D&D 5E Have shared actions returned in 5e?

[Mistwell]

Just make it so the Pet Owner gets Advantage on one attack roll be done with it.

Isn't it already that way? Can't the familiar grant advantage through the help action, on their own?

 

[Zaran]

Can do that without someone spending an action and thus making the help action unused?

 

[Boarstorm]

[MENTION=184]Agamon[/MENTION], I didn't say it made sense!

 

[Agamon]

[MENTION=184]Agamon[/MENTION], I didn't say it made sense!

Fair enough. I've recently come across something that makes little sense when it comes to old school games. I'm reading Designers & Dragons, and I find the nostalgia is much stronger for games that I've never owned, played, or read (like GURPS, Rolemaster, Rifts, etc) than the ones I have. Odd, right?

 

[Blackbrrd]

Balance at the expense of believability will be rebuked at my table.

I assume you do that by houseruling it?

 

[RotGrub]

I presume the shared actions were due to trying to keep a lid on the action economy. While RotGrub is right that a single familiar should be able to act independently and not cause any additional difficulty over other types of creatures that get actions... it's the idea that you can have a party of several different PCs ALL having these additional creatures that could cause rounds to just expand into overblown messes with every player controlling two or more figures.

Thankfully... the game is such that if a table has just like a single familiar or ranger's animal companion amongst the entire party... a player and DM can easily try to expand the creature's autonomous abilities to see if it causes any issues at the table (and if it ultimately does, the DM and player can agree to remove them.)

Thus... some options would be to let a PC use their Bonus Action to let the familiar/animal companion take an Action... give the creature its own Action, but no move (so that if the creatures needs to move around the battlefield, it has to use Dash-- resulting in it only getting to make attacks when not deciding to move in a particular round)... or even treat the creature as a full-on member of the party and allow it a complete suite of move, Action, and on the off-chance it ever gets a feature that would use it-- Bonus Action.

Try them out, see if they cause issues, and if not then let them go with it. After all... the only two things that might result in a problem are the one PC taking too much time having to manipulate two figures, and the DM having to slightly re-align encounter strength to compensate for the additional "party member".

A necromancer, a beast master, a fighter, and a warlock all walk into a bar...

The necromancer's skeleton requires a bonus action.
The beast master must spend his action to direct his beast
The warlock must spend an attack every round.
The fighter sits back and laughs at them because his hireling is completely autonomous and follows orders.

 

[RotGrub]

Will it? We're going to start naming things until you cry uncle on that claim I will start. Tell me, how does the rogue dodge the fireball with evasion?

one bad rule does't justify another.

do I need to pull out the 2e definition of a saving throw for you?

 

[RotGrub]

Just make it so the Pet Owner gets Advantage on one attack roll be done with it.

that doesn't allow the creature to defend his master when he is down.

You could argue that the creature would become autonomous when his master goes down, but lose his action when his master up. It's a rather strange situation. One moment he is attacking the goblin and the other he can't act. It's hilariously stupid IMO.

 

[Mistwell]

one bad rule does't justify another.

do I need to pull out the 2e definition of a saving throw for you?

No you said "Balance at the expense of believability will be rebuked at my table."

So rogue is in a relatively featureless room, is hit dead-on with a fireball, and dodges 100% of it using his evasion ability. How is that believable to you, and assuming it is not, what did you do to rebuke it at your table?

 

[RotGrub]

I have my own way of dealing with the subject, but this is not something that I expect most people to like: simply put, to let the DM completely control the companions. That's how I've usually always done (except on PbP games). It doesn't slow the game down more than having one additional monster in the encounter. It won't be perceived as doubling a PC's actions per round. Instead, that companion will be perceived as a party benefit rather than an individual PC's benefit. Then, you can still reinstate the "requires a PC's action" whenever the player really wants to choose exactly what action the pet is going to take, overtaking the DM's initiative but giving up her own action as a cost.

I totally agree. In fact, NPC hirelings are preferred.