D&D 3E/3.5 How to use 3.0 Animal Companions with 3.5

[Li Shenron]

I will run a 3.5 adventure in a few weeks, and one of the player would like to keep her Druid's old animal companions (wolf and eagle). Per 3.5 she should have only one, but she really wants to keep both of them.

Clearly, we can't advance both of them as the 3.5 table, but with no advancement at all they would soon be weak in a few levels.

Do you think that it would be ok to simply keep the 3.0 Animal Companions (except that we could use the new summoning rules instead of Animal Friendship) including the HD cap, and then use monster advancement by HD?

- you can move this to House Rules if better -

 

[Darklone]

I would advance the wolf as animal companion and keep the eagle as trained animal...

Had the same problem with a wolf shaman who had a wolfpack when we converted to 3.5.

 

[Shin Okada]

How about keep one as an animal companion, then take Leadership feat and make another one a cohort? I don't know if some book contain enough information to make an animal (or awakened animal) as a cohort, though ...

Edit:

Maybe you can use Savage Species to estimate an Eagle's level adjustment and ECL.

Ability : That "race" has +4 Dex, +2 Con, -8 Int, +4 Wis, -2 Cha. According to Table 2-7 of the DMG (Savage Species refer to 3.0e DMG), That is a little bit on "higher" side, so Level Adjustment +0 to +1. I say +1 if awakened.

Size : It is tiny. So Level Adjustment -1.

Natural Armor Bonus : +1. So Level Adjustment +1.

Speed : Fly speed with average maneuverability. So Level Adjustment +1.

Natural Weapons : It do have multiple attacks. So Level Adjustment +1.

Reach : 0 ft. So no Level Adjustment.

Skill and Feats : Only one skill bonus. So no Level Adjustment.

Special Attacks and Special Qualities : None. So no Level Adjustment.

Now, it is +3 in total. Thus, an awakened eagle with non class-level is considered to be an equivalent of 4th level character. An Awakened Eagle/Ranger 1 is an equivalent of 5th level character.

 

[Dingleberry]

How about keep one as an animal companion, then take Leadership feat and make another one a cohort? I don't know if some book contain enough information to make an animal (or awakened animal) as a cohort, though ...

IIRC, WotC posted a "Wild Cohort" feat a while back. I didn't tag it because I don't play 3.5, but someone else might have the link.

 

[Conaill]

Dunno if this is still relevant, but I just wanted to point out that Shin Okada's stats for an Awakened Eagle are *way* off. Two main discrepancies are that the Eagle is size Small, not size Tiny, and that it has 3 racial HD instead of 1 (it gains 2HD from the Awaken spell).

You can find the full Awakened Eagle stats on this thread. We're currently discussing it's LA... probably +0 or +1.

For more info on this an other awakened animals, feel free to drop by the Awakened Animals thread.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I would advance the wolf as animal companion and keep the eagle as trained animal...
.

I think this is the simplest and most rules-compliant way of handling it, requiring no changing of feats or anything else for the character (the old animal companions were basically just trained animals anyway).

Cheers