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Sidekicks were originally introduced in the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure and later refined in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. They are a great way to fill out a small adventuring party or to simply manage non-player characters (NPCs) or creatures that join the party for an extended period of time. Perhaps a unicorn has agreed to help the party slay a particular demon, or the party barbarian has taken a young warrior under their belt, teaching them the ways of their clan. The sidekicks feature includes rules for leveling these characters so that party members can see them grow over the course of an adventure.
Here’s how to use sidekicks and a few examples of them for use in your adventures:
What are sidekicks?
- Types of sidekicks: Sidekicks are divided into three different classes, the Expert, the Spellcaster, and the Warrior.
- Sidekick statistics: Any creature with a challenge rating of ½ or lower in its stat block can be a sidekick, but Expert and Spellcaster sidekicks must speak at least one language. Sidekicks generally retain the basic ability scores and actions in their original stat block. Spellcaster sidekicks, however, have any existing spellcasting traits (including innate ones) replaced with spell slots and new features.
- Starting level: The starting level of the sidekick is always the same as the average level of the group.
- Leveling: The sidekick gains a level whenever the party’s average level goes up. Each time they gain a level, the sidekick gains one Hit Die, and its hit point maximum increases by a roll of the Hit Die plus the sidekick’s Constitution modifier. The sidekick also gains Ability Score Improvements as it levels up and has a proficiency bonus determined by its class level, just like regular characters.
- Death saving throws: If a sidekick falls to 0 hit points and isn’t killed outright, it falls unconscious and starts rolling death saves like a typical player character.
How to add sidekicks to your D&D Beyond character sheet
Basic sidekicks can be added to your character sheet for easy access. Simply go to your character sheet, click Extras > Manage Sidekicks > Choose a Category > Sidekicks. There, you’ll find simplified statistics that are best used for characters who won’t do any fighting but whose hit points are still important to keep track of.
If you have an NPC or monster who is joining the party to provide assistance in and out of combat and will use the rules for sidekicks from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, you’ll want something more comprehensive. In that case, create a homebrew monster and select a creature whose statistics best represent your sidekick. You can modify their statistics based on their level as an Expert, Spellcaster, or Warrior. You can level them up by simply modifying the character sheet over time. Remember: You don’t need to publicly share your homebrewed sidekick in order to use them in your campaign.
Once your sidekick is ready, follow the steps outlined in the first paragraph of this section, except choose the Summoned category to find and add your homebrew sidekick to your character sheet. If you’re a Dungeon Master, you can access the sidekick from the My Homebrew Creations page.
The Expert sidekick
Expert sidekicks specialize in gaining skill proficiencies as they level up and in assisting party members with the Help action. They acquire rogue features like Evasion and Reliable Talent as they level up, but embody a more jack-of-all-trades character build that can be invaluable in any adventuring party.
Meet Mudgewudge, an Expert sidekick
The band was the strangest crew of sea creatures that the tavern had ever seen, yet the crowd loved them. The triton’s vocals sounded like the rush of the surf, the tortle banged his own shell for a drum, and the koalinths thrashed on their fishbone guitars like maestros. But the star of the show was Mudgewudge, a rotund, unassuming locathah who nobody thought much of until she waddled to the front of the stage and burst into an extended conch solo. Cheers burst across the room, and someone in the back yelled, “Wow, that fish can PLAY!”
Mudgewudge is a locathah who frequently daydreams and is a skilled player of the conch. She has always been fascinated by land-dwellers and foreign places. As a youngster, she would often pop out of the water to chat with bewildered swimmers and sailors, soaking in their tales of places far beyond her tiny coral community. More than anything else, she wished to travel and see the world.
Mudgewudge realized her dream when she encountered the Shining Scallops, a band composed of a triton, a tortle, and two koalinths. They shared Mudgewudge’s wanderlust, and had come together to spread the talents of seafaring races via their musical prowess. Sensing the opportunity of a lifetime, Mudgewudge demonstrated her skill with the conch, winning herself a place in the band.
Today, Mudgewudge and her band buddies can be found performing in any number of small- to medium-sized villages along the coast. They face their fair share of odd looks, but naysayers typically begin toe-tapping once the band breaks out their seashell-encrusted instruments.
