D&D 5E "Houndmaster" Fighter

[Guest 6801328]

I modded a dog companion for a PC using the sidekick rules.

I wouldn't make it a fighter subclass, it doesn't so much step on the beastmaster's toes as run over them with a steamroller.

Huh. I don't think of subclasses as having exclusive turf. What's the problem with two subclasses of different classes sharing similar concepts?

Are you worried that a Beastmaster might not like a Houndmaster in the same campaign? What if the second player also wanted to play a Beastmaster? Would that be a problem?

/confused

 

[Guest 6801328]

Instead of feats/backgrounds...

For a subclass, the dog (which is effectively equipment) needs to be the focus. I would wager a historical houndmaster had several hounds trained for war, as they are kind of expendable. So I would steer away from training tricks or the ranger's wolf.

Instead, the houndmaster should give benefits to dogs on the field and gain benefits for having one out. To not make the game insufferable for other players, limiting it to one or two dogs out at a time makes sense. This would have to be done mechanically, since a mastiff is only 25 gold - the average adventurer could own hundreds in no time.

Without a subclass, a trained dog can already attack and give you help actions, only at the cost of bonus actions to direct them (if I remember right.)

I'd start thinking of setting up something like "leashed and unleashed" hounds. Leashed taking attacks on the fighter's attack action or giving help actions. Unleashed getting extra movement (free dash actions) or dodging AoO.

Something along these lines maybe.

That's also a cool concept. Not what I was going for (again, I refer you to the flavor quote at the beginning) but it's a nifty idea.

In which case, though, I'm not sure Fighter is the right chassis. I'm picturing a Lord with his "best friend", the prince of his hounds. But somebody who simply trains and commands dogs isn't a knight. More of a....bard? (Pied Piper kinda thing.). A rogue?

A....a....warlord? OMG.

 

[Weiley31]

Huh. I don't think of subclasses as having exclusive turf. What's the problem with two subclasses of different classes sharing similar concepts?

Are you worried that a Beastmaster might not like a Houndmaster in the same campaign? What if the second player also wanted to play a Beastmaster? Would that be a problem?

/confused

Honestly, I'm of the same mindset. Plus rp-wise, you could set up a rivalry between the Houndmaster player and the Beast Master player.

And if they can't see eye to eye, well there are those life and death situations where ya HAVE to work together to survive.

Plus I'm of the mind set of that sometimes, to achieve an idea or concept, you HAVE to step on another classes's toes.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Plus I'm of the mind set of that sometimes, to achieve an idea or concept, you HAVE to step on another classes's toes.

I'm much more wary of impinging on another class concept, but subclasses have no such protection.

 

[Weiley31]

I'm much more wary of impinging on another class concept, but subclasses have no such protection.

An example would be animal companions. The best way to do those is by stealing the Revised Rangers Beast mechanics, Might of the Master, or the UA Class Variants Primal Beasts.

If you don't use those, your animal companion in 5E tends to suck unless you strictly make them equipment. Now some people would say "yeah but you just robbed a class feature or ability from a class."

My response is: So?
Because if I want my guy (who isn't a Ranger) and his badass wolf companion to hold the line at a bridge from goblins, then both my guy AND the wolf are gonna give em hell! And ya can't achieve that if the PC is killer but your animal companion sucks.

And if the fighter gets jealous, well I guess said fighter just should've stayed a farmer instead. Cuz the Realms, and Nature, ain't got time for whiny babies.

 

[Laurefindel]

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?

That's how I wished the ranger's animal companion had been designed; not so much as an extra fighter but as a mobile mechanics giving PCs a variety of different options. It isn't far from what I'd like it to be, but I know I'm in a minority as to what I think the animal companion should be. But I digress...

5e proposes many models to take after. If anything, it's one of the annoying things about 5e PC-controlled animals; between familiar, mounts from find steed and phantom steed, summoned creatures, animal companions, there are way to many models.

• There's the familiar approach - low hp, acts on its own on its own initiative count, provides limited battlefield control and a cheap way for the character to gain the help action. Very fragile but easily replaceable.
• There is the PHB beastmaster approach - higher hp, requires you to use your action to command, acts on your initiative count, can make an attack as one of your own when you take the attack action. Better at battlefield control (leave it next to a baddy, let it use default dodge action, have it make an AoO if the baddy moves). Unfortunately, it doesn't have enough hp and is too hard to replace to do that consistently.
• There is the revised beastmaster approach - animal is basically an extra (weaker) PC controlled by you.
• There is the revised revised beastmaster approach (which is like the Artificer's steel defender IIRC) - a tad more hp that the PHB version and easier to replace, uses your bonus action to command, acts on your initiative count, otherwise similar to PHB version in capacity. The fact that it acts after you reduces the situations of abuse.

It seems that you are aiming for a mastiff as an extension of the character more than as an extra PC. So PHB beastmaster and Eberron Battle Smith's steel defender models work best. Commanding the mastiff as an action conflicts with the fighter's advantage at higher level, that is, having 3 or 4 attacks when taking the Attack action. Therefore, I'd suggest to explore the steel defender approach.

