Taming, pet battles, breeding, and evolution.
Pet System
ED5 includes a full pet system inspired by Pokémon — taming wild creatures, turn-based battles, breeding, and evolution.
Taming#
Players capture wild mobs that have a wild spawn rule (Pets & Mounts → Pets → Wild Spawns). A wounded creature, a higher Taming level and a taming item all raise the chance. See Taming for the setup steps, the catch formula, the tuning fields and the gotchas.
Pet Following#
Tamed pets follow their owner within 2 tiles and automatically teleport if they fall more than 10 tiles behind.
A following pet walks or runs with you. Give the species' sprite a Run animation and it runs when it is keeping up with a sprinting owner, chasing a target, or running back from where it was left; without one it walks at every pace.
A rideable pet has one more state: after you ride it and get off, it waits where you left it — it does not follow or teleport — until you climb back on or walk out of its ring. Then it is an ordinary following pet again. See Riding in play.
How big a pet is drawn#
Where to author it: Pets & Mounts → Pet Species → _your species_. One number, shown in two places:
| Field | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Render Size | General tab | How big the pet is drawn in the world. At 1, one frame of its sheet is one tile wide. A new species starts at 0.85. |
| In-World Scale | Visuals tab, on the sprite | The same number as Render Size — dragging one changes the other. |
- A pet does not use its sprite's own scale. The same sprite on a mob or an NPC is drawn at that sprite's In-World Scale (2 unless you change it); on a pet it is drawn at the species' Render Size. So a sprite that looks right on a mob looks small on a new pet until you raise the size.
- Pets already out change on Publish. A summoned pet takes the new size, sprite and animations as soon as the publish lands. On a game server exported before this was added, put the pet away and summon it again.
- A pet linked to a mount (the Mount dropdown on the species) turns into that mount while ridden. If the mount has no sprite of its own it wears the pet's and is drawn at the pet's Render Size — the same size as the pet walking beside you. A mount with a sprite of its own is sized by that sprite's In-World Scale — see Mounts & Rider Fit.
Companion health, healing and bonuses#
A summoned pet is a second body in your players' fights, so it is sized to its owner, not only to its species.
| Rule | What happens |
|---|---|
| Companion HP | The species' HP at its level plus half of the owner's max HP. It keeps pace as the owner levels or gears up. Turn-based pet battles size HP on their own and are unaffected. |
| Who gets attacked | Creatures only pick a pet as prey on sight if it fights — its species has Companion Attack on and the player has auto-attack enabled. A pet that only follows and grants a bonus is left alone until it strikes something. |
| Who it attacks | A species with Companion Attack on fights whatever hostile comes within its aggro range while it is following you. It does not attack while you are riding it, and it does not start a fight while it is parked waiting for you — it fights again the moment it is following. A species with Companion Attack off never attacks, rideable or not. |
| Resting | Out of combat for 5 seconds, a summoned pet regenerates 3% of its max HP per second. |
| Defeated | At 0 HP the pet returns to the roster. Summoned again, it comes back with 1 HP. |
| Owner bonus | The species' Owner Stat Boosts apply to the owner while the pet is summoned. A species with none gives no bonus — fill it in for every species a player can own. |
Healing a pet#
Where to author it: nothing new to author for ordinary healing — it uses the items and events you already have.
- Any healing potion or food heals a pet. In play, open the pet's radial
menu → Feed, and pick the item. The pet gets the item's own HP restore; a percent restore heals that percent of the pet's max HP. The same items appear under Item in a pet battle.
- Pet food (item type Pet Food) with no pet effect set heals a quarter
of the pet's max HP and adds a little bond.
- Inns and healers heal pets. The event command Recover All now also
restores every pet the player owns to full — the summoned one and the ones in the roster, including a defeated one. Put it behind an innkeeper's "Rent room" choice or a pet healer NPC.
Gotchas
- An item that does nothing for a pet (a mana potion, a sword) is kept, not
eaten, and the player is told it does nothing.
- A heal on a pet already at full health is refused, so the item isn't wasted.
- The Feed menu only reaches the summoned pet. To heal a defeated pet with an
item, summon it first (it comes back at 1 HP) — or use an inn.
Pet Battles#
Turn-based combat between two teams of pets. You can battle another player, or challenge a trainer NPC you have authored.
- One side challenges the other
- Each side brings a team (up to 3 pets)
- Each turn both sides pick an ability
- Pets can be switched mid-battle
- Last pet standing wins
NPC companion pets#
Any NPC can walk around with a pet of its own — a shepherd with her dog, a wizard with a familiar, a tamer with the creature they are famous for.
Where to author it: Database → NPCs → pick the NPC → Behavior → Pets card.
- Tick Walk with a companion.
- Under Owned pets, press + Add pet and pick a species from Pets & Mounts.
- Save. The companion appears beside the NPC within a couple of seconds on a
running server (or after your next Publish on a hosted game).
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Walk with a companion | While the NPC is in the world, one of its owned pets follows it. Off = no companion, even with pets listed. |
| Owned pets | The species this NPC owns. A unique NPC walks with the first one. Copies of a spawn template each pick one from the list (the same pick every time), so a crowd of the same villager brings a mix of pets. |
| Pet Battle Team | The roster the NPC fields when challenged — see Trainer NPCs below. Separate from the companion: the companion does not have to be on the team. |
Gotchas
- The companion is scenery. It follows, walks and idles with its NPC, but it
never fights, mobs ignore it, and players cannot attack it.