To raise additional coin in between gigs, Mudgewudge has begun adventuring as a side hobby, and her warm demeanor and merry ballads make her an especially fine sidekick for a bard.
Mudgewudge as a sidekick
Mudgewudge specializes in assisting her friends on ability checks — a handy skill to have when you’re in a band. She holds her own in a fight thanks to varied weapon proficiencies, Multiattack, and above average Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores.
Mudgewudge’s need to be submerged in water every 4 hours might be a nuisance during a deep dungeon dive, but creative usage of spells like create or destroy water can circumvent this. Mudgewudge’s bandmates also travel with a portable hole that they regularly fill with water in case the locathah needs a dip, and they might be willing to let friends borrow it in a pinch.
Mudgewudge is an obvious sidekick for a seafaring campaign like Ghosts of Saltmarsh, but don’t let her origins confine you to watery locales. The locathah would personally love to perform in a major city, and would be an amusing ally in an urban campaign.
See Mudgewudge’s statistics at 1st level below. Her stat block was created using the locathah monster from Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
The Spellcaster sidekick
Spellcaster sidekicks do exactly as their name indicates: they cast spells. They specialize in one of three roles — Mage, Healer, or Prodigy — and gain access to the wizard, cleric and druid, or bard and warlock spell lists based on their role. The Spellcaster is useful for parties who are lacking in access to ritual spells like identify or need a healer or damage-dealer to fill the backline.
Meet Crystalina, a Spellcaster sidekick
The gnoll planned to bellow a victorious battle cry as it smashed the elf with its club. Instead, it grunted in confusion as a wave of healing magic enveloped its foe, seemingly from out of nowhere. Before the gnoll could make sense of what was happening, a radiant blast sent the creature sprawling backwards in a stunned heap.
A pixie appeared then beside the elf’s ear. She flitted left and right, weaving magic between her tiny fingertips.
Crystalina is a pixie who grew up in one of several magical gardens created by a now-deceased archmage named Serena. Planted in regions where the Material Plane blurs with the Feywild, Serena’s groves are tended by wood elves, sprites, and pixies. They are renowned as places of wonder, and the fruits and flowers that grow in these patches of wilderness are used to brew healing potions around the world.
Born without an innate spellcasting ability, Crystalina always struggled with being surrounded by magic on a daily basis. She attempted to learn spells from wood elf cleric friends, but found the process difficult until her home was attacked by a group of bloodthirsty bandits who hoped to steal healing components. As the elves, pixies, and sprites of Serena’s garden routed the invaders, Crystalina’s magical abilities manifested with her first cure wounds spell.
Since that day, Crystalina’s powers have only grown stronger, and the persistent pixie has become possessed with the desire to defend nature from those who would desecrate it. Believing that the best way to learn more spells is to venture beyond the confines of Serena’s garden, Crystalina is secretly waiting for the right opportunity (or person) to make her departure.
Crystalina as a sidekick
Crystalina is an intriguing spellcasting companion. As a pixie, she only starts with a single hit point. However, she also possesses Superior Invisibility, Magic Resistance, and a high Dexterity score, which means that enemies are unlikely to notice or target her in a combat encounter. Her starting cantrips, sacred flame and spare the dying, are useful for dealing a bit of damage and stabilizing friends. Since neither require concentration, Crystalina can cast either while remaining invisible. Cure wounds is the only other spell she knows at the moment, but as she levels up, she can pick from either the cleric or the druid’s spell list thanks to her sidekick spellcasting role as a Healer.
Squishy adventurers will find Crystalina to be a useful friend who can keep them from rolling death saving throws every combat. The pixie’s small size, flying speed, and proficiency in Dexterity (Stealth) make her an interesting ally for rogues as well.
Crystalina’s knowledge of Serena’s gardens can serve as a plot hook for adventurers with herbalism kits hoping to brew their own potions of healing. Her connection to the Feywild will be a boon to any heroes seeking to attend the fantastic Witchlight Carnival, featured in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight.
