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Total Members Voted: 22

[Dwarmin]

So!

To start the first in a long line of meandering conversations during what will probably be a two week game break...

Does anyone have ideas how to make Lucky-Andre's animal Companion-more greater? He's already great, I mean. He needs to be better. The most boring choice is just replace him with something stronger and retire him to the ship for the rest of his life. Second least boring, is allow him to continue as is, until he gets splattered like the heroic furry meatshield he is-then, cue emotional RP, replace him next session.

With all of my teammates exhaustive experience in D&D, surely there is a way!

I've already hinted in my backstory he may there is something *strange* about him, which really opens up alot of doors.

Edit: I should say, I have not realy even bothered to give him feats or stats as is. I figured he wouldn't last that long lol

[The Fool]

I wouldn't meatshield the dog. Maybe you can have the dog get sick and be unable to continue going into dungeons. This way you can retire the dog without killing it. I'm sure Shoruke would let you keep the dog as a pet as long as it loses it's animal companion stats.

[Haika]

Maybe we can buff him up with pearlblast stuff. I'm assuming Lith will eventually be able to figure out what's going on with that cat. And maybe be able to reproduce it.

Or you could always go with something more cheese. Polymorph spell gone awry. You finally figure it out somehow, and try to change him back, and the change backfires changing him into a higher level companion.... yada yada.

[RedWarrior0]

See if shoruke would let an animal companion take Martial Study?

[The Fool]

"What's your dog doing?"

"Meditating. He has learned the ways of the Diamond Mind."

In all seriousness the fluff doesn't fit, but it isn't overpowered by any means. I would personally suggest Improved Natural Weapon though. INW keeps your animal companion strong, while Multiattack and Improved Multiattack (negates any penalty) makes things connect more often. New animal companions are nice, but most of the time the right feats can make a difference.

[Dwarmin]

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=313601

Here's what he's looking like all statted up without feats. In truth, I pretty much completely overlooked the animal companion, which probably wasn't a great idea...also, I'll probably have to reroll his health...I had it as 17. lol

So, am I right in assuming a 4th level Druids 1st level companion would have the base stats of 6th level Druid with the bonus HD?

[The Fool]

Here is what advances for an animal companion and by how much:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Equivalent Druid Level: This advances by 1 for every druid level your character has, and 1/2 for every ranger level you have. Some classes, like Beastmaster, advance this despite the different class.

Hit Die: This follows the table on page 36 of the PHB. Each HD is normally 1d8 unless otherwise noted in the entry.

BAB: The BAB is equal to what a druid would have for BAB at the equivalent druid level (currently +3 at level 4).

Feats: Like a PC your animal companion gets feats when you have 1HD, 3HD, 6HD, etc. Animal companions are never meant to have more HD than the PC that controls it.

Saves: With each HD you advance its saves as if it were a character of that level. It has good progression on Fort and Reflex, but poor Will
saves. If you need it there is a table on page 22 of the PHB.

Skill Points: Animal companions get 2+Int skill points with x4 at 1HD. Since you don't have an awakened animal it is a total of 8+2 for each bonus HD. If I'm not mistaken the 'class' skills are the ones that are named under the monster entry.


Everything else should be spelled out more in the druid animal companion sidebar. Don't forget the Str/Dex bonus. +1 to attack rolls and AC is fairly major right now.

See if Shoruke would be alright with retconing Lucky to be a riding dog? It is bigger, you can ride it, has better stats, better claws/bite, and will have more HD than Lucky (has 2d8 as the base HD + the bonus HDs). Plus the backstory wouldn't change really.

EDIT: So your dog's HP should be 3d8+6, and it is considered a level 3 character for most things.

@Shoruke: BTW Natural Bond can be used to get a -6 animal at level 4. It states that the modifier lowers the effective druid level, meaning that the +3 from Natural Bond would still be added. This would mean that you could have a -6 animal at an effective druid level of 1, thus not going over your own effective druid level. Go full druid with a 1 level dip in Beastmaster for cheese (2 dire wolves with no -6 adjustment).

[Dwarmin]

If Shoruke wants to do that, I'd be fine with it.

[Haika]

I was told Natural Bond doesn't raise the available companion level? Or I probably would have taken it with Lith already.

[The Fool]

I think I misjudged that when I read it. I assumed that the effective druid level didn't subtract that modifier, but...

"a druid of sufficiently high level can select her animal companion from one of the following lists, applying the indicated adjustment to the druid’s level (in parentheses) for purposes of determining the companion’s characteristics and special abilities."

This would mean that for all purposes your animal is -3 or more effective druid levels, but Natural Bond increases your effective druid level by 3. This means that for selecting a higher level companion you can ignore the first 3 level penalties. Shoruke should rule on if this is right. Maybe he will even allow retraining of feats.

