Friday 13 October 2017

Rules for Pets in the Black Hack

The longer I run David Black's stripped down old/new school D&Dish retro clone called The Black Hack, the more I find myself writing rules to suit the situations my players create and modify the game to our taste. The more I add and change the more I find myself with what looks like the beginnings of a great RPG that straddles the old school and new school well enough to function as a great little introductory fantasy RPG. That might fuel some posts for later, but for now here are the rules I created for running pets and animal companions in the Black Hack.

My players for my Keep on the Borderlands campaign went into the woods to see if they could find the dragon they heard about and only found the crazy hermit and his lion. They killed the hermit and then they tracked down the lion so they could use a Charm Monster potion on it. The warrior character treated it well and fed it more than the hermit did while they had it under control. I gave the player in control of the warrior a Charisma roll when the potion expired to befriend the lion. I figured with a 6 Charisma I was safe and the lion would just run away.

That's when they rolled a critical and the lion became their pet. Now I have rules for how pets work in the Black Hack. These are the expanded and polished version of what I sketched out during that session so they could use their lion right away. They've worked well so far. If your players force you to make up rules for pets you can use these ones!

There is a Moebius image for every blogpost!

Creature companions/pets have three attributes besides their regular DMG, HD and HP: Action, Sense and Loyalty. The ACT and SEN attributes are based on the creature’s HD. ACT is 10 + HD  to a maximum of 16 and SEN is 10 + HD + (roll 2d6 and choose the lowest one) to a maximum of 18. LOY is a usage die and depends on how well trained and well treated the pet is before bad things start happening. A faithful dog that has been with the character for a few years will have LOY of d8 or even d10. A pack animal that was recently purchased will have a LOY of d4.




ACT is used for physical tests like dodging falling rocks or combat. SEN is used to notice something, track or any test that depends on the animal’s senses. LOY is tested any time something bad happens, such as the beast is wounded, mistreated or neglected when hungry. If the LOY result is a 1 or 2 on a d4 the animal will attempt to run away.


Pets and creature companions can play different roles during combat. One option is to attack independently using their ACT attribute. If used this way they risk damage from opponents if ACT rolls are failed. Another option is for them to fight with the character that owns them and add a +1 to their effective HD for the purposes of fighting powerful or multiple opponents. Pets could also harass and distract a single opponent to create an opening and allow the character that owns the pet to get Advantage on an attack. It depends on circumstances, but creativity should be rewarded.


Pets get one action or attack, the same as the characters. Their damage based on HD already reflects the results of using all their natural weapons.


Here’s an example notation of a lion that was charmed using potions and then became a pet:
ACT 15 SEN 15 LOY d8

DMG 1d10 HD 4+1 HP 18

This way all the rolls stay player facing while they roll against the stats their pets have when they take some kind of action. The loyalty die allows whoever is running the game to keep things from getting too out of hand. If the pet is being overused they can call for more loyalty rolls.

Let me know what you think in the comments. Especially if your try them out too! 


5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've got a stupid question: How did you determine the DMG, HD and HP of the Lion? Do you have an advice for me, how to set a lvl 1 pet?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The lion was in an old Module called The Keep on the Borderlands. It's HD and HP were in the module so I just used those. The DMG comes from the monster damage per hit dice table in the Black Hack rules. The lion was not something I planned, the kids just rolled lucky!

      Another PC tamed a fox which I gave a 1d6 HD and rolled three or four hit points for. I gave it a 1d4 damage die since that is the minimum. That made a pretty good level one pet. :)

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for your replay. It fits to my idea to create a Ranger- Class, which can choose between two skilloptions:
    1 -> Ranger goes distance, then pet goes melee
    2 -> Ranger goes melee, then pet goes distance

    First of all I structurated the lvl- 1- pat in the following way (as you explained it in your article):

    For both options:
    - Start- ACT: 10+HD (max. 16)
    - Start- SEN: 10+HD+2D6- rolls (choose lower dice)
    - Start- LOY: 1W4 (incrises 1D- size/session)

    For option 1 (melee- pet):
    - Start- HP: 1D4+3
    - Start- HD: 1D6
    - DMG: 1D4 (range close)

    For option 1 (distance- pet):
    - Start- HP: 1D6+1
    - Start- HD: 1D4
    - DMG: 1D6 (range nearby)

    That maybe fits to your repley on my first question? What do you think about it - do you mean it fits or perhaps it's imbalanced?

    - and sorry for my language, I try my very best ;-)

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.