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I guess this goes into the classes forum
I had one of my players before our session 0 inform me that he was giving up on having an Animal Companion (he typically really likes having an Animal Companion) for any of the builds for Doomsday Dawn. It seems He got frustrated with the rules. I talked him through as best as I could, but I don't know if he will decide to try them out. I did tell him I would check here for more information.
Here were the pointers I gave him, let me know if I need to go back and clarify for him.
1) Animal Companions use Modifiers not Stats like PCs, adding a +1 is really. But they use proficiency (level + training + ability modifier) just like PCs.
He asked "What if they take ability score damage?"
I told him, "that no one does any more it's handled by conditions like enfeebled and the like."
He then asked "Why do PCs have ability scores?"
I sang "Tradition" from "Fiddler on the Roof". But then said "it also slows scaling at high levels for PCs (+1s on boots after 18)."
2) To start to build an animal companion, use the Base Stats for Young Companion, then add the stats from your Chosen Companion Type. With a +1 to each of the stats listed under it's entry. But it doesn't not gain the Advanced Maneuver unless your Companion is upgraded to Nimble or Savage.
He suggested renaming "Incredible Companion" in the Ranger and Druid Feats to them "Advanced Companions"
3) Your Animal Companion advances at your level (no more uneven HD because there are no more HD period, only levels).
4) Your Animal Companion does not get ability score boosts every 5 levels.
5) Your Animal Companion is only upgraded when you choose a class ability which does so. Full-Grown, Nimble/Savage, Specialized, etc
6) He asked if reach increases when size increases. I told him I didn't think so, but would check.
7) I also explained the Minion trait, and how you have to command it to act each round, but that it then performed its actions as soon as you commanded it to. That it would not act without being given commands each round, but wouldn't runaway either.
8) The Mount stuff seemed to click around the time Minion was explained.
I always found it odd that animal companions don't act at all unless ordered, especially when it's a long task. Like, say I'm playing a druid, and I tell my wolf "go chase that guy down and kill him", it's a simple enough command, but appearently the wolf doesn't understand that unless I'm reminding him every turn? This gets even weirder with things like "patrol this area and look out for threats" or "fly above the trees and tell me whats ahead", where the command will clearly take many turns to fulfill, is something a trained animal could reasonable know how to do, and the druid/ranger/etc. would not be able to shout every 6 seconds to issue the command again.
This puts familiars into some VERY weird territory, since scouting and spying are, like, the classic fantasy roles for a familiar (outside of somehiw helping a mage cast spells)
I totally get needing to spend an action to issue/change/cancel a command, but it seems weird that they have zero initiative to behave on their own
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I think we were fine on that point for animal companions, sort of explaining it as battle happens so fast and they have really low intelligence (-4, with no raises I can see), but are pretty wise (+1 to +5, based on build), as such it’s wise for them to stay out of or run from battle if they can. Flight > Fight for most animals when dealing with humans. So they wait until their human tells them what to do.
For familiars (in the play test), they are literally expressions of the PCs magical power.
But this is only in the encounter, as a GM I would totally let the PC use his Animal Companion or Familiar steal the keys from the sleeping guard. I may have them do a little humorous misunderstanding (al a baby Groot, in the escape scene in Gaurdians of the Galaxy 2). But that’s outside the rules of Battle Chess (encounter mode)
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I disagree based on how an encounter with a wild beast of an equivalent type would play out.
Further, it is unrealistic to how a real world trained animal would act.
And lastly, it completely removes any sense of a mystical bond between the Ranger and her companion.
I just realised that the "minion" trait actually does allow animals to act on their own according to their nature if not given orders, which very much could allow them to do all of those non combat tasks. Given how encounter mode vs exploration mode works though, it seems exploration mode assumes you disregard a number of mechanics that exist in encounter mode. The example for chases, for instance, allows for slower characters to escape fast ones in exploration mode, when normally in encounter mode, it's just simply not possible for a speed 20 to escape a particularly persistant speed 30
I would rule that you could combine Order an animal action with your own Stride action.
Makes sense to me. After all, you only need your mouth to give a command.
And I still don't buy that an AC wouldn't actively protect it's partner even without orders to do so, nor require subsequent orders to continue attacking a hostile opponent. I can see an untrained wild animal acting the way the rules suggest, but not an AC.
And the action economy really rubs me the wrong way. The AC's are already limited in what they can do over all, doesn't make sense for them to be arbitrarily slower than enemy creatures.
I would rule that you could combine Order an animal action with your own Stride action.
Or, given the way I have seen riding animals function in real life, set things up so that such an animal will continue to carry you in the same direction at the same speed in subsequent rounds until you take an action to command it to do something differently.