Animal Empathy extended, Rules for player-owned pets? Options

[Veggiesama]

One of my players would really like a pet, specifically a great cat. I'm trying to think of a good way to implement this, along with how powerful this animal should actually be.

I'm going to change the Animal Empathy quality (10 BP) to instead allow him to take an animal pet, so it's a sizeable investment. If you compare it to drones (the only other "pets", except for spirits), this animal is worth roughly 50,000 nuyen, which can buy you a *very* tough drone. I'm not sure how the power rating will relate to spirits, however.

Another thing he wants to do is give his pet cyberware. Oh boy, yeah. Here's what I'm thinking. First, here are my unofficial rules for creating grunts/lieutenants:
http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/17253/N...C_Generator.pdf

Then we change Animal Empathy to be a 5 BP, 10 BP, or 15 BP quality. Then the player gets to create their critter from scratch, based on which BP they pick. Follow the rules in the NPC Generator for crafting a Lieutenant, with 5 BP corresponding to a Professional Rating 1 Lieutenant, 10 BP to a Prof 2, and 15 BP to a Prof 3.

The only other things to remember about a non-paranormal, non-sentient critter is they can't use most equipment (armor, weapons, etc.), they can't take qualities (most of them, anyway), their skill selections are limited, and maybe any cyberware/gear costs doubled for their use and training.

We can keep the "+2 to tests dealing with the animals" stuff, because that's pretty rare as it is. But let's add the text from page 286 under "Animal Control". Exceptions: it takes a simple action to direct a pet to do a simple command, and the effect only works on that one pet chosen when you take the quality Animal Empathy.

Animals gotta improve too, so let's say every run in which they play a significant role, they receive 1/2 the Karma that the player receives as a reward. Also, how about an animal increases the cost of a player's lifestyle by 10% as a miniature drawback?

What's everyone think of this? Uber or decent?

[Backgammon]

I see pets as having to:

a) a roll an Intuition test to understand the order you gave it, based on complexity (animals are DUMB). Perhaps it could be Pet's Intuition+owners' Handling skill, reflecting the training you can give it to undertsand commands better...

b) even if it understand, pets are not like drones. They have a sense of preservation. They won't do things they figure are Very Bad Ideas.

[Veggiesama]

Here's what we settled on:

Three levels of Animal Empathy (5, 10, 15 BP). Level corresponds to the professional rating of the animal (probably relative size of animal, too). The animal is considered a "lieutenant", except it gets 1/2 the skill point pool, and gear is worth 500 nuyen per BP (rather than 1000).

In addition, we came up with a "great cat" race for creating NPCs only:

Great Cat (50 BP)
3/8 BOD
2/7 AGI
3/8 STR
1/6 REA
1/5 CHA
1/6 INT
1/4 LOG
1/6 WIL
10 Walk/60 Run Movement Speeds
+1 Physical IP
Natural Attack (Claws/Bite: (1/2 STR + 1)P)
Low-light Vision

As for associated skill checks when influencing animals, I'm still uncertain. For a pet that you've taken Animal Empathy for, I'd say no checks (Simple action to command) unless it's a fairly complicated idea or if it's against the basic nature of the animal.

Otherwise, something like owner's Charisma + Etiquette (Animals) vs animal's Charisma + Perception for influencing a pet (or Leadership, maybe Negotiation?). Maybe the owner gets a +2 bonus for personally training the animal. If the roll is for the pet to understand the order, maybe Logic + Perception.