Hi everyone.
I have a question about the interaction between animal companions/familiars and the death/dying rules.
Player characters, their companions, and other significant characters and creatures don’t automatically die when they reach 0 Hit Points. Instead, they are knocked out and are at risk of death. At the GM’s discretion, villains, powerful monsters, special NPCs, and enemies with special abilities that are likely to bring them back to the fight (like ferocity, regeneration, or healing magic) can use these rules as well. As a player character, when you are reduced to 0 Hit Points, you’re knocked out with the following effects: - You immediately move your initiative position to directly before the turn in which you were reduced to 0 HP.
- You gain the dying 1 condition. If the effect that knocked you out was a critical success from the attacker or the result of your critical failure, you gain the dying 2 condition instead. If you have the wounded condition, increase your dying value by an amount equal to your wounded value. If the damage was dealt by a nonlethal attack or nonlethal effect, you don’t gain the dying condition; you are instead unconscious with 0 Hit Points.
I start from the premise that this rules apply to AC/F. They seem significant enough to me to not kill them when they reach 0 hit points, but maybe I'm understanding that part wrong.
The problem I see is with the "You immediately move your initiative position to directly before the turn in which you were reduced to 0 HP" rule.
Since animal companions and familiars have no initiative of their own (they go with the PC that owns them), it doesn't seem possible to apply the rule as written. I suppose you could separate the animal companion's initiative when they go down in combat and make it join the PC's initiative again when they are healed and regain consciousness, but it seems weird to me.
What I have done until now as a temprary solution is that when the AC/F goes unconscious and starts dying, it doesn't make a recovery check on the owner's next turn, it starts with the next one after. That way, you "preserve" the idea that the characters have one full round to heal their ally before it starts rolling recovery checks. Hope I have explained myself clearly enough...
So after taking a look at the forums, I haven't found an answer to this. How do you fellow DM's out there rule this and solve it in your games? Is there anything I'm missing?
Thank you!
The only time I would give the animal companion/familiar an initiative of its own is if its master was not around, or its master had previously died. Then I'd apply the moving the initiative rule to it.
But if their master is active, then they act in their master's turn. When the master chooses.
I don't see this as a major problem or disadvantage. It gives them a chance to be healed or not as their owner chooses.
I did suffer under a GM once who insisted that animal companions aren't PCs and therefore don't get the benefit of these dying rules at all. But I consider that an aberration.
Ok, so you do as I and don't modify the AC/F initiative at all.
But how do you do the AC/F recovery checks? do you start doing them in the master's next turn, or do you skip that and start on the following round to keep the "you have one round to be healed before you start rolling recovery checks"?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I roll them on the master next turn. Losing a Familiar or an Animal Companion is not as tough as losing a character so I don't care if the rules are a bit hard on them.