Ok here is my question, given the theory of design that 4e follows being heavy on actions as a resource, would giving an animal companion the ability to "act on its own" when not directly used by its master and allowing it an attack doing like d6 or so considered unbalancing? especially if not usable in the same round as any power that involves the companion? just curious.
Ok here is my question, given the theory of design that 4e follows being heavy on actions as a resource, would giving an animal companion the ability to "act on its own" when not directly used by its master and allowing it an attack doing like d6 or so considered unbalancing? especially if not usable in the same round as any power that involves the companion? just curious.
Not sure, it doesn't sound too bad. I'd personally give it a try and if still not sure then make it an At-Will Minor or Move Action. Overall the games about the PC's not their animals but if your DM has no problem with it then do it.
Here's an idea: make the animal companion a companion NPC, per the rules in the DMG 2, in addition to being a normal animal companion. This works especially well if you've got one fewer player than you might like.
Honestly I don't think the balancing act going on here is about play balance at all. Its not so tough to make play balanced companions or side kicks or what not (or maybe its tough - but it is doable). Your players animal companion can't do anything cool (or at least not often) because it'd take the player time to figure out the move, and roll the dice and work out the numbers etc.
In other words players tend to be limited on actions not because its impossible to balance the actions within the overall framework of the game but because adding actions increases how long the game takes. The odd exception is no big deal but many exceptions for many players will very significantly add to combat length.
So what you really want to ask yourself is 'does having that potential for an extra d6 damage justify the fact that it'll make each battle take that much longer?'.
Put more succinctly - are your combats wizzing by at a real nice clip? Or do you feel that they sometimes seem to drag? If your in the first category then go ahead and add another creature, but if your in the second category then its going to make a problem at the table even worse and should be avoided.
Honestly I don't think the balancing act going on here is about play balance at all. Its not so tough to make play balanced companions or side kicks or what not (or maybe its tough - but it is doable). Your players animal companion can't do anything cool (or at least not often) because it'd take the player time to figure out the move, and roll the dice and work out the numbers etc.
In other words players tend to be limited on actions not because its impossible to balance the actions within the overall framework of the game but because adding actions increases how long the game takes. The odd exception is no big deal but many exceptions for many players will very significantly add to combat length.
So what you really want to ask yourself is 'does having that potential for an extra d6 damage justify the fact that it'll make each battle take that much longer?'.
Put more succinctly - are your combats wizzing by at a real nice clip? Or do you feel that they sometimes seem to drag? If your in the first category then go ahead and add another creature, but if your in the second category then its going to make a problem at the table even worse and should be avoided.
Honestly from my view I don't think ruling an extra basic attack doing like a d6 per tier or whatever 1/round maybe using the players minor action so that the animal companion can act or whatever as long as they hadnt already attacked as part of another action would take too much longer or be really crazy powerful..... but I'll have to see it in play I guess, maybe it is too much.
Although the intent of 4E was to provide a better balance, that truely is never obtained. So unless the rest of you group thinks it is too powerful, one more creature, NPC or otherwise, will add to the effectiveness of the group.
There are also magical items, that act like pets, and summoned creatures (wizard, artificer, druid) provide good examples of creatures acting without instruction.
Then you have another alternative like the shaman with a conjuration.
It my campaign I treated a pet as a NPC druid the DM controlled, but the player was allowed to instruct it while using at-will attacks. When my wife played on occasion, she played the pet as full fledge druid character using everything available.
A player is currently running a ranger beastmaster using the pet as substitute for quarry damage, so it can act independently on different targets, but the downside is having to hit for the extra damage as a seperate roll.