Using low CR monsters as followers

[SouthpawSoldier]

I draw a lot of inspiration from media. I find it entertaining to see what odd directions I can take established characters.

My first and favorite character was a 3.5 dragonwrought kobold. Egg had been en route to kobold monastery to be hatched and trained when LG gnomes attacked, and one couldn't bring himself to crush an egg. It was damaged in the attack, so when hatched, one wing never developed. That's right; I statted Nemo the clownfish as a copper-dragon based kobold.

5E MM has made it really clear that monsters are not to be characters. However, I was toying with the idea of moving my Nemo idea over, as a follower. I'm thinking of doing a Dragonborn Ranger inspired by Gil. Either out of mercy, or as an act of penance, he is now responsible for a crippled urd. Maybe it was left behind from a raid, and was found trying to scavenge food alone. Not sure yet for backstory. Just playing around with the idea.

Anyways, the DMG is fairly light on guidance when it comes to followers. Some commentary about them being weak, XP balancing etc.

Do you all think this would be doable for a BM Ranger, as an alternative to a pet?

[MaxWilson]

My players love to collect minions and followers. (When an enemy appears, their first impulse is to beat everybody unconscious with non-lethal strikes, tie them up, and try to convince them to join the party. This works about as well as you might expect, which is to say only sometimes.)

As long as Nemo was gained in play, I wouldn't require someone to be a BM Ranger in order to have him; he would just be a straight-up NPC.

[archaeo]

Anyways, the DMG is fairly light on guidance when it comes to followers. Some commentary about them being weak, XP balancing etc.

The core DMG conceit seems to be that you should treat an NPC party member as part of the party, more or less. If there's somebody tagging along, add it to the XP budget for the encounter and see what happens.


Do you all think this would be doable for a BM Ranger, as an alternative to a pet?

I think people should exercise caution when it comes to playing with the Beast Master's pets. While a buff may feel minor at level 3, the BM's class features will magnify every buff as the PC gains Ranger levels. Making "pets" that are no longer strictly "beasts" also only serves to create greater verisimilitude issues than those that already exist; while I can handwave the restrictions on pets' actions as "Training an animal to fight in tandem with you is hard," it's not as easy to do if the pet is a sentient creature or NPC.

You're better off just treating followers as low-level party members that act and grow independently.

[Envyus]

5E MM has made it really clear that monsters are not to be characters. However, I was toying with the idea of moving my Nemo idea over, as a follower. I'm thinking of doing a Dragonborn Ranger inspired by Gil. Either out of mercy, or as an act of penance, he is no

The DMG provides NPC stat that could be used for a pc like a Kobold.