I need help with Familiars, Animal companions, and Urban companions...

I recently convinced my DM to allow me to take urban campanion instead of Animal companion for my 4th level ranger. Originaly I wanted a raven as an animal companion but it wasn't on the official list and the DM bulked, then I found Urban companion and the DM gave in.

Now not only do I have a raven but it can talk(says treat as if a familiar) anyway my point is I see the potential in these fine little friends, but am knew to D&D(only haveing played already made pure attack characters) and would like to get suggestions on how to make and set up my Raven and ways to play it.

After that any general suggestion would be helpful as well!

Well, ravens make awesome petty thieves! That could either be played up as its animal nature or something its trained to do...or both. That opens up all kinds of options for both the player and the GM.

And if you train it to poop on command, you have a nice distraction in waiting...or a way to express your displeasure without verbal insults or drawing steel.

What other help are you looking for, though?

Well so far the only character I've ever made is the 4th level ranger I just made(fumbled through it), so I would not even know how to begin making a "companion creature" so a walkthrough of this would be nice.

I suppose I will have to teach it things, I mean from what I've gathered so for it's going to have an intel of like nine(mini 6+3 mod) i suppose being able to speak doesn't mean you can think. lol!

I find the creation part tidius(everythings all spread out), but luckly I am persistant and stubborn! My whole group including the DM(who knows the rules and stuff better than the rest of us) are learning as we go.

it should be noted that i don't have the the books, found all the relivant info online

personally I extemely dislike the way the books are set up. The whole set up messes with my head.But thats another matter completely

As I recall- I don't have my books with me at the moment- the rules for training animals are in the Skills section. You're looking for Animal Handling or some such. There are some Familiar-specific rules in the Sorcerer & Wizard sections.

The easiest way to do this is with the PHB, of course, but if you don't have them, try doing a search for "d20 srd" and you'll get the online System Reference Document. That has pretty much all of the rules you'd need.

If you think of anything general about the subject please feel free to post it, I know this is hard for a lot of new players. Thanks for the info though!

As we've discussed in another of your threads, the SRD has a few gaps that mean you'd probably be best off at least picking up a physical copy of the PHB, if nothing else.

Animal companions don't talk. They're smarter than average members of their species, but they're not human-smart. A raven, however, may be smart enough to learn a few words.

Familiars are a different case. They have a bit of the supernatural about them. They don't necessarily talk (some do, though), but the caster and his familiar do understand each other quite well.

Paladin steeds, while somewhat supernatural, also don't communicate like humans.

Be careful with your "pets," whatever type they may be. At some point, the foes you face will be a bit too much for them, so you'll need to look to improving them, perhaps with custom armor or the like.

Another thing to note about familiars is that if they are killed there is some backlash on the caster they are tied to, so you want to protect them from any significant harm when possible.

In your case (OP), you have an animal companion. While they do not have as much backlash if killed, you will need to do some kind of ceremony to get another (if I remember correctly, my books are not available). If you deliberatly get your companion killed, then it reflects in your character somehow when you seek that next companion and it is a little harder/more expensive to replace. Also rember that rangers are 1/2 their level for determining the companion special abilites.

One thing that surfaced when I DMed my first animal companion was how the animal advanced. In the monster manual there is a rule set for advancing monsters and such to greater hit dice. This will not be used in conjunction with the companion chart in the Ranger section. They are seperate advancement techniques. Only use the advancement chart in the Ranger section.

Tricks are learned two ways for the companion, either through the normal use of the train animal skill, or through bonus tricks from the chart. Tricks are nothing more than one word commands the animal has learned to follow (sit, stay, etc.). There is a partial list of tricks in the skill section. These take time and effort to teach. Bonus tricks are instantaneous (poof, he knows how to sit, stay, etc.). These tricks are the major basis for how your animal companion will interact with anyone else in the game.

When creating a companion creature, simply use the regular creature out of the monster manual (or whatever source it appears in). Once this is done, apply any companion abilities from the Ranger section to the base creature and make a running list of tricks the animal knows. Remember, keep your bonus tricks seperate from your taught tricks. These do not require any skill checks to use, the animal knows them instinctively and always understands them.

Having just read the Urban Companion class option from the WOTC website (Urban Class Features -- A Web Enhancement for Cityscape for anyone who is looking), I think there are a few misunderstandings.

The most important is that the raven, when using this option, isn't treated as an animal companion - it is effectively a familiar.

