Need Help - Druid's Animal Companion Question

[freya]

So I'm working on a 9th level Druid for an upcoming campaign, and I don't quite understand how the animal companions' stats work. More specifically on the Bonus HD. The PHB says "Bonus HD: Extra 1d8, each of which gains a constitution modifier" What does that mean? It continues on by saying "remember the extra HD improve the animal companion's bast atk bonus and base save bonuses. But then it says the companion uses the druids base atk bonus. So which is it?

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

 

[shilsen]

So I'm working on a 9th level Druid for an upcoming campaign, and I don't quite understand how the animal companions' stats work. More specifically on the Bonus HD. The PHB says "Bonus HD: Extra 1d8, each of which gains a constitution modifier" What does that mean?

It means that the animal companion gets to add its Con mod per bonus hit dice, as normal. So a creature with 2 normal hit dice and 4 bonus hit dice would have hit pts equal to 6d8 + (6 x Con mod).

It continues on by saying "remember the extra HD improve the animal companion's bast atk bonus and base save bonuses. But then it says the companion uses the druids base atk bonus. So which is it?

Actually that comes to the same thing. Animals have the same BAB progression as a cleric, rogue, druid, etc. So an animal companion's bonus HD will improve its BAB and it will end up with a BAB total equal to a druid of the same level as the animal companion's HD.