Faithful Companions Questions

Conan: Adventures In an Age Undreamed Of
1

Dear all,

I was hoping to ask some quick questions regarding Faithful Companions.

As I understand, based on this thread, PCs can select wild animals to join them as faithful companions.

  1. Can they choose any kind of animal? This seems peculiar, since there are clear advantages to choosing, say, a Bear instead of a Dog, even if both are only minions.

  2. From the previous thread, it seems that directing your companion in combat is a Minor Action.

  • Does this mean that you need to expend a Minor Action every turn to get your companion to keep attacking a single target, or would your companion keep attacking until you tell them otherwise?

  • In addition: if you have two animal companions, do you need to expend a Minor action for each one of them?

  1. If your Companion dies, I would assume that you can select a new one (it would be rather depressing otherwise to permanently lose the use of a talent). How do you handle, in your campaigns, this process? How onerous should it be for the PC?

[This question has been asked somewhat differently in an old thread, with no answers].

Many thanks in advance for your insights.

1 Like
2

Hello! My understanding, hope it helps:

  1. Correct, any animal. Some are definitely more strictly useful than others.

  2. It would be implied to me that if a companion was ordered to attack for example, it would continue to attack on later rounds. I would also allow one minor action per command given (so you could command all companions to attack the same target with one minor action, for example). Different actions for different commands.

  3. It should be returned after the player pays their next Upkeep in my view. If “killed”, I play it that the companion has been injured or otherwise is unable to provide any benefit for the rest of the adventure. It then “gets better” after Upkeep is paid.

Hope that is useful and I have not forgotten anything - if you’re having fun, you’re doing it right! :slight_smile:

1 Like
3

There are much better rules for animal handling in Horrors of the Hyborian Age. In a nutshell you can control a certain amount of trained animals for free and your Faithful Companion doesn’t count towards that limit.

Getting a new companion I’d do as part of upkeep.

2 Likes
4

Per the rules, minions and toughneds are not dead, they are “taken out of action” p.305…