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Message: <blockquote data-quote="C4" data-source="post: 5678598" data-attributes="member: 93857">If you've ever had a shaman in your group, you may have noticed a couple of oddities involving their pets:1. The pet's damage threshold and death throe damage aren't up to date with MM3 damage values. At 1st level, most monsters will just flail away at a pet, effectively wasting their turns. But by 10th level, normal monsters have better-than-coin-flip odds to pop a pet with a hit, and by 30th level popping a pet is almost guaranteed even for low-damage attacks. Minions are the only exception.2. Shaman pets are 4e's Wild Shape. At low levels, a pet is a mobile wall. In dungeon scenarios, a pet can often trap monsters outside of doorways until the party has dealt with the other monsters. It's almost like having an at-will stun power. Even later, when pets become vulnerable to poppage, its death throe damage is less than a shaman would take from a monster. I've gotten to the point where I've decided that everybody knows not to attack shaman pets. It's more than common knowledge how pointless it is; it's instinctive knowledge; so even animals and oozes and undead don't bother attacking pets.I've already decided how to iron out oddity #1: I changed the damage threshold and the death throe damage modifiers to "+ level," rather than "+ half level." Simple enough.But I'm on the fence as to whether to tweak the base numbers, in order to iron out oddity #2. As a DM, I don't like pets being so difficult to pop and dealing comparatively little damage to the shaman if they do. Even as a player, I feel a bit like I'm cheating whenever I play a shaman.But maybe that's just me; what do you think?</blockquote>

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