Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Sidekicks

Anthraxus · Dec 18, 2018

Too complicated. Just adding a few things would be better- I'd rather not see them be class-lite, and more just simple henchmen that just get a few abilities.

LuisCarlos17f · Dec 18, 2018

The sidesicks have to be simple for a faster game if there are used many nPCs.

If there is a module about sidesick humanoids, why not about animals and monster allies? Today new generations are used to videogames about collecting, and training/taming monsters, for example Pokemon and Digimon. And some players would like exotic allies like sentient constructs or planar outsiders.

Parmandur · Dec 18, 2018

LuisCarlos17f said:
The sidesicks have to be simple for a faster game if there are used many nPCs.

If there is a module about sidesick humanoids, why not about animals and monster allies? Today new generations are used to videogames about collecting, and training/taming monsters, for example Pokemon and Digimon. And some players would like exotic allies like sentient constructs or planar outsiders.

Actually, these rules work for animals and monsters of no more than CR 1, as long as friendship exists and the DM allows.

So, Half-Ogres, a few Metallic Dragon Wyrmlings and some straight up weird possibilities work here.

jmucchiello · Dec 18, 2018

paladinn said:
The class/subclass concept in 5e Requires one to take a subclass. Even if you just want to be "just a fighter", you have to go Champion. "Just a rogue" Requires one to go Thief. As designed, you can't be a generalist Wizard (I don't consider War Mage as a real generalist)

The classes here would more easily facilitate "generic" classes. And multiclassing, IMHO, would be easier without factoring in all the extraneous class features of the subclasses.

You could, if you had people who would be confused by the Champion not being "in" the Fighter, combine the Fighter class chart with the Champion abilities and label the resulting class "The Champion". All the subclasses could be made into "proper" classes in this way. Would it really be better if the Fighter had the Champion in it and pathfinder style, the Battlemaster said "this ability replaces the (champion) ability". I don't think that easier.

paladinn · Dec 18, 2018

I wonder how many people really like the Battlemaster.. lol

What is currently the Warrior could be the baseline Fighter; not sure the Champion is really needed, and the Eldritch Knight can be pretty-much achieved via multiclassing.

The Crimson Binome · Dec 18, 2018

jmucchiello said:
And all of your skeleton warriors are boring as hell. You take a few minutes more to do it and fighting against skeleton warriors is a challenge because they can do stuff.

If the point of these rules was to scale up enemies to make interesting encounters, then I would agree; but the goal of these rules is to scale up monsters so that they stay relevant as sidekicks to the PCs, in which case the important aspect is that they not overshadow the actual players at the table.

The main reason why a two-player party doesn't just hire an NPC with actual class levels to accompany them is because that's an entire character sheet, with their own resources to track and manage. This approach doesn't solve that problem at all.

Inchoroi · Dec 18, 2018

......is this something that people wanted? I'm just kind of flabbergasted that they felt the need to put this out there. I mean, if you can use it, by all means! But it seems...unnecessary?

D1Tremere · Dec 18, 2018

Inchoroi said:
......is this something that people wanted? I'm just kind of flabbergasted that they felt the need to put this out there. I mean, if you can use it, by all means! But it seems...unnecessary?

Came at the perfect time for me, as multiple members of my group have recently purchased trained animals, and one has an obsessed halfling devoted to them.

The thing to remember for those talking about power level is that these are not "things" that the PCs own in the technical sense, these are free willed beings that require relationships to maintain. They may have their own agendas, or give the players reason to care about the consequences of entering battle outside of themselves. They cannot be too powerful, nor overshadow the PCs, as ultimately the DM decides on their actions and fate even if the PC gets to run them most of the time to save the DM work. Plot twists, character investment, and just plain relevance for pets and NPC people seems like a winner to me.

I am surprised they don't have team up or direct support/bond type abilities though.

MarkB · Dec 18, 2018

Inchoroi said:
......is this something that people wanted? I'm just kind of flabbergasted that they felt the need to put this out there. I mean, if you can use it, by all means! But it seems...unnecessary?

I'd probably get more use out of it if it were further simplified a little, but yes, I can absolutely see myself using something like this. I've run more campaigns where the party acquired at least one NPC or creature 'pet' than otherwise, and if they get particularly attached, it can feel even worse if their buddy gets killed than if they lose their own character. Having an easy way to keep those sidekicks' abilities in line with the rest of the party, and better still one that I can very easily just hand off to the player rather than handling it myself, promises to be very handy.

And I can easily see myself using these classes when tinkering with monsters or NPCs to beef them up a bit, rather than going to the PHB.

lkj · Dec 18, 2018

I found this comment from Jeremy very interesting (from twitter):

"It's easy to forget that the Beast Master can get something like a sidekick in addition to a beast companion. The new option is additive; it doesn't replace the beast companion. And a DM might allow the beast companion to take the warrior class."

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1074826244519124997

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