Xeviat
Hero
Hi everyone.
I'm about to start a new game, and I have a player who is wanting to play a druid with an animal companion. After trying to convince her to play a Ranger or an Artificer instead, I agreed to try to build a custom Circle for her to give her an animal companion. I'm looking at building her companion animal from scratch, using the animal's stats to infer, rather than strictly using the MM stats.
But, I'm trying to figure out how to have the base animal's actions work. Looking at the Druid subclasses, not many of them strictly add combat power at 2nd level. Land gets an extra spell per day, Dreams gets a pool of healing dice, Shepherd gets their spirit which gives some bonuses ... Spore seems to be the only one that strictly increases damage potential. A pet would likely increase damage potential.
So, my thought was to copy the artificer a bit. Have the pet go after your turn, and allow it to take some basic actions unless you use an action to make it attack or do another action. I am thinking of having it be a full action to make the pet attack or use another action, so that it's sort of comparable to using an improved cantrip. I don't want to overwhelm the druid's damage dealing potential, where as the Ranger and Artificer seem to be intended to gain damage at that level.
Here were my thoughts for abilities so far:
2nd level: speak with animals stolen from the shepherd druid; animal companion that scales ac, hp, saves, ability scores so it ideally remains viable.
6th level: as a bonus action, you can spend a 1st spell slot to make your companion make an attack. It deals +1d8 additional damage for every level of spell slot you use higher than 1st. Your companion's attacks also count as magical for ignoring resistance or immunity to nonmagical damage. (this is so the druid and the companion can use dual actions, but it's balanced around the smite mechanic so they aren't doing too much).
10th level: if your companion takes damage, you can use reduce the damage by half and take that much damage. Your companion gains this ability as well to take your damage. (I'm not sure this is good enough, but I think it's a neat way to help make keep you or your pet up for longer).
14th level: Share spells?
We're starting at 5th level and the adventure I'm running will carry them to 11th level, so I'll need to figure out most of the circle.
Do you have any thoughts?
I'm about to start a new game, and I have a player who is wanting to play a druid with an animal companion. After trying to convince her to play a Ranger or an Artificer instead, I agreed to try to build a custom Circle for her to give her an animal companion. I'm looking at building her companion animal from scratch, using the animal's stats to infer, rather than strictly using the MM stats.
But, I'm trying to figure out how to have the base animal's actions work. Looking at the Druid subclasses, not many of them strictly add combat power at 2nd level. Land gets an extra spell per day, Dreams gets a pool of healing dice, Shepherd gets their spirit which gives some bonuses ... Spore seems to be the only one that strictly increases damage potential. A pet would likely increase damage potential.
So, my thought was to copy the artificer a bit. Have the pet go after your turn, and allow it to take some basic actions unless you use an action to make it attack or do another action. I am thinking of having it be a full action to make the pet attack or use another action, so that it's sort of comparable to using an improved cantrip. I don't want to overwhelm the druid's damage dealing potential, where as the Ranger and Artificer seem to be intended to gain damage at that level.
Here were my thoughts for abilities so far:
2nd level: speak with animals stolen from the shepherd druid; animal companion that scales ac, hp, saves, ability scores so it ideally remains viable.
6th level: as a bonus action, you can spend a 1st spell slot to make your companion make an attack. It deals +1d8 additional damage for every level of spell slot you use higher than 1st. Your companion's attacks also count as magical for ignoring resistance or immunity to nonmagical damage. (this is so the druid and the companion can use dual actions, but it's balanced around the smite mechanic so they aren't doing too much).
10th level: if your companion takes damage, you can use reduce the damage by half and take that much damage. Your companion gains this ability as well to take your damage. (I'm not sure this is good enough, but I think it's a neat way to help make keep you or your pet up for longer).
14th level: Share spells?
We're starting at 5th level and the adventure I'm running will carry them to 11th level, so I'll need to figure out most of the circle.
Do you have any thoughts?