Question about animal companions

[Amador]

What are the limitations on what an animal companion can be, this question is raised by a line in the Races of Dragon book: a half-dragon tiger would make a powerful companion for a Druid or Ranger. I was previously under the impression that an animal companion had to be an animal that is int of 2 or lower, but the half-dragon template has a +2 modifier to int.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

You can't have a modified animal as your AC.

[Amador]

Could you tell me what book and page number if possible that rule is in?

[The Rose Dragon]

What are the limitations on what an animal companion can be, this question is raised by a line in the Races of Dragon book: a half-dragon tiger would make a powerful companion for a Druid or Ranger. I was previously under the impression that an animal companion had to be an animal that is int of 2 or lower, but the half-dragon template has a +2 modifier to int.

Welcome to WotC editing (i.e. lack of editing altogether).

Also welcome to WotC intracompany peer awareness (i.e. lack of awareness of other books most of the time).

Basically, half of the "advice" in WotC published books is going to be pure, distilled crap. Get used to it.

((The point being, you can't have a non-animal as your animal companion, nor can you have templated animals.))

[dariathalon]

The big thing to notice here is that it is an animal companion. Therefore, unless specifically noted otherwise for a particular creature, feat, or ability it has to be an animal.

Now look at the half-dragon template. Under the Size and Type header, it says...

The creature’s type changes to dragon.

Therefore the half-dragon tiger is not of the animal type and not available as an animal companion. Now I realize this doesn't settle the question for other templates or special abilities that may alter how things work, but I would say that it does at least fairly convincingly nix the half-dragon tiger animal companion.

[Eldariel]

For animal companions, you have a bunch of listed alternatives. Some creatures in non-Core books mention that they can also be used as ACs. Anything other than the listed creatures is not available. None of the listed creatures have any templates so by default, templated creatures aren't available (some feats, such as Exalted Companion, specifically apply templates to your AC though).

Other notable way of acquiring monster forms is Polymorph/Wildshape which always specify "standard creature of a type", meaning no advanced forms nor templated forms are available. Really, you can't have basically anything but a Leadership-granted Cohort with templates. Other than that, they're inaccessible outside few specific feats.

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

The closest thing to a dragon templated creature that a druid or ranger can have as a companion is a Drakken, specifically a Phynxkin which is in Dragon magic. It's accessable via an alternate class feature which replaces the standard animal companion with a phynxkin.

Agreeable GM's might allow other drakken creatures.

Dragon magic has similar alternates for Familiars as well. Including an alternate class feature that replaces standard familiars with drakken Familiars. And a Drakken called a huitzil that can be takken as a standard familiar.

[Starbuck_II]

Savage Species has a Ritual that will let you give it a Template. Granted, Savage Species is kinda 3.0 and not considered balanced.

[Foryn Gilnith]

I assume it means "companion" the way a cleric that a bard Diplomances to Helpful would be a companion. Use Wild Empathy to pump it to helpful (if that's even possible).

[Amador]

So after reading through the first several posts here I have a few clarifications to ask. Is there anywhere in RAW a specific statement that an animal companion must be an animal? and Is there a correlation between HD or CR of the companion and the level at which the druid can acquire that creature?

[Epinephrine]

So after reading through the first several posts here I have a few clarifications to ask. Is there anywhere in RAW a specific statement that an animal companion must be an animal? and Is there a correlation between HD or CR of the companion and the level at which the druid can acquire that creature?

By RAW there is a specific list of creatures. All are animals. You may not select anything not on the list*. There would be no point to a RAW statement that you can only select animals, as you can only select from the list.


*unless another source specifically says that you may select X as an animal companion.

[Akal Saris]

Epinephrine has the right of it.

There are ways to get non-animals as companions through feats and alternative class features, but otherwise it's assumed that you only have access to the list and other animals of a similar CR and HD to those on the list.

