Experience for Animal Companions

[Darkness8Me]

Can anyone point out the rules (and preferably the page) that the explain how animal companions and experience are handled? Everything I've found suggests that they do not earn experience, but I can't actually find where it states this or otherwise.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Crothian]

Animals can't take levels or anything like that, so why would they need experience?

 

[Darkness8Me]

Animals can't take levels or anything like that, so why would they need experience?

That's a good point.

I'm not sure on the rules for this, but couldn't they advance in hit die?

 

[Umbran]

The only rules I know of for advancing of Animal Companions are in Masters of the Wild on page 37. In essence, the druid pays 200 XP, and the animal goes up a hit die. The Companion does not earn experience of it's own, in a sense, it's an extention of the druid.

That is, until the Druid casts Awaken on it. But then it ceases to be an Animal Companion.

 

[Witness]

While you are correct that an Awakened Animal ceases to be an Animal Companion, I read somewhere that as long is it is treated well it will still follow the Druid and counts against her max hit die for animal companions.

 

[hong]

If you kill your animal companions, you get experience as determined by their Challenge Rating. Is this a trick question?

 

[Darkness8Me]

If you kill your animal companions, you get experience as determined by their Challenge Rating. Is this a trick question?

If you tried to kill your animal companion it would break the spell and they wouldn't be an animal companion.

No, it's not a trick question. It came up when my DM wanted to award experience to our ranger's leopard. I told him that they do not receive experience and then realized that I couldn't actually find that stated anywhere in the books.

 

[Umbran]

While you are correct that an Awakened Animal ceases to be an Animal Companion, I read somewhere that as long is it is treated well it will still follow the Druid and counts against her max hit die for animal companions.

That is also in Masters of the Wild. Same page, even (pg 37).

What it says thereis that the Awakened creatures hit dice count against the druids maximum Animal Companion hit dice. That is not the same as saying it is an Animal Companion in all respects. For instance, the aforementioned rules for advancing a Companion probably don't apply. If theDM allows it to advance as a magical beast, rather than an animal, you're getting a lot more for your 200 XP. Also, an Awakened animal has enough intelligence to take class levels, if it wants. It seems more reasonable to treat it a bit more like a Cohort in terms of advancement - give them half an XP share.

In the end, though, we should perhaps note that MotW is an optional book. One can just as easily treat Animnal Companions differently. Simply assuming the Companion advances a hit die for every 1 or 2 levels gained by the druid seems to work well enough. And treating an Awakened companion as a favorably-minded NPC also works well.

 

[elric lornhood]

As the druid or ranger goes up in levels, and therefore gains more potential animal companion hit dice, we allow the player to choose whether to keep the HD open for new companions, or add them to existing companions (up to 1 HD per companion per level). So once a druid with a wolf reaches 2nd level, he can add one HD to his wolf and keep the other free, or keep both free for new companions.
Once the animal reaches the max HD as listed for the MM for its' current size, then the druid ritual can advance it through the next size category. Once it reaches the animal's normal max HD and max size, that is as tough as it can get.
Unless you use legendary animals. Then I suppose you could incorporate that somehow also.
-Mark

 

[Moon_Goddess]

That's a good point.

I'm not sure on the rules for this, but couldn't they advance in hit die?

One of the core designers, (I believe it was monte) said something to the effect of, Advancement is a misnomer. Only creatures with an advancement of "By Character Class" advance. The Advancement rules were made to allow for bigger stronger tougher creatures, but these are the ones that were pretty much born tougher, They don't really progress over time.