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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
1st Level of Druid while Epic Animal Companion Question
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8681362" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>That's quite the interesting mystery that you've noted! I've taken a look at it, and I believe that I have the answer.</p><p></p><p>Short version: This is a leftover artifact of how multiclassing (and gaining animal companions) worked in 3.0, and shouldn't apply if you're running a 3.5 game.</p><p></p><p>Longer version: The text you quoted is from the <a href="https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/basics.htm" target="_blank">Epic-Level Basics</a> part of the SRD, specifically where it says "Adding a Second Class" (emphasis mine):</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So what does that mean? Well, since the <em>Epic Level Handbook</em> was released in 2002 as part of D&D 3.0, we can find the answer if we look at page 56 of the 3.0 PHB (since, apparently, the following text wasn't added to the 3.0 SRD), which also has a section titled "Adding a Second Class" (notice the last bullet point):</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Naturally, this begs the question of why that's in there to begin with. As it turns out, it's a quirk of how druids gained an animal companion in D&D 3.0, which was different compared to 3.5. If we look at the 3.0 entry for the druid, it notes the following when the talking about the animal companion listing on the class table:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And that, right there, solves the mystery: a druid character, if they took a level of druid for their first character level, automatically starts off with an animal companion under the assumption that they had already cast <em>animal friendship</em> before play started; if they want more (since in 3.0 you could have many animal companions, since they didn't gain Hit Dice or other bonuses of their own as you leveled up, unlike in 3.5) they'd need to cast <em>animal friendship</em> again during the course of play.</p><p></p><p>Hence, the note about epic-level characters is a callback to that: that an epic-level character who takes a level of druid won't automatically gain an animal companion; they'll need to cast <em>animal friendship</em> instead. But that's only the case for D&D 3.0. In 3.5, the way animal companions function changes, making them into a codified class feature of their own, not relying on a spell being cast (and, in fact, that spell was written out of the game in the 3.5 update), and the section on multiclassing in the 3.5 PHB (and 3.5 SRD) no longer says anything about not gaining animal companions. As such, if you're playing 3.5, I'd recommend ignoring that particular clause.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8681362, member: 8461"] That's quite the interesting mystery that you've noted! I've taken a look at it, and I believe that I have the answer. Short version: This is a leftover artifact of how multiclassing (and gaining animal companions) worked in 3.0, and shouldn't apply if you're running a 3.5 game. Longer version: The text you quoted is from the [URL='https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/basics.htm']Epic-Level Basics[/URL] part of the SRD, specifically where it says "Adding a Second Class" (emphasis mine): So what does that mean? Well, since the [I]Epic Level Handbook[/I] was released in 2002 as part of D&D 3.0, we can find the answer if we look at page 56 of the 3.0 PHB (since, apparently, the following text wasn't added to the 3.0 SRD), which also has a section titled "Adding a Second Class" (notice the last bullet point): Naturally, this begs the question of why that's in there to begin with. As it turns out, it's a quirk of how druids gained an animal companion in D&D 3.0, which was different compared to 3.5. If we look at the 3.0 entry for the druid, it notes the following when the talking about the animal companion listing on the class table: And that, right there, solves the mystery: a druid character, if they took a level of druid for their first character level, automatically starts off with an animal companion under the assumption that they had already cast [I]animal friendship[/I] before play started; if they want more (since in 3.0 you could have many animal companions, since they didn't gain Hit Dice or other bonuses of their own as you leveled up, unlike in 3.5) they'd need to cast [I]animal friendship[/I] again during the course of play. Hence, the note about epic-level characters is a callback to that: that an epic-level character who takes a level of druid won't automatically gain an animal companion; they'll need to cast [I]animal friendship[/I] instead. But that's only the case for D&D 3.0. In 3.5, the way animal companions function changes, making them into a codified class feature of their own, not relying on a spell being cast (and, in fact, that spell was written out of the game in the 3.5 update), and the section on multiclassing in the 3.5 PHB (and 3.5 SRD) no longer says anything about not gaining animal companions. As such, if you're playing 3.5, I'd recommend ignoring that particular clause. [/QUOTE]
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