Basic Action Super Heroes!

I have a player with this advantage right now, and I was wondering how it was intended to work. I've been basically letting him control his pet as something of a second character, but his turn is eating up quite a bit of time at the table, and nothing else works that way so I'm fairly certain that this isn't what was intended.

I've handled it as a Narrator controlled NPC.

He should be allowed to control it- HOWEVER he shouldn't be eating up way too much time. I have taken to setting a stopwatch counting down from 5 minutes whenever someone's turn begins. If they don't finish by the time it beeps, their character stands there for a page trying to gather their thoughts (maybe having a Thought balloon appear over their heads saying something profound like in the comics).

If someone had a Pet or Sidekick, I wouldn't give them twice as much time on the watch. They get 5 minutes for both characters. Now if they find they cannot use both characters in this time, I'd ask them if they WANT me to assign actions to the Sidekick/Pet if they don't come up with anything themselves- at which point you're doing them a favor.

BASHMAN wrote:He should be allowed to control it- HOWEVER he shouldn't be eating up way too much time.

Totally agree with this.
One idea you might consider here....

SOP: "Standard Operating Procedure", a term used in old-school home games of D&D.

Take it a step further for this use...
You can have that player determine the "standard" actions for the pet/sidekick/mentor for different scenes: Combat, Chases, Investigations, etc... Noting what they normally are doing. Allow them to describe that action for the group to "know" in general the first few times briefly... then let them know that IF they don't have an action (quickly) or are accidentally skipped over for something described to change - the NPC does that SOP.

D&D4 actually does this well with it's versions of familiars. That might be a good source to use example text from. And also THIS idea might be a great BAM! article... hmmm

-kev-

On a somewhat related note, I was trying to stat up a Beast Master type, and was stumped when trying to emulate his ability to see through his pets eyes. Much how a wizard in D&D can see through his familiar's eye.

I didn't see anything like ESP or Clairsentience in the rules, unless I missed them.

Would Mind Control and/ or Telepathy (only on animals) cover this? In the descriptions it doesn't say so it does.

Any thoughts?

I'd go Clairvoyance 1 (Present) [Limitation: Situational (Only through Pet/Familiar's eyes). (1pt)

The limitation doesn't offer any points savings here but serves to better define the hero.

*Edit: Clairvoyance is on page 47 of BASH: Ultimate Edition.

Thanks Mr. Jupiter,

I came up with almost that same solution last night after posting.

One thing I don't like about it though is it would require a roll to determine how much info was perceived. The Beast Master never seemed to have an issue with it...but from a GM point of view it might be better that way.

The Beast Master's GM was feeding him plot-related information- no roll required (as it says for CLairvoyance- the Narrator can also use it to "give" info to the player).