Your game is full of monsters, orcs and giants. Your campaign has gone on for a while. Your players are settling in to a routine on how they fight. Or you just want to do something different. It’s time to bring in a dog!
Dogs can be treated as though they are small wolves, as they are in D&D stats, or you can bring in the true variety of complications a dog introduces into a person’s life. Here are five dogs that can stir things up in your game.
World’s Cutest Puppy
You know this puppy. It’s small. It’s cute. It has big, puppy dog eyes that are impossible to resist.
This puppy has a +10 to all charm rolls. It takes a heart of stone not to love this puppy. But it also needs a lot of attention. This puppy will bark at the worst possible time. But even your most hardened enemies will do their best to avoid hurting the world’s cutest puppy.
The Dog from the Sandlot
This dog is a monster. It’s huge and slobbery and it manages to get a hold of something the party values. Probably a baseball. The party has to roll against overwhelming fear when dealing with this dog.
However, this dog has a super cool master that the party can befriend and get an even better item, so long as they don’t kill the dog.
Yappy Dog
This dog is tiny, probably a Chihuahua, but it has a big, high pitched, terrible bark. It guards doors, hallways, and beds with ferocious loudness.
It retreats when your players advance on it, probably to a tiny hiding place where it is difficult to reach, but it’s bark causes a d4 of headache damage, and it alerts anything within a wide range that something is going on.
Of course, it’s a yappy dog, so your enemies have a chance that they are coming only to make the yappy dog shut up.
The Old Dog with No Tricks
This big old dog has a white muzzle and is missing teeth. Maybe your party won’t love this big old dog, but someone rich does, and needs this big old dog to be delivered safely.
This big old dog can’t walk far and can’t chew food. So she needs someone to mash up food for her and someone has to urge her to eat. She has to be carried, and she weighs a lot. But she is so grateful. Kisses for everyone.
Small but Vicious
This dog LOOKS like a cute puppy, but make no mistake. Behind the adorable exterior lives the heart of a killer.
This dog gets the stats of a bigger dog, but the real issue for your party is that hurting this dog in front of other people will cause your party to be looked down on or mocked. Can’t handle this dog? Then how can the townsfolk trust you to protect them? Reward money is reduced, and the tavern charges them double.
With these five dogs, you can add a wrinkle to your campaign that your players won’t see coming. But seriously, everything is better with dogs. Your adventurers will thank you.