[Haika]

grr. I agonized over companions for like 3 days trying to figure out how to get to that next level of animals. I wouldn't mind it for later, but right now, my feats I finally got decent. XD

[Kogan Loloklam]

Haika is on the right track. Magical Augmentation.

And definitely try to get him retconned to a riding dog. We must have our Halfling Calvary!

[Heron TSG]

Working on getting Maelrigar to level 7. Sheet up tonight sometime.

Sorry I missed the session without warning, I got abducted to a weekend-long family event I hadn't heard about and just got back.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Spoiler: Stihe enjoys riding around town on her new Riding Puma (click to show/hide)

Good thing I dragged Andre to the temple. Knowing him he'd have ignored it. He never did learn to look out after himself. Always so bossy, telling me what to do. I'll bet he'd ignore his own severed arm unless someone forced him to pick it up. The priest didn't seem to take me very seriously. Sometimes it's hard being so small. Money talks pretty well though, and he finally listened. He said Andre has to drink holy water for a week. It sounds to me like he's just messing with Andre. I'd have pointed that out, but it isn't every day when Andre tips someone for telling him he has to drink holy water. It was worth the 600 gold I had to pay just to see that. That still made getting my riding puma difficult. He sure was expensive. Good thing the pay for what Andre's friends are doing was so great. I sold my aquamarine to help pay for Filan. I even had a blacksmith make some armor for him. I hope he eats worms. He has such large teeth and claws he's bound to. I should go back and confront Konston with him. He isn't a wimp like lucky. No way he'd stay asleep while... I think I'm gonna go surprise Andre. I'll bet he'll be so jealous. Lucky isn't half as good looking as Filan. Maybe I'll feed Lucky to Filan. It'd serve that dog right.

Party Journals (Current to Session 36)
Party Inventory (Current to Session 37)

Puma is a synonym for Cougar and Mountain Lion. Actually it has tons and tons of names for the same animal. Leopard is not one of those names. Panther is, but panther can refer to any large cat from the Americas. Of course Pumas are from genus Puma and leopards AND jaguars are from genus Panthera, but meh.

[Shoruke]

Putting the Pearlburst effect onto your animal companions' claws or bite attacks is going to be difficult... mainly because, normally, you can't put enchantments on natural weapons. We'd probably have to homebrew a set of doggie dentures or something... then make a masterwork set, enchant them, break every one of Lucky's teeth out, and then have him wear dentures all the time. Did I mention those purple people people aren't exactly animal rights activists? Those panthers' claws were manufactured, and weren't put in nicely.
Putting the Pearlburst effect onto a person's weapon is a good bit easier. You can reverse engineer the Pearlburst spell the same way that most wizards invent new spells; it takes one week per spell level, and costs 1,000 gp for research costs (asking for consultants, testing spell components, etc.) per spell level. Pearlburst is a level 2 sorc/wiz spell, by the way... and since you have an example of the spell to reverse engineer, I'll reduce the costs (both time and, consequently, money) by one quarter. Then you can have someone with Craft Magical Arms and Armour put it into a weapon like normal. (if you ask a wizard to enchant it for you, though, you'd need to reimburse him the 200 gp for spell inscription costs as well...)

Or, to save on money, someone could spend the time for reverse engineering the spell, and then learn the actual spell next time you level up as a Sorcerer or Wizard without paying the gold pieces, since new spells you learn every level are apparently learned by doing research between fights......

As for the Druid with Natural Bond thing, the short answer is no.
The rules as written could be interpreted to say that you can, BUT, it's a rather poor way to interpret it. Even though your level isn't increased for determining your monster's bonus stats, you still have more than your character level in effective druid power because you are using a stronger monster than usual; it's a bit like taking a feat to completely ignore your Level Adjustment. Plus, druids are strong enough and don't need the help.

I will let you change Lucky over to a riding dog, if you want, since you can just summon a new animal companion any damn time you want anyway. Bonus RP points for doing it when you level up, so that it's more like "I did some retraining and got better so now my animal companion (who is linked to me) is better too" than "I got a new dog which is just like the old dog but better".
Also, if you really need to buff out your dog, get him some magical bling. Animals (quadrupeds, anyway) have the following body slots available:
-hat (not helmet or headband, but hat)
-cape (not applicable if the animal wears a saddle)
-Amulet (or brooch, medallion, necklace, periapt, scarab)
-Bracers (not bracelets)(unlike most Magic Items, these won't resize properly for animals, due to the different leg structure, and must be specially made)
-belt
-booties (also must be custom-made)

Note that if you put all of these thing on your dog/cat/horse, he will look SILLY.

Do you see how silly this dog looks? Your dog will look even sillier.