I know it was a joke but...(complete riding dog)

[Tonguez]

Hell, they could even include material for awakened animal PCs.

Absolutely my greatest disappointment with Savage Species was the statement 'Animals are not suitable as PCs' - ackt! my Awakened Bull defecates on that one!

 

[Argent Silvermage]

I think that this could be great.

I would suggest variants on homunculi, and golems. (winged magical constructs, arming your pet golems, etc.)

p.s. also add additional tricks, pets for all classes, cooperative feats, spells that involve pets
variant wild animals, etc.

The feat Improved Homunculus already takes the varient on Homunculi into account very well. Arming constructs is a bit easier if you have a system for creating them from scratch.

 

[SpiralBound]

Gotta say it looks good.

How do we petition WOTC to make one?

John

p.s.-I would also like to see if I could petition for hypersmurf, raven crowking, and argent to help with the writing

Heck! Who needs to petition anyone? I say those three people work together, write it and release it as a pdf, either for free or sell it through the ENWorld store. Done!

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Heck! Who needs to petition anyone? I say those three people work together, write it and release it as a pdf, either for free or sell it through the ENWorld store. Done!

I started a yahoo group to discuss this a biy easier. come on over! the link is above and in my signiture.
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Argentscompletecompanion/

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Needs spells specifically designed to enhance companions.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Needs spells specifically designed to enhance companions.

There are already a ton of spells that buff. Can you give me an idea of what you're looking for?

 

[D.Shaffer]

Rules for different breeds of animals. (Template?)
Pricing guides for non-standard animals with different levels of training.
Teamwork benefits that include pets.
Ways to improve companions that dont involve class features.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Rules for different breeds of animals. (Template?)
Pricing guides for non-standard animals with different levels of training.
Teamwork benefits that include pets.
Ways to improve companions that dont involve class features.

I'm not sure we need different "breeds" but I'm thinking of breed feats/traits that would be used to take the "standard" animal type and make it closer to what you are thinking.

 

[Peni Griffin]

The breed as handled today is a 19th century concept and has been very bad for the animals as it selects for arbitrary traits that get exagerrated to an unhealthy degree. The original pekingese presented to Queen Victoria, for instance, had no difficulty breathing as modern pekes do, poor things. And talk to a German shepherd owner about hip dysplasia sometime. Prior to the 19th century, "breeds" represented something we would more likely refer to as a use or job, suitable for transformation into D&D style classes into which an animal is born - gaze hounds, scent hounds, shepherd dogs; destriers, coursers, palfreys, pack animals; milch cattle, beef cattle, oxen; etc.

I would love to just see reality-based statblocks for ordinary animals which reflect the fact that they are competent to survive in a wide number of ecological niches and are highly variable.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Breeds:
Yes, exactly. I'm not talking about Breeds like 'german shephard' or 'Belgian Wolfhouse', but rather special roles. A 'Shephard' breed is going to share certain characteristics, so will a breed 'designed' for hunting, ratting, tracking, etc. We already see a bit of it in DND with horses and dogs as is.

And I think racial templates work better as this way you can apply them to a wider array of animal types. If you want to make a 'scenthound' version of a velociraptor for example, you'd look up 'Scent hound' on the table, see that it gives scent and a tracking bonus to the base creature, as well as a basic tricks skill package...and there ya go. Maybe some minor ability mods.