Have you ever had an animal companion that was more than just a block of stats?

Have you ever had an animal companion that was more than just a block of stats?

Super-fucking rat satan counts...right?

I had a dog named Dog.

I really like animals irl, and it's kind of a meme in our play group that all of my characters are good with animals. That being said, other DMS often just throw a simple thing at me here and there about it. "Oh the dog in the tavern warms up to you instantly, the horse seems very calm around you, etc." But when I dm, if there are animals involved (pets or otherwise) I try and make them have a good little personality.

> Have you ever had an animal companion that was more than just a block of stats?
It's exactly this logic that encourages lack of roleplaying - giving the animal companion stats.
Consider the following - you don't give the stats to that orphan NPC that the party adopts. You don't give the stats to the characters' families - you use them as, well, actual characters instead.

"If you stat it, they will treat it as a block of stats."
Pic related.

The only stat you need for the lady of pain is her anal circumference

Duncan the ferret. The bravest little bastard there ever was.

The only stat you need for the orphan is her anal circumference

I had a squirrel named Brush, he was prone to hide during the days and sleep with me during the nights. It did tricks, hid nuts in my clothes.

It made my solar incredibly happy at times.
I found out at one point my lunar got jealous and killed it during a full moon. He regretted it immediatlly and took its form. This was a month in. The campaign went on for years, only found out when I started asking around how long squirrels lived.

Man that was one of the weirdest and best scenes I have played.

>It made my solar incredibly happy at times.
>I found out at one point my lunar got jealous and killed it during a full moon. He regretted it immediately and took its form. This was a month in. The campaign went on for years, only found out when I started asking around how long squirrels lived.
Your character's soulmate acted as your familiar for years?

I had a raven that could speak and was a drunken bastard that cursed like a sailor.

the only stat you need for an animal companion is their anal circumference

Yep. The player acted on the great curse like a champ.
He was gone by dawn and back in his human form to act as tge rejected, but fine with it lunar. While at night sleeping on the man he loved but could never have chest.

Somehow, I'm not surprised in the slightest.

I pretty much always have some sort of animal-based skill when I can so yes.

They're pretty much always useless in combat or borderline so.

>The only stat you need for the lady of pain is your anal circumference
ftfy

I had a gryphon companion back when I was 13-14 and playing my first DnD campaign. DM made him fuck everything and get me in trouble all the time. He fucked a dwarf barbarian to death and launched him with a cumshot, I thought that was hilarious.

still do

Nowadays I have two tiny dragons for my wizard. One is super nice and bakes him stuff, or tries to, the other is a bit of a d-bag to everyone but he's not evil or anything, just likes to steal and nips anyone who reaches into my bag.

My ranger had a snake who was his sister. It was fun joking behind peoples backs in snake tongue.

One pathfinder game I played a Wildchild Brawler with a Tyrannosaurus companion.

Sagarmatha, the Tyrannosaur was the real character. They both hailed from a small asian inspired kingdom where Dinosaurs were worshipped as divine beasts, and lived amongst men. But all that changed when the maoist revolution attacked.
My character was a young monk at the time, pledged to protect the clutch of Garrakoram, the Tyrannosaurus Queen of the land. As the revolutionaries broke into the monastery, he took one of the hatchlings and fled.

They because wandering traders, as the monk taught the young Tyrannosaurus Prince all he knew of their home and history. Eventually, realizing the time had come for Sagar to reclaim his throne, they joined with a group of adventurers heading over the crown of the world to Tien Xia

I took some feat or trait that let me sacrifice an ability score or something in exchange for Sagar to have +2 to another score. And I took the feat that let you give animal companions the Shaman spirit pet abilities each day (before they nerfed it). Sagar had something like 7 Int at the end of the campaign, could speak Common, and had a whole host of useful ass abilities each day.

One time he flew the entire party up a mountain to invade an evil ninja monastery, 5 feet at a time. Another time he had aquatic, and hid underwater while we dealt with a viking lord on his ship. When things turned sour, Sagar smashed through the floor of the boat, and lept to our defence. More than once myself and other party members took hits that could have killed them, to protect our dinosaur mascot.

I miss that campaign

Not personally, no. But as a GM, I've given my players' animal companions some personality.

