The wizard in one of my old games had a familiar that was a tiny earth elemental that looked like a pug made of stone. Its name was "Rock"; he used to say, "This is my pet, Rock."
the first time I played (like 2.5 years ago) 5 sessions in I asked if I could tame a squirrel so a few checks later I got a squirrel. He wasn't buddy buddy with me just "you got food so I'll tag along for a while." it didn't do anything in combat(except one time) but every night or so when we would camp out near a Rockwall or something it would do a shadow puppet show. It was so talented at that skill that one time when we were in an old castle Chuck saved me. Chuck threw a shadow puppet of a dragon on the wall so the goblins could see it. bought me enough time to dig myself out of the trap I triggered. It didn't make a ton of sense, but that was the most talented squirrel I ever knew. I loved that squirrel
I'm guessing they stopped playing that campaign. So that could account for the past tense. Or as squirrels don't live all that long it could've died of old age.
Had a PC mage once whose familiar was a dog, he had the upgrade familiar feat and all that... and I think dog doesn't show up on any mage familiar list even with the feat, but heck, still less OP than anything else on those lists so I was ok with it. And no one argued because essentially it was a free alarm spell, every night, no need to set it or be reminded. (though the priestess was annoyed her slippers kept getting mauled.) In time that mutt became everyone's animal companion. The druid was doing animal growth, claws.. Mage and fighter were making magic armor for it, you get the picture. Even the rogue warmed up to him. Especially when that halfling got dragged out of his barrel moments before the entire house came crashing down. So now the halfling had a riding dog. With rogue with a decent bow on it's back and a backstab, the two would charge a target, dog grab it's arm and thief got behind and stabbed the target... it got to the point I had to consider the animal as a full member for encounter ECL reasons just to keep it fair. That mutt became a beast, seriously. Spiked armor equivalent to the paladin, claws and teeth as strong as any adamantine sword, damage reduction, fire immunity.. (I feel sorry for the fire salamander that tried to bite it...), and a collar that would on command make all of that gear disappear and reappear so they could go into town without someone calling it a war dog. Saddle bags of holding, dog sized.. I made the comment once that they're treating it like a test subject. That only made things worse. The barbarian loved to drink, but the priestess trained it to growl at him every time he lifted a mug, so that became an on-running joke, him trying to sneak a drink with the dog watching him... On top of all that, mirror image... it was just nuts. I think the party had more fun making all kinds of beastly combos... it had flying once, that was a hoot. I had set up an encounter with winged cats once just so they can watch that dog fly through the air trying to catch them. (BTW, the elves were NOT happy with them. :) )
My ranger's entire village was destroyed by a manticore. Years later the party encountered the manticore and my character slayed it. As my character was collecting the hide and wings (with a Nat 20 survival roll) the rest of the party discovered a manticore pup. That manticore was a mother to this newborn manticore. Now me staying in character wanted to kill it immediately before it could kill anyone. But the cleric rolled knowledge nature and found out that not all manticores are evil. They can be raised to eat animals instead of people. There was a huge argument amongst the characters in the party on the moral issues here. We ended up taking the pup to a church where it could be raised not to kill people. There the pup met with my character for the first time and recognized it's mother's sent on him. He saw that this pup was all alone in the world and that was something he could relate to.... and that was when an accidental hunters bond was formed.
The fighter in my group had a horse named Chocobo, it held the party together after accidentally killing the first 5 boss-creatures my group encountered due to amazingly lucky throws, we dubbed him Chocobo the dread-mare (the fighter was in denial that it wasn't a stallion) ... when Chocobo died they dubbed their group the Legacy of Chocobo, so much had that mare meant to the party... "The dread-mare that shall be mounted by the world! the God-steed!" was its honour-cry
The take-home message here: the animal companion isn't just a game mechanic - it's a party member in its own right (I still say this would've been a perfect opportunity to introduce us to the dogs)
My group and I ended up on a quest to resurrect my chicken companion, Magic Pullet, when she took one too many eldritch blasts to the face. Cue a bizarre multi-session excursion into the underdark to appease a demon, and a genuinely touching reunion when my now undead chicken still recognised me even though along the way I'd been killed and reincarnated as a totally different species.
Yeah...most people I've ever played with would see to that guy's character meeting a very horrible and untimely death...actually that happened once. Everyone in the group hated his character so much they let him take a ton of damage and then the medic pulled an angel of death. When he said "You guys did all that to kill my guy off, do you assholes have any idea how long it took me to build this guy up?!" The response was ether "Like I give a shit" or "Karma's a bitch", naturally they were all tried in court marshal but since in game at least they covered it up pretty good...they got away with it and that guy left the group.
If their characters hated his character and they didn't overwrite their character's personality to suite their whims then that's fine. If they took over their character's mind and made them all murderlize his character as such, that's a band of bad roleplayers.
Well unfortunately he forgot the golden rule of playing an evil character in a group, the character has to be invaluable to said group...it doesn't hurt if that character is also a classy evil character such as Christopher Lee's portrayal of Count Dooku or Dracula. Hence why my evil characters are never murdered by the group.
I usually play neutral evil characters, and I've never had one plot to kill one of my characters. I've had one of my benevolently nice characters suspected of plotting to kill the rest of the group. She proceeded to dodge their plot and trap them in her own; of which regrettably two of them had to be killed to get the message through. I do however disagree with a lot of this channels instructions on how a evil character in a good party must be played.
Well much like the Codex Astarties I view this channel as a decent set of guidelines not gospel, or to put it in the words of Capt Titus...the only Ultramarine I've ever liked "The Codex teaches us much Leandross, but there ARE benefits to thinking for yourself". Generally this guy speaks from years of experience which means there is much wisdom in what he says but even he admits to his biases.
I just got an animal companion. I'm playing a rather aloof gnome druid and while searching for missing informant, I heard a rustling in the nearby brush. I stealthed and rolled amazingly. I described myself as disguising myself perfectly as an acorn. From the bushes come a great stag. He strode over to me and started nibbling on my face. His name is Freyr and we're best friends :')
My next character is a Wizard with a familiar, a blood hawk. The village my character comes from feared mages, so upon discovering his dabbling in magic, the village had him blinded. When he meets the other PC's later in his life he has such a close and magical bond with his familiar he now 'sees' entirely through its eyes. A major weekness if its "killed" in a combat, at least until I resummon but I hope should make for some interesting character interactions and moments.
I'm a Tengu druid who has a giant raven animal companion who is smart enough to talk. My druid is frightfully shy but the raven is loud and sassy, so it's a really fun way to get myself to roll play. I spend the majority of a my spells in combat to buff him up and protect him.
I once had a player who had a pet hamster, like the guy in Baldur's Gate - in a tough situation similar to what You described at the end of this video, the hamster fell out of his pocket. The guy LITERALLY grabbed the party's mage, picked him up, THREW HIM at the enemy pursuit, picked up a hamster and ran away. Does that also count as sacrifice for the animal companion? Mage survived by the way, and was not very appreciative of his role in saving Private Ham. Not at all.
The issue i have is my Gm doesnt consider anything that i say my pet does (when it literally never affects combat or anything). Axccording to my Gm the only time it does something is when he says it does something. Its my pet in fact its a tiny little slime creature in a bottle, its not like im using to be OP. I just want to acknowledge it exists and have MY personal character interact with it at times. ITs kind of frustrating, the thing is my little yellow slime (named Boogy) totally fits my character who is a half ogre alchemist. What would anyone suggest? Find a cooler Gm? That seems like a lame move. I bring Boogy up constantly but when i say like "I feed it a little cricket" the Gm says thats not important or that doesnt matter. Sometimes though he allows it, but most the time, unless the Gm says my pet does this or that, then nobody cares. He basically has encouraged the entire party to not give two shits about my little pet. It might seem dumb but its Important to me.
What do your fellow PCs players say? I think you should have a talk with them. Could be you are not the only one in the group who feel the GM is limiting role play too much. If no one is, then you should not only find a cooler GM, but an entire cooler group!
When I was playing a Kender Ranger, I taught my Dire Badger how to dance; so whenever we went into a City/Town/Village/Settlement, I would strum on my guitar, and sing a little ditty, and my Badger would dance along. It was adorable, and would land me a few silver pieces, in which I would by my Badger some treats.
The first time I ever had an animal companion, I was playing AD&D 2nd edition, as a Ranger, with a White Tiger follower (I was 10, and thought it was cool), and if it were because of some decision I had made, and it was a noble death, I would have been upset but eventually okay with my followers dying, but a jealous other player, and I think a DM that was sick of it, decided that while I was in the bathroom, they would have my tiger test the floor ahead for traps and die... Needless to say, I was furious that not only had another player decided this for MY animal companion, but that the DM had allowed it to stand, rather than doing a quality role play of why the tiger had to go.
(9:50) Devastatingly, I must admit. I am reminded of Super Mario World, and of the many times I have...unceremoniously...cast my Yoshi unto the depths of that dank abyss below. Merrily bonking my next coins from the following Coin Block as said Yoshi plummets deeper and deeper still. Into the darkness. Having done so only to save my own, worthless, plummer hide. The shame I feel is too great!
Hey! Fish are pets too lol my fish show a hell of a lot more appreciation than my cats do when they're given treats. And don't let Xanathar hear you bad-mouthing goldfish :)
In one of the current campaigns, my Bard took Conjure Elemental as one of his magical secrets, as we tend to often fight in areas of wilderness (and my DM can be a bit of a meat-grinder at times). But, my DM gave me the option of doing a sort of "Elemental check". A basic D20 roll to see what my affinity was for a chosen elemental type, and the opposing elemental type would reflect the opposite. He told me to choose one, and I chose Earth since my character hails from a desert. Rolled a Natural 20. So, I don't need to concentrate on Conjure Elemental, and can let it go rogue, and it fundamentally acts as a companion. I've had moments in down time where I speak to Claude (my sister named him that, you can guess why) in his native Terran, by using the Tongues spell. And yeah, he's a capable combatant who can just be resummoned, I prefer the RP element of it being more like a bond. It gives flavor to the elemental. Plus, he's officially a friend of me, and the party.
