An awakened animal can’t serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount?

[eyebreaker7]

An awakened animal can’t serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount.

Why not? It can't be because the intelligence of a creature would make it say "No way am I a mount or friend." Some races use dragons for mounts. They have very high Int.

[cartejos]

An awakened animal can’t serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount.

Why not? It can't be because the intelligence of a creature would make it say "No way am I a mount or friend." Some races use dragons for mounts. They have very high Int.

Perhaps the buddies you get that come with higher intelligence scores don't have "human-like" intelligence. They could be operating within a different style of thinking.

However, awaken grants the buddy a "human-like intelligence" and maybe that comes with a sense of ego

[ShurikVch]

An awakened animal can’t serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount.

Why not? It can't be because the intelligence of a creature would make it say "No way am I a mount or friend." Some races use dragons for mounts. They have very high Int.
Well, technically, "because they said so"

Otherwise - maybe, magical interference/incompatibility?

Anyway, awakened animal still can be used as a special mount by Windrider PrC, since their special mount is pretty much "anything you want, LOL (as long as it's both able and willing)"

[wilphe]

Why not? It can't be because the intelligence of a creature would make it say "No way am I a mount or friend." Some races use dragons for mounts. They have very high Int.

Dragon, and I think other special mounts, require feat and/or PRC for access yes?

Animal companions and familiars are "dumb" animals that you happen to have a special bond with.

Awakened ones as noted have their own ego and agenda so have to be treated differently

Its the difference between having a centaur in the party and having a horse.

The horse will let you ride it because it's been trained to do so and accept your direction

The centaur might if you ask nicely or the need is great let you ride on her but she won't accept wearing a bit and bridle or accepting leg aids to go where you want and not doing so doesn't mean she's unfriendly

[ThanatosZero]

Wild cohorts are treated differently.
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a

This may be your solution to get a awakened animal both as a friend and cohort, but then again it doesn't say anything about those and specifies wild animals and not magical beasts.
Nonetheless the DM has the final word and may permit it.

You could alternatively get yourself with the leadership feat a druid or a member from the fangshield organisation.

[Duke of Urrel]

I think an awakened Animal is a good deal, because it is an untyped friend. This may make it even better than just an animal companion.

An awakened Animal is not a familiar or an animal companion. Maybe this means that it doesn't count against the number of familiars or animal companions you may have as class features. What's to stop you from having both a familiar or animal companion and an awakened Animal?

An awakened Animal is not a cohort or a follower. Maybe this means that it doesn't count against the number of cohorts or followers you may have because of the Leadership feat. What's to stop you from having an awakened Animal in addition to a cohort and a pack of followers?

Presumably, an awakened Animal is not a contact either and therefore doesn't count against the number of contacts you may have because of your Charisma score.

The only problem that I see is what your dungeon master believes an awakened Animal does for you merely because it is Friendly. Does this make your awakened Animal loyal enough to accompany you as you risk danger or to carry you into combat? Maybe or maybe not. It may also depend on how generously you reward your awakened Animal with treats and magic items. If your awakened Animal is a Non-Player Character that has the same responsibilities as a Player-Character in your party, it may demand the same privileges as well.

I think you need to talk to your dungeon master about this.

[Darg]

Perhaps the buddies you get that come with higher intelligence scores don't have "human-like" intelligence. They could be operating within a different style of thinking.

However, awaken grants the buddy a "human-like intelligence" and maybe that comes with a sense of ego

An animal can't have an intelligence higher than 2. If it has intelligence 3 or higher it becomes a magical beast.

Because an awakened animal is no longer an animal, it can not be an animal companion. However, the Beast Heart Adept gains a magical beast (or aberration) companion. If the DM is willing and the ex-animal is willing then theoretically it could be your companion then.

[noob]

An awakened animal can’t serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount.

Why not? It can't be because the intelligence of a creature would make it say "No way am I a mount or friend." Some races use dragons for mounts. They have very high Int.

Simple reason: as a familiar it is no longer an ordinary specimen of its kind and thus not a legitimate target.
As an animal companion it is not allowed because it is not an animal anymore.
As a special mount it is because special mounts are drawn from a limited list that does not include "awakened x"
You can however have an awakened animal as a friend with prestige or another source of cohorts.
If you include additional manuals none of that makes any sense however because most manuals do not take in account the interactions they can have with other manuals.

[Telonius]

If it's Awakened, it's smart enough to be more than a class feature. The line is fuzzy, but at some point it's gone from "something I have" to something that's more like a friendly NPC.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Your class feature wouldn't apply to it, but you could always awaken a very young animal and raise it to be loyal to you and willing to carry you in battle. And since the critter would have an Int score in the range of sapience, it could gain class levels, as well.

So while there are tradeoffs, I think you could come out ahead of the game.

Although if you're a deity of DvR 1 or greater and have a level in wizard or sorcerer, you can make any creature into your deific familiar (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#familiar), granting it all the benefits of a familiar of your level would gain.

Also, if your prospective familiar or animal companion or whatever has the ability to change form, such as if you give it a psychoactive skin of proteus, it could still be made into your familiar while it's in that form, which should carry over even when it's not in that form. For example, if your awakened wolf friend uses the aforementioned psychoactive skin to gain the animal type through metamorphosising into a normal wolf, you could make him your animal companion. Given how effects work in D&D, he should remain your animal companion even after the metamorphosis effect ends (or he uses it to become something else entirely). After all, an imp gained through Improved Familiar remains your familiar even if it uses its alternate form ability to become a boar, even though boars aren't candidates for becoming familiars. In short, once it's your familiar it stays your familiar until death or dismissal.

[Zanos]

Awakening a creature turns it into an NPC. An awakened creature can't be a special mount. As in, the class feature. If you can convince, enchant, or intimidate an awakened creature into serving as your mount there's no reason it cannot do so, same as any other NPC. That said, you should be pretty damn sure that whatever you're riding into battle is on your side.

[Drelua]

I guess if you want an in-setting explanation, training an animal with human-like intelligence (technically not an animal, I know) would be a lot more like training a person than a regular animal. I grew up around cats, dogs, horses, and all kinds of birds, so if you want to train an animal I could be some help there. But when my boss tells me to train one of the new kids, I have no idea what to do.

When you're training an animal, you're communicating mainly through positive reinforcement, teaching them to associate a certain sound, which may be a word but they don't know that, or a hand gesture with an action like sitting or staying. They learn, "if I do this when he makes that noise, I get a cookie!" Training a person, you're communicating verbally, and usually using something more interesting than a cookie as motivation, so it's a whole different skillset. Imagine saying to a druid, "hey, you've trained tonnes of animals, teach these soldier's to fight." That's not going to work out well, unless you want soldiers that bite and claw people and get paid in cookies and scratches behind the ear. Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but you get the idea.