Let's see what it could look like:

• 3rd level: Gain mastiff. Copy steel defenders stats, use mastiff from PHB as a base (page 307), or make you own stat block. Stats increase with PC's proficiency bonus. Acts on PC's initiative after PC. Use your bonus action to command an action such as attack or help; otherwise takes dodge. Select one or two tricks from a list (trip on a hit, gain pack tactics, grant help when it attacks, make extra attack when pounces and trips, gains mobility, gains disadvantage on AoO against it, gains advantage on AoO against enemies, gains evasion, barks at invisible creatures it can smell, etc).
• 7th: Mastiff can now make an attack using one of your own attacks. Mastiff can now use Dash, Disengage, or Help when not given a command. Select a new trick.
• 10th: When mastiff is reduced to 0 hp, it drops to 1 hp instead. Select a new trick.
• 15th: When you use second wind, your mastiff heals too. Select a new trick.
• 18th: When you take action surge, the mastiff takes another round too. Select a new trick.

That's just from the top of my head; it would need (a lot) of polishing, but that's the way I'd go.

 

[Guest 6801328]

That's how I wished the ranger's animal companion had been designed; not so much as an extra fighter but as a mobile mechanics giving PCs a variety of different options. It isn't far from what I'd like it to be, but I know I'm in a minority as to what I think the animal companion should be. But I digress...

5e proposes many models to take after. If anything, it's one of the annoying thing about running PC-controlled animals; there are way to many models.

There's the familiar approach - low hp, acts on its own on its own initiative count, provides limited battlefield control, and a cheap way for the character to gain the help action.

There is the PHB beastmaster approach - higher hp, requires you to use your action to command, acts on your initiative count, can make an attack as one of your own when you take the attack action. Better at battlefield control (leave it next to a baddy, let use its default dodge action, let it make an AoO if the baddy moves). Unfortunately, it doesn't have enough hp and is too hard to replace to do that consistently.

There is the revised beastmaster approach - animal is basically an extra (weaker) PC controlled by you

There is the revised revised beastmaster approach (which is like the artificer steel defender IIRC) - a tad more hp that the PHB version and easier to replace, uses your bonus action to command, acts on your initiative count, otherwise similar to PHB version in capacity.

It seems that you are aiming for a mastiff as an extension of the character more than as an extra PC. So PHB beastmaster and Eberron Battle Smith's steel defender models work best. Commanding the mastiff as an action conflicts with the fighter's advantage at higher level; 3 or 4 attacks per Attack action. Therefore, I'd suggest you to explore the steel defender approach.

Let's see what it could look like:
3rd level: Gain mastiff. Copy steel defenders stats, use mastiff from PHB as a base (page 307), or make you own stat block. Stats increase with PC's proficiency bonus. Acts on PC's initiative after PC. Use your bonus action to command an action such as help; otherwise takes dodge. Select one or two tricks from a list (trip on a hit, gain pack tactics, grant help when it attacks, make extra attack when pounces and trips, gains mobility, gains disadvantage on AoO against it, gains advantage on AoO against enemies, gains evasion, barks at invisible creatures it can smell, etc)

7th: Mastiff can make an attack using one of your own attacks. Mastiff can now use Dash, Disengage, or Help when not given a command. Select a new trick.
10th: When mastiff is reduced to 0 hp, it drops to 1 hp instead.
15th: When you use second wind, your mastiff heals too.
18th: when you take action surge, the mastiff take another round too.

Needs (a lot) of polishing, but that's the way I'd go.

Maybe this doesn't port well to 5e, but The One Ring has (imo) a great approach. You can, for example, "spend" your Hound to protect you from a crit, but then your Hound is effectively out of commission until your next long rest (or equivalent thereof). But you never track the hound's AC or HP, and enemies never target it. It's built around the premise that part of your character's identity is a bond with this dog, so why the f*k would the GM kill it off? It's a plot-proof narrative device, with some mechanics hung off of it.

(That said, there might be good narrative reasons for killing off the hound, in which case you don't need to roll dice.)

 

[Weiley31]

f*k would the GM kill it off?

Some D(G)/M's are jerks.

And then some are jerk party members who got killed by the animal companion owner's PC because they thought hurting the animal/using it for trap sprinning was a good idea.

 

[Laurefindel]

Maybe this doesn't port well to 5e, but The One Ring has (imo) a great approach. You can, for example, "spend" your Hound to protect you from a crit, but then your Hound is effectively out of commission until your next long rest (or equivalent thereof). But you never track the hound's AC or HP, and enemies never target it. It's built around the premise that part of your character's identity is a bond with this dog, so why the f*k would the GM kill it off? It's a plot-proof narrative device, with some mechanics hung off of it.

(That said, there might be good narrative reasons for killing off the hound, in which case you don't need to roll dice.)

True!

Without going into details, when 4e came out and for some reasons it didn't speak to me, I made my own version of d20. I based my animal companion (ranger) and hunting dogs (knight) features on TOR's Hound of Mirkwood. But back on the subject...

My experience is that when compared to summoned animals, familiars, paladin steeds, phantom steed spells, beastmasters' animal companions, and even animals you buy at the pet store and bring along as underlings, the TOR approach doesn't resonate well with the rest of 5e. For what it's work, the beastmaster's animal companion is closest in design philosophy, but without all the good stuff that could have come along with it. However, people were not annoyed at the companion's lack of tricks to sniff-out intruders and bark at danger and whatnot; they were annoyed by the fact that the animal companion was a poor fighter. Mind you with the way the ranger is made, the RaW animal companion only bring things that the ranger already does, and not much that the ranger itself cannot do without the help of conclave archetypes, so I understand why people were upset with PHB beastmaster.

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't really care too much about niche protection for the Beastmaster. His niche sucks.