one of my player's characters. Basically he is a level 5 Pact of the Blade Warlock and he really loves dragons, and so do I. I know he would love a pseudodragon, but I don't want it to just be an accessory, I want it to be necessary for the character. While I was thinking about this I thought of a crazy/awesome idea. What if his character was blind and he had to use the special trait that allows him to see through the pseudodragon's eyes to be able to see? I thought this was pretty cool, so I talked to the player in private and he kind of liked it, but he also brought up a few issues. First of all if the pseudodragon died (which it most certainly would if it was caught in an AoE effect) he would be blind and without access to healing which would just be a huge inconvenience. Second of all he had just taken a feature that would allow him to see in any darkness, magical or otherwise, and this would completely negate that. The second one is easy, I can just say that the skill caries over to the Pseudodragon. The first one presents a bit of a problem though, and I have thought on it for a while now. I do not want to just handwave it, I want to have a proper mechanics based solution. everywhere else I have looked has not provided any useful advice and so I wound up here. Any Ideas?
The blind thing is an overdone trope, I'd recommend not doing that. It's rarely done well and is mostly just a headache for the DM.
Give the pseudodragon a personality, mention what it does, how it acts, how it behaves. Like a pet, they can show lots of personality and create many memorable and funny moments -- Youtube is flooded with funny pet videos showing the hilarious ways some pets demonstrate their personality or how they interact with the world. This will make the pseudodragon more than an accessory.
The pseudodragon also grants scouting options and magic resistance. So, there's already some huge mechanical benefits to having the pseudodragon. So with that and RP, the player gets a familiar, gets lots of benefit, and is far, far more than some mere accessory. And you don't have to give players a disability or adjust encounters (as you've now made things more difficult for them) and all is nice, simple and RAW.
I genuinely fail to understand why you need to blind the player. Even with the pseudodragon benefits and sense sharing - you're just making things harder for them. Just give them the familiar and be done with it - all the benefits, no drawbacks, extra fun, more RP options and more.
Just remember to also give your other players something, so you keep things fair.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Pets, familiars, and followers are notoriously squishy. That is probably why WotC eventually added sidekick rules as a way to make them more durable and more useful as the party leveled up.
Alternatively, you can homebrew/house rule. Like give the familiar evasion, an AC boost (like PC's proficiency bonus), maybe an equivalent save boost, and transfer any damage it takes to PC or give it an extra hit die+con equal to the PC's level. Stuff like that.
Generally, items that are worn or carried are exempt from 5E's usual rules. Most spells that affect items specifically leave out items that are held; and when's the last time your DM made you roll to see what contents of your backpack were destroyed by a Fireball? In other words - if the pet is passively riding in a backpack, they can be left out of damage considerations. If they're flying around contributing to combat, then they're fair game.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
Just don't do this. There have been volumes written about creating chars with disabilities and then creating circumstances to overcome those disabilities. The vast majority of the time, this ends is clunky mechanics. Like in this case. Does the Hexblade now get all the benefits of having said Pseudodragon, including Magic Resistance? And yes, unless you buff the HP to some ridiculous level, 7 HP goes bye bye.
Also, being blind is not "cool".
+1 to don’t do the blind thing. It ends up meaningless, and not for nothing, the player seems lukewarm on it. Maybe use it for an NPC.
If the players wants the pseudo dragon as flavor, I’d let them do what they like with it, and treat it like a piece of gear; no one attacks it, it doesn’t take damage, it’s just a prop. If they want to use it to help them with challenges — combat or non-combat — then it’s fair game as a target. Kind of an out of character deal you make with the player.
If the player wants a little dragon, you could just give them a tiny dragon. It exists because magic - a gift from / spy for their patron. It rides in their pack or on their shoulders and is counted as undamagable equipment. It never flies on its own, its wings are too weak and it is scared. To represent its dragon breath, perhaps grant the player a new elemental cantrip and when they cast that it is presented as the little dragon firing it from a shoulder.
No need for the actual stat block of a pseudo-dragon, nor any stat block at all. No balance problems beyond one cantrip.
Thank you for the advice, This does make sense. Ill probably use it for an NPC, but ill find some other way to give them the pseudodragon.
Sidekick rules
Or use the same principle as the new Summoning spells where the Summonded creatures scale with the summoner/spell level.
In our campaign the DM used the Sidekick rules for things like my Dark Knight Steed and for other stuffs.
Now my Warhorse has 79 hp (we are lvl 13)
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
Ummm...because a player wants something, the DM should give it to them?????? But besides this, the DM was the one pushing it on the player, not the other way around.
I'm not sure what about my suggestion requires a 3-M ummm, nor six incredulous question marks. If we believe the OP, both DM and player love dragons or something. If the player wants a thing, and the DM wants to give a thing, then there are only a few reasons not to give a thing. The big two would be making other players feel ignored, and messing with balance too much. Thus my suggestion to tone down the gift to a minimal-mechanic role-play thing. If it makes the game more fun for the people involved, then good.
I have not seen this mentioned, so, why doesn't the player switch to Pact Of The Chain? It gives them exactly what they want. Few Pact of the Blade Warlocks are anything other than Hexblades, who are powerful enough. Why give them all the benefits of the Chain without cost?
<Insert clever signature here>
If the player wants a pseudodragon as a familiar, they should have been a pact of the chain warlock. If you want to give them a pet pseudodragon that is great. The player should be aware that having the creature with them will bring it into danger. You (as the DM and controller of the creature) can always have it run and hide when combat starts so it is not ever in direct danger unless you specifically want to be targeting it.
You can also utilize the new "Dark Gifts" thing from Ravenloft and give them "The Watchers" gift, which has its own mechanics so that you don't have to come up with something new.
Buyers Guide for D&D Beyond - Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You - How/What is Toggled Content?
Everything you need to know about Homebrew - Homebrew FAQ - Digital Book on D&D Beyond Vs Physical Books
Can't find the content you are supposed to have access to? Read this FAQ.
"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."