This is one of those videos i needed to watch. I've been reluctant to use my companion for fear of it getting hurt because of my class in pathfinder being a ranger. After multiclassing into two weapon warrior my companion's level has been falling behind.
OMG since I almost play as a DRUID this vid was absolutely fundamental. Definitely my favorite channel on D&D, GMing and roleplaying (and creative fantasy writing, game making... ) ( 7:25 ) PRECISELY! Never better said, and I agree absolutely... WHY CAN'T MY GM'S BE LIKE U?! T__T ( 9:07 ) ABSOLUTELY RIGHT MR! I appreciate very much that remark: Ideed "He cannot be a gentleman which loveth not a dog". Awesome teacher, GM, AND also human being. ❤ ( 9:26 ) I would have added... "and they WILL suffer a horrific, lonely, humiliating, slow death" ^_^ AN ANIMAL COMPANION SHOULD BE TREATED AS A COMPANION, golden rule, music to my ears
My character is a heartless archon (A malicious mind-controller who mind-controls the marvelous minds of many people as well as melevolent minds of anyone.) who has a pet that he loves. Also an other of my characters was a plantation owner who had a literal slave who turned into a companion.
"Oh yes, my animal companion, which is a weasel, has been wrapped around my neck for the past 6 months. And I haven't mentioned it once." Looking at you Jester.
My favorite animal companion was a giant wolf spider on my halfling Ranger. He got it after being ordered to destroy a hatchery inside of a goblin Spider Riders nest. He then raised it as His companion in secret because the other halflings of his village viewed them as a weapon for the enemy. And was forced to leave home when he refused to kill it.
I once had a dog companion in SR. It was more of a pet actually since I didn't take it with me on missions and didn't wanted to drench it's live away with chyberfication/nor his character. The last evening I wanted to play the character since she had reached her life goal, we got attacked and my character was knocked unconscious. The other players left the dog behind. To make a point and a new villian, the DM shot it D: and it would have died. Even though I put the character anyway down and could have moved the Karma (those are like XP in the system for those who don't know the game. You pay abilities, attribute upgrades and may be able to get a second chance for a dice role etc.) I saved its life with all the Karma I had left, which were about 30 Karma. It is about 10 % of the amount a new character gets as creation points and normally you get between 2 -3 points per evening. So I really had saved up some time. Anyway, I loved that stupid thing even though it wasn't even a help for me in combat but rather just a part of my character. Now it lives a happy life with an old NPC woman, who owns a grocery store nearby one of our bases. She knew our characters well, so the dog as well. Since we always bought food and meat at her store when we grilled after a successful run (or when our Gnome player got hungry xD; so every second evening I guess) I really want that dog back x'D
It doesn't take much to make a companion memorable. I once played a Wizard who had a rat Familiar, and I made it a point to buy him some cheese every time we went to a place that sold food. Every single time. It only took a week or so before other characters were buying cheese and giving it to him as a token of good fortune or bribe (my Wizard focused on buffing allies) and the Familiar quickly became the party mascot.
Thank you for confirming my thoughts about how the gm is playing the companion versus the playing saying what attacks ec that it does.^^ I'm playing a homebrew where the summons can hang out and interact with the players, and I wanted to be the higher power that is behind the summoned avatar. So this helped to hear.^^
As both GM and player some of my favorite character interactions have come from animal companions and familiars. One in particular is the session namer for when we refer to that group: Yache, a lovely corvid for my partner's wizard. He is arrogant toward any smaller or less intelligent bird, and extorts his 'master' for 'sugar water' any time he gets an order he doesn't like. His cry when he takes off to do a chore is: for the sugar water! Unfortuneately only one GM I've played under lets me have any use for one, and he usually uses him as a plot device when "Mine" the self named pallas cat is involved at all. Still better an entertaining plot device than killed off screen by a wraith like a different DM did to my little owlcat...
My party recently came across a caged up, beaten, angry deathdog. Instead of doing what... most sane people would do upon seeing a deathdog, and killing it... My kobold bard decided to go up to it, offer it food, and use his healing magical music to mend its wounds. The kobold bard now has a giant two headed dog that is larger than he is, who he loves and showers in love and petting and ear scratches like all good dogs deserve. Even named both its heads. The right head is Rock, the left head is Roll. And this dog loves nothing more than EVISCERATING AND DEVOURING derro. Because derro are what locked the poor dog up in that cage. And the party is more than happy to oblige Rock&Roll's desire for derro flesh. Otherwise it is a loyal good boy that the kobold rides atop of so he can constantly give scritches while they travel.
I love your videos. I've been playing for a year now and I used a magical lion. I didnt know if I could, due to the rules, but after talking to my DM about my backstory, he allowed it and my lion was very useful. He detected a ghost, helped with a demon and I just loved him. Btw, my character was a druid and my lion's goal was to protect her after the tragic death of his original owner.
This helps a ton! My charecter breeds dragons and has a baby thunder dragon that will not leave his side, and nobody wanted to buy it anyway. Thanks man!
Another thing my Gm struggles with is giving players choices. He eluded to it before we started but quickly came to the realization that nothing we decide matters. He always drags us into doing a bad thing or a not "good thing". I think he is trying but like ive been in campaigns where the Gm was creative and worked with the players but this one its mostly "Its My Story im the GM, You do what i want you to or your toon will die."
Ran into one of those myself, the guy would even do damage to your character for your character having a brief bit of banter between your character and another's during combat or something. To paraphrase him he thought that the gm's word was law and during an RP the GM is basically god...needless to say I was glad I had started my own group, thanks to his heavy-handed tactics the free market made it so his basically ceased to be real competition.
Perhaps time to confront your GM with the word "Railroading", ask your GM if he know what the word mean, and what his opinion about it is. And if your GM think it is the way, then you know it is time to find a cooler GM. Or... Maybe... Interesting option: Be the cooler GM yourself! Could be your fellow other PC players would like to play something different with you as GM, and you may even get your current GM to join your group!
High-Marshal_Jaeger yeah man honestly i find it quite lame sometimes with this group but....their my only group i know :/ so thats on me. And none of them take me seriously, i hate to say this but im legit the only person in my group with an irl moral code. So they totally dont mind bullying others and doing evil thungs in rp and being jerks to people irl. The only reason they are a bit nicer to me is......I actually domt kmow
one of my characters through a series of very lucky animal handling checks managed to acquire a direwolf at somewhere around level 1 or 2 and i ended up building the whole character around fighting alongside his really big puppydog
Well, this finally made me concider to give my new character in my favourite MMO game roleplay an animal companion. He's a mage who grew up isolated and is mainly used to animals so I'm gonna give him a raven companion. Might give it a heroic sacrifice at some point, but not after many and many times of bonding and making sure my fellow roleplayers love the little animal (hehe, I'm evil now >:) Definitely gonna use your tips.
What about pets? My halfling rogue was given a fox as a pet (not an animal companion). While I can certainly give him a personality and a goal, how do I ensure his safety when he has
I think it is more pets, than animal companions in general, this video is about. For what your fox goes, then think about how you would care for a dog IRL: Would you take it along when you go to work? When you go shopping? Most people will not take their dogs along when they do those tasks. Similarly your rogue should leave the fox stay in its pen when you are out shoplifting. You can try to train your fox, though harder to train than dogs, still they can learn to do tricks. Perhaps sneak your fox into a nearby hen-house for it to have some fun time there, and when people are distracted by it you do your shoplifting! This way you can both entertain your fox and get a bonus to your skills at the same time! Further more you make yourself a hero by saving the hens from the fox! Why stop there? You can become perceived as a generous person when you pay more than enough to cover the damage done! (10 % of your loot should do nicely!)
My last ranger had an owl. An owl is EXTREMELY weak for combat, but it was fully thematic and I held to that so i was rewarded by my DM because the owl became a character.
I always played with the idea of a LG Ranger accidentally adopting a dire wolf puppy. Everyone one else see that its clearly growing into a dire wolf, but I will stubbornly insist he's just a very big boy. Admitting it eventually as it reaches the age when it has become horse sized.
My character's companion, a cockatrice name Echo, died last session. In game there has been a 3-month time jump (we have also been taking a break out of game as well, since the DM was starting to burn out). The party has been in a Magic Academy during the time jump and my character has been in a deep mourning period. He already had a whole bunch of bad crap happen to him throughout the campaign and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Throughout the time jump he has barely talked to any of the party and stays in his room alone tinkering, studying different types of resurrection and his archenemy. Let's just say that when the campaign starts back up, the party will see a difference in him and his methods.
I'm gonna run my first game as a GM for my two best friends. One of them chose to be a ranger and got a giant poisonous snake companion, I hope she plays it good.
now you've got me thinking of my puppys that passed away... profound sadness. Anyway love these videos and there helping me think out a character i have in a game me and my buddy do (as well as characters i make for story's i'm working on)
Telling a player that their animal companion died "a while back" because of some event that you felt should have been the death of it and failed to inform the player AT THAT TIME that the companion died, then that's on the GM not the player. A lot of GM's often forget that animal companions are class features, not NPCs, and just like any other class feature, should not be taken away without a story-driving reason. You wouldn't tell a wizard "Oh i forgot to mention, remember way back when you got hit in the head by that rock? Well now you've forgotten how to cast spells, sorry", and expect that wizard player to not be upset with you.
This helped alot, im playing a orc ranger with a giant vulture as his companion, our first big fight we had a jabberwok come down ant attack. The first thing it did was tail slap my bird unconscious. My actions was to run over pour one of my healing potions down its throat and send it ahead out of combat to the caravan we were guarding. But now im gonna be able to play off the relationship of my militant ranger and a huge infectious bird bird.