- It leaves when its NPC dies or despawns and comes back with it. If the NPC
travels to another map (a schedule leg), the companion arrives with it.
- It follows at the species' Move Speed; it stops at walls rather than
walking through them, and snaps back beside the NPC if it falls more than 10 tiles behind.
- A species you delete is skipped — the editor warns about owned pets that no
longer exist. With none left, no companion appears.
- Needs the Pets feature flag. Switching it off dismisses every NPC companion.
Trainer NPCs (gym battles)#
A trainer is an ordinary NPC with a battle team attached. Players walk up, select them, and press Battle on the target panel. Beating a trainer pays its authored first-clear reward once per character; after that it can be re-challenged on a cooldown for a smaller reward, or not at all.
Where to author it: Database → Pets & Mounts → Pets → Battle Teams, then set the team on the NPC under Database → NPCs → Behavior → Pets → Pet Battle Team.
See Battle Teams (Trainer NPCs) for the step-by-step setup, every team and roster field, rewards and rematches, and the gotchas.
Battle presentation#
Pet battles can be presented two ways, and the choice is yours per world.
Where to author it: Database → Combat → Pet Battle → Default Battle Mode.
| Mode | What the player sees |
|---|---|
| Real-time auto battle | A battle circle is drawn around the two handlers in the world. The pets fight there on a timer, following each pet's weighted auto plan, while a compact bar along the bottom lets you override the next action, switch, use an item or forfeit. The world and its HUD stay visible. |
| Turn based | A full-screen stage. Both pets stand on platforms facing each other and play their own animations, with health plates, roster pips and a move grid. The world HUD steps out of the way. |
Switching the mode changes only how a battle is presented and paced. The rules — damage, accuracy, type effectiveness, status conditions, PP, fainting, switching and rewards — are identical in both.
Giving your pets a face#
Every pet species needs a sprite of its own. Open **Database → Pets & Mounts → Species, pick the species, open the Visuals** tab, and choose an animated sprite — the same picker the character and NPC editors use.
This matters more than it looks. A species with an empty Visuals tab still battles correctly, but it has nothing to draw: it shows as a plain marker in the real-time circle and as an empty platform on the turn-based stage. The battle works and looks broken. If your pets are invisible in battle, this is why.
- Pets are stationary on the turn-based stage and face each other — the
player's pet is seen from behind, the opponent from the front.
- Each battler is scaled to fit the stage, so species with different sheet sizes
all read at the same weight. Your Render Size still controls how large the pet looks following you in the world.
- Wider formats are the same stage with more battlers: pets line up on their
side's platform in slot order and the spacing tightens so three still fit.
Battle scenes#
A scene is the stage art behind a turn-based battle: background, midground, platforms for each side, a tint colour and opacity, and music.
A battle picks its scene in this order:
- The scene set on the trainer's battle team.
- The highest-priority scene whose match rules fit the zone or biome.
- A built-in stage drawn by the engine.
That last step means you never get an empty screen — a world with no scenes authored still gets sky, ground and platforms. Author scenes to replace it.
Damage Formula#
Pet battle damage uses a dedicated formula separate from the main combat system — damage scales with level, move power, and the attacking/defending pet's stats.
Type Effectiveness#
A configurable type chart determines super-effective and not-very-effective matchups, just like Pokémon.
Pet Status Conditions#
| Status | Effect |
|---|---|
| Poison | Loses HP each turn |
| Burn | Loses HP each turn, reduced attack |
| Sleep | Cannot act for N turns |
| Paralyze | 25% chance to skip turn |
| Freeze | Cannot act, thaws after N turns |
| Confusion | May hit self instead |
Pet Stats#
Each pet has 6 stats influenced by:
- Base stats — defined by the species
- IVs (Individual Values) — random 0–31 per stat, set at birth or tame
- EVs (Effort Values) — earned through battles
- Nature — personality that boosts one stat and reduces another
- Level — scales stats as the pet levels up
Abilities#
Each pet can learn up to 4 abilities with PP (Power Points). When PP runs out, the move can't be used until restored.
Breeding#
Two compatible pets can breed to produce an egg:
- IVs are inherited from parents
- Species is determined by the mother
- Abilities may be inherited or randomly picked
- Eggs hatch after the player walks a configurable number of steps
Evolution#
Pets can evolve at level thresholds into stronger forms with:
- New visual appearance
- Higher base stats
- New learnable abilities
- Possible type changes
A pet that is out when it evolves changes on the spot — sprite, animations and size.
Mounts#
Any pet species can be a mount: tick Rideable as Mount on the species (Pets & Mounts → Pet Species → _your species_ → Mount) and your players can ride the pet itself — no separate mount needs to be authored for it.
- Its own speed bonus and travel modes (land, water, air)
- The same mount key, summon bar and wait ring as any other mount
- When the rider walks away it goes back to being a normal pet that follows
Mounts that are not pets (a horse a player buys and wears in the Mount slot) get their own editor. See Mounts & Rider Fit for how riding works in play, every field, and for lining the rider up with the saddle.