A druid and it's large friends..overbalanced?

[HellHound]

Honestly, what I've found generally makes the Animal Companion more powerful is to give it to a cleric instead of a druid. The ability to cast Animal Friendship comes with one of the cleric domains (I can't remember which off-hand - but I'd put my money on the Animal domain).

Our cleric of Animals & Travel has a grand old time flying around on her dire bear. It's truly frightening to behold. (Extend spell + fly (travel domain spell) cast on the dire bear who wears plate barding).

As an aside - the bear is named Hubbard... but he's been renamed to "hover" instead... making him the Hover Bear.

 

[kreynolds]

Is a druid's animal companion HD allowance too much? A 6th level druid can get a dire bear. Can someone tell me why this amount shouldn't be halved?

I have a very simple rule regarding Druids.

I don't care how they work. If you wanna play one, fine, but you better understand the rules behind them, because I don't.

The same applies to psionics. Nobody has played a druid in any of my games, so I haven't felt it necessary to brush up on them. Also, it's difficult for me to find the time.

 

[Kershek]

The other thing to note is that, depending on the animal, your animal companion isn't going to go charging into battle every encounter. The wolf, for instance, will probably only work to defend its master and stay out of combat otherwise.

 

[Gromm]

Re: Re: A druid and it's large friends..overbalanced?

I have a very simple rule regarding Druids.

I don't care how they work. If you wanna play one, fine, but you better understand the rules behind them, because I don't.

The same applies to psionics. Nobody has played a druid in any of my games, so I haven't felt it necessary to brush up on them. Also, it's difficult for me to find the time.

They're basically clerics who don't have as many spells and always want to find animals to befriend. There ya go.
Oh and they cast lots of fire spells and get flamestrike a little earlier.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Don't forget wildshape... That's not easy to completely come to grips with.

 

[Ashtal]

Nuts, really? Wow...we were playing it totally wrong then!

Oh well, I have a Bard now, anyways.