Paladin with animal companion

[atomn]

I've always thought the concept of a non-mounted combat paladin fighting evil along side of a massive great dane or Irish wolfhound was a nifty one.

Would it be a balanced trade-off to give a paladin an animal companion instead of a mount?
If yes, should it get the bonuses of a paladin mount, druid animal companion, ranger animal companion or some combination of the three?

 

[trav_laney]

Would it be a balanced trade-off to give a paladin an animal companion instead of a mount?
If yes, should it get the bonuses of a paladin mount, druid animal companion, ranger animal companion or some combination of the three?

Interesting concept. I'd say, do it like the ranger, and add celestial and half-celestial animals to the lists of possible companions. It would take some work to balance the new animal lists, but it would be worth it.

A paladin with a celestial wolf companion? I'm totally stealing this idea.

 

[Stormborn]

One solution, something from Dragon #310 (IIRC), is to give the Paladin a celestial animal in place of the mount at 5th level and summonable for 2 hours per Paladin level per day. The celestial animal advances as the mount. At 5th that easilly covers most of the "day" a paladin would be adventuring. I have used this option for a character of mine in an campaign sometime back and it worked out very well. The concept was basically an order of paladins that were dedicated to drving out a black dragon that had turned a section of the kingdom into a swamp. In the swamp a mount would do no good, but a hunting dog was a great help. He also swapped out some skills like Survival for Rideand Knowledge (nature) for Knowledge (nobility).

If you dont want to go the celestial animal route I would think having an animal companion as a ranger would be a fair trade, with the same progression and level of aqusition.

 

[atomn]

Cool! Thanks for the responses!!