I have a heroic Psicrystal shaped like a tiny honey badger to act as my Psions sense of passion and conscience. He also runs behind enemies and challenges them to battle to make them turn around so the psion can stab them properly and save power points.
One of my Players, had a animal companion that he treated like a slave and tool (they were playing a Chaotic Good, Witch with the patron of trickery). Their familiar was a fox, they gave the animal no backstory or anything so I made it a plot device. They were shocked when the kitsune assassin that was hired to kill them was his familiar the entire time and poisoned him when he was fighting the assassin clan that was hired to kill a doctor they were escorting (It did kill the doctor) and became a mainstay villain throughout the campaign. I did have to explain to the player that I bent the rules and it was do to a magic item the kitsune wore.
I have a half-elf druid that used to be a tiefling who happened to accidentally rescue an owlet that fell on his head when it jumped out of its nest. He thought it was funny cause it wasn't scared of him but it ended up becoming his only friend and the only thing he saved in the incident that got him killed and turned into a half-elf.
Hmm, makes me wonder the merits of playing a werewolf, where the wolf-side is an animal companion to one of the other characters, with it's own goals that may differ from those of the man-side... possibly a cursed werewolf, where the other character can force/impose the shapeshift on the werewolf.... It's probably been done.
I really can't explain how it happened but just recently my Tabaxi Rogue ended up winning a giant chicken. so now I'm playing a big black cat casually riding his epic war chicken and I instantly love this chicken so much, it doesn't even have a name yet but he would totally do everything for that big derpy bird.
My Celestial warlock has a pseudodragon familiar as a pet- well more of a friend/ comedic accomplice- It's more of a roommate dynamic. Chip has died so many times, but it is humorous because the party knows it will take him an hour to return to the corporeal plane. That doesn't stop us from having exceedingly dramatic death scenes. I didn't tell my party I was pact of the chain, so they thought he was a regular pet. The first time they saw him die, my character ran over to his ashes and wept for a good ten minutes. Then he got up said "oh well" and re-summoned him. If you've seen Megamind it was about the same vibe as when minion "died". That being said if my familiar ever managed to actually permanently die... the warlock would probably destroy everything in the known universe.
I currently play a human draconic Sorcerer. My DM knew I wanted a dragon like pet and we had a small time skip coming. Thus my DM got me a Guard Drake, I called it Fulminieum and it truly helps me in combat, but it hasn’t come up in RP yet, but it might come up soon.
I've got a question for you. Half dragons, what's you take on a half pseudodragon Kobald? It's an idea of an NPC that I've had for a few years now. Or a Dragonwrought Kobald that has a pseudodragon ancestor. I haven't tried either of them out just yet as I haven't done any gaming for a while now as either a DM or player. But I was thinking of having a whole tribe that had pseudodragon blood. The tribe would've been a small one, about 10-15 members and wouldn't fall into the usual mould as most Kobalds but be more like that of pseudodragons and be more kindly maybe even having pseudodragons that live in the forest that surrounds their layer and once in a while the pseudodragons and Kobalds would intermingle and produce half pseudodragon Kobalds. Just wondering what your thoughts as a DM thought about these ideas.
I am running a Warhammer Fantasy RP, one of our guys raise mini pigs as pets for a living, when they rolled for random trappings at the start of the game, that guy rolled a pet pig. That pig have become the main character of the entire RP.
My sister tamed an OwlBear She does almost everything she can to keep it out of combat because she doesn't want "the poor thing to get hurt" She is well aware as to what an Owlbear is, it's why she wanted to tame it in the first place.
The group was getting ready to make (or have made) barding for Raksha, my reverse werewolf ranger's wolf companion out of the skin of a basilisk we killed. Unfortunately the game fell apart because of scheduling issues.
You make absolute sense in what you say! But I wonder what would you advice in a game like Vampire The Masquerade, where characters do create some ghouls as mere tools (and totally fits with their arch), How would you advice the treatment of animal ghouls then?
Ghouls are problematic in that they loose their free will by becoming blood bound, and futhermore brain-washed by Dominate, Animalism etc. This way they are turned into becoming tools. It have been a while since I have played VtM myself, but I once played a character who would only make ghouls if they had the "Unbondable" Merit. This way I got such ghoul as gift. As the creator saw it as being failed: Not good as blood puppet, which was the intend, but failed due to it was unbondable. It became interesting in that the unbondable merit enables the ghoul to learn Disciplines without suffering the usual penalties normally making learning Disciplines a hopeless task for ghouls. (There are a rule-book for ghouls!). This way she over time became an interesting character with personality, so much that she could have been a PC! But beside of that I do not think there are much to do with ghouls, except accepting that they are no longer the being they was before, but now turned into robots instead. Now I think about it... Maybe... It should be possible to commit vaulderie inside a ghoul and thus destroy the blood bond, and thus free the ghoul somewhat. Only somewhat as it leave a vinculum in the ghoul, and it is in some sense worse, as blood bonds in ghouls go away over time, unless renewed. Whereas a vinculum is permanent in a ghoul.
If only turned into a ghoul (No Dominate manipulation or whatever.) then the ghouls personality will be as it was before, as long as the ghoul is far away from the one blood bound to. Thus a ghoul can retain its personality. Problem is that those who want to create ghouls to be tools will keep them close, so the blood bond 'override' the ghouls personality with the wishes of the master. If I was in the Storyteller position, then I would take into account how they treat their ghouls, compared to their humanity or path: If the way they treat their ghouls are against the view of their path they may soon loose some marples... Thus treating ghouls bad will bring the vampire into trouble. I think if you have a storyteller who allow bad treatment of ghouls without consequences, then your vampire game is played in a wrong bad way. --- However: You are talking about making animal ghouls. Here we have to remember that animals are different from people, as animals do not believe vampires to be people (as humans do) but as dangerous predators which they prefer to flee from. Or as the rulebok say it: "beasts are distinctly uncomfortable around the undead and will do all they can to move away." that is why the disipline Animalism is crucial in that it removes that effect. Still the rule "Animals will react badly to vampires without Animalism." apply to animal ghouls as well; for all other vampires than the master, the animal ghoul is blood bound to. Thus I will say: Treating an animal ghoul well include keeping it away from other vampires. I can see the point in having a ghoul guard dog at ones heaven, as it will detect if any other vampire is approaching! --- My afore mentioned character got a cat with the "Vampire affinity" merit. (By rescueing it from the danger "Vampire affinity" pose to the animal having it: Getting eaten by a vampire!) But I did not convert it into a ghoul. I just kept it as a normal pet, which interestingly opened up for a lot good role play: It became an attraction at my parties! (Yes, I'm a Toreador.) Quite many vampires are not used to be able to get near animals, and thus welcomed the chance to pet the cat and giving it treats! (Thus the second part of "Vampire affinity"'s not being afraid of vampires, and become attracted to them; played itself out!) --- I think the way you treat those around you is an important part of VtM: In our coterie I was the only one ever allowed to raise my humanity (the 8th marple), whereas our Gangrel did loose his marples quite fast. If you are the storyteller for someone treating animal ghouls badly and thereby (most likely) ignore its basic needs, then you can let it get fleas, gut worms and other blood sucking parasites, and ... Here it is where it become interesting ... Those parasites will be animal ghouls too! And some of them will move over to the original host: The vampire! For a vampire, parasites are hopelessly difficult to get rid of. Currently I can only think of two ways to get rid of them: Either a ritual where the vampire empties the body of blood while sleeping the day away in purified water (Causing the ghoul parasites to die by drowning) - or - a prolonged time in torpor (Causing the ghoul parasites to die by starvation). In both cases the vampire wakes up extremely hungry! Go figure...
Hellhounds are good boys. That being said another good option is having a player who isn't active in the scene play the animal ghouls. Heck we had a session where it was pretty much Hell hounds vs hunters. The first animal Jerome ghouled was a raven he named Suile (Gaelic for eyes). Though to be fair Suile was mostly a scout and a way to keep vamps from reobsing. His Childe's second hellhound (our nickname for ghouled dogs) actually sacrificed her life for him and he risked his to carry her out of a burning hospital so she could get a proper burial.
Question; Would you consider a True Neutral PC eligible to receive a companion then? A character that pays attention to the pet, raises it, includes it in its story, but could be stone-faced at loosing it? It IS a character trait of such an alignment, and it doesn't mean the companion wasn't loved, just ultimately expendable for the greater good. :O
+Amund Helgaset Rothe Why not? I mean as long as he treats it well, an animal will not run away that fast. As far as I remember, a true neutral Character does have emotions, just not really for the world around him. On a personal level he should be able to care. Some people show affection differently, many people know a person who doesn't treat animals that well or is sometimes quite harsh with them, but they still love that person. My father is one example, he never was really nice to our cat, but it still liked to sit on his lap.
My ranger had a white wolf animal companion that turned out to be a cursed druid werewolf which had developed a yandere level affection for him. She started stringing people up with vines whenever they flirted with my ranger. It made for some interesting stays at inns.
In one of the earlier episodes of Critical Role, one character sent their bear companion to stroll back to the inn the characters were staying at all by itself when it became inconvenient to have it with her. Then forgot about it. So the GM decided that when this bear just turned up at the inn, the dwarves (it was dwarven city) there decided that the thing to do was to put the poor animal into the fighting ring that was at the centre of the tavern. Hilarity ensued as the panicked players desperately tried to get the bear out of the path of the resident fistfighting champion. You really shouldn't let months of campaign time go past before you remind players who have *decided* to play a character with a companion that they are essentially playing two characters.
The part about the ferret being incinerated hit way too close to home. It happened to my pet fieldmouse. I loved it, I cared for it, and then it was gone. I legit cried. Then it returned. It's complicated.
