Animal Companion & Druid's HD

[Aust Meliamne]

ok....quoted from page 37 of MotW:
"Regardless of the total Hit Dice of animal companions an adventuring character can have, none of them can exceed his or her own Hit Dice.*
*this information supersedes that presented in the animal friendship spell in the Players Handbook. "
Also quoted from page 41 of MotW:
"Given the limitation that the total Hit Dice of an adventuring druid's animal companions cannot excede her own level (except at 1st level, when she can have 2 HD worth of animal companions)......"

Now, quoted from the animal friendship spell in the Players Handbook on page 173:
"You can have animal friends whose Hit Dice total no more than twice your caster level."

I take this to mean that my 8th level druid can no longer have his precious 16 HD dire tiger. Am I correct in my assumption? Seems like they are trying to power down the druid or something. When I read this, it came as a blow to all my druidic fun....

 

[Hand of Vecna]

From my understanding, the way it was was tht a Druid could have up to (Druid Levelx2) HD in animal companions, but no single animal companion could have more HD than the Druid has levels (in the Druid class). But now... who knows?

 

[dcollins]

See DMG p. 46 for the sidebar where it notes an adventuring druid has 1/2 the HD available compared to other "normal" druids.

 

[UD]

Pants. I thought the same way as Hand of Vecna. They did Shaft(WotC registered trademark) the druid!

 

[Wolfspider]

Yep...clearly The Shaft (TM).

They Shafted the lizardfolk (ECL 4?!?!). They Shafted the druid. I guess my poor lizardfolk druid is just plain full of Shafts.

What am I going to do about it?

Well, I'm going to take my druid into the Amedio jungle, find a nest of dino eggs, and train my own little assault squad of megaraptors. There are no Hit Dice limitations to trained animals and beasts, and I can train dinosaurs to my heart's content, something I couldn't do with animal friendship (since dinosaurs are inexplicably beasts and not animals).

Fun fun! I think I'm going to go watch Jurrasic Park 3 for insparation....

 

[Dwarmaj]

ok....quoted from page 37 of MotW:
"Regardless of the total Hit Dice of animal companions an adventuring character can have, none of them can exceed his or her own Hit Dice.*
*this information supersedes that presented in the animal friendship spell in the Players Handbook. "

What is the hit dice limit on Multi-Classed Druids? Is it based on Druid caster level or total character Hit Dice? A Druid 2/ Fighter 10, 2 hit dice companion isn't going to last very long if it's based on caster level.

Dwarmaj

 

[Ravellion]

Re: Re: Animal Companion & Druid's HD

What is the hit dice limit on Multi-Classed Druids? Is it based on Druid caster level or total character Hit Dice? A Druid 2/ Fighter 10, 2 hit dice companion isn't going to last very long if it's based on caster level.

Dwarmaj

Exactly. Just bring two cats with you to take care of 1st level commoners, but for the rest you'd be better off casting summon nature's ally.

Rav

 

[JLXC]

Actually in the DMG it makes it clear that Druids who move around, ala adventurers, never COULD have a 16 HD Dire Tiger at 8th level. It was always only equal to your level. Some of you might just have noticed, but it was always there.

Also, your DM let you wander around with a 16 HD Dire Tiger at 8th level? What an imbalance to the game. I'm surprised people in the party weren't ****** as the Tiger just showed up every fighter in the group. Not to mention that the Tiger would snack on every BIG thing in sight, like Party Horses and such. Of course I'm sure the tiger was little more than a portable combat machine... so I'll just shut up.