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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6493662" data-attributes="member: 4937">In general, I would treat a pet and an animal companion much the same, and would not make a distinction between them all that much.  I consider that the distinction primarily occurs at the level of the metagame, and not at the level of in game reality of the relationship.  If you have sufficient skill to raise a pet for war, teach it the necessary tricks, and sufficient charisma to make it loyal to you, then it would act much the same as an animal companion and I would treat it as such - regardless of the edition in which it appears.  I would consider one of the main benefits of having 'animal companion' as a class feature would be that you get such a pet for free, without having to invest deeply in the time, skills, and money required to acquire such pets, train them, and gain their unswerving loyalty.  It would be quite conceivable for a 'druid' in my game to over the course of a few years develop such a deep friendship with the animals in a particular area, that they all acted as his pets.  In general, getting an animal to continue to do your bidding when you aren't around requires a lengthy relationship regardless of the charisma you have with animals.   With an animal companion, you get that relationship basically instantly.The other benefit, depending on the edition, is that you have a magical link with your animal companion that causes it to grow in power as you grow in power in a way that a mere pet would not.  In this case, I suggest that the animal companions are actually animal spirits in corporeal form.  I would consider it unfair to treat attack dogs as NPCs deserving of their share of treasure unless for example, the horses you were mounted on, or the mule carrying the baggage, was treated the same.   In such cases, I'd see this as unnecessarily punishing the player.  I have on one occasion treated a pet as a henchman, but that 'pet' was really more of a DM PC that I added to the party because I only had two players in a low level game and they needed a bit of security to avoid too easy death spirals that come from having few characters in an adventuring party.  If a PC initiates acquiring a pet of normal animal intelligence, I wouldn't treat that 'character' as a full henchman or allied NPC.  I would consider it completely in character and appropriate for an existing pet to become an animal companion in the event the class ability was gained later on, and would encourage that on RP grounds.   However, I would not force that on a player.Pets in general are quite handy at low levels, but tend to die in droves at higher levels.  I also agree with the suggestion that the DC of handling multiple pets increases with the number involved.  By the time you are above 4 or 5 dogs, you are really getting into super-heroic skill levels.</blockquote>

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