Pet and Mount Rules

(Updated 01/29/2021)

Written by TaCo, Stagger, and CrystalZenaida for the Living World of Verum.

Rules for players

You can only bring one mount or pet on a mission per player unless you gain them from spells or class features. You must also have the stats and token for maptools ready to use in session to use a mount, pet, or summoned creature.

Pet Equipment

Owning a mount or pet will often require equipment to take care of the creature properly. This is represented by a cost (rounded up) that you must pay before they become usable. The cost is based on the following calculation:

Size * (100 (Creature’s CR * 2) )

For this calculation, CR 0 creatures count as 1/16
The number for size is represented by the following table:

Size	Number
Tiny	1/4
Small	1/2
Medium	1
Large	2
Huge	4
Gargantuan	8

If the creature has a fly, swim or climb speed, add the corresponding numbers to the size variable

Speed Type	Number
Swim	add 1/4
Climb	add 1/2
Fly	add 1

Equipment encompasses Saddles, Blinders, Reins, Foot supports (such as horse shoes), saddle bags, blankets, food, housing, and any other special equipment the mount would need (for example, a ladder for a huge or larger creature). You can purchase equipment as part of a shopping downtime day. Ranger Companions are exempt from this cost calculation and purchase their gear individually at base 5e cost.

Pet Training

Some mounts or pets require training, The cost for this is 400 times the CR of the creature. For this calculation, CR 0 creatures count as 1/16. This is a special downtime day and you can only tame one creature at a time. Taming a non-exotic creature only requires one downtime day per creature. If your creature does not have a CR associated with it, please message the DM who rewarded it to you or ask a Pet DM to establish a CR for it.
When a pet is trained they are also capable of delivering mail. However, unlike Sending or Animal Messenger, the delivery is not instantaneous and they will be exposed to dangers.

Pet Barding

Unless the creature is unable to do so (Ex: the mount being ethereal), mounts and pets can wear armor. You can buy this armor through shopping, the armors are the same as standard armor but the cost of the armor changes based on the creatures size. The same rules of the armor apply. Companion's Bond AC bonus from proficiency for Beast Conclave Ranger and Scalecaller do not apply to the mount or pet’s armored AC. If your creature also has Natural Armor, it is also overridden when barding is worn.

Size	Cost Calculation
Tiny	100 + Half the cost
Small	200 + Normal cost
Medium	400 + Twice the cost
Large	800 + 4 times the cost
Huge	1600 + 8 times the cost
Gargantuan	3200 + 16 times the cost

Creatures with fly speeds can only wear light armor barding and medium armor barding.

What does training/taming and having equipment for your mount or pet do?

Without being trained/tamed, you can only use the mount or pet out of session,and you cannot take them anywhere dangerous such as on missions, prestige events, or campaign events.
When trained/tamed, your pet also shares your proficiency modifier unless they have a higher proficiency modifier as their base, then they take the higher. If your pet has any attacks, skills, saves, and/or abilities connected to their proficiency, these also increase. This benefit does not extend to summons, familiars, or pet familiars.
Without having equipment, you cannot control your mount or pet in combat.

Purchasing a pet

You can purchase some specific creatures listed far below with a shopping down time, but the creatures gained through this method require equipment to be purchased before use. The cost for trained creatures in the PHB and the other listed below is 400 times the creature’s CR. For this calculation, CR 0 creatures count as 1/16. If you want to buy an untamed creature from the PHB, such as a chicken, the price is the same as listed in the PHB. You can only buy creatures that are listed as purchasable via a shopping downtime. When you purchase a pet through a shopping downtime, you MUST also ping pets tag in #trading-log-and-consumables to confirm the purchase.

Mount or pet trading

Mounts and pets are treated as items, trade them the same as you would any other item. With the exception that you MUST also ping the pets tag when you make the trade in #trading-log-and-consumables.

Can my Pet wield a mundane weapon, shield, etc?

Unless specified on the Mounts', Ranger Companions', and/or pets' stats, they can not use/benefit from any mundane item(s) they wield, with the exception of barding.

Can my Pet eat food tokens?