On the topic of Animals, and with Xanathar's coming out with the Cavalier, is there anything in the rules that lets you make most mount creatures -not- suck? Unless you're a paladin with Find Steed most of the mounts seem like a big liability ready to be wiped out by a single AOE than a boon.
i used to have a dracon mount in 2e ( not dragon ) and we had an empithatic link which was cool and it ate alot of silver and i would always buy a lot of silver ingots for him to chow down on after a quest it was awesome............. until one of our players decided to ride their shield down a flight of stairs in a sea-troll kingdom where there were holes dropping over 200 feet to the watery depths and our team got party wiped because the encounter for the quest was set up for people to not kill themselves........ i was an awesome cavalier named korvol Bravarian, with an awesome mount. PS sorry about rant just a 2E experience.
I'm making an elf character right now and I don't know if I want her to have a mount to interact with, a hunting dog, or practice falconry. This is my first ever Dnd character and I have no idea what I'm doing
My party once fed set of chained up wolves. And set them free when to dungeon boss fought us he had the much better Alpha wolf by his sides during the fight one of the wolves we helped joined in to fight the alpha wolf. Got to take him as animal companion afterwards. He treated the party as his new pack and that shaped his actions in and out of combat. Spent a decent amount and time gold to make sure we could handle the situations we ended up in. I was the barbarian so I was left in charge of training him.
For comedic effect he would at times come across as more sensible and even competent then the party. Since unless given reason to do otherwise he would act On what for a wolf would be basic common sense. Unless he was trying to save the party he would not do things a hot head like my character would like relentlessly attacking while taking hits. He would help but fall back if he got hurt or would behave opportunistically and hang back fat chance to ounce in and flankIng or attack some who was prone. Liked collect “treats” forhimself any chance he got Which made dealing with skeletons very interesting. Otherwise he was a more serious version of a dog.
Another thing you can do for your abimal companion is give the thing a name. Generally, what I do is find a child name from the player's handbook and give it to my animal companion.
This was very useful and right on time since next week I'm starting with a new character. My Goliath barbarian doesn't have a weapon, plays dulcimer and has a pet ferret. My companion likes to listen to my character playing dulcimer (that's how I tamed him), is curious, but shy. That's about everything I have about it. I need to expand upon it's personality and goals. Any advice how to do it? Maybe there is some personality, ideals, bonds, flaws tables (like in 5e background creation) for animal companions that I could use to pick up some inspiration? (already tried googling it with no results). Any help appreciated.
What about the gruff character who "callously" orders their companion to cover the players' retreat and tries to keep up the front of not caring but then becomes enraged with the other party members afterward over even little things, because he is wishing someone.... anyone... in the party had half the mettle their companion did and they would much rather have ordered one of them to their deaths? Would you pick up on it if a player wanted to play it that way and would you still pi ish them?
My halfling ranger/Druid had terrible luck with his riding dogs, mechanically he was building into mounted archery and going the halfling rider prestige. However I think I enjoyed roll playing him doting over his animals and mourning their many unfortunate deaths more than looking at the mecnhanical application. (Though it' was important as he was cripple, could barely walk so otherwise he had to be carried usually). His first two riding dogs died instantly by crossbow bolts to the right eye, the third was an allied drow fumbling her concentrated black lotus poison injection dagger into poor scruffles the seconds right eye, which oddly enough wasn't quite enough to kill him! It was the repeatedly critical failed heal checks that followed where he ended up killing the companion males trying to save m. Smashed a healing potion into the wounded eye as he was bleeding out and rubbed the glass into the wound begging the poor creature to wake up and live (was out of spells so couldn't use magic to stabilize). That night he would take a drink from one of his bottles of mead, and pour out the next till he killed the whole bottle, still in the forest where they were ambushed by goblins. Did the same every day till he ran out of mead. His pony named Bill which he got later on, was much more fortunate and outlived him, switched animal types and turns out only dogs are chaired to die around m.
Is it possible for my lvl 1 character to have a dragon wyrmling as a pet/companion? He is a dark elf draconic sorcerer who loves dragons with a passion and dreams of having one so is it possible for him to start as lvl 1 in his 1st adventure and have a dragon wyrmling or an egg he has to protect?
I don't understand how to apply this to familiar's I'm not sure if they should be more intelligent because they're a Fey, Celestial or Fiend or if they act the same as a normal animal (This is for 5e)
Have you made a video about PC death? I'm still fairly new to D&D, and when a character I lovingly crafted was killed on day 1, it really put me off for a little bit, and still prevents me from taking risks in games. Any advice to get me out of this rut?
I have a Shaman-Fighter-Artificer, and he has a spirit animal as a shaman thingie. I looked up and down the familiar lit and then suddenly saw the Raccoon, now I love raccoons, and it had an ok bonus with the sleight of hand pluss, but I really like the short description, and said to my DM that the description befitted my character as well. I think it was something like, This small furry mammal has strangely humanoid tendencies with its multifingered hands. this befits my shaman as well. I also have speak with familiar, so my charater will have many'a conversations with the raccoon. with the inaudible sqreeching it does.
Would a familiar be considered an animal companion? I only recently began playing d&d and my level 1 wizard has a little fey rat familiar, and I was wondering how I should best use it and treat it in game.
Treat it like an animal companion, because it is one. The only difference is yours is (probably) telepathic and much more intertwined with your character.
@ Earthman110 the D&D Rules treat animal companions and familiars differently. They should not be confused as far as rules go, so @Shifty Tiger, I agree with Earthman110 that it's fine to treat it as one when in character, but the rules and particularly the feats concerning animal companions and familiars are distinct.
My acrane trickster had a pet bat named Wheatly. He would scout out the terrain before a battle. When my character died, one of the other pc's decided to adopt the him. Wheatly headbutted him and got a critical hit, and knocked him unconsious.
in my first long term campaign I played we were using 3.5 edition and we all ended up playing evil Characters. I was playing a ranger elf- werewolf. in the course of that campaign I lost 4 animal companions due to stupid accidents and massive amounts of damage. I wouldn't say they were heroic deaths but they were not intentional sacrifices. I think the dm just thought it was funny to kill my pets.
I played an eidolist (5e Homebrew) and my entire quest was finding my snake Lisa... It didn't matter at all that I could call a new pet to me in 10 minutes with no penalty, the little boy hated watching the snake suffer.
I want to ask about Vermin Animal companions. Because they do exist and you didn't cover them in this video. For example my Vermin Druid has a Large Monstrous Centipede as her animal companion. The problem i find here is because Vermin are denoted as being well for a better term "Brainless" in a sense. And i have a hard time expressing the animal companions persona. Most of what i have tried to do is is it wanting to eat people and at the start even some of the PCs. For example when our ranger got drunk and kissed its back. Or even using it as a intimidation during interrogation of NPCs (If you dont tell me i will feed you to it). But thats the most i could do...
I no longer play with animal companions as all my past ones drew agro. I played a wizard with a weasel companion. He drew so much agro that I hid him in my pack and he still got hit with a spear.
I’d like some small imp creature who usually sits on my shoulder or sleeps in my bag, and I can chat with and who scavenges random shiny items and pulls off all sorts of shenanigans against friend & foe
you know if a player gets your goat by sacrificing his companion you should make it literal when they ask for a new one. Give them a goat as a companion. Make sure it likes to bite and then run off at inconvenient times. Even better if you can get them to want to be rid of it but it will keep showing up no mater what they do.
People keep saying, oh if this character was meant to be a jerk would you punish them? The answer, for me personally, is no. It's how the character is built and yeah the morality sucks, but that's how the character is supposed to be. I think what he was referring to is people who play characters of good alignments. There's nothing "good" about animal abuse. I don't care if your chaotic good, there is nothing right about animal abuse and you can't call yourself good if your going to do it. I'm not saying the companion has to be pampered or even liked, but taking care of it reasonably like any decent human being and not using it as cannon fodder is a must. Give it food, give it water, give it shelter if it needs, and for the love of the gods, don't intentionally throw it in harms way if you know it's almost certain to die!
I recently decided to learn D&D, and these videos have been super helpful as a new GM. I do have a question however, How do I plan for a player who might not be their every session? In this case a player, let's call him D; D told me that he is interested in playing, but do to other obligations he may not be able to show up to every session. Do you have any advise on how to plan a game session in this circumstance.
Maybe D is a mercenary who sells his skills for a set amount of time or upon the completion of a specific task? Maybe he's just easily distracted? Or MAYBE there's some wizard pulling his strings and teleporting him out of the situation to go over "The Master Plan" one more time.
I once played a mad sorcerer who thought his pet rock was talking to him. The GM used this as a way to railroad the plot.
😂 I love that.
Please, enlighten us to how this happened
The wizard in one of my old games had a familiar that was a tiny earth elemental that looked like a pug made of stone. Its name was "Rock"; he used to say, "This is my pet, Rock."
the first time I played (like 2.5 years ago) 5 sessions in I asked if I could tame a squirrel so a few checks later I got a squirrel. He wasn't buddy buddy with me just "you got food so I'll tag along for a while." it didn't do anything in combat(except one time) but every night or so when we would camp out near a Rockwall or something it would do a shadow puppet show. It was so talented at that skill that one time when we were in an old castle Chuck saved me. Chuck threw a shadow puppet of a dragon on the wall so the goblins could see it. bought me enough time to dig myself out of the trap I triggered. It didn't make a ton of sense, but that was the most talented squirrel I ever knew. I loved that squirrel
zzDarkenSoulzz Loved? Past tense?
I'm guessing they stopped playing that campaign. So that could account for the past tense. Or as squirrels don't live all that long it could've died of old age.
Had a PC mage once whose familiar was a dog, he had the upgrade familiar feat and all that... and I think dog doesn't show up on any mage familiar list even with the feat, but heck, still less OP than anything else on those lists so I was ok with it. And no one argued because essentially it was a free alarm spell, every night, no need to set it or be reminded. (though the priestess was annoyed her slippers kept getting mauled.)
