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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8816002" data-attributes="member: 2629">Right - that is the design.&nbsp; But why is that a problem?&nbsp; We generally do not allow PCs to take precise control over henchmen, family or friends in the game - why pets?&nbsp; If you look at how Matt Mercer handled the NPC voice of Trinket in the Vox Machina campaign you can see that players can still have fun when the DM is handling a good degree of control over the NPC pet.&nbsp; Further, if you think about how much Vex'ahlia sacrificed to attack with Trinket when she'd have been better off letting Trinket just be a loyal NPC ... Making them NPCs just works better.&nbsp; Seriously.&nbsp; I've run them that way for well over 30 years.&nbsp; It just works better than all of this fiddly stuff - both mechanically and from a story telling standpoint.&nbsp; When the PC runs the pet, you can't have the pet decide not to follow the PC's order because the loyal thing to do is to stay with the PC when the PC is in trouble - and that is story gold.&nbsp; When the PC runs the pet you can't have it have knowledge the PC doesn't.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 8816002, member: 2629"] Right - that is the design. But why is that a problem? We generally do not allow PCs to take precise control over henchmen, family or friends in the game - why pets? If you look at how Matt Mercer handled the NPC voice of Trinket in the Vox Machina campaign you can see that players can still have fun when the DM is handling a good degree of control over the NPC pet. Further, if you think about how much Vex'ahlia sacrificed to attack with Trinket when she'd have been better off letting Trinket just be a loyal NPC ... Making them NPCs just works better. Seriously. I've run them that way for well over 30 years. It just works better than all of this fiddly stuff - both mechanically and from a story telling standpoint. When the PC runs the pet, you can't have the pet decide not to follow the PC's order because the loyal thing to do is to stay with the PC when the PC is in trouble - and that is story gold. When the PC runs the pet you can't have it have knowledge the PC doesn't. [/QUOTE]

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