Converting the Cath Shee

[Mortis]

(Just out of curiosity, would you need leadership or something like that to get one of these as a friend? I'm just never sure how that should work.)

You would need the Leadership feat if you wanted it as a cohort. If by companion you mean the animal companion class feature then you would need to be a druid or ranger (or any other class that gives you an animal companion).

It should be easy enough to penalize non-elves either way, with a penalty to their leadership score or maybe requiring a feat to acquire a cath shee as an animal companion or even apply a penalty to the class level. ie a human druid could count as 2 levels lower for the purpose of havine a cath shee animal companion.

Also the cath shee is an intelligent creature and would obviously have the choice of whether or not to accompany someone.

Regards
Mortis

 

[freyar]

You would need the Leadership feat if you wanted it as a cohort. If by companion you mean the animal companion class feature then you would need to be a druid or ranger (or any other class that gives you an animal companion).

I guess I meant I wondered if class features/leadership are the only "balanced" core-rules ways to include "animal friends" (for lack of a more generic term). It seems like older editions were a lot more free-form with this.

It should be easy enough to penalize non-elves either way, with a penalty to their leadership score or maybe requiring a feat to acquire a cath shee as an animal companion or even apply a penalty to the class level. ie a human druid could count as 2 levels lower for the purpose of havine a cath shee animal companion.

I like the class level/leadership score penalty for non-elves.

Multiattack would seem like a reasonable feat, in addition to Alertness.

 

[Shade]

FWIW, here's how they did it for the elven hound (cooshee) in Races of the Wild:

Although their intelligence is no higher than that of a typical canine, elven hounds have an independent spirit and tend to distrust nonelves. To be trained, an elven hound must have a friendly attitude toward the trainer. An elven hound usually has a friendly attitude toward trainers who are elves or who have elf blood (such as half-elves), provided the trainer supplies the hound with sustenance for at least a few days and has not attacked or mistreated the creature. An elven hound is indifferent (at best) toward most other creatures. Changing an elven hound's attitude requires a wild empathy check (with the normal -4 penalty applied against magical beasts). A character can use a Diplomacy check instead, provided the character has some way to communicate with the cooshee, such as access to a speak with animals spell.

Training a friendly elven hound requires a Handle Animal check. An elf (or a creature with elf blood) can train an elven hound without penalty, but the Handle Animal DCs for any other trainer increase by 5 (in addition to the normal +5 increase to DCs for training a magical beast). The time require depends on the tricks or task the elven hound must learn, as noted in the Handle Animal skill description.

 

[freyar]

That looks like a pretty good way to handle this. I guess we'd drop the training/handle animal part due to the cath shee's higher int, though.

 

[Shade]

That looks like a pretty good way to handle this. I guess we'd drop the training/handle animal part due to the cath shee's higher int, though.

Actually, check out griffons, giant eagles, etc. You can still train intelligent magical beasts for specific roles (like bearing a rider). It looks like monsters generally only point this out when they can serve as mounts, though.

 

[freyar]

Fair enough. If I keep hanging around these conversion threads, I'll get all the monster rules down, anyway.

+2 natural armor bonus?

 

[Shade]

+2 natural armor bonus?

Seems reasonable.

For feats, Alertness was suggested. How about Weapon Finesse for the other?

 

[Mortis]

How about Weapon Finesse for the other?

Sure

Regards
Mortis

 

[Shade]

Updated in Homebrews.

We still need Wis and Cha scores.

How about Wis 13, Cha 9?

 

[Mortis]

How about Wis 13, Cha 9?

Looks ok.

Regards
Mortis