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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ancalagon" data-source="post: 8815192" data-attributes="member: 23">SoA number of D&D subclasses have "pets" - the ranger beastmaster is a classic example, but there are others - the steel defender from the artificer, the drakewarden, etc.   (I don't see familiars as really fitting into this, they are too "minor").The idea behind this concept is quite sound, as is quite clear that a portion of players really like this type of characters.  But do they work well in play?  From what I've seen in person, and from reports I've read from others, not very well.The problem is like this:  Because of the action economy and bound accuracy, the pet can't be too good, otherwise you're essentially doubling your offensive power so this limits them somewhat, balancing them is tricky.  However, because of the way HP work, the pet is also a vulnerability.  If a barbarian has lost half their HP, they still can fight just as well.  But if the pet has lost that much HP, it's kaput.  Another example of this dynamic is a bit how a goblin duo gets to attack twice and an orc only has one, but if a hit for 8 hp hits, the orc is still swinging, but the goblin duo has just lost half their offensive power (as one of the 2 goblins is down).This leads the player to try to protect their pet, because a not insignificant portion of their power is invested in said pet.  Furthermore, some are emotionally attached to their bear/robot/etc.  This leads to players having their PC spend turns defending/buffing/healing their pets instead of taking more impactful action on the battlefield.A current Drakkenheim playtest has replicated the issue - but also perhaps pointed to a solution.  I am going to skip most of the details, but I decided to playtest this class (the apothecary, int-based spellcaster), and my party was a bit weak in the tank department.  2 subclasses in particular seemed like they could fit the bill:  The reanimator, who can create a frankenstein-monster esque creature to fight for them (ie, another "pet subclass"), or the Mutagenist, who becomes the monster, a bit like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  After looking at the two options, I quickly realized that once again, the pet subclass wasn't really delivering, while turning into the hulk and smashing things was quite effective.  (AND fun!)My particular PC is a goblin (Mr Butters).  But what if Mr Butters, instead of becoming a hulk like monster, rode on the back of one, or perhaps hid behind debris and shouted orders and encouragement to the monster while doing nothing of significance during the fight.   This would be mere re-flavoring - the HP, the AC, the action economy, would be identical as if Mr Butters had transformed.  But the feel would be very different.   Perhaps there should be a shared pool of HP, and the player decides in this fight if they are going to "tag in" their pet (to use a wrestling analogy).   This would fix the action economy balancing issue and allow pet design to be more bold and impactful.I don't have quite all the details (the Mutagenist has the stats for the hulk-like monster, what should they be for the other improved pets?) but I think there is potential here...</blockquote>

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