Druid Abberation Companion

[defiantdan]

I was curious how you would balance a feat that granted the druid an abberation as a companion to fit the theme of all the other feats that grant the druid wildshaping into an abberation?

[inuyasha]

Well here's the thing to consider, pretty much all aberrations are intensely magical, with a lot of SLA's and special abilities, they're also pretty much all really smart (at least the cool ones are.) so this could prevent that from happening. Why would a cool eyeball monster hang out with a two eyed nature freak?

[Zaydos]

Game mechanically aberration Hit Dice are roughly the same as animal hit dice (same BAB, same HD type, same skill points, Good Will instead of Fort/Ref or Fort/Ref/Will in the case of dire animals) this mostly avoids the problem of official ones that grant magical beast but usually do not clarify whether they get animal hit die or magical beast hit die advancement or recognize the substantial difference between them.

So this moves on to do they have unacceptable powers. That's trickier. Do you believe Carrion Crawlers' paralysis ability is unacceptable as something for a PC pet? What about Rust Monster? Umber Hulks' confusion gaze?

If the answer to the above is no or "I am willing to go through and make a list of those which do not" this brings us to the last... assigning level equivalents. This is relatively simple effective druid level = druid level - CR x 1.5 (rounded up to the nearest -3, unless CR 1 which get +0).

Fluff wise I fall into the "I accept this" camp... but then again I made a druid PrC all about having an aberration companion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=13597874&postcount=8) so I might be biased there. I would however limit it to the more animalistic/bestial aberrations. My own list is spoilered in the linked class... and as I've noticed 1) the class was never reposted as its own thread after the costume; 2) the table is broken; and 3) I used 'roll' instead of 'role' at one point I'm going to go repost that class as its own thread.

[Just to Browse]

Zaydos has it on the money -- you need to do the work of making a creature list much like the druid's alternate animal companion list. However, you also need to accept the fact that aberrations will be a lot better than most animals at high levels so every druid worth his salt will want that feat. Aberration companions aren't capable of being "balanced" the same way as wild shape because wild shape doesn't give you supernatural attacks, spell-like abilities, or special qualities. An aboleth has crazy mind slave powers, but if you wild shape into an aboleth you only get... slime. However, if you get an aboleth companion you will have all those crazy mind slave powers at your disposal, which means an aboleth companion is worth a lot more than an aboleth wild shape. Even if you give the feat 4 or 5 terrible prereqs (don't do that), people will still try to get it because it gives so much power.

I personally recommend using a variant class that would give true aberration wild shape and an aberrant companion. Something in the vein of a totem druid a magical beast druid (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16687840&postcount=1050). If you were to make a variant for aberrations, you'd probably want to cut down druid spellcasting more.