The Animal Lord MotW Prestige Class

[DreadPollock]

I was looking at the Animal Lord Prestige class from Masters of the Wild. The concept of the Animal Lord is that she chooses one particular kind of animal, and becomes one of them, in a way. As she levels up, she can communicate with them and transform into them with more control than a standard druid. They are, however, restricted to a single type of animal.

I wondered a little bit about the prerequisite feats. One of them is Animal Control. Looking up that feat in MotW, I found that it requires the feat Animal Defiance (effectively another prerequisite feat), as well as the ability to cast Speak With Animals and Animal Friendship. Animal Defiance requires that you can cast Detect Animals or Plants. The spells seem resonable to me, as they are 1st level druid and ranger spells, and this seems like a druid or ranger prestige class. My issue is over the feats.

Animal Defiance allows the you to turn animals like a good cleric turns undead. Basically, it drives them away.

Animal Control allows you to command animals like an evil cleric commands the undead.

My issue is that these abilities don't seem entirely necessary to this class, and the class itself grants powers over the animal lord's animal type that renders these feats completely unnecessary. Would it seem reasonable to replace these prerequisite feats with other feats?

The Dread Pollock

 

[fba827]

It depends on the DM and the proposed replacement feats. Having said that, I don't know if you're the DM or not so the first half of my statement may not be an issue.

I have a tendency to house rule prerequisites for various published prestige classes. Of course, I also have a tendency to tweak the PrC abilities themselves for the purpose of fitting better into his campaign world...

 

[Li Shenron]

I think that the requisites are quite appropriate. I don't remember exactly which abilities the PrCl gives you, but if they are better versions of Animal Control, then it makes very sense to require that feat first.

Perhaps you could ask instead your DM to let you take Animal Control without taking Animal Defiance first, if you both think that two feats are quite expensive requisites if they get overridden by the PrCl's abilities later on.

If you are the DM, of course you have the right to modify the PrCl as you wish, but try to do it for a setting or roleplay reason rather than just because you want to make it stronger or easy to qualify, although you can do that as well if you wish... For example, I would definitely allow the player of a Cleric of Obad-Hai to become an Animal Lord if she wishes, even if she doesn't have the spells required for the feats; probably I would let her take the feats without the prerequisites (and therefore the PrCl) if she at least has the Animal domain.

 

[rowport]

I'm not sure if you mean that the feats seem inappropriate, or just that you would prefer different ones?

My Druid/Barbarian is on his way to the Bear Lord PrC, so I have looked at the class very carefully. Remember, all of the abilities are specifically tied to the 'totem' animal, not more general animal-life. So, you could think of the feat tree prereqs as enhancing his abilities to communicate with wildlife before he creates a more advanced link to his totem animal. The feats certainly lose usefulness with the totem (in my case Bear), but not for everything else you encounter. Look at it this way: Druids love to cast summoning spells. With Animal Control you can control ones you encounter, and save the spells. If you have the Animal Lord PrC it just makes it easier to have a group of your totem animals, but does not prohibit other types.