DND 3.5 Vow of Poverty on an Exalted Animal Companion

[Rerednaw]

I read several threads where folks were asserting this is legit.
I don't understand.
Let's say you take a Celestial Dire Eagle. (-1 for Celestial, -3 for Dire Eagle-> from Races of Stone).
It has a base of 5 HD.
The feats are already taken.
The creature gains HD slowly. At 7HD (druid level 7th) he gains a feat.
You take Sacred Vow.
Two levels later the AC gains another feat.
You take Vow of Poverty.
Or alternatively, the DM is nice and lets you construct the feats from the ground up (or I suppose you use retraining rules) in which case it'd be the first 2 feats replacing Alertness and Fly-by attack.
Assuming the DM is allowing you to build an AC (most do, but since the AC is an NPC the DM may create the stats anyway)...the chart is based on character level
This is where I am confused. The animal companion does not have any levels, just HD isn't that correct? Or is there some HD = character level rule somewhere?

Thanks!

[Pleh]

There is an Effective Character Level that adds HD, Level Adjustment, and Class Levels, but I don't know how it works for animal companions.

Eggynack is the local druid expert around here, I believe.

[eggynack]

I'm not sure what the cite for it is, but I think that HD is mentioned as possessing equivalency to character level somewhere. I know Urpriest made such a claim in his monster handbook. Can't find the supporting rule for the life of me though.

[KarlM]

The animal companion does not have any levels, just HD isn't that correct? Or is there some HD = character level rule somewhere?

If you are a higher level druid than the minimum necessary (a 4th level druid for a dire eagle), then your animal companion gets various bonuses. Check the table under the druid entry e.g. badly formatted

Class Level Bonus HD Natural Armor Adj. Str/Dex Adj. Bonus Tricks Special
1st-2nd +0 +0 +0 1 Link, share spells
3rd-5th +2 +2 +1 2 Evasion
6th-8th +4 +4 +2 3 Devotion
9th-11th +6 +6 +3 4 Multiattack
12th-14th +8 +8 +4 5
15th-17th +10 +10 +5 6 Improved evasion
18th-20th +12 +12 +6 7

A Dire Eagle (or a Celestial Dire Eagle) normally has 2HD. So if you were say a 10th level Druid, and you summoned a Dire Eagle, you would count as a 6th level druid, and your animal companion would get +4HD and some other stuff.

So your celestial dire eagle now has 2+4=6 HD.

Every creature with HD (including animal companions) gets a feat for every 3HD right? So your Celestial Dire Eagle would get 2 extra feats.
Feat #1 = Sacred Vow
Feat #2 = Vow of Poverty

Make any sense?

[eggynack]

That's not really a resolution to the issue. The problem is with abilities from VoP, not whether you can take the feat in the first place Still interested if anyone has a cite on my earlier claim. Haven't seen anything on the issue, either confirmation or denial, since then.

[Necroticplague]

If you say that animals get feats based on HD, you're already implicitly assuming that a creature's HD substitutes for it's character level to determine benefits. After all, the Acquiring Feats sections says

At third level, and every three levels thereafter, he or she gains another feat. Feats are gained according to character level, regardless of individual class levels

Note that it says you get feat for levels, and according to character level, not according to HD.

So, if an animal can get more feats from higher HD, that requires that it's HD act as class levels, and thus they'd also get the character-level based benefits of Vow of Poverty.

Also, if they didn't, then a single negative level could kill all animals, due to death by negative levels comparing the amount of negative levels to the levels of the creature. And it would be impossible to determine how many feats except for the first an animal should have when advanced. Or how many skill points they have (because that formula is also based on level). So, even if it isn't explicitly written in the book, an animal's level being it's HD is required for the rules to work in any sensible way.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Yes, HD = Character Level. Both class levels and racial hit dice contribute to this, so its character level is always equal to the number of hit dice it has.

You're forgetting the feat Natural Bond from Complete Adventurer, which increases your effective level by +3 for your animal companion's benefits, but it can't put your effective level over your character level. So Celestial (-1) Dire Eagle (-3) with Natural Bond (+3) = Level -1.

It gets a feat at its 6th and 9th HD, so when your character is 7th level it can have both Sacred Vow and Vow of Poverty.

[eggynack]

Snip

Huh. Didn't know it was an indirect proof. I'ma check for disproof meat, but it seems reasonably solid as an argument. Glad to have a reasonable resolution to this problem (which may or may not have been a problem for literally just me and the OP).

[nyjastul69]

I'm not sure what the cite for it is, but I think that HD is mentioned as possessing equivalency to character level somewhere. I know Urpriest made such a claim in his monster handbook. Can't find the supporting rule for the life of me though.

The sidebar on pg 4 of SS states:

Feats: Every monster receives at least one feat and gains
additional feats at the same rate a character does—one more at 3 HD, another at 6 HD, and so forth.'

That seems to be a HD to level equivalency​.

[eggynack]

The sidebar on pg 4 of SS states: 'Feats: Every monster receives at least one feat and gains
additional feats at the same rate a character does—one more at 3 HD, another at 6 HD, and so forth.'

That seems to be a HD to level equivalency​.

Actually the kinda thing that I was planning to use as a counterargument. If the text explicitly states you get feats from HD, then it doesn't necessarily matter that the text also says you get feats from character level. Feats don't have to be equivalent to character levels, because they explicitly do the same thing for this purpose. Not saying that's a full counterargument, or that the overall claim is wrong, but pointing to this as evidence of this particular equivalence, one that transcends the fact that these two things do the same thing in this instance, seems off to me.

[DarkSoul]

Monster Manual p. 7: ...A monster gains feats just as a character does - one for its first Hit Die, a second feat if it has at least 3 HD, and an additional feat for every 3 additional HD...

Page 290, same book: A monster's total Hit Dice, not its ECL, govern its acquisition of feats and ability score increases. For example, a 1st-level minotaur barbarian has a total of 7 HD. It has three feats (for it's 1st, 3rd, and 6th HD).

If anything, the first line makes a case that feat acquisition is exclusively a function of Hit Dice, rather than class levels. The second line seems to reinforce that.