MotW: So now Awakened animals are animal companions?

[Zerovoid]

In Masters of the Wild, it says that an awakened animal companion can remain with its master, and counts against the druid's HD limit. This is quite a contrast to the earlier ruling by the sage, which I think said you couldn't keep awakened animals with you since they were magical beasts? This is pretty interesting. And just to keep us guessing about the rules, the relavent passage of MotW makes no mention about the awakened animal gaining class levels. Since these are more valuable than animal hit dice, it makes me wonder... I would probably allow awakened animal companions to gain class levels in my game, but I really would like a clear answer on this for once.

 

[Acmite]

I emailed the sage not long after 3E was released (Sept 2000?) regarding the awaken spell and he said that once a companion became awakened they were to be treated as any other NPC as per the Leadership Feat. Since they were now Magical Beasts, they no longer fell under the domain of Animal Friendship.

When I asked him to clarify whether or not the awakened animal could now advance in a class, he said that was one of the reasons the spell was created .

That section of MotW confused me as well. Partly because it did not spend the time to address this issue, and partly because what little it did say, contradicted earlier rulings.

 

[Corwin]

I figured this would be the official ruling. I'm happy with it.

To allow druids to cast awaken and then screw them by taking away the animal he just boosted is just lame. Of course the druid should be allowed to keep the critter.

As far as them not being able to gain class levels, that too is appropriate. Of course animal companions do not get class levels. No animal companions get XP. No XP = no advancing in classes. If you want to start letting your awakened animals pick up class levels, you gotta take the Leadership feat first. Then take it as a cohort. Even then it only gets a half share. But at least you get what you are looking for. And all is legal.

All's good to me.

In a related note: I would personally allow druids with the Leadership feat to fill up their followers with animals of the appropriate CR. So instead of having (15) 1st level followers, they can have a bunch of CR 1 critters. This would basically work like a massive version of animal friendship.

 

[IceBear]

I would take the MotW rules over past rulings by the Sage. I would think that a published supplement has more thought and effort put into it (including some playtesting) than the Sage puts into his answers, and thus it would supercede rulings made before these new rules were published.

IceBear

 

[sinmissing]

What little it did say about awakened animals was very irritating.


two more cents. . . .

What I think is kinda of sucky is that magical beasts aren't affected by nature's favor or other "animal spells".

All of the Tamer of Beasts companion animals are treated as magical beasts. So now all of your "animal" spells are useless to buff your companions.

Not only would I have liked a more comprehensive explanation of companion animals, awakened animals, and animal progression (as an animal or class, in the case of awakened animals), but I would have liked a better explanation of calculating attack routines for wild shaped druids.

 

[Caliban]

I'm not happy with the statements in the MOTW about Awakened animals.

I went to a lot of trouble a few months ago to find out how it's supposed to work (e-mailing the Sage and Sean Reynold's, and then having Sean Reynolds take the question to the R&D people when they didn't agree).

Now MOTW comes out and contradicts the final answer I finally got from them.

All I'm going to say is that if the animal starts gaining class levels, it's no longer an animal companion, not in any game I'm running.

 

[Artoomis]

I think Corwin nailed this one dead on.

If you want your awakened animal companion to be like a cohort, then you must make it a cohort using the leadership feat.

Sounds right and well-balanced to me. And sounds like you would be using the rules to get what you want - very fair.