Uhtred
2016-09-02, 03:18 PM
So a friend of mine is playing a Merfolk Cavalier with the Beast Master archetype, and intends to prestige into the Mammoth Rider prestige class, and is SUPER-EXCITED for an eventually enormous shark mount. Unfortunately, the shark animal companion is small-sized and goes up to medium for its 4th-level advancement, making it unsuitable as a mount of a medium Merfolk. However, in the Animal Companion entry it says that the Cavalier can choose an aquatic mount, subject to DM approval, and the DM has already approved a shark of appropriate size to serve as a mount. Since this creature will eventually be Huge-sized, should we use the Great White as a base creature, since that creature inevitably becomes huge, and just use rules for decreasing its hit die, or does that not work since it will be Huge at 5HD? Use Orca animal companion stats and reflavor it as a shark? Create a custom large-sized mount shark that is exclusively in use by Merfolk as mounts? As a player, how would you handle this? And as a DM, how would you rule it?