Ye Olde Inn

So.......

I bought a Great Dane puppy on Monday. She is a beautiful dog, but she is not the reason for this topic/post.

After I picked her up something dawned on me. Has anyone ever used dogs a familiar in HQ?

If so how have you incorporated them?
What kind of stats did you give them?
What kind of dog breed did you use?

I only thought of this because Valkyrie (my Dane) is going to be an easy 150 - 200 pound dog. If I was going into a dungeon, I would so bring a dog that size into the dungeon with me.

Any thoughts???

I have often used wolves with a similar role. Didn't spend too much time thinking of a specific race since I only have that handful of Battlemasters minis for the task and they don't hold very well together anymore.
For the sake of simplicity I make all summons and the like follow the same mechanics, bar conjured creatures crumbling to dust if both one and its summoner end their turn out of each other's sight. Most important thing in my opinion would be to set rules for them interacting with traps, doors, preventing their tile from being crossed, whether they can be healed and the like. Then slap stats as you see fit for your housed rolls/BP etc. and you're good to go.
For dogs or wolves I'd go for something more focused on attack/move rather than defense/BP, but it's just a canonical adaptation. Maybe 2 attacks/turn or any other special ability you can think of to spice it up (fetch?).

One option is to make them small and insignificant enough that they don't really contribute to battle, but provide some other subtle benefit.

When playing with younger kids they can really get into the idea of having a familiar but they will lose their $#!t if their familiar is hurt or dies... so you best have an alternative

I've got it setup that when we use familiars they will never be targeted by Monsters unless there are no other Heroes in the same room or corridor. What's more, we usually have them be small enough that they can choose to "hide" with the Hero that owns them. When they are hidden they are removed from the board and can't even take damage from AOE spells, etc like Firestorm, etc. and we say they're protected within a backpack or under a heavy cloak or what ever. If they would get targeted in combat they're smaller than Heroes usually so we make Monsters roll a Red Die and say they miss completely on a 1-4. If they roll 5-6 then the attack happens like normal.

The Stoat we've got at the moment is setup like this and can squeeze under doorways, revealing what's in the room, at which point it can squirm back out again. Usually we're close to: 8 Mv, 1 die Attack, 2 dice Defend, 1-3 BP, 1 MP. Pixies/faeries are good choices for Elves, and we've used those.

We've avoided anything larger like dogs because I tell the kids if they take a dog in it's going to be big enough to get into fights with Monsters on its own but will probably die in battle with a Goblin. That's enough for them to leave it outside the dungeon


~N

Yes makes sense...I wasn't thinking of having younger kids at the table, in this case we need extra care for the pups. You can easily make them retreat/hide when they reach 0 BP and could reallow them next Quest if it doesn't spoil the game for them. Also a non-combat type of familiar with different abilities sounds like a good idea. Minsc-Boo anyone?
I also imagine you couldn't get away with a cheap red die as a puppy moving through the dungeon...need a proper mini!