Written by Luke Hart

Every D&D player in the history of the game has done this… They come upon a cute little fuzzy animal – and they want to adopt it. Whether it’s a squirrel or a cockatrice, they want it as a pet. And then they march off to combat with their new cute cuddly and are SHOCKED when the first fireball torches their adorable little buddy into a crisp.

And then you, the dungeon master, are over there in the corner trying to console them as they weep. Or not, depending on how HEARTLESS you are after having killed their precious fluffy sidekick.

So, today we’re going to discuss how to run pets and animal sidekicks in D&D. Specifically, we’ll go over FIVE mistakes to avoid and what to do instead. AND, our goal here is to help pets and animal sidekicks work a little bit better in the game, and be more FUN for both dungeon master and players.

Watch or listen to this article by clicking the video below.

#1 Allowing characters to tame wild animals too quickly.

Okay, so this is how it usually works: Your player comes across a fluffy squirrel, is enamored, and asks you if they can take it as a pet. You, the dungeon master, reply that it’s a wild animal, not a stray kitten. Then the player is like, “Okay, what do you want? An animal handling check?” Rolls dice. “19!” Then the dungeon master is like, “Okay, I guess the squirrel comes up to you…” “I give it nuts from my rations!” “Great, the squirrel loves you.” “So is it my pet now?” Perhaps frustrated, perhaps just not knowing what to do because there aren’t any RULES around pets or animal sidekicks in the core rules, the dungeon master concedes the point – it’s the easiest thing to do, after all – and allows the character to have the squirrel as a pet. After all, it’s just a squirrel. What’s the worst that can happen?

So why is it that we think taming a wild animal can just be resolved with an animal handling check and a bit of food? And then the beast is suddenly our close friend and loyal companion? Have YOU ever tried doing that with a squirrel? How about with a bear or a wolf or something? BUT LUKE! It’s a game, calm down.

Yeah, it is just a game. It’s a game that involves ROLEPLAYING and attempts to capture the verisimilitude of a real world and where terms like “suspension of disbelief” are usually considered fairly important. So, I submit to you that it should take TIME and EFFORT to tame a wild creature. In fact, this sounds like a great use for DOWNTIME. But Luke, we have no downtime rules for taming creatures!!!

Well, not to fear. My team and I have put together Tamed Companions a light-weight ruleset for pets and animal sidekicks in D&D. In this system we introduce new downtime rules for taming pets and other creatures one might come across in their adventures. Now, I won’t repeat all of the rules in this post, but if you want to pick up Tamed Companions, it of course have everything.

#2 Allowing characters to do too much with animal sidekicks.

Okay, your player’s character as TAMED that squirrel with but ONE animal handling check, and now they want to squeeze every ounce of value out of that cute fluffy squirrel. They have the squirrel – you know, let’s call the squirrel George – they have the squirrel scout ahead. They have the squirrel recon the enemy hideout. They have the squirrel return and recount the layout of the enemy base and the size of their forces and the PATTERNS of their patrols.

And then armed with all of this information, they develop a foolproof plan for devastating their enemies and grinding them into the dust. All fueled by the special elite skills of GEORGE, the cute fluffy squirrel that but one day ago had as his primary concern and thought: “Where can I find my next nut?” And, all the while, the WIZARD is sitting nearby on a stump with their bat familiar on their shoulder wondering, “Gee…why did I go through years of arcane study to become a wizard who was capable of casting Find Familiar? After all, the stupid barbarian is just as capable of finding an animal sidekick after clucking at a squirrel and tossing it a nut?”

Do you see what I’m getting at? There can be a tendency – fueled by pressure from players – for dungeon masters to allow pets and animal sidekicks to do way more than they should realistically be able to do. And not only that, but when allowed to do so, it’s a de facto NERF on other character’s abilities, such as wizards, rangers, and druids.

Now someone will object to this, claiming that D&D is a heroic fantasy roleplaying game with mythic heroes and extraordinary villains, and that animal sidekicks SHOULD be able to do cool and awesome stuff. And, and, and – MAGIC!!! Why is it that “magic” is always the endcap to every argument by players wishing to push the boundaries of what is possible in the game?

Dungeon Master: “I’m sorry, even with a 27 Athletics check, you can’t jump across the mile-wide river.” Player: “But, but, MAGIC!!!” Dungeon master: “You’re a barbarian.”

Now, I agree that cool stuff should absolutely be possible in the game and that animal sidekicks should be awesome and fun to play – however, I’m just saying that we need limits, please. And animal sidekicks should be implemented in a way that doesn’t effectively nerf other classes’ abilities.

So, that squirrel companion should require TRAINING to be able to do some of the things the character would like them to do. And, again, that’s a great use of downtime. We should also consider questions such as, Can the character effectively communicate with the squirrel? Can they speak with animals? Or must they rely on simple commands such as come, stay, and attack? Ideally what you’d want to do is flesh out some basic guidelines and rules for how pets and animal sidekicks will work in your game. For instance, in our Tamed Companions ruleset, we have specific rules that govern what animal sidekicks can do. This way players and dungeon masters can all be on the same page.

#3 Not having the animal sidekick level up.

