D&D 5E "Houndmaster" Fighter

[Guest 6801328]

From Wikipedia:

When in 1415 Sir Peers Legh was wounded in the Battle of Agincourt, his Mastiff stood over and protected him for many hours through the battle. The Mastiff was later returned to Legh's home and was the foundation of the Lyme Hall Mastiffs. Five centuries later this pedigree figured prominently in founding the modern breed.

I'm imagining a Fighter subclass that gets a mastiff (or potentially other beast) as a pet. This is still just a vague idea, but features might be:

• You can choose from a list of "tricks" that you train your pet in, with additional ones at higher levels.
  • Grant the Help action
  • Make an attack in place of yours
  • Guard duty (during rests, etc.)
  • Find invisible foes
  • Tracking (intelligent enough to understand commands such as finding a party member by name.)
  • Knock enemies prone (uses one of your attacks)
  • Impose disadvantage on attackers
  • Move without drawing opportunity attacks
  • Extra movement
• If you lose your pet and need a new one, you can retrain one trick each rest
• Pet increases HP and Saving Throws as you level

The "tricks' might be clustered into Feats. I.e.:

• "Perceptive" feat that is good for tracking, guarding, and finding invisible foes.
• "Aggressive" that grants advantage and knocks enemies down. (Help action might be so good as to be a trap option, so maybe that should be baseline.)
• "Agile" that grants extra movement and avoids OAs
• "Defensive" that imposes disadvantage and increases his own AC
• "Tough" that has higher HP and better saving throws

Thoughts?

 

[Kobold Stew]

Beast Master Ranger?

The example of mastiff is given in the PHB.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Beast Master Ranger?

The example of mastiff is given in the PHB.

Similar idea, but Fighter subclass, not Ranger....

 

[Weiley31]

Well, there are a number of ways you can do this.

You can be a Revised Ranger Beast Master, and reflavor the Wolf as a Mastiff. You get a beast companion that upgrades and is the better format of it in 5E.

You can potentially Homebrew a Houndmaster.

Adventures in Middle Earth has a Virtue called "Wolfhound of Mirkwood" where you can, again, reskin the Virtue as a feat or as is, and apply the same Revised Ranger logic to it. It gives ya a Wolfhound with stats and everything.

Or just surgically lobotomize the Revised Ranger Beast rules and give it to the standard fighter or any class that gains an animal companion.

Or just UA Sidekick rules it. If you UA Sidekick it, you can have a Mastiffs that can get ASIs or choose to gain feats if ya want.

Or use the Dog Rules from Animal Adventures Dungeons and Doggies. A Dog Fighter can get the Battle Master subclass and you can reflavor the Maneuvers as "Tricks" in battle. You can also get ASIs or feats if needed. Reflavor the subclass title as "Hound Master" and your all set!

 

[Guest 6801328]

Adventures in Middle Earth has a Virtue called "Wolfhound of Mirkwood" where you can, again, reskin the Virtue as a feat or as is, and apply the same Revised Ranger logic to it. It gives ya a Wolfhound with stats and everything.

Yeah I had this in mind. I was thinking about the TOR version, but same idea.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, calling this a feat was my first instinct. If you really wanted this to work and be cool the Mastiff probably needs to level along with the Fighter somehow. Not necessarily to do a ton more damage, but in terms of durability. I think it need to function outside the action economy too. If you can shout a few words for free, you can order your Mastiff to attack, or heel, or whatever.

 

[Eltab]

No new rules needed:

Pick any animal with a natural weapon / attack that does about as much damage as a normal weapon. If you attack / extra attack a target, one of the attacks is actually the animal.

Handwave away if an enemy tries to attack the mastiff not you.

 

[Guest 6801328]

No new rules needed:

Not needed, but I'm thinking of a subclass to make it more a part of who the character is. Not just a fighter who happens to have a hound, but one who has always fought alongside his faithful companion.

 

[Fenris-77]

Not needed, but I'm thinking of a subclass to make it more a part of who the character is. Not just a fighter who happens to have a hound, but one who has always fought alongside his faithful companion.

In that case I'd probably hack the Battlemaster and focus on combined tactics for the maneuvers, and out of combat synergy for the ribbons.

 

[Guest 6801328]

In that case I'd probably hack the Battlemaster and focus on combined tactics for the maneuvers, and out of combat synergy for the ribbons.

It would have to be a pretty big hack because I'm not picturing a spellcaster. (Off-topic, but if I had my druthers, the base Ranger class would be spell-free, and put the spellcasting in a sub-class.)