Topic: Animal Companions

[Majyk]

As a GM and now a player, I have never been able to decide on how to play or allow play of a PC with an Animal Companion.

In T$R3.5+ There are specific granular rules for such interactions but RM kind of leaves it extremely open.

In this instance, a Lifestyle Training Package details Small Animal Companion while others list Animal "friend" or "pal".
How to play the difference whether GM'd or via a Player wanting to (ab)use this?
If anyone has specific examples in play, this would help nail things down for me, also.

PS: I cannot believe this has never been a thing in all of the previous ICE forums' history!

[Hurin]

Spells can give you familiars too. Familiars and animal companions can border on overpowered, especially at low levels when a Wolf can be stronger than an entire low level party.

I would recommend a couple of things, just as houserules:
--Don't let the player control every action of the pet, such as movement. Pets don't always do as they are told, and they have minds of their own. So when I have players with pets, the player gives the pet commands, but the GM actually moves the pet and decides what it will do. The higher the animal handler's skill, the better the animal will behave in general (or the more trained commands it knows).
--More powerful animals can be more unruly, and aren't necessarily intelligent. A Golden Retriever will try very hard to please its master and is very smart... but that doesn't mean a giant lizard is too.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

Spells can give you familiars too. Familiars and animal companions can border on overpowered, especially at low levels when a Wolf can be stronger than an entire low level party.

Considering a familiar is at most 10% of its caster, and an average wolf is 40 kg, I'd like to meet the 400 kg mage... :p

1) First, remember the weight limit (well, okay, mass limit but I'd assume a world with a gravity equals to 1G  ). With the exception of spells from "Familiar's Law", most familiars would be the size and weight of an average housecat... therefore not that dangerous.

2) However, first and foremost, I think you have to make sure the character understands that his familiar is more than a pet: it's one with which he's attuned! Sure, he can "control the familiar and view the world through its senses" but it is foremost a companion that shall never betray him, shall always be on his side, shall always be able to understand his feelings, shall always and unconditionally love him, with which he can freely communicate, etc., in other words, with which he shares a bond that no one else would ever share. Just consider: IRL, people have pets, animals with which they cannot communicate (though they'd say otherwise), nor any of the above (though they'd say otherwise). How do you think these people react at even the idea of their pet being injured?
Sure, the pet would be willing to endanger itself to protect its master, and the master may allow it to do so, but, above all, each would care for each other, and do not want to the other to take risks.
As such, my suggestion would be to play the familiar as an actual NPC (with limited/basic intelligence but...) rather than a mere animal.

3) As far as I'm concerned, aside from rules allowing familiars to progress (in many stats: level, speed, base rate, CON, and IQ) and their master to similarly gains stuff (bonus to skills, hit points and DB), I have such masters to interact with their familiars as with their best friend, confidant or even soulmate. Meaning I don't have many characters with familiars, since each is an individual NPC, with its stats, personality, etc., because I don't want to unnecessarily add NPCs. :p

4) At last, food and climate. Most animals aren't omnivorous, nor able to survive long outside of their living climate. Yes, a poisonous snake is interesting to have as a familiar, but it won't often be active as soon as cold comes...

[jdale]

The druid in my current campaign briefly had an animal as a regular pet before using magic to change it into a familiar/companion. As a pet, it needs food, shelter, etc, and it will predominantly behave in natural ways. Animal handling skill is needed to change that behavior, and morale checks are necessary when dealing with things that should scare animals. Even an animal that might be useful in combat (e.g. player buys a guard dog) may be difficult to handle, e.g. barking, threatening people the party doesn't intend to threaten, etc and animal handling should be important.

[Finwe]

Hi!

Could the animal companion level up and increase OB and in what way?

[Nightblade42]

I agree with Majyk that it's odd there are not definitive rules regarding pets & familiars - considering the amazing covers of the 1989 "Red Border" edition of RM2's core books have a group of characters who each have their own pet/familiar.

There's a section in Companion II regarding totem animals & the Animal skills in the same volume touch upon (along with the Beastmaster profession introduced therein as well).  So I might say, check out Companion II & extrapolate from there.  I also think the suggestions presented above are good things to keep in mind as well.

Nightblade ->--

[Nightblade42]

Hi!

Could the animal companion level up and increase OB and in what way?

You could keep track of them like an NPC using the animal's level to figure out it's XP's.  You can also use the creature racial stats from Companion IV (or was it VI?  I forget which one for sure) to draw up the animals stats.  I agree the GM should have final say on the animal's movements & actions, but a successful Animal Mastery roll could give the PC control over an individual action (maybe the animal could get an RR vs. the Animal Mastery roll that the GM could roll secretly to see if the Animal follows it's master's commands).  As for OB increase, you could use what it says in C&T - that creatures OBs increase by +3/lvl.

Nightblade ->--

[jdale]

The RMSS Essence Companion has a Familiar Mastery that improves the usefulness of a familiar, although not its level or skills. The Mentalism Companion has an Animal Bonding list for creating animal companions; unlike familiars, you can have more than one (one per rank in the spell list in fact), and there is no size limit, so there is room for an animal to gain size and levels, especially if you start with juveniles rather than adults (which I think is a good approach for low-level characters). (Also, you can't sense through your bonded animals without casting a spell.)

For my game, I made a spell list that sort of splits the difference. At level 1, you get one companion up to 1st level. It will try to help you but it's not super smart and animal handling is still needed, although you get a bonus. At level 5 you can make one of your companions a "true companion" who is more intelligent and with better communication. At higher levels you can have additional companions and the total number of levels of companions increases (4, 10, and eventually 20). So there's some room for the companion(s) to develop levels as you advance in the spell list.

There was a thread on the RMU beta boards about this but it isn't available anymore. I could post my spell list if people are interested.

For RMU, another approach that might be appropriate is to make companions and familiars a Talent rather than just a spell. In that case, you want a higher level companion/familiar? Buy more tiers of the talent. It can be as good as you are willing to pay for. This also makes it more accessible to characters not of whatever realm grants the spell.

[Malleable]

I've never found companions or familiars to be very powerful.  The restrictions to familiars make them useless in combat, but they can be great for scouting.  The Beastmaster, animal companion lists in Mentalism companion, and the Summoner class (that can bond animals) make great improvements in this type of character more effective, but realistic GM controls greatly reduced how effective they are for the player.  You aren't going to walk through any town with a couple of tigers in tow.  You elephant might seem cool but you can never keep him fed.  And what do you do with animals when they can't follow you around?  Somebody is gonna see them and either try to kill/capture them or call for a hunting party to deal with anything that appears dangerous. 

Mal