The Mentalist has a pet horse that thinks because it's an Ilona(think draft horse that psychically bonds itself to one master) it's the absolute toppest horse ever... Until it encounters another Ilona, especially one belonging to the Empress. Then it revises its self-image to "best horse outside of Archangel".
That being said, it has still "accidentally" ate a bird or two, gotten into a keg of ale and gone nuts, and damn-near killed itself by sucking on at least two separate fence posts.

The Summoner has a totem Stoat spirit through Elan with mother nature. That little bastard has two speeds: "can I kill it?" and "get triggered by the stupid horse being stupid and a horse". When things get slow, he starts acting up and asking if there's something nearby he can kill, usually winding up arguing with the Summoner on what he can and can't kill. Which leads to the inevitable:
>"Why the hell can't I kill that stupid fucking horse? Look at it, I mean it's got those big, stupid eyes, and those floppy retard ears, and that long dopey snout, it's like it's mocking me with it's stupidity."
>Top Horse snorts
>"SEE?! SEE?! THAT FUCKER JUST MOCKED ME! OH I FUCKING HAT YOU, YOU STUPID HORSE BASTARD!"
And then the Summoner has to try explaining, again, that the horse can't even perceive the spirit stoat, and he needs to settle the fuck down.
Usually ends with the Summoner asking what sort of a sick joke Rafael is playing by sending this little psychopath to her.

Yes

This reply was funnier than the joke.

Didn't we just have a thread about a ranger who adopted a princess polymorphed into a wolf as her animal companion, then proceeded to have a sexual romance with said bitch turned bitch?

Kekkenstein.

The orphan doesn't need stats because he/she/it isn't part of the party and won't be contributing. The animal companion, on the other hand, is a member and its capabilities need to be known.

That's dumb. Animal companions need stats. They're not just pets, the contribute to combat situations.
If the elf ranger has a wolf that joins him in battle, the wolf has to have stats, otherwise how the fuck are you gonna tell how much damage it does?

One of my players in a high lethality campaign was a ranger who was working on taking a young boar as his animal companion when he got killed. Afterwards the party adopted the boar as the party mascot. His name is bacon junior. He is now the longest running member of the party.

I Challenged a locked chest that refused to open and when I rolled a nat 20 on the will contest or whatever it was, the DM went 'fuck it' and brought it to life. Crate the Chest was my best friend, I carried it everywhere even though it had legs.

I thought this was pretty funny.

I don't argue against animal companions needing statblocks (unless the animal companion is something like a sparrow or a cat, i.e., not contributing to combat).
It's just when you give players something that can be treated as a chess piece during combat, they will treat it as a chess piece out of combat too.

I'm playing a dwarf druid right now. I'm playing him as a mixture of generic dwarf, backwoods savage/hippie (loves all animals and psychedelics for reasons of divination) and Jane Goodall. His companion is an ape named Chunky who has saved the party more than once. To portray him, I hoot like a gorilla and interpret for the party. I imagine him as kind of a gorilla-bigfoot.

Isn't that more or less what every good warlock does?

You are arguing against giving them stats. You said just that with the orphan example. As for using a statted creature like a chess piece, that argument would apply to PC's as well, now wouldn't it? By your logic to ensure roleplaying nothing at all should be statted, ever. The only way to play is completely freeform.

What I'm saying in case of animal companion, its statblock rarely matters out of combat.
One should treat an animal companion as an NPC, not as an offshot of a PC.

Except in most games that's what an animal companion literally is an extension of the PC's abilities.

>you don't give the stats to that orphan NPC that the party adopts. You don't give the stats to the characters' families
You're making a lot of assumptions.

As a DM I prefer not to provide permanent animal companions, but I like to give the animals they meet at least a little sympathy. For example, the oxen that were pulling the generic cart the other day were really friendly and patient towards one in the group and he actually felt uneasy when they had to hand over the cart. In another instance they somehow managed to befriend a wolf and I was worried that they'd just keep it because I described it as a nice and loyal wolf and they loved it. They used it in a boss fight and it died. I swear it wasn't my intention :^)

How can a squirrel afford full plate armor?

Which is exactly why those games are shit.
I fail to see your point.

That's all fine and dandy until the Orphan gets hit by an arrow and suddenly the DM is digging through for the statblock of a level 0 noble to see whether they were instantly killed or are bleeding out.

By having money, you dumbass.

