Natural Bond Poll

[Ridley's Cohort]

(Sorry about any confusion cause by my editing my post.)

Gabrion,

It is crystal clear that the designers intended to disallow a 10 HD Wolf for a straight 9th level Druid. No ambiguity there at all.

The open question is whether the designers thought that a 10 HD Wolf was a definite no-no while at the same time believing that a 10 HD Dire Wolf would be okey-dokey. No ambiguity here either.

As a matter of practical game balance it is obvious to me that there is no balance issue here. In a million years, no DM is going to tell a player "I am sorry but your 10 HD Wolf is ruining the game. You better have a 10 HD Dire Wolf instead." Not going to happen. (Now that is a matter of opinion, but I dare to try to argue the other side...)

Now we can attempt divine a separate reason why the designers would choose to answer the "open question" in your way. If there is no reasonable such option available, I am strongly inclined to go with the most obvious guess at what is designer intent.

You have suggested that there is some general design principle that makes certain modifiers to higher level abilities perfectly okay when they should not be applied to lower level abilities for some reason.

First of all, this design principle is mostly only applied to spells and even that inconsistently.

Second of all, there is no general design principle in limiting boosting to spells with feats. Do we ever see feats like "+1 to DC of spell if third level or higher"? In fact, when it comes to feats and spells the trend runs in the exact opposite direction. Whoops for you.

Third of all, if you are going to bring spells & feats into the picture I am going to throw Practiced Spellcaster in your lap and that makes my case even stronger.

Fourth of all, I deny that the 8 HD (or 10 HD) Wolf is a "1st level ability" at all. It is a generic class ability that scales up in a specific way. What level ability is the Paladin's Lay on Hands? When he is 20th level?

Fifth of all, there is no such general limiting principle when applied to class abilities. Do we make such arguments about how we need to limit a 20th level Barbarian's Rage or a 20th level Cleric's Turn Undead ability when stacking on booster feats? No.

Sixth of all, by your own admission there ambiguity in how to apply the modifiers. Is there so generic rule of thumb to calculate things every which way you can and pick the one the player likes? Not that I know of. Can you find it written down somewhere? So your opinion appears to be arbitrarily choosing one of two possibilities.

Seventh of all, I am darn certain that the designer have not thought through this "effective Druid level for Animal Companion" idea. Reading this feat and the Beastmaster will cause anyone a headache. Regardless of what the designers actually intended, the language they use is strong circumstantial evidence they have not considered the issue carefully enough. So I am not finding your preference for a particular interpretation compelling absent other arguments.

Eighth of all, if the designers have not thought through things carefully the best procedure is to extrapolate from the simplest case. Take the most basic example of the rule and use that to inform the DM how to apply more complex examples. So I look at a Wolf and see what limitations apply. I look at the Dire Wolf and I am not 100% certain. So I compare with the Wolf and choose the interpretation that makes the most sense in that context. That is not rocket science.

Ninth of all, I do not feel that the effective level limitation is necessary at all. So it is not as if I am against a 9th level Druid having a 10 HD Dire Wolf. I am saying if that is allowed it would be pretty darn stupid to disallow a 10 HD Wolf. Such a narrow limitation serves no useful purpose.

Tenth of all, I am arguing against my own interest, so you should trust I am giving my best approximation of an objective opinion. I have a 5th level Druid character who would happily forgoe the awesome feat Natural Spell at 6th level in order to take Natural Bond and get a boosted Dire Wolf. Simply because that would be cooler for my character concept.

 

[Marshall]

Ninth of all, I do not feel that the effective level limitation is necessary at all. So it is not as if I am against a 9th level Druid having a 10 HD Dire Wolf. I am saying if that is allowed it would be pretty darn stupid to disallow a 10 HD Wolf. Such a narrow limitation serves no useful purpose.

Seems to me that the designers actually believe that the higher level abilites on the chart outweigh having a higher level companion. They never have seemed to grasp just when a HD is greater than a special ability and vice-versa.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I suggested this feat to my wife who plays a straight-classed druid (15th level). She refused to even allow the interpretation that would enable her to have more powerful animal companions. In her words, "Verilia [PC name] is not THAT munchkinny."

I love my wife.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I suggested this feat to my wife who plays a straight-classed druid (15th level). She refused to even allow the interpretation that would enable her to have more powerful animal companions. In her words, "Verilia [PC name] is not THAT munchkinny."

I love my wife.

Fan-TASTIC.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

You have a good woman there, Infiniti2000.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Sixth of all, by your own admission there ambiguity in how to apply the modifiers. Is there so generic rule of thumb to calculate things every which way you can and pick the one the player likes? Not that I know of. Can you find it written down somewhere? So your opinion appears to be arbitrarily choosing one of two possibilities.

