Allow players to SWITCH into their followers

[Tamryn]

It would be nice if players could switch into their followers:

• It's easier than "order minion smote ..." all the time during RP. I have aliases for that, but still.
• It would let the minions move around and act without their owner having to be present. (That would mostly be useful for intelligent followers, not animals, of course.)

The SWITCH command is already implemented for imms, so all that would be required is making it available to players with the appropriate restriction on target.

[Nylo]

I would definitely like this. I'm not familiar with the actual workings of it, though, so I can't weigh in on any possible ramifications and problems.

[Rhangalas]

This seems like something a wizard would be able to do with their familiar...

Being able to 'possess' your minions would be like having a free arcane eye at all times.

[Kinni]

I think this feature should only be plausible for rangers, druids, and wizards. Kinni loves her mount, and while I would love to be able to see through his eyes, it is ICly inappropriate for her to do so. That being said, I have seen "mounts" such as servants. Being able to see through their perspective and assuming that the servant relayed anything they saw to their keeper would be appropriate. So, I guess perhaps allow such a command for humanoid style mounts as well?

Fun idea.

[Nylo]

I don't think the idea is so much to ICly see through the followers eye, as it is OOCly providing an easier way to interact with pets and followers and offer new rp opportunities as a wandering NPC follower.

[Tamryn]

I don't think the idea is so much to ICly see through the followers eye, as it is OOCly providing an easier way to interact with pets and followers and offer new rp opportunities as a wandering NPC follower.

Yep, exactly. The idea of having familiars act as scouts or messengers is interesting, but I would be happy if this was limited to intelligent races, if necessary, to prevent abuse.

It would still allow some questionable things, like sending followers into a dungeon to trigger the traps, but that would be ICly appropriate for some characters.

Edit: here's a few examples of the sort of thing I'd want to use this for:

• Sending a follower on an errand (such as buying food)
• Leaving a follower in one city to act on a character's behalf while they are elsewhere (for example, trading in Waterdeep while staying in the Keep, which is ICly much more realistic than constantly walking between Waterdeep and the Keep every day)
• Sending a follower to trade or interact with people in a place that's inaccessible to the PC, e.g. Silverymoon for evil characters
• Having a follower act on behalf of a PC when they might not want to make themselves known, e.g. because they're known to be evil or are disliked by the other character

In fact, the more I think about the more I like it; I can see it creating interesting new opportunities for RP.