Preview: Dog & Hound

Re: Can't Keep a Good Dog Down: You, the pugilist, are the dog (as in the slang term for a person of low character). Your canine companion is a hound. That's the wordplay of the Fight Club title Dog (you) & Hound (your companion).

Benjamin Huffman

By 17th level, resurrecting a PC should be trivial, RAW. (If you want a campaign where death is meaningful, that's a different ballgame.) Giving the party a way to do it without expending their own resources is nice, but honestly not really even that important, IMO. At least with Revivify it doesn't immediately put them back in the fight (unless they want to rejoin at 1hp) and caters to that trope of "he's dead... but the love and tears of his faithful companion bring him back!"

Ben Fowler

Mostly, I worry about he hound's fragility at later levels. Yes, its AC will be high, but its damage will start to fall off at later levels (especially since it lacks a magical attack) when compared to your own fisticuffs die, and it's highly susceptible to AoE effects, even if it only takes half damage (it has a hit point maximum of 91 at level 20, with only 51 after a short rest). In other words, this suffers from almost all of the same problems as Beast Master Ranger. Also, it's implied but not made totally clear: does the beast share your turn and action economy, or does it get its own turn and you can command it to do additional things on your turn? And I agree with the others that Can't Keep a Good Dog Down feels a little weak, though the flavor is beautiful (despite kind of having the opposite effect that the feature name seems to describe). Despite all of these criticisms, I love the flavor, and Mutt with Moxie is awesome from both a flavor and mechanical standpoint.

What I like about the 17th level ability is that it lets the dog replace you as easily as you can replace the dog. That said, yeah, it is fairly mystical as is. I might try to add more flavor to it to clarify. I'll definitely write a new draft with some alternative features. Double / triple damage would probably be too much. There is definitely a lot of space for alternative features though.

Benjamin Huffman

Good idea.

Benjamin Huffman

I think maybe I should spell out the flavor of You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down a bit better. A lot of subclasses that get pets have a way to replace the pet if it dies (including this Fight Club). The 17th level feature is meant to be a way for your pet to replace you if you die. That said, I was on the fence about this ability so I think you guys will see at least one alternative draft of this archetype before it all goes live. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Benjamin Huffman

This looks awesome! I'm a bit meh about the 17 ability, seems like it might be pushing the mystical a bit much, like you said. I wish I had a good idea to pitch! Would double/triple damage for a minute vs a single creature be too much? Almost like a kill command

caind2

Also I really feel like this archetype should get Animal Handling as a skill.

Ben Fowler

Call of the wild can be flavored as non-magical, so I’m more ok with it. You can’t keep a good dog down paints a sweet RP picture but feels a little weird - maybe Raise Dead. Or tweak it to let the hound cast Revivify on its master 1/day instead? Or maybe some sort of Loyal Beyond Death feature where the if the hound is killed it becomes a spectral hound for a little while.

Ben Fowler