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.

 

[generic]

Seems overly fiddly to me. If you want a sidekick who doesn't keep pace with the party, just use a statblock out of the Monster Manual. A level or two of sidekick adds a bunch of rules overhead without changing anything significant: They're still just a warm body who tags after the PCs and will eventually die to a stray AoE blast.

Well...

Your table isn't my table, but IMHO, I think the change I suggested would be helpful.

 

[bedir than]

Sounds awesome...I've been wanting to play a goat PC since I was a kid.

Goatse

 

[Chaosmancer]

Admittedly they are only CR1 and below but I would not be keen to slobber racial hit dice on top personally or people might start coming up with nutty combinations like humanoid variations. That said, if AC is pretty static, maybe they do need the extra hit dice and fewer ASI and class features. Similarly, I would not allow animals to move their intelligence more than one rank higher than baseline without some McGuffin since 1e intelligence rankings are too ingrained in me.

Well, you are supposed to "slobber racial hit dice" on top, since that is the HD you are supposed to roll when you level. If you look, there are no HD in the classes and they say you are supposed to use the ones from the statblocks

 

[TwoSix]

Goatse

No bueno!

 

[Pauln6]

Well, you are supposed to "slobber racial hit dice" on top, since that is the HD you are supposed to roll when you level. If you look, there are no HD in the classes and they say you are supposed to use the ones from the statblocks

Yeah, I realised that racial hit dice determine class hit dice but are they suggesting that you can have. Kobold dragonshield warrior with 9d6 HD at level 1?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, I realised that racial hit dice determine class hit dice but are they suggesting that you can have. Kobold dragonshield warrior with 9d6 HD at level 1?

Seems like it.

Technically, since they are saying "whenever they gain a level in this class, gain an HD" when they gain level 1 they gain an HD. This means a Level 1 Warrior Kobold Dragonshield would have 10d6+con mod

But, this also applies to the hawk that has 1 hp

 

[Pauln6]

Yeah I was including the level 1 hit die already. It looks like a level 1sidekick could be very powerful in a level 1 group but realistically, the introduction of a sidekick is entirely DM controlled. PCs can't demand that giant goat. The balance should probably be in the advancement. Only ASIs for the warrior and fewer of them. More powerful attacks rather than more Attacks beyond the two attacks for the warrior taking multi attack options into account.

 

[mrpopstar]

Would it be horrible if wizard became a subclass of spellcaster, ranger became a subclass of expert, etc, etc?

I'd be down for that game.

 

[Selvarin]

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.

Ehhh...

Or subscribe to D&D Beyond, very easy to build a PC or NPC.

 

[paladinn]

"Subclasses" would become something like kits - bolt-ons for the 3 main classes.

I think ranger, paladin and (maybe) barbarian would be kits for the warrior; bard and assassin and whatever for the expert. Wizard and cleric (and druid) would be different types of spellcaster. If these are done with feats, two characters could have the same basic abilities but customize that way. A warrior could take paladin feats, or just the standard combat-ish feats from the current game.

In 3.x, spellcasters could cast Any spells; the "type" of magic (divine or arcane) really only impacted the attribute associated (Wisdom or Intelligence). I think this would allow a lot of flexibility and diversity.