Awakened Animal PC


Advice


Ok, I had a weird request from one of my players.

He's been reading the old 3.x Savage Species book. He likes the concept of racial levels.
So he is wanting to run something in the ball park of a wolf that has been awakened. (Used to be the animal companion of a druid that recently died blah, blah, blah...) Eventually working it's way up with racial levels to a dire wolf with druid and/or ranger levels.

Maybe something other than wolf (panther & snake were mentioned). But still that basic concept of something weak that isn't more powerful than normal PC's and eventually growing/changing into something powerful with a few class levels.

I can handle the role playing aspects of it. Villagers scared if he picks something scary looking. Won't be allowed in many places because he is an animal. Could be hunted. Might be ignored since he is just an animal. Etc...

The animal archive will tell me how what magic items he could make use of.

What I don't know is how to handle is the racial levels from a weak version into a powerful version. Any ideas?


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8w7p?Pathfinder-Player-Companion-Animal-Archi ve

That would be a really good source book for such a thing.
I made (as a lark) an awakened Dire Tiger historian and poet - never actually PLAYED it, it was more a mechanical exercise.


I think I would just make him a custom race and have the more powerful versions of his animal form come in as feats with a level requirement instead of racial levels. I say that because from what I've seen in general is that losing out on actual class levels hurts. A lot. To the point where it is almost never worth it.


chaoseffect wrote:
I think I would just make him a custom race and have the more powerful versions of his animal form come in as feats with a level requirement instead of racial levels. I say that because from what I've seen in general is that losing out on actual class levels hurts. A lot. To the point where it is almost never worth it.

Yeah, but if he's a dire tiger with the same druid levels as the rest of the party, he's going to be way over them in effective power. If I do that, I will probably end up with a bunch of humanoid suicides and a whole party of dire X characters.

Plus this guy isn't usually too worried about being really powerful. He just wants to be optimized enough to survive, contribute, and not be an anchor for the group.


If he's on a point buy like everyone else and has to spend multiple feats to get all the Dire Tiger goodies, then I wouldn't really see him as being anymore powerful that anyone else who specialized in their specific adventuring field. If you're saying hand him the exact Dire Tiger stat block and then increase the mental stats and add class levels on top, then I see how that could be too much.

How about something like he gets nat attacks, 40 speed, a small nat armor bonus and +2 to 2 physical stats, -2 to 1 mental to start, and is medium? Don't give him racial HP. From there he can take feats to emulate dire: Perhaps at 4th he can get increased nat armor and grab. At 7th, more nat armor and rake. At 10th, an innate size increase as per Enlarge Person and pounce.

Or you could just give it to him for free as he levels; the point is for it to be done incrementally instead of it being a sudden explosion in power. By the time he has all his nice things everyone else also has their nice things, including gear in slots the tiger can't use and the ability to speak and cast without needing feats or a permenancy'd Tongues spell.

Pounce might still be a point of contention though as it's the difference between being an awesome melee character and a sad melee character.


This is one reason I was sad that they removed ECL from Pathfinder. My suggestion would be to look back at the old ECL rules and those from Savage Species. They give a solid outline of how to judge the power levels of something with racial hit dice opposed to that of a party with class levels. They can still be implemented in Pathfinder and I have done it to large extent. Doing a Savage Progression like suggested in Savage Species does seem to be the way to go.

Make sure you know how you are going to rule on both the RP side (seems like you have a solid handle on that) and the rules side of things. It is important to decide how you are going to handle item slots, manufactured armor, feats and skills to prohibit and other things like this before the campaign starts. Just because he is awakened doesn't mean that he would have proper training to take the types of feats he would need. For instance it would likely be fairly difficult to teach a tiger how to use Improved Unarmed Strike. It would just be against their nature. You need to know how you will rule on these sorts of things and be sure you convey them to the player before hand so he can make a sound judgement on if he still wishes to do it with your rulings.


Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Why not just treat him like a druids animal companion. Has a decent increase and you don't start out full sized.

Silver Crusade

Please no ponies.


Gruingar de'Morcaine wrote:
a whole party of dire X characters.

Sounds like a fun campaign to me. :)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'd be a Dire Human.


You could use the stat blocks for awakened things out of the Leveled Races guide.

The Exchange

chaoseffect wrote:
I'd be a Dire Human.

Could you imagine a Dire Elf or Dwarf?


Silly question, but does he know about Skin Walkers? I am a furry so I play a lot of beast races (as many as my GM lets me) and I find that they are a pretty cool race to play. If he wanted to go Oracle there is the Lunar Mystery that eventually turns you into a lycathrope.

I dunno how easy it would be to play a feral creature that's awakened effectively unless it had barbarian levels. Anyway I would suggest maybe using the race builder to play with options or meet him halfway and offer Skin Walkers.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I DMed for an empowered awakened parrot wizard.

Int = 3d6 x 1.5

But she just cast banana pants all the time...


SmiloDan wrote:

I DMed for an empowered awakened parrot wizard.

Int = 3d6 x 1.5

But she just cast banana pants all the time...

Favorite this post if you googled "Pathfinder banana pants"

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

It was actually 3.5 banana pants....


There is a way Pathfinder handles this... the trick and same problem I had was determining the CR of an animal companion.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary/monstersAsPCs.html#appendix-4-m onsters-as-pcs

Treat the CR as racial levels and multiclass into heroic classes

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Awakened Animal PC All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.