Forest Gnome pet.

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In the lore section of the Forest Gnome in the players guidebook, it states that forest gnomes can communicate with small beasts, and that they keep badgers, woodpeckers, squirrels and other small beasts as pets.

I managed to talk my DM into letting me have a Badger animal companion for my Lore Bard. In the campaign working for a mercenary company in Waterdeep, it came in useful a number of times, such as scouting, use of rope (grabbing one end with its teeth and dragging it to one of my party members and using it as a tripline) and carrying items. I came down with illness during the duration of the campaign, so I don't think I used its full potential.

Anyone else convinced their DM to let their player have a pet, or any DM's let a gnome have a pet?

[FlourescentKing]

No, however, once my party and I found a goblin in some back alley whom we interrogated for information. We grew attached to the goblin and affectionately named him Karl, keeping him in a Rope Trick when we weren't torturing him. On one occasion, my sorceror used him to entertain a young dragon by letting having the dragon chase him around the room.

We weren't very good friends to Karl.

However, when we were at a culminatory boss fight with a dwarven king who was puppeting the entire goblin nation, and we were all pretty much out for the count, the wizard managed to cast rope trick and release Karl. He entered the material plane face to face with the dwarf who was oppressing his people - and went ham.

Does that count as a pet?

Because it should. :smallbiggrin:

[JumboWheat01]

No, however, once my party and I found a goblin in some back alley whom we interrogated for information. We grew attached to the goblin and affectionately named him Karl, keeping him in a Rope Trick when we weren't torturing him. On one occasion, my sorceror used him to entertain a young dragon by letting having the dragon chase him around the room.

We weren't very good friends to Karl.

However, when we were at a culminatory boss fight with a dwarven king who was puppeting the entire goblin nation, and we were all pretty much out for the count, the wizard managed to cast rope trick and release Karl. He entered the material plane face to face with the dwarf who was oppressing his people - and went ham.

Does that count as a pet?

Because it should. :smallbiggrin:

That counts as pure awesomeness. Which is close enough. When in doubt, Rule of Cool it.

And pets aren't actually that out-of-bounds as one may think. The Urchin background explicitly says one of your starting "items" is a pet mouse. As pets don't really provide any combat advantage, unless they're turned into familiars, I would see nothing wrong with giving someone a pet, especially for character thematics.

[Mrmox42]

One of my players play a Forest Gnome Rogue, who has a ferret as a pet. He use it for really simple tasks, such as fetching, going somewhere and make a noise and the like.
Mostly it is used in Roleplaying situations, as he is an Entertainer, and it helps him doing tricks. When the Group meet children on their travels, the pet ferret helps the Gnome with making friends.