Animal Companions and Spellcasting

[Zytil]

Assuming we have a 10th level druid, with the exact minimum exp required for 10th level, with a Polar Bear animal companion (Effective Druid Level -9).

If this druid casts a spell with an XP component and drops to level 9, what happens to his animal companion?

[OldTrees1]

The polar bear walks away since it does not see a worthy master.

[Coidzor]

Assuming we have a 10th level druid, with the exact minimum exp required for 10th level, with a Polar Bear animal companion (Effective Druid Level -9).

If this druid casts a spell with an XP component and drops to level 9, what happens to his animal companion?

As I recall, the spell would fail, since he doesn't have the XP to spend.

[Zytil]

As I recall, the spell would fail, since he doesn't have the XP to spend.

Huh. I wasn't actually aware of that. Bad example then. Assuming a different form of level loss, it would just leave though?

[questionmark693]

The druid could still use handle animal or speak with animals or something to communicate with the bear, and it would likely be cool with that-remember, animal companions aren't magically attuned to you, like familiars. As far as I can tell though, RAW would say something along the lines of 'the animal doesn't experience any kind of attitude change towards you, but it does lose all animal companion benefits, and you lose the ability to treat it as an animal companion for all purposes', though you could redo the 24 hour meditation to regain all of that. Not that I'm aware of any actual RAW answer to this-this is just what it seems to suggest to me.

[Khedrac]

A negative level won't affect the companion bond, so the only ways to go down a level are death and resurrection (or similar) and permanent level drain.

For Death and Raise Dead/Reincarnation/Ressurection I would assume the bond is broken on death and you will be unable to re-summon the animal until you have leveled.

For permanent level drain I would go with questionmark693's answer, except you will need to re-level before trying to re-summon it.

And yes, voluntary xp expenditure is not allowed to make one lose a level.

[eggynack]

It's definitely not impossible to voluntarily ditch a level, even if you can't do it through XP costs. For example, the spells armageddon (BoED, 90) and sanctify the wicked (BoED, 106) have a sacrifice cost of one level, as does phoenix fire (BoED, 103), effectively. I don't know if there are any other spell based methods, though if you want to just kill yourself and come back, aspect of the wolf (SpC, 16)+ ghost companion (Ghost, 53) is a pretty solid way.