D&D 5E Pets and animals that are not companions

Heya, I'm a DM of 2 groups, and a player in 2 more. Been playing D&D for about 8 years now, mostly 3.5, but really enjoying 5th now, and have played that actively since late D&D Next.

Just a quick questions to DMs (and experienced players) about animals that are NOT Animal Companions or Familiars... Animals can be tamed through Animal Handling over a longer period of time, and also purchased (Mastiff is listed under Equipment / Mounts and Other Animals). Now, there are plenty of rules for animals as mounts, pulling drawn vehicles, animal companions, or familiars, but I cant find any other rules. Spesificly I'm thinking of combat.

One of my characters has purchased 2 mastiffs and a sled (its a desert campaign, sled is better than cart on sand ) and is going to use that as his primary mode of transport. However I was wondering what would happen in combat? now, as a rules lawyer the dogs would just stand still, as it says NOTHING. However it is most likely that they will panic in some way. As a DM I have spent some time looking for rules about this, both in the books and on forums, but cant find any suggestions. Personally, I think utter panic would be too mean to a player, as they would run off. As an adventurer, obviously my dogs would be at least accustomed to some combat, if not trained for it.

What I'm asking is, how would you deal with animals that are purchased or tamed?

Obviously they cant be as usefull or powerfull as a ranger's companion, but they shouldnt be utterly useless either?
I'm thinking that they should act as though they are under the Frightened condition (disadvantage on all checks, cant move towards a hostile enemy) and possibly also only attack if backed against a wall. Also an animal trained for combat (like a warhorse) might be more willing to participate, possibly following the rules of a Warlock with Chain Pact (you may forgo an attack for your pet to take one)

What are your opinions?

When I DM, I treat any animal or companion that was not acquired through a race, background or class feature as strictly "wallpaper" during combat (unless the player dictates otherwise). They don't do anything during a fight, they contribute nothing to a fight, but at the same time they also aren't targets the party needs to worry about or defend (nor to draw enemy attacks from.) In my games, they are Roleplaying resource, not a Combat resource, and fade to the background once a fight begins.

Thus it is presumed that all animals and companions have been trained prior to going out on the road to not freak out during a fight, but also to get out of harm's way when it occurs. Players never need to worry about what or where their animal is when a fight breaks out. The only time this changes is if the owner of said animal *chooses* to introduce the creature into combat (even though it's not statistically built for it.) Once that happens, then all bets are off-- the player can use it however they want, but I also can treat them as actual liabilities and attack them all I want.

I have a players of a gnome PC that rides his mule into combat all the time firing his crossbow from the back... and the mule has been killed when a wall fell on them both following a dragon's breath weapon. He's choosing to potentially waste his money by putting the animal into harm's way, so I have no problem with him losing that investment on occasion. But had he bought the mule to use purely as a pack animal, he never would have to worry about it. I don't find repetitively having to protect your non-combat animals to be an interesting or compelling add during combat. There are so many more interesting things to deal with, especially if it would need to occur over and over and over during every single attack.

Using frightened and the assumptions for non-combat trained livestock, pets, and draft animals sounds reasonable. This doesn't need to be resolved die roll after die roll though if it slows down the primary action.

I do function similar to DEFCON 1 in my handling though. A long time ago I made the group devote resources to guarding pack animals. Every now and then something happens, or they are simply dispersed and time not unlike room searches is spent in gathering them. But they've caught on more that I've relaxed on that handling and it's made the action flow in a more cinematic/expected manner. I absolutely agree with risk to the animal if the animal is put in harm's way or being used in a combat like activity. Last session a character's crow was sent to investigate a tower like a surveillance drone. I should have, but had not anticipated this, however I did have a pre-planned encounter with ironically...carrion crows. The party's crow was outmatched and far ahead of the PCs, and did not make it back. It was however useful in allowing the characters to be fully prepared against the coming encounter and it was subsequently a cake walk for them.

In that case. the crow on crows encounter was easily handled by existing mechanics. Other times you just have to...wing it.

