Rangers: the use of animal companions in-game?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

If you're spell-less, you should probably drop the quasi-magical abilities like animal companions

You can have them scout without the spell, but it's usually too much bother. Basically, they go out and run back if they see anything dangerous.

"So, what did you see Lassie?"

"Woof." That's it. Not too useful.

Okay, they can bark if something comes too close to the camp, although you will almost certainly have a better Listen and Spot score. Of course, animals have low-light vision, something not every ranger has.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

If you do not Speak with Animals then you are effectively limited to tricks such as those listed under Handle Animal: Guard, Defend, Attack, etc.

Unlike the Druid, you pretty much have to pick a dog, horse, or wolf if you are going to allow your furry friend to participate in combat at all.

 

[Perun]

Ranger animal companions are one of the things we house ruled in our game. Now ranger can have an animal companion as if he were druid of three levels lower, i.e. a 4th-level ranger is treated as a 1st-level druid for determining the abilities (and his choice) of the animal companion.

We thought over this a bit, and decided it was OK to do it. Druid and ranger have the same HD (d8), their armour proficiencies can be argued to amount approximately to the same thing (ranger is proficient with light armour only, where the druid has proficiency in both light and medium armour, but he's restricted to non-metallic armour only, so it essentially evens out), and while the rnager has the better BAB, druid has way better spellcasting. Rangers do get more skill points, but when you take all these things into account, it simply doesn't seem very fair to have rangers companion be only one-half as strong as the druid's. Besides, then the companion is near useless to a 20-th level ranger (if he started out with a wolf -- the best choice for low-level druids and rangers -- that wolf would have a whooping 8 HD at ranger's 20th-level, whereas the druid's wolf would be at 14 HD).

Regards.

 

[CCamfield]

If you're spell-less, you should probably drop the quasi-magical abilities like animal companions

There's nothing even quasi-magical about animal companions in 3.5 There is no empathic bond, and there is no requirement to cast Animal Friendship or whatever it was called in 3.0.

Even if you do have Speak with Animals, to use it reliably you'd have to prepare it every day, which would be tricky when at first you can only cast 1 spell/day.

Particularly smart horses can reportedly count, so why not other animals? Maybe I can convince my DM. But thanks for all the input, guys. I appreciate it.

Amusingly, this particular ranger is pretty deaf. -1 Wis modifier & no ranks in Listen.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Ranger animal companions are one of the things we house ruled in our game. Now ranger can have an animal companion as if he were druid of three levels lower, i.e. a 4th-level ranger is treated as a 1st-level druid for determining the abilities (and his choice) of the animal companion.

Just what I've done too, makes much more sense from a playability angle, and it works out nicely when calculating things for a multiclass ranger/druid too.

Cheers

 

[CombatWombat51]

So, what can an eagle or hawk scout actually do? My ranger just trained a hawk - not a companion, as he hasn't reached level 4 yet.

But rangers don't actually get the ability to see out of their pets' eyes, and animals aren't that smart. You could train one to cry when it spots a large creature (human sized or bigger), but how can it indicate which direction it was, or how far?

Or perhaps those would be separate tricks - which would be interesting...

IMC, we assume that most animals find it extremely boring and confining to sit on the ranger's shoulder or walk by his side all the time, so the animal roams, and any ranger worth his title is going to respect that. When the animal detects something it considers dangerous (anything except prey and non-predators, like a deer to a hawk), it's probably going to try to scare away the threat if feasible (growling, screeching, puffing up, etc.) unless it's been trained not to. If it doesn't succeed or doesn't try to scare off the danger, it's going to make a bee line to it's good budy and let him know by doing much of the above. Just like a dog will bark at somebody at your door, then run to you and throw looks over it's shoulder to bark a little, wagging it's tail, etc.

The ranger can determine a decent amount of information from this.
When the animal tries to scare off the threat, the ranger will likely be able to hear this, and be able to guestimate the direction and distance. The direction the animal came from and the direction that the animal is wary of will confirm the direction of the threat. If the animal is acting proud, the ranger will know that the animal (thinks that it) scared off the threat. If the animal is pissed and or scared, that will tell the ranger that the animal didn't scare it off. The ranger can guestimate the level and the nature of the threat by that reaction.

A decent house dog can do all that fairly well, and that's just instinct. That's not bad for a scout that doesn't soak experience points

 

[Steverooo]

Hm, yes, that'd usually work. What if you're playing a spell-less ranger?

Raise your WIS...

Even when you first get an Animal Companion, it has one extra trick... So teach the eagle or hawk to scout, and circle & cry when it spots something. Where it circles tells you where it is. You might also be able to talk the GM into a method of spot, return, dance, where the dance indicates direction and distance (like bees and ants do).

 

[CCamfield]

Raise your WIS...

Yep, I know, that does make good sense. In retrospect maybe I would have been better off with a higher Wisdom than Charisma. I originally had them that way, but when I realized that Charisma was the skill involved in Handle Animal I decided to put Charisma first because I wanted that skill to be good. I put character concept first but unfortunately the system isn't very forgiving of that in this case.

Even when you first get an Animal Companion, it has one extra trick... So teach the eagle or hawk to scout, and circle & cry when it spots something. Where it circles tells you where it is. You might also be able to talk the GM into a method of spot, return, dance, where the dance indicates direction and distance (like bees and ants do).

Heh, yeah, maybe. I have talked with him about a "selective seek" trick where the hawk would cry out only on seeing beings I'd trained it to recognize as dangerous. The circling is a good idea...