quick questions concenring horrid and dire animal companions

[Kol Korran]

ok, so two quick questions:
- is there a template that makes a dire animal out of a regular animal? if so where?
- The Eberron setting has horrid animals, and a template on hot to turn horrid from dire. how much is a horrid animal template worth in terms of "druid level for deciding animal companion"? i thought a horrid animal is worth an extra 3 HD (next category). is that reasonable? or is it problematic with any animals?

this is fairly urgent, but thanks for any responses!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

There's no template for creating dire versions of mundane animals, dire animals are completely separate creatures. Other than the core Monster Manual, there are additional dire animals in MM2, Frostburn, and Sandstorm mostly, plus some scattered in other books such as the Dire Eagle in Races of Stone. There's a convenient table on page 41 of the Player's Handbook 2 which lists all the available animal companions in 3.5 books up to when that was published, but refer to each individual entry in its respective book because that table does have some typos.

There's a table on page 288 of the Eberron Campaign Setting for horrid versions of many of the core animal companion choices. It's actually not a good choice though, considering the -4 to Handle Animal checks and its benefits are minor. You'd be better off adding the Warbeast template from MM2, which is absolutely free given enough in-game time and some Handle Animal checks.

[Darrin]

ok, so two quick questions:
- is there a template that makes a dire animal out of a regular animal? if so where?


There is no "official" dire template from WotC. There is one in "Tome of Horrors", published by Necromancer Games, but that's 3rd party materials.



- The Eberron setting has horrid animals, and a template on hot to turn horrid from dire. how much is a horrid animal template worth in terms of "druid level for deciding animal companion"? i thought a horrid animal is worth an extra 3 HD (next category). is that reasonable? or is it problematic with any animals?


Based on the table in ECS p. 288, a horrid version of a dire animal increases the required druid level by +3.

Warbeast is quite nifty, especially if your animal companion is at an "even" HD (2/4/6/8/etc.) and the +1 HD means they get another feat.