Mechanics for Animals, Transport, and Trade

I just added a "character sheet" for dogs, though I tried to make it usable for other animal companions as well. It's in a link within the Dogs box on the first post.

It has always bugged me how little space the character sheets provide for notes and information, and an animal companion can take up a lot of space. These days I tend to just use my character sheets for bare-minimum notes and put the details in a google doc, that way the character sheet doesn't feel quite as cramped, and i advise all of my players when I DM to do likewise.

The Doc about Dogs is much better organized now, the important stuff at the beginning. I think it is essentially done now, I am just looking for feedback on

- if it needs modifications (additions, subtractions, clarifications) I know it can use some more tidying up in regards to how it's worded, but I'm talking about the content for now, the wording can be fixed later.
- if wolves should be included (i'm thinking maybe with an extra feat, but something would need nerfing)


Also, I believe I have finished with the domesticated Wyverns as well. I will post the stats of the different breeds soon, I have them all sorted out except for the four Pafirna Garhi (unique specimens, not part of any breed) which I still have a little bit of work on.

What is the end goal with the dogs? I don't see them as overly broken though the difference between giving up a movement versus an action to make a command is fairly large.

Pushing- is this you telling the dog to encourage another animal? If so the revive function is pretty dang powerful. Happen to have a friendly dragon or maybe an animal that can heal itself, just send in the dog to awaken it.

Battle partner can end up with some ridiculously high AC I think.

I think all around you could use dogs to negate many weaknesses you may have as a character, (wizard getting a fighting companion, blind character gaining sight etc), but in general could be incorporated into your game if you wanted. I think a nice thing with 5e is if you add something and it turns out to be broken as a DM you can just say, nope.

Dam that is a lot of wyverns, planning on having a massive flying battle at some point? No idea on balance for them yet as I havn't gone through ad looked to closely at the stats you have posted.

Thanks for looking over it.

I'll add this to the beginning of the doc, but the end goal of the dogs is to make the party feel stronger, as they will be. It can allow for smaller parties with a higher equivolent party strength, or it can allow a larger party to take on stronger or more foes. They can also be enemies they have to face, part of why I have the pre-set classes. Naturally this would change the parties challenge level, so the encounters they face will need to be boosted as well. So I'll need to add some stuff at the end about how DMs can plan for that easily.

Good point about the battle partner, and I'll reword pushing to make it clear that it is specifically you spending an action togive extra encouragement to the dog.


Lol, the stats there are just for the unique wyverns. I have the stats of the others, but still need to post them. Yes, I do anticipate some pretty epic arial combat in the future, or if nothing else enjoy watching my party crap their pants as they see the host approach. XP

Maybe add a time limit of an hour to the +2 AC from pushing as well. If your task is defending a city +2 AC would be pretty good.

Just changed "task" to "command". I keep forgetting that words mean things. :P

Basically, I would give an attack command on goblin 1. The following action I push it and grant it extra AC. Once it is done attacking Goblin 1, either because it killed it or because I called it away, it now no longer has the bonus AC.

I think I need to add a limit to pushing kind of like battle dice, only one or two pushes until a long(?) rest.

Reposted somehow.

Time limits or limiting number per day is good though you can also just add caveat that it is DM discretion.

Well... My hesitation with putting that on the DM is making the players upset. It's one thing to veto attempting crazy stunts with ridiculous scheme (though it is often funny to watch them fail), but it could become frustrating even with a good reason for the dog to not be able to be pushed when they expect it to be. The DM can add disadvantage or other caveats to their attempt to push based on the situation, because they just pushed them and they're tired, or because the monster it's fighting is poop evictingly scary, but "because that would remove some of the challenge" isn't for everyone.

I'm mainly basing this off my experiences. Most of my players are number crunchers in some form or another, liking to know what they can or cannot do, and I am like that as well. There are all kinds of things that could be argued for either side for or against that resting on the DM, but my experiences make me hesitant to do so.