The closest we have to a 'generic rule of thumb' is the FAQ answers on Practiced Spellcaster (for what they're worth):

Does the bonus to caster level from the Practiced
Spellcaster feat (from Complete Arcane and Complete
Divine) apply before or after other caster level bonuses
(such as those from the Good or Healing domains)?

The bonus from Practiced Spellcaster applies whenever it
would be most beneficial to the caster. A 4th-level cleric/4thlevel
fighter with the Healing domain and Practiced Spellcaster
would cast Conjuration (Healing) spells as a 9th-level caster
(base caster level 4th, +4 from Practiced Spellcaster, +1 from
the Healing domain). A 4th-level cleric/4th-level rogue with
Practiced Spellcaster who activates a bead of karma (from a
strand of prayer beads) would cast her spells as a 12th-level
caster (base 4, +4 from Practiced Spellcaster, +4 from bead of
karma).

How does Practiced Spellcaster interact with the wild
magic class feature of the wild mage (from Complete
Arcane)?

The –3 penalty and +1d6 bonus to the wild mage’s caster
level are applied as a single step in the process of determining
the wild mage’s caster level. Since Practiced Spellcaster’s
bonus is always applied when it is most beneficial to the
character (see previous answer), a wild mage with Practiced
Spellcaster would typically apply the wild magic class feature
first (subtracting 3 and adding 1d6 to her caster level) and then
add the Practiced Spellcaster benefit, up to a maximum value
equal to her character level.

For example, if a 5th-level wizard/4th-level wild mage with
Practiced Spellcaster rolled a 1 on the 1d6 bonus to her caster
level, her caster level for that spell would be 9th (base 9th, –3
from wild magic penalty, +1 from wild magic bonus, +4 from
Practiced Spellcaster up to a maximum equal to her character
level). If she rolled a 6, her caster level would be 12th (base
9th, –3 from wild magic penalty, +6 from wild magic bonus;
the Practiced Spellcaster bonus would not apply since it would
increase her caster level above her character level).

On the other hand, imagine a wild mage whose caster level
(before applying the effects of the wild magic class feature) is
less than her character level, such as a wild mage with levels of
rogue or other non-spellcasting class. She might well choose to
apply the Practiced Spellcaster bonus first, before applying the
wild magic modifiers. A rogue 4/wizard 5/wild mage 4 would
have a base caster level of 9th before any other modifiers are
applied. Adding Practiced Spellcaster’s bonus would increase
this to 13th, at which point the penalty and bonus from wild
magic would be applied. The Sage recommends that players
averse to frequently recalculating caster level avoid playing a
character with this combination, as it is likely to cause
headaches.

Since Natural Bond is a similar feat to Practiced Spellcaster (bonus to an effective level, capped at hit dice), it's not unreasonable to assume that the same answer would apply: the bonus is applied where it is most beneficial to the character. In this case, after the negative modifier for a companion from the 4th level list, but before the bonus for Beastmaster levels.

-Hyp.

 

[gabrion]

The closest we have to a 'generic rule of thumb' is the FAQ answers on Practiced Spellcaster (for what they're worth):

Thanks Hyp, I was gonna post that but you beat me to it!

It is crystal clear that the designers intended to disallow a 10 HD Wolf for a straight 9th level Druid. No ambiguity there at all.

No, no it's not. What's clear is that a 9th level druid doesn't have a way of getting a 10 HD wolf companion. This doesn't mean the designers intended to prevent that from ever happening, it just means the current rules don't allow for it to happen - but keep in mind that the rules don't allow for a lot of things to happen.

Before Complete Psionic was printed, many people debated whether or not a feat like Practiced Manifester would be balanced. Using logic like you're people often extrapolated the intent of the designers based on the (then) current limitations of the rules set, arguing that the designer's intend was never to allow a psionic character to make up for lost manifester levels, short of using damaging class abilities or feats. Guess what? They were wrong. Your claim that the designers "intended to disallow a 10 HD Wolf for a straight 9th Druid," is actually just conjecture.

The open question is whether the designers thought that a 10 HD Wolf was a definite no-no while at the same time believing that a 10 HD Dire Wolf would be okey-dokey. No ambiguity here either.

No, that's not the main question at hand here. Actually, that seems to just be an irregularity that occurs because to the nature of first level animal companions.

As a matter of practical game balance it is obvious to me that there is no balance issue here. In a million years, no DM is going to tell a player "I am sorry but your 10 HD Wolf is ruining the game. You better have a 10 HD Dire Wolf instead." Not going to happen. (Now that is a matter of opinion, but I dare to try to argue the other side...)

Nor would the DM tell a player wizard who's never cast a spell with variables, "I'm sorry, but your character taking the empower spell feat would ruin the game. You should take spell focus instead." What they might say though is, "Um, you know taking empower spell is a really bad choice for your character, right? Have you thought about using a more suitable feat, like spell focus?"