Sabotender said:

What I'm asking is, how would you deal with animals that are purchased or tamed?

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Simply: no combat.

The animal might defend itself if cornered, but I wouldn't bother with the details of running a regular round of combat for it.

If the system has some rules for training pets for combat, and the player wanted her PC to do so, then I would probably follow them.

But buying an animal and expect it to fight at your side doesn't happen in my games. I think it is too easy to abuse, and it devalues class-specific companions.

Pretty much the same, pets and pack animals are ignored in combat unless the situation calls for it.

Thanks for the responses Groups I DM (also ones I play in) tend to be heavily RP focused, earlier in 3.5 we often had characters that were very focused on skills and non-combat. And so it wasnt unheard of that a "merchant" player would purchase a guard dog. In this event we would treat it as an npc (taking some of the xp).

In 5th we have usually ignored pets in most cases. But we also like a little realism, so if the players are ambushed, or they are using a dog to track a scent. The pet is often stuck in the middle of combat, in these cases we can't simply ignore them, and have often dealt with them as frightened, having the same turn as their master, but trying to get away. The players usually only need to defend their animals for one or two rounds, until they get themselves between the animals and the monsters.

We never bother with monsters continuing to persue or use ranged against animals, but we dont hesitate to attack them if they are in the way. This has worked perfect for us earlier in 3.5 and also in 5th with non-combat mounts and draft-horses.

I was just asking for your opinions in the event that a pet WERE to be stuck in combat, as my new character will be multiclassing alot to focus on skills, as I will be RPing a merchant / politician. While my character will still be usefull in combat, because of RPing he will never be far from his sled (with his goods) and his dogs. I will never plan on using the dogs in combat, but I can imagine there might be a few situations where I have no choice (i.e. ambushes)

Mastiffs do have stats, so as I stated in my OP, we were probably just going to run with the Mastiffs being "frightened" throughout combat, and that they automaticly bite back if hit. But nothing more than that, they wont get their own turns or anything.

[MENTION=82678]Sabotender[/MENTION] I think that is a very good way to handle it.

I happily target their pack animals and such.

If an animal is not war trained, and is not a predator, and is not acquired from a feat, class feature, or background feature, I consider it to need to make morale each time hit.

A predator won't attack on command unless war trained, but if it's hit, sure, it will return the favor.

Class features are more specific rules instances. Since there aren't any rules for "pets," I'd look for a more general baseline. The most general baseline is that a creature just acts like a creature should act.

But then we have another example that works even better: mounts. The rules for mounts allow the mount to act independently and do whatever it would normally do. That means if you buy an elephant, ride it into battle, and allow it to act independently, it's probably going to do a decent job of defending itself.

As far as the frightened condition, I think that is a reasonable framework for interpreting the actions of animals that aren't trained for battle. An animal trained for battle should do better. There aren't any explicit rules for that, so it's up to the DM, but I'd recommend Handle Animal and a sufficient amount of time for combat training.

What I personally would not do is to follow the rules for the ranger's animal robot as a general principle for how non-PC creatures in the world act. It's a matter of playstyle. But for me, I absolutely refuse to run a D&D game where creatures walk around with names floating over their heads in various colors which determine whether or not they are combatants or require PC action resources to act, etc. You train your dogs to fight? Then they fight. You ride an elephant into battle against goblins? It stomps them as you pick them off with ranged weapons. (Hope you can afford to buy and carry all the food it needs though )

Of course, you should also know that I won't follow the rules for the ranger's animal companion at all. I house rule the animal companions so that they act normally and the ranger feature allows the granting of additional actions (like the battle master can grant extra attacks to others).

It doesn't over-power them, and it makes the game a bit more coherent. The few places (beast companion, chain pact warlock familiar) in the game where it uses those kinds of restrictive rules are out of harmony with the entire rest of the system philosophy.

Mastiffs I believe are considered 'warrior breeds'. Along with bulldogs, rottweilers and I think some other sorts of dogs. That means that they have more fight than flight typically. If the dogs are attached to a character, and they see that character go down, they're going to want to defend the pack.