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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5187182" data-attributes="member: 82106">A Beast Master's beast companion is really mechanically a class feature of the character, albeit one that shows up as a creature. Its balanced by the loss of other class features and in general the beast plus the character is equal to other characters.By "animal companion" I would assume you mean a DMG2 style Companion Character. These are independent NPCs with a simplified set of character features. They have their own action pool and while maybe not AS powerful as a PC are certainly close and if designed with good party synergy will effectively add a full PC worth of capability to the party. For this reason they count AS a PC in encounter budgeting. It would be perfectly feasible for a rogue to have a mount that was a CC. It will allow the DM more XP budget for encounters though. OTOH it could be interesting. CCs really are designed to either fill in holes in a party, add to the story, etc. The DM needs to consider how that effects the party dynamics if a CC is going to be 'owned' by one of the players, as its a lot like running 2 PCs.You can also of course have an ordinary mount or working animal. These are going to be weaker and generally aren't going to be reliable combatants. They are more like equipment.</blockquote>