In the same way, a straight druid with natural bond is simply wasting a feat if he sticks with his wolf companion from first level. Like I said earlier, all this establishes for us is that WotC didn't print every feat with coaching instructions on how to use it.

Now we can attempt divine a separate reason why the designers would choose to answer the "open question" in your way. If there is no reasonable such option available, I am strongly inclined to go with the most obvious guess at what is designer intent.

Well, I'd rather infer from the rules, but you can divine as you will.

As I pointed out above, the designers have made a lot of feats that only offer benefits under certain circumstances. The "open question" you've come up with pretty much boils down to, "would the designers intend for a feat to be useful to a character who makes certain choices during his career, but not to others?" The answer seems painfully obvious..of course they would.

You have suggested that there is some general design principle that makes certain modifiers to higher level abilities perfectly okay when they should not be applied to lower level abilities for some reason.

Actually I said:

...having a feat give a benefit to class abilities gained at higher levels but not to ones gained at lower levels really isn't that strange...

...which doesn't seem to be a claim about a "general design principle." All I was saying was that when I come across an ability or effect that is more beneficial to a character of higher level because of options made available to them, but not to lower level characters, I'm not going to draw the conclusion that said ability runs counter to the intent of the game designers (which is exactly what you're doing).

First of all, this design principle is mostly only applied to spells and even that inconsistently.

Like I said, it happens here and there...it isn't a general rule of some kind. I'm fine when it happens though, and it makes sense to me why it happens.

Second of all, there is no general design principle in limiting boosting to spells with feats. Do we ever see feats like "+1 to DC of spell if third level or higher"?

No, but we see a lot of feats that aren't available until character have certain abilities. These feats tend to be more beneficial than ones that don't have such requirements.

In fact, when it comes to feats and spells the trend runs in the exact opposite direction. Whoops for you.

Not that it really matters to this discussion, but what kind of things are you talking about here?

Third of all, if you are going to bring spells & feats into the picture I am going to throw Practiced Spellcaster in your lap and that makes my case even stronger.

Ya...I think the quotes Hyp provided above do a good job of handling this. They make my case stronger, not yours.

Fourth of all, I deny that the 8 HD (or 10 HD) Wolf is a "1st level ability" at all. It is a generic class ability that scales up in a specific way. What level ability is the Paladin's Lay on Hands? When he is 20th level?

It's an ability gained at 1st level. The option of having a dire wolf is an ability gained at 7th level.

Comparing this to the Paladin's lay on hands ability doesn't work because that ability is static, other than the variable within it being dependent on level. It operates in some ways like druid's wild shape ability, in so far as the Druid gets more uses of it as he gains levels and can use higher HD forms. It's different from an ability like that though, because wild shape also introduces new stuff, like the availability of large forms.

In the same way, no one is arguing that a druid's animal companion is a first level ability. What I am arguing is that the option of choosing something like a dire wolf companion is explicitly a higher level druid ability. If you don't think so, go ahead and justify the lines, "A druid of 4th level or higher may select from alternative lists of animals," and "A druid of sufficiently high level can select her animal companion from one of the following lists..."

Fifth of all, there is no such general limiting principle when applied to class abilities. Do we make such arguments about how we need to limit a 20th level Barbarian's Rage or a 20th level Cleric's Turn Undead ability when stacking on booster feats? No.

No, but sometimes such feats are disproportionately more beneficial to the higher level characters.

Sixth of all, by your own admission there ambiguity in how to apply the modifiers. Is there so generic rule of thumb to calculate things every which way you can and pick the one the player likes? Not that I know of. Can you find it written down somewhere? So your opinion appears to be arbitrarily choosing one of two possibilities.

Well, once again I'll point to the FAQ entries on Practiced Spellcaster. Sure, it doesn't directly talk about this feat, but the two are pretty similar. WotC has adopted an in writting position that feats like this should be used in the most beneficial way for the player. So yes, I have a "general rule of thumb" in writing. Do you have one to support your stance?

Seventh of all, I am darn certain that the designer have not thought through this "effective Druid level for Animal Companion" idea. Reading this feat and the Beastmaster will cause anyone a headache. Regardless of what the designers actually intended, the language they use is strong circumstantial evidence they have not considered the issue carefully enough. So I am not finding your preference for a particular interpretation compelling absent other arguments.

Well for once we agree. I do think the wording they put into this particular aspect of the game could have been better. However, given the "most beneficial to the player" stance that they've adopted, I'm also quite sure that if they had put more time into the wording, the result would even more strongly support my position.

Still, if we're going to talk about a case where the rules seem to have somewhat poor wording, that still doesn't mean RAW aren't RAW. In this case, they may have mixed up ideas of effective druid level, druid level, and "druid’s level for purposes of determining the companion’s characteristics and special abilities," but a simple understand of the English language still leads one to the conclusion that the rules support my position.

