Shattered Kingdoms

Let me start by saying that this is as much a cosmetic RP change as it is mechanical. By no means is this a plea for immediate action, nor is it to suggest that scouts are not a great class. A minor buff, however, is not out of order.

The problem:
First off, the disposable nature of scout pets is quite disturbing. There is no mechanical reason a scout should feel any better about having the same pet for a week or just five minutes. They are as dispensable as their fletched arrows, only requiring some time to gather them again. Furthermore, the list of mechanically sound options for pets pales in comparison to the amount of neat animals SK has. If you would rather have a pet not on that small list, then you are made to make a significant mechanical sacrifice.

The solution:
Quite simply, make the pets grow with the scout through the tame ability. Using a timer or perhaps through a set amount of successful fights, the scouts pet grows in HP and accuracy/damage and perhaps in level. By finding the tamable pets with the highest of these categories a maximum increase cap can be achieved. For a random number example, say the best scout pet has 500 HP. As the pet travels with and learns from the scout, they slowly grow towards this number. Obviously if the scout does not grow in power, the scout can no longer teach their pet. Thus, each level should have a set maximum level and HP increase so that a low level scout cannot hold onto a pet and have their pet exceed them in strength.

Obviously this should only apply to tamed pets.

Effects:
A scout who carefully keeps their pets around and treats them more like a companion is rewarded for doing so.

The great pets that are slightly harder to get are still better than the others in that they are closer to their maximum potential and take less time to train.

A scout who wishes to use an animal outside of this list can now do so and eventually get just as much out of their pets. We will see at least a few scouts thinking outside of the box.

With enough time, every scout pet can be of relatively equal level, durability, and damge. The better pets will be decided by other perks such as attack types, abilities, hide, size, etc. In a word, it creates more parody.

A poll may be added later after the idea has been discussed some.

I like! I do get tired of seeing nothing but Gorilla/Trino/Javelina. I wouldn't want people to be able to go get for example, the spirit stag and train it up to be as strong as a trino and still be able to cast spells though. Not sure how many other twinkish pets are out there.

Edit/P.S. A side note, real quick, I don't know anything about coding or anything, but this seems like it would take quite a bit of work IMO.

I really like this idea as well. When I made my scout, it kinda saddened to see how many animals are not tamable (primarily insects / archnids) and also the few choices there are. Most are telling me to get x animal and stick with it til x level then get x animal..etc.. There's no room for variety really. =/

I love this idea.

I would also like to see scouts be able to teach their pets abilities, although I'm not sure how that would work - regular things like kicking/bashing, or perhaps add pet-specific abilities, biting and trampling, etc.

It would also be nice to be able to armor up your pets, although this would require adding armor slots suitable to the various pets - use the command 'tack', and 'untack' to remove.
>tack crinet unicorn
You strap a crinet onto a unicorn's neck.
>tack horseshoes gorilla
You can't put that on an immense gorilla!

Just thoughts that popped into my head, not trying to detract. The idea posted is far and ahead of these two little wishes, and would be a big help to a class that's built around using pets.

Well, maybe there can be a grading scale depending on abilities or class. Those who have a class with more utility and skills should probably be less of a straight tank, but they should still be at least a fair amount more durable than they are now. As of right now, it's pretty much about finding a barbarian pet, preferably with infravision and a decent hide.

Spiders and other insects should also be tamable.

Soul spider for pet!

I like Gremlin's idea a lot. It can actually enhance RP as well, considering scouts will be choosing any pets they wanted. Also, a "call pet" ability could be added as well, but maybe with a timer so it can be done every <insert number of hours>, and it would only work on pets that were with the scout for a while.

I don't know how complicated it would be to code, but it's definitely an interesting idea.

LOVE IT!

I wholeheartedly agree!

Even if this 'learning pets' system isn't implemented, we still need more options. Syndal mentioned the spirit stag, but I think its impossible to tame. I once spammed about 500 tames on the sucker but it never tamed. There are other animals like this. Like the arctic wolf(?) and some in the lost jungle that seem to be the right level for taming, but no matter how hard I try I can't seem to tame them. I swear, I think they're tame-proof.

There should be more options for the different levels of scoutyness, as it is, theres one or two options that are the best, and they change as you level up. There should be at least a dozen good pet options for each status. And all of these pets should be, more or less, equal. That way not every scout of a certain level has the same damned pet.

If our animals can't grow, then give me more options!

You haven't fed your chicken recently.
Your chicken's muscles atrophe. (max hp and str loss)

Take good care of your pet for a long time, improve that stuff. Forget to feed and water your pet, weaken that stuff (with the min being its starting point).