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Pets and animals that are not companions
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<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6494298" data-attributes="member: 6677017"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>What I personally would <strong>not</strong> 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 <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />)</p><p></p><p>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 <em>additional</em> actions (like the battle master can grant extra attacks to others).</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 6494298, member: 6677017"] 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 [B]not[/B] 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 [I]additional[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]
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