Pets/mounts in AL

lonelynoose · Dec 3, 2017

A couple of things happened that I have questions for.

After missing a couple of sessions due to the Thxgiving holiday I came back to my weekly AL group and found out that a couple of players had pets. Ferret for the rogue, stuff like that. What are the AL guidelines for keeping/training a pet? I chose a traditional route of giving my human variant druid the ritual caster feat and obtaining the find familiar spell. I know with homebrew it's easy to get away with pets but what about AL?

Also, last weekend at my monthly meetup there was an ExtraLife charity event and my party defeated a Medusa atop a Nightmare. Wand of hold monster let the monk and barbarian autocrit to defeat the Medusa quick. The Nightmare ran away. Later on in the session the barbarian was able to calm the Nightmare down and now has a mount. Pretty powerful mount at that. The DM let him keep it. Is this skirting the rules? Just wondering because I'd like a mount as well (not so powerful) and was wondering the AL rules on mounts? I know there are dinosaurs floating around now.

Another point, both games are long running. Would pets/mounts have to be given up at the end of current session or end of campaign? If they can be kept at all. Would they not be allowed in other AL one shots?

Any info is great.

KahlessNestor · Dec 4, 2017

The only mounts you are allowed are those you buy from the PHB or other approved resource, or are awarded as treasure from a module. I know there are griffons and striders out there via certs, but I don't know of any nightmares, so it sounds like it's not legal, unless they can provide the adventure verification on their log sheet.

The same with pets (other than the small mouse from the Urchin starting equipment). None of those are legal unless you have verification.

Any of these pets and mounts without verification could be used in the module they were gotten, but then would disappear after the session.

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Pauper · Dec 4, 2017

If your Extra Life event included a session of Fai Chen's Fantastical Faire, then some players may have certed pets purchased from Fai Chen -- the Extra Life I went to locally had one -- which would definitely be AL-legal.

As for adventures, unless an item or object has a listed gold piece value under the 'Treasure' section of the adventure, a PC can't claim it. I know some DMs who hand-waive this requirement for trinket-type items that have no game statistics ("Oh, this? It's the thumbnail of a vampire lord I met in another realm..."), but something like a mount wouldn't fall under that category. If a DM allows it, then it's OK for that session, but you as a DM are not bound to honor that other DM's table-specific rulings (as table-specific rulings aren't supposed to be a 'thing' in Adventurers League to begin with).

It's possible that a CCC adventure might have a mount or other similar pet as a treasure item, but such an item should be certed. If it's not, and it doesn't fall under the existing guidance (listed in the PH, etc.), then it's not something the player should expect to keep.

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Pauper