See Crystalina’s stats at 1st level below. Her stat block was created from the pixie:
The Warrior Sidekick
The Warrior sidekick is all about adding muscle to your party. They’re the town guard you’ve recruited, the ruthless barbarian who owes you a favor, and the wild wolf that you’re taming and training. As this sidekick levels, they’ll get features that are familiar to fighters, such as Second Wind and Improved Critical.
Meet Skrappis, a Warrior sidekick
The knight looked on in disbelief as Skrappis catapulted through the cave, landing on the back of the cave fisher. The kobold slashed at the lobster-like creature with a dagger that looked like it had been assembled out of twine and spoons. As the cave fisher screeched and swayed, Skrappis pulled a vial of alchemist’s fire from the depths of his loincloth and shoved it into the creature’s mouth.
“Take dat, ya ugly mook!” Skrappis yelled, jumping to the ground as the alchemist’s fire exploded in the cave fisher’s gullet.
Skrappis is an unusually fearless kobold who always had a penchant for building bizarre contraptions out of garbage. One day, he dug into a cave complex and saved an elderly dragonborn who lay trapped in the filament of a cave fisher. This dragonborn was Sir Shagryn Rogern of Cormyr, a knight-errant obsessed with righting wrongs across the land. Having never seen a dragonborn before, Skrappis immediately pledged allegiance to what he thought had to be a god descended from the draconic heavens.
Over the next year, Skrappis served alongside Sir Rogern on several missions of knight-errantry, dispatching more than a few foes with unorthodox — but undeniably effective — tactics. In fact, he would have likely been awarded the title of honorary Purple Dragon knight if it weren’t for Sir Rogern’s death. The dragonborn, who was already geriatric when Skrappis saved him, died peacefully in his sleep a month ago, leaving the scrappy kobold without a mentor.
After crying for three weeks and taking his frustration out on several small insects, Skrappis has decided to find a new patron, and hopes to continue his departed master’s legacy. While another dragonborn mentor would be nice, Skrappis has learned much of the world in his year spent traveling with Sir Rogern, and is open to following in the footsteps of any strong do-gooder — as long as they don’t judge his eclectic collection of homemade weaponry!
Skrappis as a sidekick
Skrappis is a kobold inventor. He is a dexterous little bugger who specializes in scampering around the battlefield, hurling flasks of acid, and unleashing baskets of centipedes behind him to keep enemies bewildered. While he does start with middling hit points, Skrappis relies on unpredictability and his Weapon Invention monster ability to keep him alive in combat. As a Warrior sidekick with the Defender role, he can impose disadvantage on foes with his reaction.
Like most kobolds, Skrappis excels in an underground environment, and his Sunlight Sensitivity can be an issue during daytime travels. Any adventurer who chooses Skrappis as an ally might do well to follow the words of Sir Rogern: “A knight-errant should always travel by night, for night is when evildoers carry out their misdeeds!”
Aside from his aversion to sunlight, Skrappis can fit into most campaigns, and should ideally be portrayed like the Sancho Panza to a player character’s Don Quixote. He will be the perfect companion to any of the new dragonborn showcased in the upcoming Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons.
See Skrappis’ stats at 1st level below. His stat block was created from the kobold inventor:
Learn more about sidekicks
Sidekicks are a fun way to team up with friends and monsters you meet on your adventures. Because they level up with the party, seeing how your sidekicks evolve over time can be exciting and rewarding, especially when you’ve taken it upon yourself to tame a wild abyssal chicken. Best of all, sidekicks are a handy way for Dungeon Masters to help smaller adventuring parties survive the dangers of the open road.
Prepare for mischief! The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is Dungeons & Dragons’s next big adventure storyline and is now available for preorder on D&D Beyond! It brings the wicked whimsy of the Feywild to fifth edition for the first time and offers new characters, monsters, mechanics, and story hooks suitable for players of all ages and experience levels! Master-tier subscribers can share their books and other compendium content with friends in their campaigns!
Jeremy Blum (@PixelGrotto) is a journalist, gaming blogger, comic book aficionado, and fan of all forms of storytelling who rolled his first polyhedral dice while living in Hong Kong in 2017. Since then, he’s never looked back and loves roleplaying games for the chance to tell the tales that have been swirling in his head since childhood.
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