Worth of an animal companion...

[Jack99]

Okay, couldn't think of a catchy title.

Point is that I am trying to fine-tune the druid for my campaign, and was considering trying to give the druid something else, instead of the animal companion. I don't want to just remove it, especially since someone is already playing a druid, but if you guys could help me coming up with a good, balanced idea, I think I can talk him into it.

Problem is, I have no inspiration atm..

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

 

[Pinotage]

The only two variants I know of are the Shapeshift Variant from PHB II, which doesn't get an animal companion or wild shape and replaces both with Shapeshifting. Unearthed Arcana has the Druidic Avenger which doesn't get an animal companion either in return for more feral attributes.

Animal companions can be fairly strong at certain levels, so my guess is they'd be worth more than a feat. One option is to replace it with a legacy magical item that progresses as the animal companion would gaining different abilities. Or replace it with a system of bonus feats.

Pinotage

 

[shilsen]

Do you have access to the Races of Eberron book? One of the substitution level abilities for the shifter druid is to gain a beast spirit instead of the animal companion. It's very easily usable for non-shifters too. I've used it in two of my games, stretching over multiple levels (from 4th to 14th lvl and over 70 sessions in one), and I think it's an excellent option from both a flavor and a mechanics perspective.

 

[Jack99]

Do you have access to the Races of Eberron book? One of the substitution level abilities for the shifter druid is to gain a beast spirit instead of the animal companion. It's very easily usable for non-shifters too. I've used it in two of my games, stretching over multiple levels (from 4th to 14th lvl and over 70 sessions in one), and I think it's an excellent option from both a flavor and a mechanics perspective.

Borrowed it from a friend, and thank you very much, I had never read said book, but this beast spirit was just what I was looking for, and from the reaction of my player, it seems he agrees wholeheartedly.

Cheers

 

[shilsen]

Borrowed it from a friend, and thank you very much, I had never read said book, but this beast spirit was just what I was looking for, and from the reaction of my player, it seems he agrees wholeheartedly.

Cheers

Glad to help. I'm actually not a big fan of the book as a whole, but that beast spirit variant is a damn handy option.

 

[evilbob]

I have to say that in my experience watching druids over multiple levels, animal companions are incredibly strong at low levels (especially depending on how lenient the GM is on how well they can be directed in combat), and completely without any value whatsoever at high levels. I've yet to see an upper-level druid not somehow "store" it indefinitely away from battle. (Or forget he even had one.)

The issue is that when your party members are level 5 and below, anyone has a good chance to hit and everyone can only attack once - and it doesn't really matter if you have poor AC. All these things work in your companion's favor to make him like a powerful cohort or additional party member. However, at high levels animals can't hit for anything and have horrid AC. They tend to get slaughtered, or at least soak up more than their share of healing spells. Even spending a good portion of your own gold on loot for the animal can't make up the difference, especially after level 11. Level 16? Forget it. Snuggles is down every fight.

Basically, the companion - in my opinion - is a crutch for the druid while she waits for her spells to "catch up." Once she comes into her own as a powerful caster, about that same time her animal starts to lose effectiveness... it all evens out.

Replacing it with something else would be really tricky, because it needs to fill that same niche. It has to really be great at level 1, and completely worthless by level 15. X number of feats isn't really a good option, but I'm not really sure what would be.

 

[Pinotage]

The issue is that when your party members are level 5 and below, anyone has a good chance to hit and everyone can only attack once - and it doesn't really matter if you have poor AC. All these things work in your companion's favor to make him like a powerful cohort or additional party member. However, at high levels animals can't hit for anything and have horrid AC. They tend to get slaughtered, or at least soak up more than their share of healing spells. Even spending a good portion of your own gold on loot for the animal can't make up the difference, especially after level 11. Level 16? Forget it. Snuggles is down every fight.

Well, I'm not sure I entirely agree with that statement. A druid who's built and focused on his animal companion can turn it into a considerable force with a few long-lasting spells and feats like Companion Spellbond. A 12th level druid with a riding dog in magical chain shirt barding has a base AC of 32. Add in a simple barkskin for +5 (which is shared with the druid out to 30 ft. due to Companion Spellbond) and the animal companion has a very respectable AC of 37. I'll agree that the 10 HD is not going to amount to many hp, but let's say 45 base hp, 50 from Con gives 95 which isn't horrible. That assumes 4000 gp spent on some sort of amulet of health +2. 95 hp will do well at 12th level with that AC.

Where they are weak is with attacking. 10 HD animal has BAB+7, add in 5 for Strength and perhaps Weapon Focus, and you get +13. Then add in Greater Magic Weapon and you're at +16. A Bull's Strength (shared with the druid) get it up to +18. With multiple attacks it gets +18/+13. Not horrible, but not great. Flanking will help here, and even a few other spells like Animal Growth.

I think a basic animal companion is quite viable for most levels, as long as the druid is prepared to look after it. With long lasting spells (extended via rod, for example) in GMW and Barkskin, you have a good animal companion and tough with high AC and decent hp.

Pinotage

 

[ShadowX]

Animal Companion's are worth a lot and even more if players can draw from non-core sources. My druid's animal companion could likely defeat a vanilla fighter of our level (9) and is likely more fearsome than I.

The handy ability to share spells means that nearly every buff a druid casts applies to both himself and his companion and since wildshape allows a druid to dominate the frontline, buffs make very efficient use of spells.

I will introduce one caveat, the companions HP and attack bonus (though AC will likely stay very good) will start to lag if the druid continues to advance the same animal companion. You really need to let a druid acquire a higher level companion occasionally to offset this problem by grabbing more HD (or juryrig the stats of his old companion into something similar but stronger).

BTW, the beast spirit variant looks pretty cool.

 

[evilbob]

A druid who's built and focused on his animal companion can turn it into a considerable force with a few long-lasting spells and feats...

Fair enough. I guess I was speaking more generally; there are certainly many aspects of a druid you can focus on. However, I will say that it feels like you have to invest a lot to make your companion worthwhile - and there are many other good options available to druids.

I'll just say that in my own experience of watching a druid who did put every feat into his companion and grabbed as many companion-boosting spells as he could, I'd say his animal was worth a level 2 or 3 PC at level 1, almost equal to another PC at level 10, and by level 13, he was completely left out of battle; the druid respec'd to generally ignore him at that point. Once your front-line fighter has three attacks and can hit just about as easily with all three as your animal can hit with one (and do 5-10x the damage), and enemies pretty much always hit on their first attack regardless of AC, it just seemed like more of a liability than a help. (Even having a nifty mount just didn't seem useful at that point; why ride an animal when you can be one?)

 

[eamon]

Apart from what you could grant instead of a animal companion, I do think that even at high levels an animal companion isn't utterly worthless:

Just the fact that you have another creature on the battlefield is powerful, as it distracts enemies, and can always help taking out annoying but lower-level opponents. The bloodstriker is interesting since it's annoying to attack due to various abilities, and the fleshraker can be interesting since it can pounce and has poison (always nice). You could also go with a dire bat, it has an enormous AC, and sure, you don't need an areal mount, but perhaps an ally does at times...

Also, Animals companions work well with spells like animal growth, which in turn mesh well with your summons - so if you're going to be a summoning druid, it makes sense to also focus on the animal companion. If you happen to have the MM2, the allosaurus is an especially nasty brute to enlarge (it becomes gargantuan with +30 grapple check, has improved grab, swallow whole and trample... !)

All in all, a druid's animal companion is definitely weaker at high levels than at low, but it's still not bad to have, if you choose an appropriate animal. An advanced riding dog indeed doesn't cut it...