Awaken and Animal Companion?

[LordVyreth]

What's the best way of handling a druid who wants to awaken his animal companion? I'm thinking of handling by removing it as an animal companion, but making it available as a cohort, and it is allowed to keep the companion abilities if the druid doesn't take an additional companion to replace it. But is there an official answer? And what should an animal companion's ECL be? Should awaken have an LA? What if the character's leadership score is insufficient for the companion? I appreciate any advice that can be given, and apologize if this has been covered recently.

 

[mikebr99]

The Awakened Animal becomes an NPC, under control of the DM. It can't serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount...

It would become a trusted Friend, and may want to help you under specific circumstances, but wouldn't follow blindly.

But you could take it up as a cohort... assuming it and you meet all the prereq.s.
As far as any special abilities from being a companion for a while... I'd allow the bonus HD, natural AC, & STR/DEX bonuses remain... the rest is gone.

YMMV


Mike

 

[Korak]

The Awakened Animal becomes an NPC, under control of the DM. It can't serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount...

It would become a trusted Friend, and may want to help you under specific circumstances, but wouldn't follow blindly.

But you could take it up as a cohort... assuming it and you meet all the prereq.s.
As far as any special abilities from being a companion for a while... I'd allow the bonus HD, natural AC, & STR/DEX bonuses remain... the rest is gone.

YMMV


Mike

I agree. Other than the quote you gave Mike, there doesn't seem to be any further guidance. I would likely give the animal enough experience to advance it up to a HD equal to it's original HD + the bonus HD it had as an animal companion, allowing it to advance beyond normal caps if needed. I would advance it's stats by the normal rules for advancing creatures and have it lose all benefits from it's former status as an animal companion. It could then be taken as a cohort if the druid's leadership score was high enough, otherwise it would likely be friendly, but would have it's own goals and ambitions to be decided by the DM.

 

[mhd]

Hmm, might be nitpicking, but Awaken works on a tree or animal. A druid's companion is a magical beast already...

Yeah, that set aside, I'd agree with the other posters, you just gave your companion a human-like free will and intelligence, treating it as a NPC and possible cohort sounds reasonable.

 

[mikebr99]

Hmm, might be nitpicking, but Awaken works on a tree or animal. A druid's companion is a magical beast already...

Yeah, that set aside, I'd agree with the other posters, you just gave your companion a human-like free will and intelligence, treating it as a NPC and possible cohort sounds reasonable.

The PHB Errata has changed animal companions back to animals. Otherwise Animal growth wouldn't work on your own companion.


Mike

 

[mhd]

Yeah, the need for erratas never ends. Maybe with edition 3.5.1...

One final note: The point where game balance breaks with awakened animal companions is the 2HD increase. If the player justs wants to be able to talk to an animal which understands him (bachelor druids have issues), then for Ehlonna's sake, let him. Just ditch the HD increase, as the animal already is more powerful than a typical example of its breed. This basically requires the player to portray to complete personas, so should be only allowed for players who can cope with that.

 

[jgsugden]

If you cast awaken on an AC, it loses the benefits of being an AC immediately as it is no longer qualifies to be an AC because it stops being an animal or plant.

If you awaken a nanimal and then try to make it an AC, it will not be eligible because it is a magical beast.

A viable house rule that works very well: If you want to make an awakened animal into an AC, treat it as if it were one category 'higher' in the animal companion tables. For instance, treat an awakened wolf as a 3 to 5 HD creature instead of a 1 to 2 HD creature. If you awaken an AC, it would lose some of its abilities. This is harder to explain, but you could do so by saying that awakening the animal diminsihes the link between the druid and the creature.

 

[Count Arioch the 28t]

Yeah, what JG said. That's what I do, the druid in my group has an awakened dire lion.

 

[Conaill]

I've just started a brand-new Awakened Animal thread, and I would love you all to join me to continue the discussion there.

I decided to write out "Awakened Animal" as an actual template, just to force me to be as explicit as possible about these things. Dissenting opinions are welcome, of course...