Animal companions and magic item creation rules

[rounser]

There is a built-in assumption in balancing the power of the Ranger and Druid that they'll have animal companions. This seems to me to be unnecessary, as there is already a more elegant system in 3E for factoring in such external power "add-ons".

I suggest that the acquisition of animal companions would be better handled by using the existing system of magic item creation. If you're a druid or ranger and you want an animal companion, pay the gold and XP and you'll have your bear, wolf etc. The XP and gold goes into finding and bonding and feeding the companion.

The advantage as I see it is that these classes no longer assume that you'll have an animal companion into factoring your power if your character doesn't want one, or it would be inappropriate to have one. On top of that, it's up to the druid and ranger to decide how much resources they wish to invest in their companion.

Thoughts?

 

[Tonguez]

This sounds like a workable idea - sort of making Animal; Companion a Class-specific Feat which they can take or not as a bonus feat.

Thois first with my Houserule that all Level 1 Class abilities (and only level 1 versions of the ability) are Feats and can be traded for general feats (including other level 1 class abilities).

 

[Dinkeldog]

Looks like a house rule, so I'll move it there.

My two cents: ill-advised, unless you were considering replacing the animal companions with something else. The fact that the companions are considered necessary to get the druid and ranger up to the level of the cleric and fighter before any of them has magic items might imply that removing them puts them at a level of suckitude greater than they need.

I know a lot of DMs don't want to have to deal with travelling menageries, but just taking the ability away without compensating isn't the way to fix it, IMNSHO.

 

[rounser]

I know a lot of DMs don't want to have to deal with travelling menageries, but just taking the ability away without compensating isn't the way to fix it, IMNSHO.

I thought it went without saying that you'd build the classes up in some other way if you took away that built-in ability (although obviously it didn't, because that didn't come across here).

In fact, that was sort of the point!

My two cents: ill-advised, unless you were considering replacing the animal companions with something else.

To be clear, that's exactly what I mean. Replace them with something inherent to the PC, rather than external and expendable (animal companions get killed, after all).

 

[Steverooo]

I think it's a wonderful idea (as long as you give'm something else to rebalance them)!