You should follow the familiar rules as presented in the sorcerer section (as modified by class option). Use one-half of your ranger level to determine the abilities that the raven gains.

Your character would use a master level of 2 for anything else which is based on class level (such as the master level chart). You'd use 4 for anything which is based on character level (such as the HD of the familiar).

As I see it, your raven gets the following:
treated as having 4 HD
Uses your base attack bonus of +4 instead of the raven's +0
Uses your base save bonuses of +4/+4/+1 instead of the raven's +2/+2/0
Uses either your skill ranks or its (whichever is higher) for skills
+1 additional natural armor adjustment
an int of 6
improved evasion
3/4 of your hit point total (per the Urban Companion feature)
can speak with other birds (gained at 1st-level per the Urban Compaion rules)
Speaks one language for being a raven familiar

In addition, you get a +3 bonus on Appraise checks if the raven is within 1 mile of you, and Alertness as a bonus feat if the raven is within arm's reach. Finally you share an empathic link with the raven, and when you cast a spell on yourself, you can also have it affect your raven if it is within 5 feet.

A side effect of the raven being effectively a familiar is that it is much more intelligent than normal animals and you don't need to use Handle Animal to teach it tricks (which only works for creatures with an Int of 1 or 2). Your raven will (initially) have an Int of 6 (which puts it at the low-end of human intelligence). You don't need to teach it tricks - it is effectively smart enough to figure things out.

One other consideation is that familiars are treated as magical beasts, not animals, so some of your animal-type spells won't affect it.

Now that we've got some of the rules cleared up... advice.

Fill out a notecard or page for your raven to track its stats and abilities if you haven't already. This will save you a bunch of grief in trying to keep track of everything. Start with the stats for the raven from the monster manual (or the SRD). Walk through the familiar section and apply each adjustement. Then go back through the Urban Companion and adjust for the stuff there. If you're using the SRD, I like to copy the initial creature, then edit it in Word, adding additional abilities and modifiers to the sheet as I apply them.

In-game: at your current level, the raven is probably best used as a scout or messenger, checking things out from overhead. As it can speak one of your languages it can spy things from afar and make reports. Even untrained it has a pretty good Hide bonus due to its size (and if you have ranks in Hide it is really going to be good at it). You can also use it to investigate stuff that is elevated or which you can't reach for some reason.

At your current level, you want to keep the raven out of combat. It simply isn't effective (and durable) enough to do much currently. When you hit 6th level that changes as the raven can be used to deliver touch spells to the far end of the battlefield.

Some final observations: Animal companions and familiars aren't the easiest thing when you're learning the game for the first time. They require you to keep track of more stuff when everything can already seem overwhelming. Selecting variant options also makes things more complicated as well. I usually advise newer players to stick to the core classes.

Thank you Magesmiley, that helps a lot. I wonder exactly why didn't they write the 3.5 books like that, I probably would have played more earlier if they did. I'm just saying all relevant info within two or three pages for each seperate class, including spells and suggestable feats and skills. I have heard several reasons why the books were made the way they were, and I have a feeling this is already an issue else where so I will speak no more on the subject.

Normally I would just stick with the basics, but for some reason as soon as I seen that a Ranger get's an animal companion I just got hell bent on making it a raven. Thinking real world about the animal, ravens are incredibly smart(scout idea's imediatly fallowed) it did something like 5th over all in intelligence, and they are less noticeable than birds of prey and more self-saficient than a pack animal and all of this poped into my head before reading about the D&D counterpart.

The DM was against the idea, and tried to get me to choose something like an eagle or owl(even going so far as to suggest a camel) when I spoke to him about it, but against my usual go with the flow attitude, I fought tooth and nail for it, when the DM said since it wasn't in the rules(and on the appropriate chart) he wouldn't let me do it, so I searched the web and produced the Urban companion as a substitute, stating that since I found it on the Wotc site(and giving him the book it came from) it must be legit and there by his own rules, viable.(I do feel bad, using the DMs wording against him but when I get fixated look out.)

Like I said normally, I would have taken something else like an eagle, though probably would even try to change that to the Golden Eagle, I've read they can take down deer if hungry enough.

No, Battles are out of the question. Purely scout/thief(emergency)/messenger/look out. I maxed out my skills for hide, move silently, listen, spot, search and whatever else is appropriate to be a sneaky ranger because I thought I would be filling the role. Granted at level four the highest I can go in any one skill is seven but since most add either int or dex that's a plus 3 mod making it 10 with out a check roll.