The quintessential problem with pets and animal sidekicks is that they are static. They start off with hardly any hit points and a pitiful attack. Then, as the group levels up and takes on stronger and stronger bad guys, George the Squirrel still has 1 hit point, a practically worthless bite attack, and few other abilities to speak of. Now, one might argue that this is realistic, but it definitively makes for poor gameplay. And why’s that? Because, your wonderful animal sidekick is practically worthless in the game, beside for pure roleplaying’s sake – and is going to get TOASTED the first time an enemy wizard drops a fireball or a gnoll archer gets tired of the annoying little squirrel running around.

No, what we really need is a way for animal sidekicks to LEVEL UP with the characters. We need a set of rules around that. And this set of rules should ensure three things: 1) animal sidekicks do not eclipse characters in power, 2) animal sidekicks should still be useful, 3) animal sidekicks should have some survivability.

Now, if you want to homebrew your own set of rules around this, I suggest something like this: Every time the characters level up, the animal sidekick gains one hit die, just like characters do, though an animal sidekicks’ hit points should be roughly HALF that of the PCs. Upon level up, whenever the PC gains extra attack or their damage otherwise increases, the animal sidekick should also do a bit more damage. You might increase the damage die or give them multiattack. Finally, when PCs level up and gain extra abilities, animal sidekicks should also gain cool abilities they can do that will aid the party – perhaps not always in COMBAT, but in some what they should gain the ability to better contribute to the groups’ adventuring. Also, it should require TRAINING for an animal sidekick to gain these additional benefits. They do not AUTOMATICALLY gain them as a character would.

Now, these are just GUIDELINES and things for you to consider if you want to homebrew your own rules. However, if you want to skip that exercise and additional work, our Tamed Companion ruleset does all of this for you. It includes mechanics for leveling up animal sidekicks, increasing their hit points and damage, giving them new abilities, and new downtime rules for training animal sidekicks.

#4 Not defining roles for the pet or animal sidekick.

Come on, are you really going to send little Georgie into combat against the score of orcs charging down on you? Is your grizzly bear sidekick best suited for scouting out the trap-filled kobold lair? And is that honey badger REALLY going to be a suitable mount for you? Okay, okay, I know you’re a halfling. I get that you’re SMOOOL – but it’s a honey badger. Maybe you should just send that vicious little guy to tear apart that drow archer, eh?

What’s my point here? Just as different characters have roles in the game that are usually defined by their skills and capabilities, animal sidekicks should, too. Now, in part this is something the PLAYERS need to acknowledge and embrace, too, otherwise they’ll do something like send poor little Georgie against the orcs and then wonder why everything went so terribly wrong and the orcs tore Georgie apart. Because, you see, Georgie was probably better suited as a social animal companion, a spy, a scout, and the like. It’s the grizzly bear, clad in chain mail, that would have faired better against the orcs.

So, what you want to do is when you are developing your homebrew rules for leveling up animal sidekicks is to consider their ROLES and have them progress in skills and abilities that are in alignment. A grizzly bear should get better at combat abilities; a squirrel at social and sneak skills; and a Pegasus at mount-related abilities such as charging and fly-by attacks.

And of course – you knew this was coming – this is exactly what we did with our Tamed Companion ruleset. When an animal sidekick begins gaining levels, you can choose one of three classes for it to pursue: combat companion, mount companion, or social companion. And then the sidekick gains abilities aligned with the role you’ve chosen for it to fill in the group. For instance, a combat companion gains the Creature of War ability at 1^st level, a mount companion gains the Trample ability at 2^nd level, and a social companion gains the Social Caster ability at 3^rd level.

#5 Not adjusting difficulty to account for animal sidekicks.

Okay, so one character has a fully armored grizzly bear as an animal sidekick. Another has a cockatrice that zips around turning flesh to stone. A third has a squirrel, George, that casts cantrips from their shoulder. And then the fourth has vicious honey badge that zones in on enemy spellcasters at the outset of combat. And what, you think that you can just run Tomb of Annihilation, Curse of Strahd, or whatever as written? You think that you won’t have to rebalance encounters and adventures for the new power that the group has due to their awesome animal sidekicks?

Well of course you need to rebalance things. Otherwise, encounters and adventures will be exceedingly easy. Now there isn’t anything inherently WRONG with that, but it usually doesn’t make for the best game experience when EVERYTHING is too easy. There should be a variety of encounter difficulties over the course of play to ensure an optimal game experience.

So, here’s my suggestion: if you are using LEVELED UP animal sidekicks, you should consider counting them as a FULL CHARACTER of the same level as the actual characters in the group when determining difficulty and rebalancing things. If that still results in too easy of a game, count every animal sidekick as a character at half the group’s level. That will boost difficulty a bit. Of course, this isn’t a science, so you may have to experiment a bit to find the sweet spot.

Tamed Companions and the Big Ruleset Bundle

If you’d like a lightweight ruleset for implementing animal companions in your D&D game, our Tamed Companions: Animal Sidekicks resource is the perfect fit. And if you pick up the Big Ruleset Bundle, you’ll also get nine other rulesets that fill in many of the gaps in the game—and save huge!