Druid and Animal Cohorts (Need Help)

[Bobthereaper606]

Im currently playing a Druid and ive been thinking about taking leadership by awakening an animal. I wanna make a grapple machine, i was thinking if i could get a Girallon and give it monk levels it would be great for it. Give it improved Grab, it already has Rend built in and it could use its unarmed strike or claws while grappling.

Im looking for ideas and overall help on this subject and an answer to the question can a Girallon be a cohort?

(Thought maybe a Dire Ape with Monk levels as well, overall lower racial HD and would allow more class levels)

[DrMotives]

Girallons have no LA by RAW, by then neither do any awakened animals. Either way, DM fiat is required. Girallons have an intellegnece of only 2, and they are magical beasts so you can't awaken them. There is a spell from Dragon magazine called "Awaken magical beast" but I don't know the issue offhand (other than it's in the 3.0 era, because that issue include "awaken beast" as well), and many DMs avoid magazine content. The awakened ape probably works better for the intelligence factor alone.

[Bobthereaper606]

Thanks for the info DrMotives, yea after posting I noticed Girallons were Magical Beasts and was like awww damn cant do that. Its nice to know that there is a spell for it though but you are right in assuming that Dragon Mag is out.

[BowStreetRunner]

Awaken will work with an animal or tree. There are also spells for awaken construct, awaken undead, or awaken sand. So if you can find a way to change your magical creature into one of these, there you go.

Just off-hand, how does your druid feel about undead Girallons?

[DrMotives]

Haha, I know it was blue text, but that still won't work, even in a druid-based necromancer. Awaken Undead doesn't work like any other version of awaken. It's a permanent spell instead of instantaneous, meaning it creates a mind rather than use the body's original mind. More importantly, this mind can't me any smarter than the generic monster entry for the creature. So an awakened skeleton girallon would still have an intelligence of 2.

[Bobthereaper606]

BowStreetRunner, yea undead besides sentient are bad. We have actually come across a colony of Necropolitians who are very helpful and open to trade and whatnot. So im guessing the Dire Ape with Monk class levels will be the best bet. Does anyone know what the LA of a Dire Ape would be? or is it just flat RHD? Because when you cast awaken on it it gains 2HD 3D6 Int and 1D3 cha.

[PacMan2247]

Savage Species gives the Anthropomorphic Ape 2 racial hit dice and no level adjustment compared to the ape in Monster Manual, which has 4 racial hit dice. Other than losing the climb speed, there doesn't appear to be a lot of difference; they even left the natural armor alone. The dire ape has another hit die, 1 extra point of natural armor, and rend. Awakening it opens up the option for weapons, which neutralizes the benefit of rend. Given the need for custom fitting (or modifying) certain items because of the different body shape I would probably leave an awakened ape (dire or normal) at no level adjustment if you're taking the non-Intelligence stats directly from the Monster Manual, though the other ability scores combined with +4 natural armor and 30-foot climb speed would probably still make +1 LA perfectly reasonable.

[DrMotives]

As I said earlier, there is no official supplied LA for any awakened animals. They're all playable or cohortable by DM fiat alone.