Trained animals with character levels?

[Quartz]

Can you add character levels - Warrior, Fighter, Rogue, or Barbarian rather than spellcasting classes - to trained animals? It seems to me that it would make more sense to give (for example) an animal like a warhorse fighter levels than advance it in HD, which might involve increasing its size. Or a Stirge might gain levels in Rogue, translating Sneak Attack for better blood drain. A wolverine or shark might gain levels in Barbarian. After all, you can't have your 20th level fighter charging even a modest dragon on a 4HD horse, can you? The horse would die from the merest whiff of the dragon's breath. But if the horse had 10 levels of fighter, a decent CON, and suitably enchanted barding, then it might just survive.

This also allows for plot hooks such as the young blade going to the retired knight seeking his famous horse. ("Sir Phillip, only a mount with the experiance of Ernesto could withstand the presence of Flame.") And warhorses were terrificly valuable, so we could see characters paying to have their experienced horses Raised.

 

[Nadaka]

shure, it can happen. All you have to do is awaken it first.

 

[ValhallaGH]

By the RAW, the mounts must be awakened first. Of course, that's a powerful spell and has the side effect of making the mount as smart as (or smarter than) the rider; which could lead to some very odd situations.

As a houserule, there shouldn't be anything wrong with allowing certain highly trained mounts to advance in class levels. It will kick up the power level of your game whenever a mount appears but it shouldn't actually break anything; an Int of 2 is stil and Int of 2 and doesn't allow for much in the way of cunning battle tactics.

 

[frankthedm]

By the RAW, the mounts must be awakened first.

Co8uld we get the text for that?

 

[Nadaka]

I can not seem to find a specific 3.5 rule forbidding it, Just that monsters advance by hit dice, and that "intelligent" monsters often advance by class instead. The specific definition of "intelligent" is not stated.

Though I interperet that to mean intelligence of 3 or greater. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the RAW explicitly forbids it, and it may be open to interperetation. But I believe that it is within the spirit of the rules to only allow class advancement for int 3 or greater creatures.

 

[nittanytbone]

The rules don't say that you can't wish yourself to apepar on Mars, but you can't. In some cases, some common sense is required.

Class levels are for player character races and other similar races with appropriate abilities to take such levels, usually clearly indicated as such in its MM entry with a "Level Adjust +X" line.

Everything else advances by HD.

There are many ways in which to enhance animals for use as mounts at the higher levels:
*Awaken it and add class levels
*Paladin mount feature
*Druid/Ranger animal companion class feature
*Wild Cohort feat (WOTC website)
*Leadership feat

Of course, animals continue to gain feats (1/3 HD), stat boosts (1/4 HD), and skill points (usually just 1/level due to low intelligence) as they gain hit dice.

You COULD add fighter levels to anything in the game, but that opens the door to a whole world of absurdity. "Look out! There's a ECL 20 hummingbird! Its got 10d6 sneak attack, great saves, and more hit points than the wizard!"

 

[irdeggman]

Avalanche Press' Noble Steeds has ways to handle mounts.

Basically you can award a portion of your xp to the mount, which can use those to "gain levels". There are "classes" of mount with feats, etc.

I would strongly recommend picking up a copy of that book if this is something you are interested in.

 

[pawsplay]

Anything with an Int of 3 or higher can advance by class level, and nothing else can. A celestial horse, for instance, can have class levels. An ordinary horse cannot.

 

[frankthedm]

Anything with an Int of 3 or higher can advance by class level, and nothing else can. A celestial horse, for instance, can have class levels. An ordinary horse cannot.

That is reasonable, but I was curious if there were rules that said that. i could see int 1 and 2 creature taking class level but losing anything they couldn't use.

Though i could see ambush predators picking up rogue but just picking up sneak along with stealth and perception skills.

And the efforts of an orcish animal trainer could well be represented by a barbarian level. Armor proficency for barding, extra speed from the cruelest training imaginable this side of the afterlife with raging as a side effect of those atrocities and a rank of listen since it got very good listening for the trainer every day.

 

[smootrk]

I believe it is reasonable to give levels of appropriate classes (like the examples mentioned above) to any well trained animal. Seems like an ideal way to ensure the mounts (for instance) can reasonably survive alongside characters who have advanced to higher levels. Imagine the knightly warrior (non-paladin) astride his horse riding through the effects of fireballs going off on the battlefield... otherwise these warriors do a lot of walking.

Now then comes XP. I would only grant xp equal to half of what the character gained because it is not acting fully independantly (being guided, commanded, instructed, etc), and these XP are only gained for activities that directly involve the animal's qualities... just keeping up with the party does not necessarily count. This behooves the character (player) with active animals to interact with the animals, and put them in the line of fire occasionally, so that the creatures can earn their advancements.

With those caveats, I would allow players to get creative with their animals, even for the classes that do not normally get animal advancement rules (Ranger, Paladin, Familiars, etc)... although I would likely allow those advancements to stack with additional training...

...mighty indeed, is the Well Trained, Advanced and Leveled, Paladin Lord's Warhorse.