Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Sidekicks

New playtest material fro WoTC.

https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/UA_Sidekicks.pdf

I think this would be my DM's nightmare if implemented.

 

[dave2008]

I wish rather than 20 levels we just had four tiers of sidekick

That sounds like a good way to streamline this - one for each tier of play in the DMG

 

[ad_hoc]

I think the main usage will be for game with 2 or 3 players.
Adding a sidekick can make a better party. More reliable than twisting pc or encounter table.

Yeah.

I'd actually like to see them on a per party basis rather than per character.

 

[aco175]

To me they seem rather powerful compared to past editions on things like this. I do not think I would give them basically what a class would get. I would think half the power would work for sidekicks. I would like to see some other abilities like the thiefish's ability to help another as a bonus action or the warriors ability to gain advantage to a save. I would not give extra attacks or high level spells.

I like the idea of these and have used them in the past. There is a noble PC in a game right now with a squire who is about to get to first level. It took 5 levels of of the noble before the squire became 1st level. I could see advancing half as fast, or every other level.

I also think that sidekicks should be simple like a monster stat block or like 4e PCs where they have one cool power usable 1/rest and be otherwise simple to play and not be as complex as a PC.

 

[dave2008]

OK, after a quick review a have a few thoughts:
1) I agree with @bedir than this is a bit to complex for general use, 4 tiers would be better than 20 lvls for a sidekick (IMO)

2) This a great little shortcut to giving monsters additional abilities. Kinda makes the monster class templates I made a bit unnecessary.

 

[ceiling90]

These would be great for Mecha.

 

[TwoSix]

Forget sidekicks, these would be great for generic characters. I like expert more than rogue, for example.

 

[jmucchiello]

It's not nearly as easy as it could be, though. If the goal was to make it easy to create these characters, then the rules fall short, because they still gain new features that you have to look up at every level. They could have vastly cut back on that, and maybe give them one class feature per tier.

Monsters don't generally advance after they are created. During the creation process, you pull out the monster, grab the PDF, list all the features from 1-9th (for a CR9) and you have created the leveled up monster. How is this more difficult than having tiers? Tiers require you to look at a chart of tiers. Levels mean you look at a chart of levels. Big deal.

Also imagine the look on the players faces when the monster uses second wind. These monsters will also be less bland. Then a simpler system.

 

[jmucchiello]

Also you can make the tiers yourself. Just cluster up all the stuff in the 20 level chart and put it into a 4 tier chart. Not that hard.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Monsters don't generally advance after they are created. During the creation process, you pull out the monster, grab the PDF, list all the features from 1-9th (for a CR9) and you have created the leveled up monster. How is this more difficult than having tiers? Tiers require you to look at a chart of tiers. Levels mean you look at a chart of levels. Big deal.

If turning a skeleton into a skeleton warrior was literally just a matter of adding HP per level and an extra attack at each tier, then we would have 90% of the functionality from adding all of the features on the chart, except I wouldn't need to look anything up because I've already memorized it.

 

[DM Howard]

This could also be useful to run simplified henchman that can become that player's next character a la Knights of the Dinner Table.