My Brother's Character: Help me help him

[chronoplasm]

OK, so my brother wants to be a Kobold Pirate. In lieu of an actual corsaire class, my brother is choosing beast-master Ranger.

He wants his animal companion to be a Goblin that thinks that it is a monkey (because it was stranded on an island as a gobling and raised by monkeys.)

So... how would you go about giving a Ranger a goblin as an animal companion?

 

[hafrogman]

The easiest route would just be to take one of the other animals and reskin it to be monkey/goblin. That way there's no worry about unbalancing anything.

My personal thought is spider. Sneaky like a goblin, climbs like a monkey. Call it a goblin, but just use the spider stats. Done.

 

[Squizzle]

Ask him how he expects the goblin to be. If it's going to be sneaky, try a cat or serpent. If it's going to be his best friend, try a wolf. If it's going to be a tough fighter, try a lizard, wolf, bear, or boar. The only animals I'd put off-limits are raptor and spider, in fact. Once you have the base animal, change the size from medium to small give it a climb--not spider climb, but vanilla, normal climb--speed of 6.

There's a monkey-goblin, made easy.

 

[Mr. Teapot]

He wants his animal companion to be a Goblin that thinks that it is a monkey (because it was stranded on an island as a gobling and raised by monkeys.)

As the player of a wizard's goblin familiar, I approve of the idea of a goblin as an animal companion.


But yeah, just use the stats for one of the existing animal companion types. Martial Power specifically states that the categories are general, and you get to decide the species and other details.

I'd favor the Spider, since it has a Climb Speed (essential for a monkey or goblin raised by monkeys), a good Dex score and is trained in Athletics and Stealth. Drop it down to Small size instead of Medium and you have a goblin. I'd advise keeping the damage die the same, so the change to Small doesn't have any signifcant mechanical effect (there are occasional miscellaneous rules affecting Small / Medium character differently).

If you don't go Spider, you probably want a Beast which is trained in Athletics, so it can use that to climb (so, Lizard and Cat seem most appropriate. Bear would be an Orc or Hobgoblin raised by Apes). Or take the feat to train your Wolf or Snake goblin in athletics. Bear, Boar and Raptor seem hardest to justify as a goblin.

 

[DracoSuave]

A Kobold... Pirate... with a Goblin Monkey?


That's just... there's too much awesome in there for me to worry about rules.

MUST MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

Reskin the animal you think best suits the Goblin. I prefer the Goblin spider monkey idea myself.

 

[The Human Target]

I agree with everyone about the Spider.

Also, thats fantastic.

Tell your brother an anonymous person on the internet things he's a genius.