Hypersmurf said:
As long as the animal companion uses the "Adventuring Druid" rule (HD equal to druid's level) and not the "Stay-at-Home Druid" rule (HD equal to twice the druid's level), it's perfectly reasonable.
Animal Companions are a class feature of druids, and lions are Core creatures - it's not as if he's using unbalanced stuff from splatbooks 
It's a bit like saying "That fighter shouldn't be allowed to use his feats!" or "That rogue shouldn't be allowed to sneak attack!"
If the rules of the Arena are strictly "single combat", it would be valid to disallow any other creature in the arena, including animal companions, cohorts, paladin's mounts, familiars, and/or any summoning spells.
But if the idea is to pit one 8th level character and all his class features against another 8th level character and all his class features, then if one of them has spent a feat on Leadership, his 7th level cleric cohort is one of his class features, and should be allowed... just like the druid's animal companion.
-Hyp.
It's supposed to be one-on-one, and with all feats open
except Leadership. That's what I'm not thrilled with, especially if he summons Nature's Ally. At 5th lvl, I think he can summon a leopard. And we're in a flat arena, with no place to hide or take cover other than some pillars (which are transparent).
It's like my 5th lvl Barbarian is fighting a 5th lvl Druid and his 3rd lvl Fighter cohort. At least with something summoned, it will disappear after a set number of rounds. The lion is always going to be there.
Then again, maybe it's because of they way the player is playing it. I don't think he's experienced with 3E because he's had the lion charging wrong (moving and then going into a partial charge, charging to attack me even though I'm around a corner, etc.).
Plus, he tried to set up a ready action to charge if I even
move.
So, the druid moves on his turn, the lion moves into position on its turn, but then, when my turn comes around and I try to pull back to a safe distance (I was about 30 ft away from the lion at this point) and quick draw my bow, he has his lion charge me
before my turn (whiping out my move), attack, has his druid attack since I was still in the open, and then has his lion attack again. So, he got in 3 attacks in one round while simulatneously erasing my previous round actions.
Normally, the DM stays out of it, but he came in for that and, while he was there, he noticed a spell also misused earlier, so he rebooted the match.
My opponent is probably a nice person in real life, but he clearly doesn't understand the rules, making for some tough gaming. I don't want to pull out of the fight, but I have the feeling this is going to turn into a major cluster again in a few rounds. I have the feeling that he's going to ready another action that can't be done.
