Druid Animal Companions

[Dash Dannigan]

Is it perfectly acceptable for a Druid to have an animal companion that has been advanced to the number of HD (within the animal advancement range) the Druid can have with him?

For example a 5th level Druid wishes to have a wolf advanced to 5HD.

HAs anyone encountered any difficulties with this? Just curious, I haven't really considered the possibilities before.

 

[Crothian]

None, actually I've found even when doing so the animal can be on the weak side.

 

[Pielorinho]

The rules:
The PHB and DMG give no rules on this. Masters of the Wild does: it allows a druid to spend 200 XP and one day to advance an animal companion by one HD. I believe it suggests that druids have a hard time finding advanced animals in the wild, but I'm not sure about that.

A suggestion:
First, if the druid's player wants to develop the personality of an animal, she's at a great disadvantage if the animal can't advance.
Second, there's a great advantage to keeping the same animal for months at a time: you can train the animal to do tricks.
Third, the 200 xp flat fee is extremely expensive for low-level druids and negligible for higher-level casters.

Therefore, we house-ruled it so that advancing an animal costs 25 times its current HD in XP. Advancing a wolf from 2 to 3 HD costs 50 XP; advancing a tiger from 6 to 7 HD costs 150. It seems to work well.

Daniel

 

[Dr. NRG]

As things stand by the rules, animal companions often become cannon fodder. It's very difficult for any creature with fewer HD than the party, and generally much lower AC to survive typical encounters.

In addition, trying to get a powerful new companion generally means dismissing the prior companion before the new one makes or fails the save versus animal friendship. As animal companions provide a great part of a druid's power, this makes life hard for by-the-book druids (at least before spells like animal growth).

I think that creative solutions to providing animal companions that will actually survive a couple of encounters are a good idea. I'm not sure that penalizing the druid by requiring them to give up experience points is warranted, however. Are there better solutions out there? Also, does this belong in house rules?

NRG