Paladins and Squires

[Li Shenron]

Pets are not hugely difficult to implement. Squires are much, much more difficult.

They are both impossible to implement, unless you force a specific way to run them. But you can be pretty sure that whatever way you force, the same players who so desperately wanted a pet class in the first place will now complain that they can't use it in a different way.

For example, in 5e we have the Retainers feature for the Noble(Knight) background. Here a "non-combat, non-adventuring" way to run these characters is forced, with additional requirement about not mistreating them. And by the way, this is already a not bad idea for representing a squire.

The Battlemaster "pet" is mostly designed with combat in mind (although it clearly also allows out-of-combat uses), but it is forced to take actions in a way that is coordinated with the PC.

I have never seen the latter in practice, but I think it works, as long as the player accepts the forced restrictions as a sort of deal to make it work reasonably, and in fact we immediately got lots of players who complained about it, because they don't accept the deal.

Familiars (and those enhanced by Pact of the Chain) are even more restricted IIRC.

The general problem is that most players expect to be a lot more free in their "usage" of a pet or companion, but at the same time most DMs want to keep their narrative sensible in all situations, so they might not accept their side of the deal (such as handwaving problems on whether the pet/companion would accompany the PC anywhere, irregardless to its nature).

So for a general, all-encompassing, full-freedom solution, only an NPC would do.

 

[Kabouter Games]

I've only just started a character with a squire in 5e using the Knight variant of the PHB noble background. The squire obviously can't follow into a dungeon or whatever, but it's proving to be a nice RP addition to the character.

For an adventuring party I see a squire as much more of a bank guard. The party, with squire/servants/sherpa, rides thier mounts around the country until they find the Den of Evil. The heros go to smite the BBEG while the squire/servants/sherpas guard the horses, tents and other stuff.

That's the way I've played it. Last time I played a PC with a Knight background, it was testing the UA Cavalier. He needed retainers. It worked just fine.

I do not like the idea of having a "pet," however, unless it is treated in play exactly like the Ranger's animal companion (i.e., forego your action to dictate what your squire can do).

Cheers,

Bob

www.r-p-davis.com

 

[aco175]

If the player wants to run a squire ready to start adventuring on his own, that could be called 1st level.

 

[Kalshane]

I agree with the others saying that "Squire as pet" really doesn't work and runs into all sorts of moral and/or logical gymnastics to make it try to work. I also agree that it can work really well as an RP and out of combat perk.

Back in the 2e days our noble fighter had a manservant who was useless in combat but was incredibly useful outside of it and made for some fantastic RP moments.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I agree with the others saying that "Squire as pet" really doesn't work and runs into all sorts of moral and/or logical gymnastics to make it try to work. I also agree that it can work really well as an RP and out of combat perk.

Back in the 2e days our noble fighter had a manservant who was useless in combat but was incredibly useful outside of it and made for some fantastic RP moments.

Well, you could (in theory, at least) design the class features to be better at the other pillars than they are at combat. Well, relative to having a BEAR or something like that.

I'm not sure what moral gymnastics we're talking about. Like I said earlier, I think it's strange that everyone seems okay with animal endangerment compared to youth endangerment, which is particularly peculiar when you consider that there historically WAS a certain amount of child endangerment going on with the Squire (one of the points, for good or ill, often was to "make a MAN" out of the kid). Not to mention there's no reason to believe that your average player would send the poor squire running ahead setting off all the traps any more (and probably less) than they do that with a pet. (I've actually never seen anyone do it. Not that there's a lot of pet-players, but the ones I've seen have been very protective of the pet.)

And again, the mechanics could reflect damage-mitigation the way they currently make it really, really, easy to just bring your pet back to life. (I think I've said it before, I'd prefer mechanics that stop the "pet" from dying over ones that bring them back when they die... it just seems callous to me.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

(BTW, does anyone else keep reading the title as "Paladins and Squirrels?")

But what is a squire of a 20th level Paladin? What do they compare to?

Galahad?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*