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Intelligent Mount/Animal Comp & Reading
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<blockquote data-quote="Salthorae" data-source="post: 5525135" data-attributes="member: 1095"><p>Thanks for the responses everyone!</p><p></p><p>This is sort of just a thought exercise at this point, but I would like to use it in a campaign sometime. </p><p></p><p>I'm not really going to reply to the great apes and ASL debate happening above because those are real world examples and this is D&D we're talking about here... If a barbarian with Int 5 can learn to read with 2 skill points, surely a Griffon with Int 5 can as well was more my thinking. I just wasn't sure if there were any rules related to it that I was missing. Especially since it states in the MM that a Griffon can understand common already. </p><p></p><p>I agree though airwalkrr, the animal wouldn't be able speak unless you did something else magical to it like cast Awaken, but that defeats the whole purpose behind this thought excercise because then they wouldn't be able to serve as a special mount or animal companion per Awaken's text. </p><p></p><p>The idea is to increase your animal companion's ability to think/reason so they are better in combat and don't necessarily need to be told exactly what to do... if they can read, then they can read a Tome which with a high level paladin's mount means you can get them up to a 14 Int</p><p></p><p>If you really want to cheese it up and you have levels to spare in a gestalt game or something and you're DM allowed it for sheer cheek, you could take Pal 5, Dru 5, Halfling Outrider 10, Wild Plains Outrider 3, Wiz 1, Arcane Hierophant 10 (mix how you will)...with Devoted Tracker... BAM! A Special Mount Companion Familiar with all the abilities and stat increases of a Paladin 18 special mount, a Druid 15-18 (depending on how you stagger levels) Animal Companion, and a Wizard 11 Familiar... most importantly for this discussion, you've got an Int 9 and Speak with Master. Throw a Tome in there and you have a Mount that probably has more tactical sense than the Barbarian in your party...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Salthorae, post: 5525135, member: 1095"] Thanks for the responses everyone! This is sort of just a thought exercise at this point, but I would like to use it in a campaign sometime. I'm not really going to reply to the great apes and ASL debate happening above because those are real world examples and this is D&D we're talking about here... If a barbarian with Int 5 can learn to read with 2 skill points, surely a Griffon with Int 5 can as well was more my thinking. I just wasn't sure if there were any rules related to it that I was missing. Especially since it states in the MM that a Griffon can understand common already. I agree though airwalkrr, the animal wouldn't be able speak unless you did something else magical to it like cast Awaken, but that defeats the whole purpose behind this thought excercise because then they wouldn't be able to serve as a special mount or animal companion per Awaken's text. The idea is to increase your animal companion's ability to think/reason so they are better in combat and don't necessarily need to be told exactly what to do... if they can read, then they can read a Tome which with a high level paladin's mount means you can get them up to a 14 Int If you really want to cheese it up and you have levels to spare in a gestalt game or something and you're DM allowed it for sheer cheek, you could take Pal 5, Dru 5, Halfling Outrider 10, Wild Plains Outrider 3, Wiz 1, Arcane Hierophant 10 (mix how you will)...with Devoted Tracker... BAM! A Special Mount Companion Familiar with all the abilities and stat increases of a Paladin 18 special mount, a Druid 15-18 (depending on how you stagger levels) Animal Companion, and a Wizard 11 Familiar... most importantly for this discussion, you've got an Int 9 and Speak with Master. Throw a Tome in there and you have a Mount that probably has more tactical sense than the Barbarian in your party... [/QUOTE]
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