Ranger Companions and non-summoned Pets/Mounts can be fed food tokens and gain the effects of them. When eating a food token, a Ranger Companion's character level is equal to their owner's and a pet/mount's character level is equal to the amount of hit dice they have.

Equipping Magic items to a pet

Mounts, Ranger Companions, and pets do not have any attunement slots. As such, pets can only be given non-attunement magical barding and wondrous non-attunement items made specifically for them to enhance their abilities. Barding can only be upgraded through crafting with materials that have the armor descriptor.

Who controls the mount or pet

In RP, you have control over your mount or pet, in session, you only ever have control of your mount or pet if you are directly controlling the creature, either by riding it or telling it orders.

Commanding a pet

Each turn, a pet’s owner can give one command to their pet as a free action. If the pet can hear the command, it will follow it on its turn under the control of the owner or the DM. At the end of a long rest or at the start of a mission, up to 6 nearby allies can be granted permission to command your pet until the next long rest, except their commands require an action. The complexity of a command that can be given is based on the pet’s intelligence.

• Intelligence 1 = Activity (move, attack, flee, carry, etc… DM decides target/location)
• Intelligence 2 = Target (move there, attack that, flee from that)
• Intelligence 3 = Combine (move there then attack that, take this over there, go there and hide)
• Intelligence 4 = Ready actions (move there after the spell ends, attack that when it’s prone, let go after I cross)
• Intelligence 5+ = The pet is capable of understanding nuanced commands, performing the Help action, and using magical effects bestowed on them. The pet’s owner can freely control it in combat. This still requires the use of the action to issue commands.

This rule does not extend to Familiars or Ranger Companions, nor does it apply to creatures under the effects of abilities like Beast Bond or Dominate Monster.

Riding a mount

We are using base 5e rules for mounted combat for pets with the following changes during combat:

• A mounted creature cannot attack more than once per round, except to make opportunity attacks. This rule limitation does not extend to Ranger Companions, as they can attack more than once per round.
• If you are riding and controlling a trained mount or Ranger Companion, you can steer them from the brunt of damage. If your mount was damaged from a Dexterity Saving Throw, they take half of that damage.
• This benefit only works when you are conscious.
• This benefit stacks with the Mounted Combatant feat (which has also undergone some changes that can be towards the end) and some abilities of Beast Conclave Ranger and Scalecaller Conclave Ranger.
• Using a wild shaped druid as a "mount" does not make them an actual mount. You each continue to go on your own initiatives.
• When riding a mount, you are considered occupying all ridable spaces of that mount from its size for the purposes of attacks, auras, and other positional factors.

Mounts and their inventories

Mounts and Pets can hold items not on your person and are tracked on your sheet. Make it clear that they are held separate from you on your sheet. If it is not on your sheet, you, and your pet, do not have it. This is also true with a vehicle carrying items, such as a carriage. Unless explicitly stated to be otherwise, your mount carrying these items are taken with you, and are stored in a faction stable or other safe location you are in until you leave.

• Items stored on your pet, are placed within their saddlebags.
• Each saddle bag functions the same as a backpack.

Lifting and Carrying

• Carrying Capacity. Your pet's carrying capacity is equal to their Strength score multiplied by 15.
• Push, Drag, or Lift. Your pet can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice their carrying capacity (or 30 times their Strength score). While pushing or dragging weight in excess of your pet's carrying capacity, your pet's speed drops to 5 feet.
• Size and Strength. Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. For each size category above Medium, double the creature’s carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift. For a Tiny creature, halve these weights.

Pet Life Spans

Time will always move forward and eventually your pets will have to retire from their duties. Unlike other animals of their kind, due to the rigorous training your pets go through, they share the same adventurous fortitude that you do, and as such will live exceedingly long lives if they overcome the dangers they face at your side. Pets live up to 3 short time skips before they have to retire from their duties. If there is a large time skip, pets retire regardless of their current age.

Pet Death

Pets at 0 hit points make death saving throws as normal. Should your pet die and their body is recovered, they can only be revived through revivify, raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection, or wish. If your pet was custom made by a DM or unavailable to purchase via shopping, they can not be replaced by another creature of the same kind except through offspring or encountering the same creature again in-session.

