The master of the Animal Companion

[torrasque666]

Forgive the possibly misleading title, but my question does relate to Animal Companions and similar mechanics.

Who is the one who actually controls the Animal Companion? Does the player of the character who has companion control it? or the DM?

Similarly, who is the one actually in control of Cohorts?

[eggynack]

Really up to what you and the DM decide, especially with the cohort. The animal companion does fundamentally run off of handle animal, but it presumably just kinda does its thing when it's not being commanded. As for the cohort, as an NPC it technically is under the domain of the DM, but it's rather trivial for you two to agree to put it under your control if such is the desire of both of you.

[Troacctid]

Animal companions use the Handle Animal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/handleAnimal.htm) rules, meaning they're trained ahead of time to do certain things when commanded to do so, and you can make such commands as a free action. This requires a DC 10 Handle Animal check, which should be easy to make, as you get a +4 bonus to handle your animal companion. You can also command them to do something they're not trained to do; this requires a move action rather than a free action, and has a Handle Animal DC of 25.

With more intelligent cohorts, your DM technically controls them, but since they're (presumably) following your character's orders, the reins are most likely going to be in your hands for all intents and purposes.