Can animals have character classes?

[walfulninja]

So I've been kicking this idea around after watching a dark souls video and seeing the big gray wolf using a great sword. It got me thinking if you could do it in d&d. I can just imagine having a badass animal companion with a sword.

[AdamantlyD20]

If *monsters* can have class levels, and an animal is in the "*monster* manual" or "beastiary"...

I don't see why they can't take class levels. Maybe they'd have to be "awakened" first to have the cognitive reasoning and awareness of a greater purpose.

[Annos]

As long as the Animal has 3 or more Int they can take class levels. Smart dog? More like level 3 druid dog :smallbiggrin:.

[sleepyphoenixx]

As long as the Animal has 3 or more Int they can take class levels. Smart dog? More like level 3 druid dog :smallbiggrin:.

Animals can't have more than 2 Int. Any animal with Int 3 or higher automatically becomes a magical beast.
Animal companions can't take levels at all. They get bonus animal HD depending on your druid level but don't advance by themselves.

Anything with a bite attack can wield a Mouthpick (LoM) weapon however.

[Coidzor]

Mouthpick (+1 magical property for weapons) from Lords of Madness gives the user proficiency in the weapon in exchange for putting it in their mouth so they can't use their bite attack. It is conceivably within the realm of possibility to train an animal to use one. And Animal Companions do get feats for their HD.

Animal Companions are unable to advance by character class, however, and I don't know of any quick and dirty ways to kludge it even with some blatant twisting of the rules, so you'd have to go straight to homebrewing something up there.


Animals can't have more than 2 Int. Any animal with Int 3 or higher automatically becomes a magical beast.

Incorrect, or at least, misleading. The rules are silent on what happens when one tries to raise an animal's intelligence in 3.5 without using the Awaken spell or something that refers to Awaken. Making them into Magical Beasts is a houserule.

Granted, it's the kludge that makes the most sense out of all of the possible options.

Pathfinder side-stepped this by giving a wishy-washy answer that you can have a Wolf with Int 18, but it doesn't actually have Int 18.

[Red Fel]

Incorrect, or at least, misleading. The rules are silent on what happens when one tries to raise an animal's intelligence in 3.5 without using the Awaken spell or something that refers to Awaken. Making them into Magical Beasts is a houserule.

Granted, it's the kludge that makes the most sense out of all of the possible options.

The explicit language is as follows:


Intelligence score of 1 or 2 (no creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher can be an animal).

Magical beasts are similar to animals but can have Intelligence scores higher than 2.

Then there's the fact that there are some monsters who would be animals, in that they have no supernatural or magical abilities to speak of, but are somehow magical beasts, attributable almost exclusively to their heightened intelligence. Take for example the Giant Eagle (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/eagleGiant.htm), whose only unusual characteristics are its large size and its 10 Int, or the Worg (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/worg.htm), a medium magical beast with darkvision and 6 Int. There is precedent for saying that an otherwise mundane creature with above-animal intelligence is a magical creature almost exclusively by dint of its brainpower.

It's not an explicit rule, but it's fairly implicit.

[ShurikVch]

Dungeon #100 WE (http://paizo.com/dungeonissues/100/Dungeon100Enhancement.pdf) have spell "Dire Reincarnation"
Unlike normal Reincarnation, it use table consisting only of Dire Animals.

Unfortunately, it's still unclear about whole "Animal or Magical Beast" dilemma
Spell description is silent about it, and example creature (Lone Tooth, Male Dire Lion Monk 12) is Magical Beast without RHD

[Chronos]

If you want an animal with class levels, just make it an awakened animal. Done.

[TrueJordan]

Can you give an animal companion vow of poverty? Hm.

[Grayson01]

Can you give an animal companion vow of poverty? Hm.

I think I have seen that done before and mentioned on this site before.

[Bullet06320]

there is a 3rd party book, the noble wild, that has rules for playing animals

[eggynack]

Can you give an animal companion vow of poverty? Hm.
Yeah, you can pretty easily pull it off by picking up the feat exalted companion (BoED, 42). That simultaneously grants the creature both the necessary intelligence, and the necessary alignment.

[Coidzor]

Can you give an animal companion vow of poverty? Hm.

Basically irrefutably with Exalted Companion.

Edit: Slayer of Domiel'D

[JimboG]

The description of the Awaken spell in the Pathfinder SRD dedicates more than half of its spell description to what an animal does after gaining its new-found intelligence, and breaks down the basic personalities of every type of animal and what classes they generally lean towards.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/awaken

[Anlashok]

The description of the Awaken spell in the Pathfinder SRD dedicates more than half of its spell description to what an animal does after gaining its new-found intelligence, and breaks down the basic personalities of every type of animal and what classes they generally lean towards.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/awaken

Awakened giant squid randomly surfaces near boats to ask if they've heard the good word of Pelor, handing out waterlogged and illegible holy scripts to the crew before swimming away.

[TrueJordan]

Awakened giant squid randomly surfaces near boats to ask if they've heard the good word of Pelor, handing out waterlogged and illegible holy scripts to the crew before swimming away.

I laughed so hard. Nice

[JimboG]

Awakened giant squid randomly surfaces near boats to ask if they've heard the good word of Pelor, handing out waterlogged and illegible holy scripts to the crew before swimming away.

OMG, I can't stop laughing! XD

[Inevitability]

As long as the Animal has 3 or more Int they can take class levels. Smart dog? More like level 3 druid dog :smallbiggrin:.

I've never seen a rule that says they need 3 Int. Could you quote it?

[TuggyNE]

I've never seen a rule that says they need 3 Int. Could you quote it?

I don't think there's any explicit rule to that effect, but it comes close.


Intelligent creatures that are reasonably humanoid in shape most commonly advance by adding class levels.

"Intelligent" is not super-clear, but it certainly does not work with mindless creatures, and almost certainly does not apply to those of animal intelligence either. (There's also a note that the three types of improvement are general guidelines and are not mutually exclusive.)


While every monster has the statistics that a player would need to play the creature as a character, most monsters are not suitable as PCs. Creatures who have an Intelligence score of 2 or lower, who have no way to communicate, or who are so different from other PCs that they disrupt the campaign should not be used.

And here we see the threshold for PCs. Combining these by analogy and precedent (which is pretty much the only guide for DM things like NPC classes, traps, custom magic items, and new spells) results in approximately the rule given, that a monster with less than 3 Int is not suitable for class levels.

[walfulninja]

Awakened giant squid randomly surfaces near boats to ask if they've heard the good word of Pelor, handing out waterlogged and illegible holy scripts to the crew before swimming away.
XD do you mind if I sig that? Pure awsomesause.

[Te'Shen]

Awakened giant squid randomly surfaces near boats to ask if they've heard the good word of Pelor, handing out waterlogged and illegible holy scripts to the crew before swimming away.
An awakened flying squirrel artificier with a fear of flying cobbles together a wand of make whole from twigs to read the tract. After peering at the paper for a few moments he proclaims, "I'm sorry. I am already a creature dedicated to The Awesome. It invests me with the magical might to fake anything. My friend the ferret factotum is a proselyte, but he takes his religion less seriously than I."