In time that mutt became everyone's animal companion. The druid was doing animal growth, claws.. Mage and fighter were making magic armor for it, you get the picture. Even the rogue warmed up to him. Especially when that halfling got dragged out of his barrel moments before the entire house came crashing down. So now the halfling had a riding dog.
With rogue with a decent bow on it's back and a backstab, the two would charge a target, dog grab it's arm and thief got behind and stabbed the target... it got to the point I had to consider the animal as a full member for encounter ECL reasons just to keep it fair.
That mutt became a beast, seriously. Spiked armor equivalent to the paladin, claws and teeth as strong as any adamantine sword, damage reduction, fire immunity.. (I feel sorry for the fire salamander that tried to bite it...), and a collar that would on command make all of that gear disappear and reappear so they could go into town without someone calling it a war dog. Saddle bags of holding, dog sized.. I made the comment once that they're treating it like a test subject. That only made things worse.
The barbarian loved to drink, but the priestess trained it to growl at him every time he lifted a mug, so that became an on-running joke, him trying to sneak a drink with the dog watching him...
On top of all that, mirror image... it was just nuts. I think the party had more fun making all kinds of beastly combos... it had flying once, that was a hoot. I had set up an encounter with winged cats once just so they can watch that dog fly through the air trying to catch them. (BTW, the elves were NOT happy with them. :) )
John Walker II THAT'S AWESOME!
10/10, did read again
@@cameronsprague101 THIS IS THE BEST BOY EVER
My ranger's entire village was destroyed by a manticore. Years later the party encountered the manticore and my character slayed it. As my character was collecting the hide and wings (with a Nat 20 survival roll) the rest of the party discovered a manticore pup. That manticore was a mother to this newborn manticore. Now me staying in character wanted to kill it immediately before it could kill anyone. But the cleric rolled knowledge nature and found out that not all manticores are evil. They can be raised to eat animals instead of people. There was a huge argument amongst the characters in the party on the moral issues here. We ended up taking the pup to a church where it could be raised not to kill people. There the pup met with my character for the first time and recognized it's mother's sent on him. He saw that this pup was all alone in the world and that was something he could relate to.... and that was when an accidental hunters bond was formed.
The fighter in my group had a horse named Chocobo, it held the party together after accidentally killing the first 5 boss-creatures my group encountered due to amazingly lucky throws, we dubbed him Chocobo the dread-mare (the fighter was in denial that it wasn't a stallion) ... when Chocobo died they dubbed their group the Legacy of Chocobo, so much had that mare meant to the party... "The dread-mare that shall be mounted by the world! the God-steed!" was its honour-cry
The take-home message here: the animal companion isn't just a game mechanic - it's a party member in its own right (I still say this would've been a perfect opportunity to introduce us to the dogs)
My group and I ended up on a quest to resurrect my chicken companion, Magic Pullet, when she took one too many eldritch blasts to the face. Cue a bizarre multi-session excursion into the underdark to appease a demon, and a genuinely touching reunion when my now undead chicken still recognised me even though along the way I'd been killed and reincarnated as a totally different species.
we had a player in our group whos companion was a slave. it wasnt a dog tho, it was his characters little sister.
Yeah...most people I've ever played with would see to that guy's character meeting a very horrible and untimely death...actually that happened once. Everyone in the group hated his character so much they let him take a ton of damage and then the medic pulled an angel of death. When he said "You guys did all that to kill my guy off, do you assholes have any idea how long it took me to build this guy up?!"
The response was ether "Like I give a shit" or "Karma's a bitch", naturally they were all tried in court marshal but since in game at least they covered it up pretty good...they got away with it and that guy left the group.
If their characters hated his character and they didn't overwrite their character's personality to suite their whims then that's fine. If they took over their character's mind and made them all murderlize his character as such, that's a band of bad roleplayers.
Well unfortunately he forgot the golden rule of playing an evil character in a group, the character has to be invaluable to said group...it doesn't hurt if that character is also a classy evil character such as Christopher Lee's portrayal of Count Dooku or Dracula. Hence why my evil characters are never murdered by the group.
I usually play neutral evil characters, and I've never had one plot to kill one of my characters. I've had one of my benevolently nice characters suspected of plotting to kill the rest of the group. She proceeded to dodge their plot and trap them in her own; of which regrettably two of them had to be killed to get the message through. I do however disagree with a lot of this channels instructions on how a evil character in a good party must be played.
Well much like the Codex Astarties I view this channel as a decent set of guidelines not gospel, or to put it in the words of Capt Titus...the only Ultramarine I've ever liked "The Codex teaches us much Leandross, but there ARE benefits to thinking for yourself".
Generally this guy speaks from years of experience which means there is much wisdom in what he says but even he admits to his biases.
I just got an animal companion. I'm playing a rather aloof gnome druid and while searching for missing informant, I heard a rustling in the nearby brush. I stealthed and rolled amazingly. I described myself as disguising myself perfectly as an acorn. From the bushes come a great stag. He strode over to me and started nibbling on my face. His name is Freyr and we're best friends :')
My next character is a Wizard with a familiar, a blood hawk. The village my character comes from feared mages, so upon discovering his dabbling in magic, the village had him blinded. When he meets the other PC's later in his life he has such a close and magical bond with his familiar he now 'sees' entirely through its eyes.
A major weekness if its "killed" in a combat, at least until I resummon but I hope should make for some interesting character interactions and moments.
I'm a Tengu druid who has a giant raven animal companion who is smart enough to talk. My druid is frightfully shy but the raven is loud and sassy, so it's a really fun way to get myself to roll play. I spend the majority of a my spells in combat to buff him up and protect him.
I once had a player who had a pet hamster, like the guy in Baldur's Gate - in a tough situation similar to what You described at the end of this video, the hamster fell out of his pocket. The guy LITERALLY grabbed the party's mage, picked him up, THREW HIM at the enemy pursuit, picked up a hamster and ran away. Does that also count as sacrifice for the animal companion?
Mage survived by the way, and was not very appreciative of his role in saving Private Ham. Not at all.
My Elf would never accept the death of his Anuk. His winter wolf is something so special for him he would do quest after quest to resurrect him.
Christian Wunderlich but elfs live for 1000s of years. wolfs for about 12? wouldn't it be no different then say a goldfish
gamesdisk Winter wolfs life way longer and a wizard's familiar normally as long as the Wizard. so there shouldn't be a problem.
The issue i have is my Gm doesnt consider anything that i say my pet does (when it literally never affects combat or anything). Axccording to my Gm the only time it does something is when he says it does something. Its my pet in fact its a tiny little slime creature in a bottle, its not like im using to be OP. I just want to acknowledge it exists and have MY personal character interact with it at times. ITs kind of frustrating, the thing is my little yellow slime (named Boogy) totally fits my character who is a half ogre alchemist.
What would anyone suggest? Find a cooler Gm? That seems like a lame move. I bring Boogy up constantly but when i say like "I feed it a little cricket" the Gm says thats not important or that doesnt matter. Sometimes though he allows it, but most the time, unless the Gm says my pet does this or that, then nobody cares. He basically has encouraged the entire party to not give two shits about my little pet. It might seem dumb but its Important to me.
What do your fellow PCs players say? I think you should have a talk with them.
Could be you are not the only one in the group who feel the GM is limiting role play too much.
If no one is, then you should not only find a cooler GM, but an entire cooler group!
When I was playing a Kender Ranger, I taught my Dire Badger how to dance; so whenever we went into a City/Town/Village/Settlement, I would strum on my guitar, and sing a little ditty, and my Badger would dance along. It was adorable, and would land me a few silver pieces, in which I would by my Badger some treats.
The first time I ever had an animal companion, I was playing AD&D 2nd edition, as a Ranger, with a White Tiger follower (I was 10, and thought it was cool), and if it were because of some decision I had made, and it was a noble death, I would have been upset but eventually okay with my followers dying, but a jealous other player, and I think a DM that was sick of it, decided that while I was in the bathroom, they would have my tiger test the floor ahead for traps and die... Needless to say, I was furious that not only had another player decided this for MY animal companion, but that the DM had allowed it to stand, rather than doing a quality role play of why the tiger had to go.
(9:50) Devastatingly, I must admit. I am reminded of Super Mario World, and of the many times I have...unceremoniously...cast my Yoshi unto the depths of that dank abyss below. Merrily bonking my next coins from the following Coin Block as said Yoshi plummets deeper and deeper still. Into the darkness. Having done so only to save my own, worthless, plummer hide.
The shame I feel is too great!
Hey! Fish are pets too lol my fish show a hell of a lot more appreciation than my cats do when they're given treats. And don't let Xanathar hear you bad-mouthing goldfish :)
In one of the current campaigns, my Bard took Conjure Elemental as one of his magical secrets, as we tend to often fight in areas of wilderness (and my DM can be a bit of a meat-grinder at times). But, my DM gave me the option of doing a sort of "Elemental check". A basic D20 roll to see what my affinity was for a chosen elemental type, and the opposing elemental type would reflect the opposite. He told me to choose one, and I chose Earth since my character hails from a desert. Rolled a Natural 20. So, I don't need to concentrate on Conjure Elemental, and can let it go rogue, and it fundamentally acts as a companion. I've had moments in down time where I speak to Claude (my sister named him that, you can guess why) in his native Terran, by using the Tongues spell. And yeah, he's a capable combatant who can just be resummoned, I prefer the RP element of it being more like a bond. It gives flavor to the elemental. Plus, he's officially a friend of me, and the party.
This is one of those videos i needed to watch. I've been reluctant to use my companion for fear of it getting hurt because of my class in pathfinder being a ranger. After multiclassing into two weapon warrior my companion's level has been falling behind.