Pet Breeding and Offspring

To be worked on next phase skip

Eggs and Baby Pets

Should you recover a creature, whether unhatched in an egg or in its infancy, it will require one short time skip before it can be fully grown and trainable. An egg will hatch in 1 month in-game time.

Pet housing

You can house only 3 creatures at a time if you do not own property and do not belong to a faction, regardless of size; these are your main three pets. Should you belong to a faction, you can store additional creatures in your faction’s kennel outside of your main three. Factions have 1 base Kennel and Kennels have a base capacity of up to five Tiny/Small creatures, three Medium creatures, or one Large creature for each member. Additional kennels can be added as expansions to factional and personal property. Baby creatures do not count towards this total. You can move around which pets you assign as part of your main three and housed in kennels in order to optimize housing. Please note on your sheet which pets are part of your main three and which are a part of a kennel.

Pet Housing Overcapacity

Should you go over your pet housing maximum, you must choose a pet to go into hiatus. When in hiatus, your pet can not be selected to go on missions or RP events until you gain more pet housing capacity or until a Phase Skip Downtime. In a Phase Skip Downtime, you can change out which pets you want to be on active duty and which you want to send into hiatus. There is no limit on how many pets you can have in hiatus. Pets in hiatus still age. Pets in hiatus can only be sold to the void with a Shopping Downtime, they can not be traded to players until they are out of hiatus. Where pets go in Hiatus is up to you to flavor.

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Verum Allowed mounts for Find ___ spells

Some quick notes about the find steed spells and other companions. Creatures created by magic are always considered uncontrolled mounts when mounted, they have their own initiative, and will listen to the commands of their owner. If the rider wishes, they can change the mount to a controlled mount at any time.
In Verum, creatures summoned by the Find Familiar spell or spells similar to Conjure Woodland Beings do not roll initiative rather they always act on the summoner's initiative.

Creatures that can be summoned with Find Steed

• Axe Beak
• Camel
• Cow
• Elk
• Giant Goat
• Giant Lizard (Spider Climb Variant)
• Giant Lizard (Swim Variant)
• Giant Sea Horse
• Giant Seal
• Hadrosaurus
• Mastiff
• Ox
• Pony
• Riding Horse
• Warhorse
• Worg

Creatures that can be summoned with Find Greater Steed

• Any creature from Find Steed
• Allosaurus
• Ankheg
• Brown Bear
• Dire Wolf
• Giant Eagle
• Giant Elk
• Giant Hyena
• Giant Spider
• Giant Strider
• Giant Vulture
• Griffon
• Guard Drake (Any variation. in this case, when summoned, the guard drake’s size increases from medium to large)
• Hippogriff
• Hunter Shark
• Lion
• Pegasus
• Peryton
• Plesiosaurus
• Polar Bear
• Quetzalcoatlus
• Rhinoceros
• Saber-Toothed Tiger
• Shadow mastiff
• Thorny
• Tiger

Creatures that can be summoned with Find Familiar

• Awakened Shrub
• Baboon
• Badger
• Bat
• Cat
• Crab
• Eagle
• Frog
• Hawk
• Lizard
• Non-Venomous Snake
• Octopus
• Owl
• Quipper
• Rabbit
• Rat
• Raven
• Scorpion
• Sea Horse
• Spider
• Tressym
• Vulture
• Weasel

Special Creatures that can be summoned by Pact of the Chain with Find Familiar

• Imp
• Pseudodragon
• Quasit
• Sprite

Common Pet Marketplace

The Common Pet Marketplace has distributors and merchants all around Kalkatesh, looking to sell creatures with a knack for adventure to caretakers with the same thrill. You can browse the marketplace here.

