D&D 5E Beast Ranger from UA with Monkey

[GameOgre]

One of my players has come to me asking if his Pirate themed halfling beast ranger can have a monkey pet. It certainly looks fine on the surface of things but talking to him I became a little uneasy.

He wants to arm it with daggers and even eventually a friggin flintlock(I allow those). I didn't want to just shut him down, he is making a ranger character to act as a healer for the party. This isn't any sort of power play, he just loves the idea of his Monkey pet(Mister Smee) gaining Intelligence as he gains levels and becoming more of party mascot/npc/member.

I'm tempted to just say hell yes as the players is having such a great time with this but i do want to keep an eye out for the future as well. Some of my other players are not so altruistic and don't want to unleash a very funny but disruptive aspect to our games.

What do you guys think?

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

Would you allow a druid to awaken a monkey or other primate and let it do these things? If so then I would say it's fine for the ranger to do so once people feel the monkey is intelligent enough to be trusted by the party. ( This could be roleplayed or assumed over time as the monkey exhibits signs of more and more intelligence., Whatever floats people's boats. ) There's a big difference from a character's point of view between having a monkey throw rocks compared to using a hand crossbow or in your game world, a flintlock. The ranger has a close bond with said animal pet and has good reason to trust them. Other PCs, not so much in my opinion.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Running and holding a gun/weapon for a monkey could prove tricky, but in a world of magic and pixies, his monkey could slowly learn to adopt and become capable of more 'human' postures.

 

[Xeviat]

Since the pet has the skill proficiencies of the master, I see no reason you couldn't extend that to weapon proficiencies. I'm not sure how balanced it would be. The monkey will likely have low HP because of having lower stats and less HD to start. It could be fun, though.

 

[Kabouter Games]

I see no reason not to allow it. It's not going to come out of the blocks a gun-totin' swashbuckler. It's going to need training to become effective. Also, if you're using misfire rules, it's never going to have the expertise to rapidly diagnose and repair the flaw if the gun breaks. So there's some built-in balance.

Xeviat inadvertently gave you an out, too - if it gets out of hand, the bad guys target the much-more-squishy-than-the-PCs monkey and kill it. Your player can always summon another, but it's back to square one with the training, so it gives a bit of a breather. If you like, you could plan to kill it as soon as it gets good enough to be effective. That's pretty sneaky, and some might call foul on it, but it's a tool to keep in the box. You never have to tell the player about your plan. Just say that the recurring villains or other pirates whatever have heard of the Monkey of Bang-Bang DOOOM and know to kill it first.

Cheers,

Bob

www.r-p-davis.com

 

[iserith]

Didn't this guy see Planet of the Apes? Down this road lay only ruin.