OMG since I almost play as a DRUID this vid was absolutely fundamental. Definitely my favorite channel on D&D, GMing and roleplaying (and creative fantasy writing, game making... ) ( 7:25 ) PRECISELY! Never better said, and I agree absolutely... WHY CAN'T MY GM'S BE LIKE U?! T__T ( 9:07 ) ABSOLUTELY RIGHT MR! I appreciate very much that remark: Ideed "He cannot be a gentleman which loveth not a dog". Awesome teacher, GM, AND also human being. ❤ ( 9:26 ) I would have added... "and they WILL suffer a horrific, lonely, humiliating, slow death" ^_^
AN ANIMAL COMPANION SHOULD BE TREATED AS A COMPANION, golden rule, music to my ears
My character is a heartless archon (A malicious mind-controller who mind-controls the marvelous minds of many people as well as melevolent minds of anyone.) who has a pet that he loves.
Also an other of my characters was a plantation owner who had a literal slave who turned into a companion.
"Oh yes, my animal companion, which is a weasel, has been wrapped around my neck for the past 6 months. And I haven't mentioned it once."
Looking at you Jester.
My favorite animal companion was a giant wolf spider on my halfling Ranger. He got it after being ordered to destroy a hatchery inside of a goblin Spider Riders nest. He then raised it as His companion in secret because the other halflings of his village viewed them as a weapon for the enemy. And was forced to leave home when he refused to kill it.
I once had a dog companion in SR. It was more of a pet actually since I didn't take it with me on missions and didn't wanted to drench it's live away with chyberfication/nor his character. The last evening I wanted to play the character since she had reached her life goal, we got attacked and my character was knocked unconscious. The other players left the dog behind. To make a point and a new villian, the DM shot it D: and it would have died.
Even though I put the character anyway down and could have moved the Karma (those are like XP in the system for those who don't know the game. You pay abilities, attribute upgrades and may be able to get a second chance for a dice role etc.) I saved its life with all the Karma I had left, which were about 30 Karma. It is about 10 % of the amount a new character gets as creation points and normally you get between 2 -3 points per evening. So I really had saved up some time.
Anyway, I loved that stupid thing even though it wasn't even a help for me in combat but rather just a part of my character.
Now it lives a happy life with an old NPC woman, who owns a grocery store nearby one of our bases. She knew our characters well, so the dog as well. Since we always bought food and meat at her store when we grilled after a successful run (or when our Gnome player got hungry xD; so every second evening I guess) I really want that dog back x'D
If you can run a game as the animal companion you've made a good possible great animal companion. # Trinket's hunny hiest
It doesn't take much to make a companion memorable. I once played a Wizard who had a rat Familiar, and I made it a point to buy him some cheese every time we went to a place that sold food. Every single time. It only took a week or so before other characters were buying cheese and giving it to him as a token of good fortune or bribe (my Wizard focused on buffing allies) and the Familiar quickly became the party mascot.
Thank you for confirming my thoughts about how the gm is playing the companion versus the playing saying what attacks ec that it does.^^ I'm playing a homebrew where the summons can hang out and interact with the players, and I wanted to be the higher power that is behind the summoned avatar. So this helped to hear.^^
As both GM and player some of my favorite character interactions have come from animal companions and familiars.
One in particular is the session namer for when we refer to that group: Yache, a lovely corvid for my partner's wizard. He is arrogant toward any smaller or less intelligent bird, and extorts his 'master' for 'sugar water' any time he gets an order he doesn't like. His cry when he takes off to do a chore is: for the sugar water!
Unfortuneately only one GM I've played under lets me have any use for one, and he usually uses him as a plot device when "Mine" the self named pallas cat is involved at all. Still better an entertaining plot device than killed off screen by a wraith like a different DM did to my little owlcat...
Yesterday my Mandalorian Warrior found a Basilisk War Droid. I love him already.
My party recently came across a caged up, beaten, angry deathdog. Instead of doing what... most sane people would do upon seeing a deathdog, and killing it... My kobold bard decided to go up to it, offer it food, and use his healing magical music to mend its wounds. The kobold bard now has a giant two headed dog that is larger than he is, who he loves and showers in love and petting and ear scratches like all good dogs deserve. Even named both its heads. The right head is Rock, the left head is Roll. And this dog loves nothing more than EVISCERATING AND DEVOURING derro. Because derro are what locked the poor dog up in that cage. And the party is more than happy to oblige Rock&Roll's desire for derro flesh. Otherwise it is a loyal good boy that the kobold rides atop of so he can constantly give scritches while they travel.
I love your videos. I've been playing for a year now and I used a magical lion. I didnt know if I could, due to the rules, but after talking to my DM about my backstory, he allowed it and my lion was very useful. He detected a ghost, helped with a demon and I just loved him. Btw, my character was a druid and my lion's goal was to protect her after the tragic death of his original owner.
This helps a ton! My charecter breeds dragons and has a baby thunder dragon that will not leave his side, and nobody wanted to buy it anyway. Thanks man!
Another thing my Gm struggles with is giving players choices. He eluded to it before we started but quickly came to the realization that nothing we decide matters. He always drags us into doing a bad thing or a not "good thing". I think he is trying but like ive been in campaigns where the Gm was creative and worked with the players but this one its mostly "Its My Story im the GM, You do what i want you to or your toon will die."
Then find another GM, and tell you GM to write a book if he wants to tell "his story."
blkgardner right thats what i feel.
Ran into one of those myself, the guy would even do damage to your character for your character having a brief bit of banter between your character and another's during combat or something. To paraphrase him he thought that the gm's word was law and during an RP the GM is basically god...needless to say I was glad I had started my own group, thanks to his heavy-handed tactics the free market made it so his basically ceased to be real competition.
Perhaps time to confront your GM with the word "Railroading", ask your GM if he know what the word mean, and what his opinion about it is.
And if your GM think it is the way, then you know it is time to find a cooler GM.
Or... Maybe... Interesting option: Be the cooler GM yourself! Could be your fellow other PC players would like to play something different with you as GM, and you may even get your current GM to join your group!
High-Marshal_Jaeger yeah man honestly i find it quite lame sometimes with this group but....their my only group i know :/ so thats on me. And none of them take me seriously, i hate to say this but im legit the only person in my group with an irl moral code. So they totally dont mind bullying others and doing evil thungs in rp and being jerks to people irl. The only reason they are a bit nicer to me is......I actually domt kmow
one of my characters through a series of very lucky animal handling checks managed to acquire a direwolf at somewhere around level 1 or 2 and i ended up building the whole character around fighting alongside his really big puppydog
Well, this finally made me concider to give my new character in my favourite MMO game roleplay an animal companion. He's a mage who grew up isolated and is mainly used to animals so I'm gonna give him a raven companion. Might give it a heroic sacrifice at some point, but not after many and many times of bonding and making sure my fellow roleplayers love the little animal (hehe, I'm evil now >:)
Definitely gonna use your tips.
all players in my campaign now have mini dragons
Thanks for the advice
What about pets? My halfling rogue was given a fox as a pet (not an animal companion). While I can certainly give him a personality and a goal, how do I ensure his safety when he has
I think it is more pets, than animal companions in general, this video is about.
For what your fox goes, then think about how you would care for a dog IRL: Would you take it along when you go to work? When you go shopping? Most people will not take their dogs along when they do those tasks.
Similarly your rogue should leave the fox stay in its pen when you are out shoplifting.
You can try to train your fox, though harder to train than dogs, still they can learn to do tricks.
Perhaps sneak your fox into a nearby hen-house for it to have some fun time there, and when people are distracted by it you do your shoplifting!
This way you can both entertain your fox and get a bonus to your skills at the same time!
Further more you make yourself a hero by saving the hens from the fox!
Why stop there? You can become perceived as a generous person when you pay more than enough to cover the damage done! (10 % of your loot should do nicely!)
My last ranger had an owl. An owl is EXTREMELY weak for combat, but it was fully thematic and I held to that so i was rewarded by my DM because the owl became a character.
I always played with the idea of a LG Ranger accidentally adopting a dire wolf puppy. Everyone one else see that its clearly growing into a dire wolf, but I will stubbornly insist he's just a very big boy. Admitting it eventually as it reaches the age when it has become horse sized.
My character's companion, a cockatrice name Echo, died last session. In game there has been a 3-month time jump (we have also been taking a break out of game as well, since the DM was starting to burn out). The party has been in a Magic Academy during the time jump and my character has been in a deep mourning period. He already had a whole bunch of bad crap happen to him throughout the campaign and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Throughout the time jump he has barely talked to any of the party and stays in his room alone tinkering, studying different types of resurrection and his archenemy. Let's just say that when the campaign starts back up, the party will see a difference in him and his methods.
I'm gonna run my first game as a GM for my two best friends. One of them chose to be a ranger and got a giant poisonous snake companion, I hope she plays it good.
now you've got me thinking of my puppys that passed away... profound sadness. Anyway love these videos and there helping me think out a character i have in a game me and my buddy do (as well as characters i make for story's i'm working on)
Telling a player that their animal companion died "a while back" because of some event that you felt should have been the death of it and failed to inform the player AT THAT TIME that the companion died, then that's on the GM not the player. A lot of GM's often forget that animal companions are class features, not NPCs, and just like any other class feature, should not be taken away without a story-driving reason. You wouldn't tell a wizard "Oh i forgot to mention, remember way back when you got hit in the head by that rock? Well now you've forgotten how to cast spells, sorry", and expect that wizard player to not be upset with you.
This helped alot, im playing a orc ranger with a giant vulture as his companion, our first big fight we had a jabberwok come down ant attack. The first thing it did was tail slap my bird unconscious. My actions was to run over pour one of my healing potions down its throat and send it ahead out of combat to the caravan we were guarding. But now im gonna be able to play off the relationship of my militant ranger and a huge infectious bird bird.
That was a lot of fun. Thank you, good man.
I just asked my GM if I could have a Giant Ground Sloth as a companion and mount.
...I shall name him Thadius!
I have a heroic Psicrystal shaped like a tiny honey badger to act as my Psions sense of passion and conscience. He also runs behind enemies and challenges them to battle to make them turn around so the psion can stab them properly and save power points.
