Paladin Mount and Animal Companion

[The J Pizzel]

One of my PC's in my game is a pally of Kord. He wants to swap his Paladin Mount for the Druid Animal Companion. He would still call it like a pally though. He wants it to scale like the pally's mount and everything, he just wants it to be a "animal companion" instead. Is this balanced? Should I use the table for the druid animal companion instead? Or maybe I should use the ranger's instead. Any thoughts?

[Variable Arcana]

What differences is he looking for?

(Some flavor changes may well be in order -- a CG paladin of Kord is quite a bit different than a LG paladin of Hieronius.)

Does he just want to ride on a bear instead of a horse? Does he want his horse (mechanically identical to a paladin's mount) to be called an animal companion?

[Renegade Paladin]

The paladin's mount table can be applied to a variety of things other than horses. What does he have in mind?

[Rama_Lei]

Note that "animal companion" could give him access to a lot of druid feats.

[Person_Man]

Paladin Mount does not equal Druid Animal Companion.

Druid Animal Companions are generally much more powerful, and have a lot more built in options.

A Paladin Mount can only compete with a Druid Companion if the Paladin takes the Leadership feat, and then they can make their cohort their mount. This is what I suggest for your PC.

[AtomicKitKat]

Companion and Mount stack only in the Wildplains Outrider PrC I think. Which would make this interesting-ish. You would then qualify for the PrC without needing to dual-class, but at the same time, there would be no point to the feature which allows stacking both class' levels for the purposes of mount/companion(pick one only).

[Stephen_E]

Their is actually a feat in Comp Advent - Devoted Tracker that allows a Paladin who's gained the Animal Companion class ability to make their Special mount also their Animal Companion, stacking the bonuses from each.

The feat is designed to work with the Ranger, and allows multiclassing between the two, but you could probably substitute the Beastmaster Prestige class, also from Comp Advent. You basically calculate the bonuses your mount gains as a Special Mount from your Paladin levels, and then calculate the bonuses your Animal Companion gains from your Druid/Ranger/Beastmaster levels, and then add all the bonuses together.
I'm not sure how advanced/alternative mounts are handled, but I've put a question on the RAW threads to see if anyone does know.

As for the Animal Companion been more powerful than a Special Mount, in actual fact this is considerably less than clear cut. While an Ani,al Companion gains HD faster than a Special Mount, the Special Mount is intelligent, which when combined with a Headband of Intellect, allows acess to a number of feats that aren't available to the Animal Companion, due to it's int restrictions.

Re: Alternative Special Mounts, see DMG pg204/205.

Oddly enough just before seeing this thread I'd worked out a build that used the Devoted Tracker feat to combine Animal Companion with Special Mount.
A 8th lev Paladin, 3rd lev Beastmaster (you can substitute up to 2 BM levs with Druid levs) with the Natural Bond feat - Comp Advent.
Assuming the standard Hv Warhorse -
The Animal Companion gets -
+6HD, +6 NAC, +3 Str/Dex, Link, Share spells, Evasion, Devoted & Multiattack.
The Special Mount gets -
+4 HD, +6 NAC, +2 Str, Empathic Link, Imp Evasion, Shared Saving throws, Imp Speed & Int 7.

In total the Hv Warhorse (a 4HD creature) of this 11th lev PC has
+10 HD
+12 NAC
+5 Str
+3 Dex
7 Int
Link, Empathic Link, Share Spells, Evasion, Imp Evasion, Devoted, Multiattack, Imp Speed, Shared Saving throws.
+2 stat bonuses from HD levels.

Pretty tough mount. :-)

Stephen

[The J Pizzel]

whoa, whoa, whoa...sorry I couldn't post in a while. Let me clear up some things. He doens't want both a mount and companion. He simply just doen'st want a mount (i think it's becuase i never have battles or anything to do with riding a mount). He wants to know if he can give up his "paladin mount" class ability, and gain the "animal companion" ability. I don't have a problem with it flavorwise, just mechanically. I don't want a paladin running around with a badass animal companion. How can I balace this thing out. And no, he doen'st want to ride it. Oh, and he would still only be able to call it 2 hours/charsma modifier per day. Just like the mount.

jp

[Stephen_E]

whoa, whoa, whoa...sorry I couldn't post in a while. Let me clear up some things. He doens't want both a mount and companion. He simply just doen'st want a mount (i think it's becuase i never have battles or anything to do with riding a mount). He wants to know if he can give up his "paladin mount" class ability, and gain the "animal companion" ability. I don't have a problem with it flavorwise, just mechanically. I don't want a paladin running around with a badass animal companion. How can I balace this thing out. And no, he doen'st want to ride it. Oh, and he would still only be able to call it 2 hours/charsma modifier per day. Just like the mount.

jp

OK. This become real simple.
You don't worry about balancing anything much because you leave him with the "Special Mount" class feature but have him choose a non-mount animal as his mount. Lets face it, if you look at some of the advanced mounts (-1 lev) you have a Dire Wolf. I don't care if you're not riding it. It's still a damned nice friend to have a round.

Simply ask him what creature he wants as his companion. Then compare it with the Hv Warhorse and the creatures in the DMG pg 204. Work out where you rate his choice in terms of power (if it looks weaker than the Hv Warhorse you could even give it a positive penalty. i.e. it advances quicker, and you might even allow him to get it before 5th level).

Once that's done, you just follow normal Mount rules.

Stephen

[Renegade Paladin]

A 8th lev Paladin, 3rd lev Beastmaster (you can substitute up to 2 BM levs with Druid levs) with the Natural Bond feat - Comp Advent.
No you can't. Alignment restrictions.

[silentknight]

I don't see a problem with the paladin having a "mount" that he doesn't ride, and calls his companion. It would still scale as a mount, so it wouldn't be unbalanced.

[Stephen_E]

Quote:
A 8th lev Paladin, 3rd lev Beastmaster (you can substitute up to 2 BM levs with Druid levs) with the Natural Bond feat - Comp Advent.


No you can't. Alignment restrictions.

Thanks RP. I missed that. So you're stuck with 8 Paladin/3 Beastmaster.

You could possibly have 1 level of Ranger, depending on how your GM would handle the Ranger level for Animal Companion abilities. Technically they always talk about halving Ranger levels when adding to other levels that give Animal Companions. They don't actually require you have enough Ranger levels to get the Animal Companion ability as a Ranger. If your GM accepts that as legitimate AND rounds up the 1/2 lev from a single Ranger level, you can have your 1st level as Ranger without slowing the build (indeed avoiding having to buy 4 levels of Survival as a cross-class skill, getting +16 skill points, 1 favoured enemy, Track and access to wands with Ranger spells vs losing 1d2 hps and Speak with Animals 1/day)

Stephen