Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="paul_hughes" data-source="post: 9706677" data-attributes="member: 7053325">Hey, Paul Hughes here!Absolutely. There are explicit "don't hurt the pet" rules in this book that I personally use at my table, and there are also a menu of other options for groups with different tastes. But I personally would rather have my character killed than my character's pet. The default option is safety for pets.In the book, we differentiate between allies who count toward encounter building just as you say (a CR 3 ally counts as a level 6 PC) and sidekicks who were paid for by an expenditure of character-building resources - for instance, if your archetype gives you a pet, or you get a pet through a feat or feats, that pet is counted as part of your character and doesn't affect encounter building. That's true whether the pet is a ranger companion or one of the new companion options from this book.</blockquote>