One of my Players, had a animal companion that he treated like a slave and tool (they were playing a Chaotic Good, Witch with the patron of trickery). Their familiar was a fox, they gave the animal no backstory or anything so I made it a plot device. They were shocked when the kitsune assassin that was hired to kill them was his familiar the entire time and poisoned him when he was fighting the assassin clan that was hired to kill a doctor they were escorting (It did kill the doctor) and became a mainstay villain throughout the campaign. I did have to explain to the player that I bent the rules and it was do to a magic item the kitsune wore.
I have a half-elf druid that used to be a tiefling who happened to accidentally rescue an owlet that fell on his head when it jumped out of its nest. He thought it was funny cause it wasn't scared of him but it ended up becoming his only friend and the only thing he saved in the incident that got him killed and turned into a half-elf.
Hmm, makes me wonder the merits of playing a werewolf, where the wolf-side is an animal companion to one of the other characters, with it's own goals that may differ from those of the man-side... possibly a cursed werewolf, where the other character can force/impose the shapeshift on the werewolf....
It's probably been done.
I really can't explain how it happened but just recently my Tabaxi Rogue ended up winning a giant chicken. so now I'm playing a big black cat casually riding his epic war chicken and I instantly love this chicken so much, it doesn't even have a name yet but he would totally do everything for that big derpy bird.
Having a pet crab and naming him Kastrator
Oh god
My Celestial warlock has a pseudodragon familiar as a pet- well more of a friend/ comedic accomplice- It's more of a roommate dynamic. Chip has died so many times, but it is humorous because the party knows it will take him an hour to return to the corporeal plane. That doesn't stop us from having exceedingly dramatic death scenes. I didn't tell my party I was pact of the chain, so they thought he was a regular pet. The first time they saw him die, my character ran over to his ashes and wept for a good ten minutes. Then he got up said "oh well" and re-summoned him. If you've seen Megamind it was about the same vibe as when minion "died". That being said if my familiar ever managed to actually permanently die... the warlock would probably destroy everything in the known universe.
I currently play a human draconic Sorcerer. My DM knew I wanted a dragon like pet and we had a small time skip coming. Thus my DM got me a Guard Drake, I called it Fulminieum and it truly helps me in combat, but it hasn’t come up in RP yet, but it might come up soon.
I've got a question for you. Half dragons, what's you take on a half pseudodragon Kobald? It's an idea of an NPC that I've had for a few years now. Or a Dragonwrought Kobald that has a pseudodragon ancestor. I haven't tried either of them out just yet as I haven't done any gaming for a while now as either a DM or player. But I was thinking of having a whole tribe that had pseudodragon blood. The tribe would've been a small one, about 10-15 members and wouldn't fall into the usual mould as most Kobalds but be more like that of pseudodragons and be more kindly maybe even having pseudodragons that live in the forest that surrounds their layer and once in a while the pseudodragons and Kobalds would intermingle and produce half pseudodragon Kobalds.
Just wondering what your thoughts as a DM thought about these ideas.
I am running a Warhammer Fantasy RP, one of our guys raise mini pigs as pets for a living, when they rolled for random trappings at the start of the game, that guy rolled a pet pig.
That pig have become the main character of the entire RP.
My sister tamed an OwlBear
She does almost everything she can to keep it out of combat because she doesn't want "the poor thing to get hurt"
She is well aware as to what an Owlbear is, it's why she wanted to tame it in the first place.
Your organ type intro reminds me so much of Phantom of the Opera
Phantom of the Opera reminds basically everyone of Echos by pink floyd in the first place
The group was getting ready to make (or have made) barding for Raksha, my reverse werewolf ranger's wolf companion out of the skin of a basilisk we killed.
Unfortunately the game fell apart because of scheduling issues.
I was expecting you to say "and then sacrifice it"
Your chosen picture tells me that you'd rather he said that instead
You make absolute sense in what you say! But I wonder what would you advice in a game like Vampire The Masquerade, where characters do create some ghouls as mere tools (and totally fits with their arch), How would you advice the treatment of animal ghouls then?
Ghouls are problematic in that they loose their free will by becoming blood bound, and futhermore brain-washed by Dominate, Animalism etc.
This way they are turned into becoming tools.
It have been a while since I have played VtM myself, but I once played a character who would only make ghouls if they had the "Unbondable" Merit.
This way I got such ghoul as gift. As the creator saw it as being failed: Not good as blood puppet, which was the intend, but failed due to it was unbondable.
It became interesting in that the unbondable merit enables the ghoul to learn Disciplines without suffering the usual penalties normally making learning Disciplines a hopeless task for ghouls. (There are a rule-book for ghouls!).
This way she over time became an interesting character with personality, so much that she could have been a PC!
But beside of that I do not think there are much to do with ghouls, except accepting that they are no longer the being they was before, but now turned into robots instead.
Now I think about it... Maybe... It should be possible to commit vaulderie inside a ghoul and thus destroy the blood bond, and thus free the ghoul somewhat. Only somewhat as it leave a vinculum in the ghoul, and it is in some sense worse, as blood bonds in ghouls go away over time, unless renewed. Whereas a vinculum is permanent in a ghoul.
so, no personality then? or personality yet loyalty?
If only turned into a ghoul (No Dominate manipulation or whatever.) then the ghouls personality will be as it was before, as long as the ghoul is far away from the one blood bound to.
Thus a ghoul can retain its personality.
Problem is that those who want to create ghouls to be tools will keep them close, so the blood bond 'override' the ghouls personality with the wishes of the master.
If I was in the Storyteller position, then I would take into account how they treat their ghouls, compared to their humanity or path: If the way they treat their ghouls are against the view of their path they may soon loose some marples...
Thus treating ghouls bad will bring the vampire into trouble.
I think if you have a storyteller who allow bad treatment of ghouls without consequences, then your vampire game is played in a wrong bad way.
---
However: You are talking about making animal ghouls.
Here we have to remember that animals are different from people, as animals do not believe vampires to be people (as humans do) but as dangerous predators which they prefer to flee from. Or as the rulebok say it: "beasts are distinctly uncomfortable around the undead and will do all they can to move away." that is why the disipline Animalism is crucial in that it removes that effect.
Still the rule "Animals will react badly to vampires without Animalism." apply to animal ghouls as well; for all other vampires than the master, the animal ghoul is blood bound to.
Thus I will say: Treating an animal ghoul well include keeping it away from other vampires.
I can see the point in having a ghoul guard dog at ones heaven, as it will detect if any other vampire is approaching!
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My afore mentioned character got a cat with the "Vampire affinity" merit. (By rescueing it from the danger "Vampire affinity" pose to the animal having it: Getting eaten by a vampire!) But I did not convert it into a ghoul.
I just kept it as a normal pet, which interestingly opened up for a lot good role play: It became an attraction at my parties! (Yes, I'm a Toreador.) Quite many vampires are not used to be able to get near animals, and thus welcomed the chance to pet the cat and giving it treats! (Thus the second part of "Vampire affinity"'s not being afraid of vampires, and become attracted to them; played itself out!)
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I think the way you treat those around you is an important part of VtM: In our coterie I was the only one ever allowed to raise my humanity (the 8th marple), whereas our Gangrel did loose his marples quite fast.
If you are the storyteller for someone treating animal ghouls badly and thereby (most likely) ignore its basic needs, then you can let it get fleas, gut worms and other blood sucking parasites, and ... Here it is where it become interesting ... Those parasites will be animal ghouls too! And some of them will move over to the original host: The vampire!
For a vampire, parasites are hopelessly difficult to get rid of. Currently I can only think of two ways to get rid of them: Either a ritual where the vampire empties the body of blood while sleeping the day away in purified water (Causing the ghoul parasites to die by drowning) - or - a prolonged time in torpor (Causing the ghoul parasites to die by starvation).
In both cases the vampire wakes up extremely hungry! Go figure...
Thanks Lars, you just made a couple players and a narrator very happy
Hellhounds are good boys.
That being said another good option is having a player who isn't active in the scene play the animal ghouls.
Heck we had a session where it was pretty much Hell hounds vs hunters.
The first animal Jerome ghouled was a raven he named Suile (Gaelic for eyes). Though to be fair Suile was mostly a scout and a way to keep vamps from reobsing.
His Childe's second hellhound (our nickname for ghouled dogs) actually sacrificed her life for him and he risked his to carry her out of a burning hospital so she could get a proper burial.
Question;
Would you consider a True Neutral PC eligible to receive a companion then? A character that pays attention to the pet, raises it, includes it in its story, but could be stone-faced at loosing it? It IS a character trait of such an alignment, and it doesn't mean the companion wasn't loved, just ultimately expendable for the greater good. :O
+Amund Helgaset Rothe
Why not? I mean as long as he treats it well, an animal will not run away that fast. As far as I remember, a true neutral Character does have emotions, just not really for the world around him. On a personal level he should be able to care.
Some people show affection differently, many people know a person who doesn't treat animals that well or is sometimes quite harsh with them, but they still love that person. My father is one example, he never was really nice to our cat, but it still liked to sit on his lap.
My ranger had a white wolf animal companion that turned out to be a cursed druid werewolf which had developed a yandere level affection for him. She started stringing people up with vines whenever they flirted with my ranger. It made for some interesting stays at inns.
Wait... 3:42 Where have you stuck your finger?
In one of the earlier episodes of Critical Role, one character sent their bear companion to stroll back to the inn the characters were staying at all by itself when it became inconvenient to have it with her. Then forgot about it.
So the GM decided that when this bear just turned up at the inn, the dwarves (it was dwarven city) there decided that the thing to do was to put the poor animal into the fighting ring that was at the centre of the tavern. Hilarity ensued as the panicked players desperately tried to get the bear out of the path of the resident fistfighting champion.
