Upgrading your old mount/companion/familiar: How to say goodbye to your old pal?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

My group did Kingmaker some years back. One PC had a horse with the Wild Cohort feat (or some similar class ability or trait, etc) who was more powerful than him (he was a bard), but after a couple of sessions the player was dissatisfied and converted to a magus. (Same background, name, personality, etc, but much greater combat utility.)

So what did we do with the horse? We kept it as an NPC. It didn't fight, but we would visit him sometimes. Meanwhile his legend grew as the horse who slew more people than its master (which was true when they separated). Then my druid reached 9th-level, and I could cast Awaken. So now we had an intelligent barbarian horse! (The horse was literally more intelligent than my druid PC!)

But that wasn't the worst part. Many levels later I Awakened something else. When you use Awaken on a creature, you're basically casting Charm Monster on it (in addition to the permanent enhancements) and the pseudo-charm wears off if you cast the spell again. The horse instantly went wild. It formed a herd and they stampeded across part of our kingdom. We didn't want to kill the horse, so we turned the herd lose on rivals instead

 

[Fauchard1520]

We didn't want to kill the horse, so we turned the herd lose on rivals instead

How did you convince the un-charmed horse to do your bidding?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

How did you convince the un-charmed horse to do your bidding?

Druids have great social skills when dealing with animals, plus we were pretty high-level at the time which made us intimidating even if we didn't have the Intimidate skill. A 9th-level druid can cast Dominate Animal* multiple times, summon large elementals, etc, which made my PC particularly suited to dealing with the horse.

Of course, this wasn't a "friendship", more like a "go blow things up anywhere but here".

*Now that I think about it, that wouldn't have worked, as the horse would have been a magical beast. In any event, no actual combat broke out, just RP for that.