Lowballing Animal Companions

Why not just halt the actual druid progressions in such a case then? Keep him at that technical '-6' stats. He wouldn't gain any druid bonuses until he cleared that penalty bonus. The only increase would be his creature stats.

Though its a bit odd, since your doing both monster advancement and druid advancement with a custom monster.

4 druid
5 ranger (counts as half of a druid for such abilities)
=
7
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Agreed. Although our downgrade was specifically to "Adolescent Tiger". In theory it has to grow up sometime. It's just that when it does, it somehow gets crippled.

Or maybe he just outgrows that juvenile affection he had for the grumpy old man with the twigs in his beard...
 

Would take a few years to do that. XD Not sure what the rules would be when applying age affects to companions already existing. Most DM's don't do age for monsters usually.

But its been said that a Druid's HD bonus does not cause a creature to 'advance' in any typical creature progression. (Like a Wolf going large from increased HD.) Just in case that was an issue. (Though I have no idea what they actually class that HD in such a case... It's not really confirmed.)
 

BTW: If my attitude or manner offends anyone, I'm sorry. This seems like one of the many threads I get involved in that wanders into an exploration of the absurd. Whenever that happens, whimsy is likely to follow.
 

This bit from the official 3.5 FAQ may clear up some muddied rules questions here:

3.5 Main FAQ said:
How does a multiclassed druid/ranger determine the
statistics for her animal companion?


Use the sum of the character’s “effective druid level” for
the purpose of determining animal companion statistics. A
druid’s effective level is her class level, while a ranger’s is
equal to one-half his class level.
A 5th-level druid/6th-level ranger, for example, would have
an animal companion as if she were an 8th-level druid (5 plus
one-half of 6).
 

This bit from the official 3.5 FAQ may clear up some muddied rules questions here:

Good find. The original wording is a bit unclear but is referring to the non-Druid "animal companion granting levels" - the Ranger has fewer companion-granting levels than his actual class level.
 



Sadly, as we saw in the discussion of Freedom of Movement v Hold Person, we know that the FAQ isn't always authoritative. Or right.

I agree that the Ranger levels should count as half. But that's not what the actual rules say. There's no reference to "effective Druid Levels" in the section in question, it simply says that the class levels stack.

We could argue it all day, but the ink on the paper isn't going to change. I'm not the DM so I can't overrule it either.
 

@Greenfield

Actually if you read the entry on the Ranger's Animal Companion it DOES reference EDL, which is the second paragraph of the ability.
PHB; p48.

Those are RAW and I don't see how that could stray from anything. Empirate's FAQ entry and most feat entries also reference this. And its also printed for rangers in the PHB for such ability.
 

Pets & Sidekicks

Remove ads

Top