Literally the only reason you would give them stats is
a) Making them relevant to the party as helpers
b) You're a sociopath DM who treats family as targets, and therefore the primary reason why murderhoboing orphans with no hometown has been the primary playstyle for decades

Your belief that such games are shit isn't relevant to your contradictory stance that stat-blocks shouldn't exist (because iit interferes with roleplaying) but are definitely required (because animal companions undertake actions that require them to have stats).
Really what I'm getting at is that you need to work on how you present your arguments/think them out in greater detail before you post.

And have this unrelated pic because it makes me laugh.

>Literally the only reason you would give them stats is
>a) Some assumptions
>b) Some more assumptions
Making assumptions makes an ass out of U and also U again

My 5e halfling ranger has a wolf named pork chop, beast master is under powered but it seemed more interesting than doing an extra 1d8 per round.

First combat he was in was a huge battle against goblins and ogres, ends up critting an ogre and knocking it prone like a badass, practically rips its throat out. Ever since I've made sure to only send him into melee when it's safe as he's a full fledged member of the team now.

Also had a solid RP moment of smearing blood on his muzzle and having him act all feral to scare off a bunch of NPCs.

10/10 would faithful animal companion again

This proud and majestic flying spider. Not a glorified attack dog, he's a dutiful carrier pigeon. Though he can still web things or people when needed.
Also did a bombing run once.

Once he got caught in some breath attack and my character broke out of combat to get him safe.

Did you teach him to paint?

Played a Drow Beast Master where it was roleplayed that the Spider was the one in charge of the duo.

I had a giant dire wolf animal companion who was basically a druid.
I was playing a four foot tengu gunslinger, so. Nice little disparity.

Depends on the gm, with one I can make good back story for the animal companion and it won't mean shit because he focuses on the story way to much for us to flesh out side characters

The other is even worse in that if you have something nice/ a familiar it's constantly being attacked or danger because we can't have nice things because "lol I'm an evul gm guyz"

The first gm is bearable because at least we can flesh out our characters and the story is good, but I'm honestly not sure why I bother with the other gm anymore, he's honestly getting so insanely hypocritical and lolzy I'm considering just leaving.

Yes, but generaly only with groups that I feel roleplay well.
I have played games where I attempted to give companions/minions personality but with a group that is more in it for the combat and crunch it is a wasted effort.

When my sorcerer died the other players were being all sympathetic until my drake familiar started swearing about where was he going to find another boy and how long it would take to train him - yes the human was my familiar and damn was that a fun scene to rp.

I have no personal accounts to add but in the spirit of a good thread I'll bump with a beloved greentext.

Are you the Chosen One?

What about an animal companion that's a rules exploit?
I knew a thief that used his mouse as "ally" so he could get a sneak attack bonus on enemies next to it.

>Playing Discworld
>Be a black ribbon vampire
>Go into Death's realm
>Find Schrodinger's cat
>He's both dead and alive at the same time
>Borrow/adopt/steal him
>Cat becomes a surrogate child and is doted upon
>Once got impaled to a mast by a crossbow boat, resulting in entire crew being massacred by frenzied vampire
>Schro turns out to be sentient, never bothered to let on because he's a cat and doesn't give a shit what we think of him
>Smartest member of the party by far

I miss that darn cat.

My 5E ranger's companion is a wolf. I play an archer so it's certainly not the best block of stats if I wanted to treat it that way, I just thought it was cooler than a bear and made more sense for a wood elf than a panther. She gets or is near kills often enough that her pristine white fur turning blood red after most fights is basically a running gag now. She also will eat just about anything, and now that our wizard has a skeleton buddy it's basically a constant struggle to hold her back from chewing on his leg.

Devoted Familiar: (D&D3.5) Your adjacent familiar can sacrifice itself to take a deathblow that would have otherwise killed your character instead.

Ser Ivan Ivanavov Ivanovovich Rasputin of Cadenburry, Lord of the Bears and eater of fish. Tree climber and Goblin muncher.

I got a bear mount as a Paladin and I got him Uplifted. The GM didn't read the spell so I got to keep him. He had magical full-plate that made his mental stats unnaturally high. He had a better diplomacy than anyone else.

By the way, he would often read poetry and Sagas during battle and talk about how the (Japanese) didn't know what good fish is.

My ranger druid from the artic north had a polar bear who I named Iorek Byrnison. No one got the reference but he was still an asset to the team. Carried our loot and fought better than most of the party.

I fucking loved Good Omens.

I think a lot if not most of my groups animal companions have somehow been more memorable than the actual characters they belong to.