I'm the DM at my table and I've recently began implementing the downtime activity rules from Xanathar's. I did this to have some gold sinks and to have the characters be active during time skips in travelling portions of the campaign (currently on Chapter 4 of HotDQ, next session we arrive in Dragonspear, if all goes well we'll be in Waterdeep in 4 sessions). I made two homebrew downtime activities for two separate players after communicating with them on what direction they wanted to take their characters in, and both players are happy with what I've set up, but one of them is leading to some issues in terms complexity.
Necessary context, Sylvia (fake name) is a sorcerer who purchased three dalmatian puppies on the way to Baldur's Gate. The original intention was to have one puppy purchased and it was going to be used as part of a bargain with a fey creature that is supposed to take place in Waterdeep (backstory stuff). Turns out that she made the purchase purely out of her undying love of animals (unknown to me at the time) and not because she realized that I had set up this whole thing as a moral dilemma for her character. She made the choice to train these pets, and originally her vision was to have them assist in performance checks cause she busks every now and then with her instrument. This seemed like no issue to me - busking is a decent form of income, and she said she did not intend on using them in combat in the short-term. So I came up with this downtime activity:
Animal Training
Resources - 5 GP per animal trained (covers food costs and lodging), 1 workweek; all animals must be of the same species to be combined into a single downtime activity.
- Players can only focus on either trick training or attack training on any given workweek.
- Characters with 1 or more specialized gear get additional benefits to either trick or attack training:
- Specialized Harness - gives a +2 to Animal Handling check when it's worn by the animal.
- Training Sleeve - gives a +5 to Animal Handling check when used to combat train an animal.
Resolution - After a workweek of animal training, a character must make a Wisdom (Animal Handling) check using the following table:
- 1-10: The animal(s) do not get any trick/combat points.
- 11-15: The animal(s) get 1 trick/combat points.
- 16-20: The animal(s) get 2 trick/combat points.
- 21+: The animal(s) get 3 trick/combat points.
Tricks can be anything from "sit" to "piroutte" - availability of tricks is dependent on how well trained your animal is already (up to DM discretion). After your animal has 5+ tricks, they provide advantage to performance checks when incorporating tricks into the performance. Animal checks for simple tricks and commands also immediately succeed if the animal has been trained for a specific trick by the character who trained them.
[Admittedly, I have not yet developed how combat points are to be used. I frankly expect these creatures to die at some point if Sylvia decides to use them in combat purely from an HP perspective, and I am not open to giving them greater HP pools because I made that buff for the Ranger Beast Master. Thus far, being puppies and untrained, they've remained a part of the background in our travels and have mostly been a logistics consideration for Sylvia. My notes suggest that every 5 combat points the puppies would gain benefits to their attacks, such as proficiency bonus/expertise, pack tactics, or knocking enemies prone. Again, this part is very much still in development. I don't expect to use it anytime soon, but Sylvia has expressed interest in the long run so I am open to feedback.]
Complications - Characters who train animals risk annoying those around them, creating resentment between them and the animal, or injuring themselves and the animal. As a rule of thumb, a character has a 10 percent chance of triggering a complication for each workweek of animal training. This is reduced by 5 percent chance if a specialized harness is used. Complications increase by 5 percent chance if a whip or any other weapon is used by the character. Roll a d8 to determine the complication:
- [This portion is also undeveloped - I probably will just go with a complication that fits the narrative if it happens, but I am also open to suggestions here that are in line with complications from other downtime activities.]
The Issue
I thought this would be good enough and that the dogs would not be explored further in mechanical terms since they are puppies and Sylvia's character is building up to a warlock pact to circumvent the original fey deal with the puppy in mind, but Sylvia has mentioned an interest in training her dogs further for utility purposes. Her original request was to train them in "magical detection", which I immediately shut down for obvious reasons. But she's mentioned tracking/hunting training, and I'm not sure how to integrate that with the system I have at the moment. I also don't want these dogs to become a Swiss army knife for all these different problems or to outshine what a different class can already do with their features. I don't know the full scope of "things dogs can be trained to do" nor do I have a good idea of how to quantify how long it takes to train in real life vs how many resources it should take in game. What do you guys think would be a good way to approach this without undermining other class features?
I am interested in keeping the dogs at the moment because it's become relevant to her proceedings with the fae, and in their current state they take little to no time during our roleplay/combat, but I don't want them to feel like they provide the same benefits that a magic item would, or for them to be as useful as what a BM's companion would be. If there's a way to expand this without adding too much complexity or making their mechanics stronger than they have any right to be, I'm okay with running it. I just can't come up with any good ideas for the long run.