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seedjar
2007-12-27, 02:37 PM
So, I've been toying with the idea of using animals (or roughly equivalent critters of other types) as followers after taking Leadership. If it were worth it, I could get Mass Awakening put on some/all of them. Perhaps a dog pack, with higher-level canines as followers above level one become available. I'm wondering how you all would min-max such an arrangement and what sorts of things you might try to do with it. I don't have too many specific ideas, I just think it would be interesting to have a big crowd of dogs, cats, birds, etc. following me around. Maybe even vermin swarms - I could perhaps use them for cover. Any thoughts?
~Joe

Azerian Kelimon
2007-12-27, 02:39 PM
Make an Epic Awakened Lion Druid. Remake Narnia. It seems really fitting, and a pretty cool idea.

osyluth
2007-12-27, 05:07 PM
Make an Epic Awakened Lion Druid. Remake Narnia. It seems really fitting, and a pretty cool idea.

OMG I am so doing that.

Fax Celestis
2007-12-27, 05:09 PM
You could try my homebrewed Animal Trainer (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Animal_Trainer) class.

kpenguin
2007-12-27, 05:09 PM
Make an Epic Awakened Lion Druid. Remake Narnia. It seems really fitting, and a pretty cool idea.

Make that a epic awakened celestial dire lion. Aslan was supposed to be bigger and more magnificent than any lion.

seedjar
2007-12-27, 05:32 PM
I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I wasn't really looking to rebuild an existing character, nor do I want to drop significant levels on this (unless there is some specific synergy with having a large group of low-level mooks along; bard/marshall abilities might come in handy, but don't seem especially important to me at the moment.) This is more along the lines of, "You play a stereotypical adventurer PC who just took Leadership, and for God-knows-why the DM says you must have animals for your cohort and followers. You wanted a human wizard around to buff you, but dogs aren't good at keeping track of material components and monkeys tend to throw poo. How do you make use of your otherwise wasted feat?"
I was thinking that critters would be good for recon/scouting/nightwatch type tasks. Another idea was that more intelligent ones could perform certain battle tactics that don't necessitate a high BAB, such as scattering caltops or tanglefoot bags. They might make a good front as well; the PC (or the whole party) could pass as circus folk, animal tamers or herders. In a pinch, they could help flank and distract opponents in a fight, or spook unwary enemies before engaging in combat. These all seem like valid ideas to me, but I'm not sure how to apply them effectively in terms of the rules.
~Joe

Fax Celestis
2007-12-27, 05:37 PM
I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I wasn't really looking to rebuild an existing character, nor do I want to drop significant levels on this (unless there is some specific synergy with having a large group of low-level mooks along; bard/marshall abilities might come in handy, but don't seem especially important to me at the moment.) This is more along the lines of, "You play a stereotypical adventurer PC who just took Leadership, and for God-knows-why the DM says you must have animals for your cohort and followers. You wanted a human wizard around to buff you, but dogs aren't good at keeping track of material components and monkeys tend to throw poo. How do you make use of your otherwise wasted feat?"
I was thinking that critters would be good for recon/scouting/nightwatch type tasks. Another idea was that more intelligent ones could perform certain battle tactics that don't necessitate a high BAB, such as scattering caltops or tanglefoot bags. They might make a good front as well; the PC (or the whole party) could pass as circus folk, animal tamers or herders. In a pinch, they could help flank and distract opponents in a fight, or spook unwary enemies before engaging in combat. These all seem like valid ideas to me, but I'm not sure how to apply them effectively in terms of the rules.
~Joe

Well, if you don't mind my tooting my own horn, just make the Animal Leadership ability of the Animal Trainer I linked into a feat and base it off HD+Cha mod.

pinkbunny
2007-12-27, 05:40 PM
he changed a feat? after you took it? and didn't let you change it? Ask to choose another feat if you don't like animals as your followers. I don't see why the DM is meddling in this, it should be your choice.

Anyway, Are magical beasts allowed? There's some pretty good flying creatures that would be stylin' to fly around on. A pity Dragonel is draconic.

seedjar
2007-12-28, 10:30 PM
No, this is hypothetical. I don't need a new feat, I don't need more rules, and I'm not talking about something that has happened. If you read my first post, you'll see it says, "I've been toying with the idea of..." As in, something that I'm thinking about which has not happened yet. The above was just provided as an example of having a definite reason to implement this idea.
What I want to ask is, how would this application of the Leadership feat be useful to your typical adventurer/adventuring party? Yes, you could rebuild characters from novels you've read or movies you've seen. And yes, you could create a special class and new feats and whatnot to build on the idea. But that's not what I'm talking about.
If you spent a feat on Leadership and choose to take animals for your cohort and followers, how would you use them? What animals (or other animal-like things - magical beasts, aberrations, lesser dragons, etc. - things that don't typically do things like talk or use equipment or take class levels) would you choose? How would you stat them? (For example, a group of advanced monkeys with Hide/Move Silently/Sleight of Hand ranks.)
~Joe

John Campbell
2007-12-29, 01:34 AM
I was kicking around the idea of having my new Ranger's wolf animal companion take Leadership as his 6 HD feat and become the head of a wolfpack, but my DM vetoed it. I'm not really sure how it would've worked, anyway... animal companions don't get XP, so his cohort wouldn't have, either, and wolf Charisma is low enough that he would never have attracted many followers.

The pack would've been useless in any combat that posed a real threat to me or my companion, anyway, but I'm sure I could've come up with something to do with a half-dozen skilled scent-trackers.

Fawsto
2007-12-29, 01:51 PM
If you take a few wolves and make a huge pack, you can have insta flanking on almost everything in every direction. Of course, animals are not the best followers you can get, but you can sue them to really mess your enemies. Just think about some magic and their best skills.

Try to have any group of creatures with a decent HD and good full attack. Sooner or later you will find some not obvious utility.

BTW, have you played Fire Emblem Goddess of Down? You seem to have taken some inspiring from there.

seedjar
2007-12-29, 04:17 PM
Nope, wanted to play the Fire Emblem games for a while now but haven't had the money since they started porting them to English. What do you mean by sue them?

Treguard
2007-12-29, 04:37 PM
http://lsc.mit.edu/schedule/archives/design1996/old_terms/Sp96/Graphics/AceVentura2.GIF

Come to me my animal friends!