Animal Companion morbidly annoying?

[Crothian]

sure you could just play your druid without companion, but who likes to play a weaker charakter only because his concept doesn't fit the rules.

If the animal companion is so weak to always die, then how it is a weaker class if you just don't have one? Seems like the ability might be more of a liability in this case.

 

[BluWolf]

As a player I have never been fond of familiars or animal companions. They just don't fit my style of play. So, I just ignore that class ability most of the time.

As a DM, I find them even MORE annoying. I cannot count the number of times during a game over the past 25 years when some one would say "Oh yeah, my familiar".

I allow Wizards and Sorcerers to drop the familiar in place of a feat at first level.

 

[Dog Moon]

Originally posted by Grimstaff
Giving players the option to simply replace this ability with a feat doesn't really add up, either, as an animal companion can eventually prove more powerful than any single feat.

This always seems correct, except that if you think about it, you can take Leadership to gain a Cohort, who I've found to be much more powerful and capable of surviving than an Animal Companion. Or perhaps that simply says Leadership is too powerful; I'm not sure.

And the use of a feat or ability is all about how or how often you use it. Power Attack is a useful feat, but not if you never use it. If you send in your Animal Companion to die, of course it isn't particularly useful, so you might as well take a feat you'll use more often. If, however, you do as other people say and use the Animal Companion for other things [Secondary attacker, help the Rogue out by flanking with him, scouting, etc] the Animal Companion will see a lot more use and will therefore be more important than a simple feat.

 

[Mercule]

A druids circle or diety can still punish a NE druid

Quite. One that accepts -- or embraces -- a NE druid is much less likely to care if the mean druid dominates his lackey into throwing itself in the way of an arrow, though.

Also, I forget how my druids differ from "stock" druids. They expressly do not gain their powers from a deity, and tend to hang alone or in smaller circles than standard.

 

[Dog Moon]

Originally posted by Mercule
Quite. One that accepts -- or embraces -- a NE druid is much less likely to care if the mean druid dominates his lackey into throwing itself in the way of an arrow, though.

Really? I always pictured Evil Druids as caring about the animals and nature as much as Good Druids, except that instead of merely protecting them [Like being on the defensive], they are on the offensive and ruthlessly kill those who would mean to harm animals or nature.

Example: Loggers come into an area. Good Druids may attempt to deal with them, saying they can only take a few trees a day or in return for donating a little gold to help protect the animals and forest in a different way [Maybe not exactly that, but they'd be peaceful first; violence wouldn't be their first course of actions] while Evil Druids would see the loggers as invaders and would attempt to annihilate them all to protect the animals and nature.

 

[TracerBullet42]

A druid who ruthlessly uses an animal companion for advantage but doesn't return the favor should probably be subject to some kind of punishment from their druidic circle or deity.

Isn't there some "famous" story about some druid and their many badger animal companions? I don't remember the details...but perhaps someone else does.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

My only problem with animal companions is that they don't die fast enough. Like familiars, I gun for the buggers.

 

[Stalker0]

I miss the 3.0 rule that let me have an army of badgers as my animal companionS

 

[Woas]

I think the biggest problem with animal companions is how players utilize them (i.e, as living weapons and/or shields). Sadly, this isn't entirely a player fault - the rules do actually encourage animal companions to be used in this capacity to some degree (as a previous poster pointed out).

Totally agree. I feel that a lot of players forget that their animal companions also know how to Guard, Defend, Fetch, Seek, Track and even Work. But only remember the Attack trick of an animal companion. Also, animal companions are still only as intelligent as a normal animal of their kind. In no time does the animal ever gain more intelligence. So that Int 2 Wolf companion still is an animal and should played as such.

 

[Perun]

My character is an 11th-level druid (about 500 XP short of level 12), and he only has animal companion(s) for a short while... He had a snake he used mostly as a decoration, wrapped around his neck -- it was a 2-headed viper from FRCS -- which wasn't my original intent, but snakes are rather weak creatures to begin with, plus they have Int of 1, meaning only 3 base tricks... not much to play with. Then, for a short while, I tried having a dire bat... didn't work out, really. Preparing for combat took almost twice as many spells (greater magic fang, barkskin, nature's favour, etc...). In the end, I figured I'm better off without a companion.

In our other campaign, another player plays a druid. She's phyisically very weak, and depends on her wolf to protects her. That party also lacks a dediated fighter -- the closes thing we have is an archery-oriented ranger, so the wolf plays a pretty big role.