GM'ing Zombie Feast on foundry (Blood Lords Book 1) need advice on undead companions (Spoilers).

[Pandabub]

So as I've understood it, for letting Berline know that the former farm owner liked eating people, my party each get to pick an undead companion gifted by her. They rushed off to go to the manor house, so I'm planning to give them once they're done clearing it out in time for level 2.

My question is, now one of them has befriended the Elite Crawling hand in the house, does he still get another undead companion? If so it might be too many companions especially as one or two of them want to dabble in necromancy, but if not then he kind of gets cheated out of the option of picking which companion he'd like to have, as the others get to choose between undead bird, snake, zombie mount etc. Since he was the only one to succeed in bonding with the hand, I want it to feel rewarding!

Curious to know how other people have dealt/would deal with this. It's not a huge thing, but I want to ensure my 4 players all feel good about it going forward.

Note: First time using the forums, so hoping I'm posting in the right place!

[yellowpete]

You could handle it like the companion archetypes, where a single PC can have multiple of them but only one is 'on-screen' at any point in time.
Or you could just have the crawling hand be an NPC that now has a special connection to that particular PC, if it's basically just going to be their butler rather than follow them around during adventures.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

I don't have this AP so I can't directly answer what is supposed to happen, but to my ear, an NPC giving all party members an animal/undead companion without having them take any class features or archetypes to support and represent that creature seems very strange. I haven't heard of his adventure using the Free Archetype rules like Strength of Thousands did to make sure everyone was at least a spell caster of some degree, and certainly not to the extent of throwing anything as complex as an added companion onto every player.

In any case, your instinct is correct that two companions on one player is too many. Most of the time a character can only command one minion-type creature at a time (I don't remember if this is a hard rule or just a consequence of companions eating up 1 of your actions every round).

Pandabub wrote:

Note: First time using the forums, so hoping I'm posting in the right place!

Unfortunately no! But since it'll be Monday soon, one of the mods should be around sometime to shuffle it into the Blood Lords forum, which is somewhat further down the page. (Well, I guess sometimes AP-specific advice comes up in the Advice forum, but GMing advice for running part of an AP feels more like an AP Forum thing.

[rokeca]

When we were doing Zombie Feast I didn't read it as Berline gifting companions to the PCs, but rather she was providing access to undead companions for PCs to select from if their class or archetype provided them with a companion. So giving them more Geb-themed companion options. Curious to see how others approached that now!

[StarlingSweeter]

I also viewed it as giving the players access to undead companions. Though, now that I think about it. You probably could get away with giving every player the Pet general feat with their desired pet being undead if you wanted to reward everyone equally.

[Pandabub]

yellowpete wrote:

You could handle it like the companion archetypes, where a single PC can have multiple of them but only one is 'on-screen' at any point in time.

Or you could just have the crawling hand be an NPC that now has a special connection to that particular PC, if it's basically just going to be their butler rather than follow them around during adventures.

That's interesting I didn't know that rule with companions, you put thme in storage when you're not using them! Based on how people have replied, I'm thinking the player who bonded with the hand can maybe get him as a companion for 'free', but the others have to perhaps invest feats to get them.

[Pandabub]

StarlingSweeter wrote:

I also viewed it as giving the players access to undead companions. Though, now that I think about it. You probably could get away with giving every player the Pet general feat with their desired pet being undead if you wanted to reward everyone equally.

Interesting you guys read it that way, I did think that originally but thoughts perhaps the wording suggested she gives them the undead companions as a 'free feat' type thing, as if they had been given Undead Master archetype for free. I have been running strength of thousands too my party is halfway through and 3/4 players are in both groups, so maybe I'm used to giving them free archetypes!

I'm thinking now do I just give them access to that feat if they want to invest in it, and the player who handled the hand gets a handy companion for free?

Thanks everyone for your responses btw, and thanks also to whoever moved my post to the right place!