Eighth of all, if the designers have not thought through things carefully the best procedure is to extrapolate from the simplest case. Take the most basic example of the rule and use that to inform the DM how to apply more complex examples. So I look at a Wolf and see what limitations apply. I look at the Dire Wolf and I am not 100% certain. So I compare with the Wolf and choose the interpretation that makes the most sense in that context. That is not rocket science.

What? That make no sense at all. If we're unclear about how an ability gained at a higher level interacts with a feat, we should see how an ability at a lower level interacts with it and go from there?

Why on earth would that make more sense that judging how a feat interacts with each ability a character has on a case by case basis?

Ninth of all, I do not feel that the effective level limitation is necessary at all. So it is not as if I am against a 9th level Druid having a 10 HD Dire Wolf. I am saying if that is allowed it would be pretty darn stupid to disallow a 10 HD Wolf. Such a narrow limitation serves no useful purpose.

Sure it does. It allows the feat to maintain the claus about limiting the adjustment so that a druid with the feat can't be treated as higher level than his character level. It's just a practical limitation put into the feat that happens to have the coincidental affect of not allowing the feat to equally benefit a first level animal companion and one gained later in the druid's career.

Tenth of all, I am arguing against my own interest, so you should trust I am giving my best approximation of an objective opinion. I have a 5th level Druid character who would happily forgoe the awesome feat Natural Spell at 6th level in order to take Natural Bond and get a boosted Dire Wolf. Simply because that would be cooler for my character concept.

So you're arguing against the rules, the game designers, and your own interest? That makes me trust something, but it isn't that you're being objective.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Your interpretation keeps wandering back to a rationalization based on the 8 HD or 10 HD Wolf being a "1st level ability". This is as arbitrary and weak a foundation to build a house of cards on as one can get.

I particularly like...

No, that's not the main question at hand here. Actually, that seems to just be an irregularity that occurs because to the nature of first level animal companions.

If these so called "first level animal companions" are an irregularity, what the heck is regular in the entire Core rules? Whatever you make up on the spot apparently.

 

[gabrion]

Your interpretation keeps wandering back to a rationalization based on the 8 HD or 10 HD Wolf being a "1st level ability". This is as arbitrary and weak a foundation to build a house of cards on as one can get.

It's an ability gained at 1st level. The option of having a dire wolf is an ability gained at 7th level.

...snip...

In the same way, no one is arguing that a druid's animal companion is a first level ability. What I am arguing is that the option of choosing something like a dire wolf companion is explicitly a higher level druid ability. If you don't think so, go ahead and justify the lines, "A druid of 4th level or higher may select from alternative lists of animals," and "A druid of sufficiently high level can select her animal companion from one of the following lists..."

Ya, you're really taking the time to read and understand my points huh?

If these so called "first level animal companions" are an irregularity, what the heck is regular in the entire Core rules? Whatever you make up on the spot apparently.

Gee, did I say first level animal companions are an irregularity? No, I guess I didn't. What I did say is that the way a particular feat interacts with first level animal companions is irregular comapared to how it interacts with the rest of the companions they can have. Looking through many of the 3.5 books, there are about 19 choices for an animal companion at 1st level and 65 alternate companions that can be gained at higher levels. As you've pointed out, reading the feat the way I do means it gives a bonus to the alternative companions that the first level companions don't get. I'm perfectly justified in calling this kind of interaction an irregularity, since it isn't a problem ~77% of the time.

Either way since you've a) abandoned any kind of logical argument on this issue, b) given up defending your position, and c) taken to misquoting me as a feeble attempt to save face, I guess I don't need to wast my time explaining these issue to you any more.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Gee, did I say first level animal companions are an irregularity? No, I guess I didn't.

Actually, that seems to just be an irregularity that occurs because to the nature of first level animal companions.

You should speak to this guy Gabrion and straighten him out.

What I did say is that the way a particular feat interacts with first level animal companions is irregular comapared to how it interacts with the rest of the companions they can have.

So it is not that first level animal companions are irregular, it is that they are not regular like all those other companions? Because the designers werre thinking about things like Dire Wolves and just plain forgot about Wolves when putting pen to paper?

I'm perfectly justified in calling this kind of interaction an irregularity, since it isn't a problem ~77% of the time.

I prefer to start with simple examples, understand them as best I can, and build from there based on the context the simple examples provide. Not a perfect approach, but it is a reasonable thing to attempt.

We seem to have run into a wall where we are talking past each other because you cherry pick what you think is relevant, then come up with random rationalizations why everything else is not. This fantastic phoney baloney statistic is yet another example.

I guess we are both done here.

FWIW, as I said before I do not particularly see at it is a problem to allow the 9th level Druid to have a 10 HD Dire Wolf companion. But if one allows that it seems pretty stupid to disallow the 10 HD Wolf, IMO. YMMV.