Animals as cohorts

Trellian · Dec 29, 2003

One of my players want to have a tiger as a special cohort. What should a panther's ecl be for determining effective level? I know it's not recommended that a character takes an animal as a special cohort, but he wants to have it awakened as well.

Shazman · Dec 29, 2003

Take a look at the wild cohort feat from WotC's web site. Basically it gives you an animal cohort that is the same as a druid's animal companion. The type of animal companion and special abilites are determined the same way a druid's are. The character is considered a druid three levels lower than their character level for these purposes.

jgsugden · Dec 29, 2003

WotC really should have included an ECL for every creature. That way, we could use the ECL for cohort purposes.

Anyways, I look at it this way: If the cohort would be as effective or more effective than other PCs in any of the major areas (spellcasting, melee fighting, ranged fighting, dealing with traps), I don't allow it as a cohort. Cohorts are not there to steal the thunder from other PCs. If, however, they'd serve a purely supplemental role, they're fine.

If the tiger would be equally or more effective (after spell buffs, equipment, etc ..) than the PC melee fighters, tell the player that it is too strong and suggest an alternative. If the other PC melee specialists are stronger than it, then it is a fine choice. Tigers tend to be pretty strong fighters ... I place an awakened tiger with spell buffs and equipment on par with an 8th or 9th level fighter. That means that I would probably not allow it as a cohort unless the party was around 10th to 12th level.

teo · Dec 30, 2003

I just took a look at the Wild Cohort feat, and have a quick question about that...

If I would choose to take that feat with my 9th lvl Ranger, and wanted eg. an leopard as my cohort, how would I determin his special abilities etc?

I guess the most obvious way to determin this would be to take my level -3, and then look at the Wild Cohort table as a lvl 6 character, right?

Shazman · Dec 31, 2003

teo said:
I just took a look at the Wild Cohort feat, and have a quick question about that...

If I would choose to take that feat with my 9th lvl Ranger, and wanted eg. an leopard as my cohort, how would I determin his special abilities etc?

I guess the most obvious way to determin this would be to take my level -3, and then look at the Wild Cohort table as a lvl 6 character, right?

That's correct. Of course a ranger of 8th level or higher could have a leopard animal companion. It wouldn't be as powerful as a leopard wild cohort. If you got the wild cohort feat, you'd also still have your animal companion.

Shazman · Dec 31, 2003

Trellian said:
One of my players want to have a tiger as a special cohort. What should a panther's ecl be for determining effective level? I know it's not recommended that a character takes an animal as a special cohort, but he wants to have it awakened as well.

I don't know if this helps, but a 9th level druid can have a tiger animal companion. I guess for leadership, you could just estimate the level adjustment. It has 6 hit dice, and I would probably give it a LA of +3 making it equivalent to a 9th level character. If it was awakened, it might be equivalent to a 10th level character. Of course as the DM, it's totally up to you.

Trellian · Jan 2, 2004

Shazman said:
I don't know if this helps, but a 9th level druid can have a tiger animal companion. I guess for leadership, you could just estimate the level adjustment. It has 6 hit dice, and I would probably give it a LA of +3 making it equivalent to a 9th level character. If it was awakened, it might be equivalent to a 10th level character. Of course as the DM, it's totally up to you.

Guess it'll be a leopard then, Teo? Your cohort must be at least two levels lower than you.

Nail · Jan 3, 2004

(nevermind)

Will · Jan 3, 2004

My feeling is that an animal which is PC-like in control should be roughly ECL = HD. This is the pattern for, say, Lycanthropes, where the animal 'part' is ECL = HD.

A companion is a special case, because it's folded into a special ability.

At least, that's my take on it.

jgsugden · Jan 3, 2004

Will said:
My feeling is that an animal which is PC-like in control should be roughly ECL = HD. This is the pattern for, say, Lycanthropes, where the animal 'part' is ECL = HD.

A companion is a special case, because it's folded into a special ability.

At least, that's my take on it.

This fails to take into account special abilities, ability scores, etc ... that make one animal far better or worse than another animal. An 8 HD animal with a strength of 28 is far different than an 8 HD animal with a strength of 18. A tiger's pounce is a powerful ability, especially compared to an animal without any special abilities.

In the case of animals, or any creature without spell-like abilities, the best measure of their ECL is to put them up against melee fighters (with appropriate equipment for their level) in mock battles. They serve the exact same purpose in most games. You'll have to run the battles a number of times to start to see the balances, but you'll find that many animals should have a positive level adjustment ...

I find that brown bears should have a level adjustment of +1 (or +2), tigers should have level adjustments of +2, etc ...