Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

One of the key items all of my younger players ask for after playing SimpleDnD for a while is, “Can I have a pet?”

So I asked around, and the internet had very little in the way of pets in any RPG. I asked on a few boards and still not a direct line to pet rules. I read some reference, scratched my head, and here’s what I’ve come up with.

Blog Post and Details

I like it!!

May I suggest a ferret as a pet? I mean they were good enough for the Beastmaster!

How would you write up the ferret for your game?

I would make them something sneaky and thievey... I can tell you from owning them in real life.. they do love to steal stuff.. Maybe some bonus' to certain thieves skills?

Maybe they could be pick pockets?

One of my friends has two of them, really sneaky and thievish creatures.

I like what you've wrote so far, I tend to just give them the pet and judge on the fly what they can do.

My AD&D thief has some pets with the Cleric's party, we paid to a trainer to teach them some tricks, we have a couple of singing birds that when one whistle to them it will sing, a vulture that is quite clever, he flies hovering the skies giving alert of any sign of individuals, and a couple of lemmings that fetch small items.

Weird I got a Post Gator screen trying to post this message... strange.

Anyway, good blog post! The only worries I have about pets and young ones, is that they get REALLY attached to the pets.

My 12yo daughter, when she was younger and a newer player, was cool about her PC dying and when she asked for a "war dog" to accompany her, I figured it was a great way to add an NPC to help her. Whew, WRONG, the dog protected her, but when it was killed (strike that, DM intervention made the dog "not dead") she cried and cried. It was terrible. We had to heal the dog up, with the agreement that it was to retire to the PC's parent's farm. Then I instituted a no more pets rule.

Now my 10yo is fascinated with MUs and keeps wanting to get a familiar... oh boy.
Very nice and concise blog post, I like it, but I'd worry about introducing pets to kids that are too young. Just my two coppers.
--Ron--

I tend to make pets not helpful in combat situations and make them part of the equipment, not suffering damage when they should. Unless of course we are talking about animal companions.

A MU's familiar could help him in lots of thing but not inside combat, specially if its a rat or a spider or a toad, or giving him some bonuses or abilities (after all they are magically bonded to the caster).

I play with pets often, and have three different approaches:

0. It's flavor. It doesn't fight, it doesn't get hurt, it doesn't do anything useful. It's used for subtle plot development or occasional humor. Non-fighting dog, parakeet, animals like that.
1. It's an NPC. It gets HP, HD, an AC. Over time it also gets skills or spells much like a normal NPC does. If you take a look at the warden supplement, that has a pretty good description of what you can do with wilderness pets, where it can learn new abilities based on its owner. War dog, paladin charger, homunculous.
2. It's a miniature giant space hamster. 'nuff said.

The ferret idea is brilliant. I added it.