Wednesday Roll Table #3 - Pets

If there is one things players love almost as much as strong magic items, its pet companions. Pet companions often come in two varieties, vanity and combat. Vanity pets are for roleplay purposes and flavour only, where combat obviously includes pets that are of value in battle. I tend to prefer vanity pets for my players, it is easiest to balance, and muddles things up less. This roll table is definitely slanted towards pets that are in the vanity category, but I haven't labelled any of them. It is up to you as a DM, and up to how creative your players are, to see if they can be of use in battle. Certain classes, like rangers, will be able to take advantage of pets in battle better than others. The players in my campaign currently have a dragon wyrmling in their care, (dragons are arguable more of a companion or adopted child than a pet but I'll count them as a pet for our purposes today) I try to roleplay the dragon in a way that he isn't a reliable combat companion, for balance purposes.

Unlike our previous roll tables, this roll table is in an order. The higher the number, the more valuable or rare the pet is. This will allow you to use some sort of luck modifier, or aid in manual selection.

The goal of this table was to pick a pet that the adventurers, or a specific player stumble upon, and it has a chance to become attached to them. Perhaps the animal was orphaned or escaped from a travelling exotic animal trader. The players hear some rustling in nearby trees, they look in, and you roll a d20 on the following table to determine the animal.

Every animal is a newborn baby when found. If the players put in effort they can easily bond with the animal. I make no promises that the creatures found in this table will not unbalance your party, but keep in mind that most of them would require many years before they reached their full potential in some sort of combat situation. Most adventurers would also lack the skills to properly train the animals to attack on command.

d20	Pet Companion
1	Frog - Roll a d6 1-4: Frog 5: Giant Frog 6: Giant Toad.
2	Snake - Roll a d6 1-3: Snake 4-5: Flying Snake 6: Giant Constrictor Snake
3	Bird - Roll a d6 (On roll of 5 or 6, roll another d6. If 5-6 then pet is of giant variety) 1: Blue Jay, Sparrow or Robin 2: Chicken 3: Raven 4: Hawk 5: Owl 6: Eagle
4	Cat - A common housecat. Breed determined by DM
5	Dog - Roll a d6 1-4: Common dog breed determined by DM. 5: Mastiff 6: Blink Dog
6	Boar - Roll a d6. On 5-6 boar substitute Giant Boar
7	Wolf - Roll a d6. On 5-6 substitute Dire Wolf
8	Big Cat - Roll a d6. 1-2: Panther 3-4: Tiger 5-6: Lion
9	Bear - Roll a d6 1-2: Black Bear 3-4: Brown Bear 5: Polar Bear 6: Owlbear
10	Ape - Roll a d20 1-5: Baboon 6-10: Monkey (Classified as Baboon in 5e Monster Manual) 11-16: Gorilla (Classified as Ape in 5e Monster Manual) 17-19: Orangutan (Classified as Ape in 5e Monster Manual) 20: Giant Ape *
11	Cockatrice
12	Hippogriff
13	Griffon
14	Chimera*
15	Grick*
16	Pseudodragon
17	Wyvern
18	Dinosaur - Roll a d6 1-2: Allosaurus 3: Pteranodon 4: Ankylosaurus 5: Triceratops 6: Tyrannosaurus Rex*
19	Roc*
20	Dragon Wyrmling* - Roll a d10 1: Copper 2: Brass 3: Green 4: Bronze 5: Black 6: Silver 7: White 8: Blue 9: Gold 10: Red

*DM should be careful handing out these creatures as they may grow to be very powerful. Since the players receive them as babies it may take many years for them to fully mature.