You really shouldn't let months of campaign time go past before you remind players who have *decided* to play a character with a companion that they are essentially playing two characters.
The part about the ferret being incinerated hit way too close to home. It happened to my pet fieldmouse. I loved it, I cared for it, and then it was gone. I legit cried.
Then it returned. It's complicated.
On the topic of Animals, and with Xanathar's coming out with the Cavalier, is there anything in the rules that lets you make most mount creatures -not- suck? Unless you're a paladin with Find Steed most of the mounts seem like a big liability ready to be wiped out by a single AOE than a boon.
I shall steal Xanathar's fish and feed it to the catfolk bard
i used to have a dracon mount in 2e ( not dragon ) and we had an empithatic link which was cool and it ate alot of silver and i would always buy a lot of silver ingots for him to chow down on after a quest it was awesome............. until one of our players decided to ride their shield down a flight of stairs in a sea-troll kingdom where there were holes dropping over 200 feet to the watery depths and our team got party wiped because the encounter for the quest was set up for people to not kill themselves........ i was an awesome cavalier named korvol Bravarian, with an awesome mount. PS sorry about rant just a 2E experience.
In my next VtM game I decided to have my PC have a Ghoul dog. Thanks for the tips on how to better play it.
Animal companions are NPCs that tend to obey the PC... most of the time.
You still have to feed them.
I'm making an elf character right now and I don't know if I want her to have a mount to interact with, a hunting dog, or practice falconry.
This is my first ever Dnd character and I have no idea what I'm doing
My party once fed set of chained up wolves. And set them free when to dungeon boss fought us he had the much better Alpha wolf by his sides during the fight one of the wolves we helped joined in to fight the alpha wolf. Got to take him as animal companion afterwards. He treated the party as his new pack and that shaped his actions in and out of combat. Spent a decent amount and time gold to make sure we could handle the situations we ended up in. I was the barbarian so I was left in charge of training him.
For comedic effect he would at times come across as more sensible and even competent then the party. Since unless given reason to do otherwise he would act On what for a wolf would be basic common sense. Unless he was trying to save the party he would not do things a hot head like my character would like relentlessly attacking while taking hits. He would help but fall back if he got hurt or would behave opportunistically and hang back fat chance to ounce in and flankIng or attack some who was prone. Liked collect “treats” forhimself any chance he got Which made dealing with skeletons very interesting. Otherwise he was a more serious version of a dog.
Another thing you can do for your abimal companion is give the thing a name. Generally, what I do is find a child name from the player's handbook and give it to my animal companion.
This was very useful and right on time since next week I'm starting with a new character. My Goliath barbarian doesn't have a weapon, plays dulcimer and has a pet ferret. My companion likes to listen to my character playing dulcimer (that's how I tamed him), is curious, but shy. That's about everything I have about it. I need to expand upon it's personality and goals. Any advice how to do it? Maybe there is some personality, ideals, bonds, flaws tables (like in 5e background creation) for animal companions that I could use to pick up some inspiration? (already tried googling it with no results). Any help appreciated.
What about the gruff character who "callously" orders their companion to cover the players' retreat and tries to keep up the front of not caring but then becomes enraged with the other party members afterward over even little things, because he is wishing someone.... anyone... in the party had half the mettle their companion did and they would much rather have ordered one of them to their deaths? Would you pick up on it if a player wanted to play it that way and would you still pi ish them?
My halfling ranger/Druid had terrible luck with his riding dogs, mechanically he was building into mounted archery and going the halfling rider prestige. However I think I enjoyed roll playing him doting over his animals and mourning their many unfortunate deaths more than looking at the mecnhanical application. (Though it' was important as he was cripple, could barely walk so otherwise he had to be carried usually). His first two riding dogs died instantly by crossbow bolts to the right eye, the third was an allied drow fumbling her concentrated black lotus poison injection dagger into poor scruffles the seconds right eye, which oddly enough wasn't quite enough to kill him! It was the repeatedly critical failed heal checks that followed where he ended up killing the companion males trying to save m. Smashed a healing potion into the wounded eye as he was bleeding out and rubbed the glass into the wound begging the poor creature to wake up and live (was out of spells so couldn't use magic to stabilize). That night he would take a drink from one of his bottles of mead, and pour out the next till he killed the whole bottle, still in the forest where they were ambushed by goblins. Did the same every day till he ran out of mead. His pony named Bill which he got later on, was much more fortunate and outlived him, switched animal types and turns out only dogs are chaired to die around m.
"today, we are looking at animal companions" with an animal mask. I see what you did there
Is it possible for my lvl 1 character to have a dragon wyrmling as a pet/companion? He is a dark elf draconic sorcerer who loves dragons with a passion and dreams of having one so is it possible for him to start as lvl 1 in his 1st adventure and have a dragon wyrmling or an egg he has to protect?
I wouldnt because those stats are op like 3 or 4 level 5 characters to kill one.
I would say pseudodragon would be a better idea
I don't understand how to apply this to familiar's I'm not sure if they should be more intelligent because they're a Fey, Celestial or Fiend or if they act the same as a normal animal (This is for 5e)
Have you made a video about PC death? I'm still fairly new to D&D, and when a character I lovingly crafted was killed on day 1, it really put me off for a little bit, and still prevents me from taking risks in games. Any advice to get me out of this rut?
I have a Shaman-Fighter-Artificer, and he has a spirit animal as a shaman thingie. I looked up and down the familiar lit and then suddenly saw the Raccoon, now I love raccoons, and it had an ok bonus with the sleight of hand pluss, but I really like the short description, and said to my DM that the description befitted my character as well. I think it was something like, This small furry mammal has strangely humanoid tendencies with its multifingered hands. this befits my shaman as well.
I also have speak with familiar, so my charater will have many'a conversations with the raccoon. with the inaudible sqreeching it does.
my pirate gave a cockatoo a flintlock pistol very intersted how that gonna turn out
Please, I beg of you, tell how it turned out.
Would a familiar be considered an animal companion? I only recently began playing d&d and my level 1 wizard has a little fey rat familiar, and I was wondering how I should best use it and treat it in game.
Treat it like an animal companion, because it is one. The only difference is yours is (probably) telepathic and much more intertwined with your character.
Earthman110 Ok, thank you
@ Earthman110 the D&D Rules treat animal companions and familiars differently. They should not be confused as far as rules go, so @Shifty Tiger, I agree with Earthman110 that it's fine to treat it as one when in character, but the rules and particularly the feats concerning animal companions and familiars are distinct.
I think it might be fun to rp as a companion, such as a psedodragon.
The ice dragonborn cleric has a pet yeti. The new alternative to rocks. Yeti attacks, everyone dies
My acrane trickster had a pet bat named Wheatly. He would scout out the terrain before a battle. When my character died, one of the other pc's decided to adopt the him. Wheatly headbutted him and got a critical hit, and knocked him unconsious.
the pc killed him, but he lived out my characters last words: "Wheatly, avenge me!!!!"
You really love your dogs.
in my first long term campaign I played we were using 3.5 edition and we all ended up playing evil Characters. I was playing a ranger elf- werewolf. in the course of that campaign I lost 4 animal companions due to stupid accidents and massive amounts of damage. I wouldn't say they were heroic deaths but they were not intentional sacrifices. I think the dm just thought it was funny to kill my pets.
I played an eidolist (5e Homebrew) and my entire quest was finding my snake Lisa... It didn't matter at all that I could call a new pet to me in 10 minutes with no penalty, the little boy hated watching the snake suffer.
I want to ask about Vermin Animal companions. Because they do exist and you didn't cover them in this video.
For example my Vermin Druid has a Large Monstrous Centipede as her animal companion. The problem i find here is because Vermin are denoted as being well for a better term "Brainless" in a sense. And i have a hard time expressing the animal companions persona.
Most of what i have tried to do is is it wanting to eat people and at the start even some of the PCs. For example when our ranger got drunk and kissed its back. Or even using it as a intimidation during interrogation of NPCs (If you dont tell me i will feed you to it). But thats the most i could do...
I no longer play with animal companions as all my past ones drew agro. I played a wizard with a weasel companion. He drew so much agro that I hid him in my pack and he still got hit with a spear.
12:20 you forgot feathery...
I’d like some small imp creature who usually sits on my shoulder or sleeps in my bag, and I can chat with and who scavenges random shiny items and pulls off all sorts of shenanigans against friend & foe
My ranger pet is a Butterfly but a construct butterfly
you know if a player gets your goat by sacrificing his companion you should make it literal when they ask for a new one. Give them a goat as a companion. Make sure it likes to bite and then run off at inconvenient times. Even better if you can get them to want to be rid of it but it will keep showing up no mater what they do.
So I guess that the fact that I in one campain kept using my familiar to detonate explosive runes was bad...
People keep saying, oh if this character was meant to be a jerk would you punish them? The answer, for me personally, is no. It's how the character is built and yeah the morality sucks, but that's how the character is supposed to be. I think what he was referring to is people who play characters of good alignments. There's nothing "good" about animal abuse. I don't care if your chaotic good, there is nothing right about animal abuse and you can't call yourself good if your going to do it. I'm not saying the companion has to be pampered or even liked, but taking care of it reasonably like any decent human being and not using it as cannon fodder is a must. Give it food, give it water, give it shelter if it needs, and for the love of the gods, don't intentionally throw it in harms way if you know it's almost certain to die!
Also good advice for droids. :)
I recently decided to learn D&D, and these videos have been super helpful as a new GM. I do have a question however, How do I plan for a player who might not be their every session? In this case a player, let's call him D; D told me that he is interested in playing, but do to other obligations he may not be able to show up to every session. Do you have any advise on how to plan a game session in this circumstance.
Maybe D is a mercenary who sells his skills for a set amount of time or upon the completion of a specific task? Maybe he's just easily distracted? Or MAYBE there's some wizard pulling his strings and teleporting him out of the situation to go over "The Master Plan" one more time.