[Amador]

Okay, so my original question has been answered. Now I want to know if anyone has ever retooled the the animal companion class feature to be more internally consistent. The worst example is the elamosuarous(sp?) which can be gotten at 7th level but is a challenge rating 7 dinosaur. Or the polar and brown bear which have the same CR but the druid needs to be 3 levels higher to get a polar bear. Is it possible for the playgrounders to help me make this feature of the druid more consistent?

[Bayar]

In the eberron book, there is Magebred template and they say a druid can have a Magebred animal companion as long as he is from Breland.

Fun fact

[Emy]

In the eberron book, there is Magebred template and they say a druid can have a Magebred animal companion as long as he is from Breland.

Fun fact

Fun lie.

Eberron Campaign Setting, pg 36:
A druid or ranger may never acquire a magebred animal as a companion.

[Akal Saris]

Okay, so my original question has been answered. Now I want to know if anyone has ever retooled the the animal companion class feature to be more internally consistent. The worst example is the elamosuarous(sp?) which can be gotten at 7th level but is a challenge rating 7 dinosaur. Or the polar and brown bear which have the same CR but the druid needs to be 3 levels higher to get a polar bear. Is it possible for the playgrounders to help me make this feature of the druid more consistent?

Well, the polar bear has a swim speed, and the brown bear doesn't.

I haven't seen much work done on modifying the list, though you can see the full list of available animal companions at the druid's guide here:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...ndbook_revived

(Yikes, the new forum really messed up the formatting for that guide!!!)

And on elemental companions from Complete Mage:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...ntal_Companion

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

I've done some work with making an adjusted Animal companion rule that would encompas more stuff. But i warn you it is FAR from perfect and when people want stuff not on the standard list I insist on getting my approval first. For first level I pretty much say that the animal companion has to be

1: a standard animal (no templates, modifications etc)
2: CR 1 or less.
3: Something they could realisticaly have run into according to their Characters history.

For the later levels and replacement animals later (which i have NOT thoughroughly checked for consistency) the rule is sort of animal Cr=your own cr +1 divided by 2.
Example: your level 1, you can have a cr1. Your level 9 you can have a cr 5

Again I have not had the chance to check this as far as actualy in game play so im not sure how balanced it is. (no one has actually tried to play a druid or higher level ranger in any of my games recently)

[Eloel]

Okay, so my original question has been answered. Now I want to know if anyone has ever retooled the the animal companion class feature to be more internally consistent. The worst example is the elamosuarous(sp?) which can be gotten at 7th level but is a challenge rating 7 dinosaur. Or the polar and brown bear which have the same CR but the druid needs to be 3 levels higher to get a polar bear. Is it possible for the playgrounders to help me make this feature of the druid more consistent?

It's consistent if you play by common sense. For an arctic druid, it's either polar bears, or penguins, and it's quite obvious that polarbear is better than penguin+3. For that, an arctic druid needs to fall-back 6 levels to get a polar-bear, or there would be no reason for the penguin, or, say, snow owl/winter wolf.

In the 'forest' area, there're more animals, so weaklings like squirrels can be ignored, and the standard can be raised a bit.

The 'consistency' problem you're describing occurs because people assume 'you are familiar with every animal', and that you can actually find a brown bear in arctic areas. Believe me, you can't.

tl;dr
Different areas' druids shouldn't be mixed for consistency.

[Eldariel]

The 'consistency' problem you're describing occurs because people assume 'you are familiar with every animal', and that you can actually find a brown bear in arctic areas. Believe me, you can't.

They do live also on the northside of the polar circle though so really, an arctic Druid knowing Brown Bears is hardly a stretch. I mean, if he's never been outside an icecap, maybe, but that seems rather unlikely...

[DireFrostWolf]

Fun lie.

Eberron Campaign Setting, pg 36:
A druid or ranger may never acquire a magebred animal as a companion.

maybe there says no i don't know i have to check but in other book where the magebred brownbear and the magebred ghost tiger appear they say a druid can have them as animal companion if the druid is from breland!!!!!