PHB Creatures that can be purchased as pets via shopping

• Camel
• Chicken
• Cow
• Donkey
• Draft Horse
• Goat
• Mastiff
• Mule
• Ox
• Pig
• Pony
• Riding Horse
• Sheep

*Elephants and Warhorses are now only purchasable through the Exotic Pet Marketplace. Any Elephants before this change have the retconned stats of the Lesser Elephant, and both these creatures require 1 prestige to command.*

New Creatures that can be purchased as pets via shopping

• Basilisk Lizard
• Dog
• Cat
• Constrictor Snake
• Fox
• Flying Squirrel
• Lizard
• Rabbit
• Rat
• Non-Venomous Snake
• Seal
• Spider
• Weasel

Exclusive Creatures that can be purchased as Pets via shopping

• Thorn Crawler (Doltenian Factions and Heroes of Kytolok only) [Heart of Thorns Campaign Reward]

Exotic Pet Marketplace

The Exotic Pet Marketplace is a bustling area of trade found in Highfall, Steton. Here, merchants are looking to sell various creatures and monsters only to the most worthy of adventurers who are able to train and command them. You can browse the Exotic Pet Marketplace here

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Special Pet Academies

Intensive Pet Training

Course Difficulty: 3 days

Course Fee: 1,500 gp

Prestige Requirement: 0

Course Directions: Choose one pet or mount you own. When the course is complete, your pet can understand commands of 1 tier higher than their current intelligence tier, and can use magical effects bestowed on them should they reach the 5th tier of intelligence. This benefit does not increase your pet’s Intelligence score and caps out at tier 5. This course can be repeated and has no effect on Ranger Companions or creatures with 5 or more intelligence.

Beast Conclave Ranger Companion ASI Retraining

Course Difficulty: 20 days

Course Fee: 1,500 gp

Prestige Requirement: 1

Course Directions: Choose any ASIs your companion has gained through Ranger levels and select a different ability increase for each of them. When the course is complete these ASIs change from their first chosen scores to your second chosen scores.

Beast Conclave Group/Path Retraining

Course Difficulty: 30 days

Course Fee: 1,500 gp

Prestige Requirement: 2

Course Directions: Choose one Beast Conclave group and/or path you have access to. When the course is complete, you lose access your previous group and/or path of companions and switch to your chosen group and/or path. When switching, you reassign all your Companion’s ASIs if there are any left over from the switch, and you readjust your companion’s hit dice to the correct group progression amount.

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Feats that benefit pets/mounts/companions

Mounted Combatant

You are a dangerous foe to face while mounted. While you are mounted and aren't incapacitated, you gain the following benefits: You have advantage on melee attack rolls against any unmounted creature that is smaller than your mount. You can force an attack targeted at your mount to target you instead. If your mount is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a saving throw to take only half damage, it instead takes no damage if it succeeds on the saving throw, and only half damage if it fails.

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Change Log

7-15-19

• Rules are released.

7-21-19

• Pets in hiatus can only be sold to the void with a Shopping Downtime, they can not be traded to players until they are out of hiatus.

8-11-19

• Flying creatures can only wear light armor barding and medium armor barding.
• Reiterated Push, lift, and carry rules for pets with rules from the PHB P.176.
• Added Barding as items that can be made magical and given to pets as non-attunement only
• Clarified Pet Housing and moving around pets to optimize housing
• Hiatus flavor for pets is up to the player

10-28-19

• Added saddle bag rules.

11-25-19

• Added Rounded Up clause to Pet Equipment Cost
• Added Constrictor Snake as an available creature to purchase

01-16-2020

• Added Common Pet Marketplace and Link

02-16-2020

• Pets that are not Ranger Companions, Find Steeds, Familiars, etc can only use magical effects given to them if they have 5+ Intelligence or when they are capable of understanding nuanced commands via the Intensive Pet Training academy.
• Pets are capable of delivering mail once they are fully trained/tamed via downtime. However, unlike Sending or Animal Messenger, the delivery is not instantaneous and they will be exposed to dangers.
• Using a wild shaped druid as a "mount" does not make them an actual mount. You each continue to go on your own initiatives.

02-20-2020

• Added clarification on pets not being able to wield mundane items.

03-29-2020

• All trained/tamed pets now share their owner's proficiency modifier unless they have a higher proficiency modifier as their base, then they take the higher.
• If your pet has any attacks, skills, saves, and/or abilities connected to their proficiency, these also increase.
• This benefit does not extend to summons, familiars, or pet familiars.

07-30-2020

• Added an exception to pet commanding for spells and abilities like Beast Bond and Dominate Monster.

08-07-2020

• Specified that pets can only perform the Help Action at Int level 5+, unless otherwise specified.

01-29-2021

• Clarified what pets can obtain benefits from food tokens.