animal companion skills


Rules Questions


I dont understand the rules for skills on teh AC. at 2nd lvl it has 3 skills..is that skill points to spend on ranks or is taht the total ranks, and how many ranks can i have in certain skills..

Liberty's Edge

This is all explained in the animal companion description under skills, but essentially ACs get 1 skill rank to spend for every hit dice they gain, and you can put as many skill ranks into a skill as they have hit dice, so all of them, unless you upgrade it's intelligence above 10, after which it gets bonus skill ranks per hit dice according to it's intelligence modifier.

Also, skill points isn't a proper game term, it's skill ranks. Or skill bonus.


Your AC has 3 skill ranks and can put a maximum of 3 ranks into any one skill.

how it works:

At 2nd level your AC has 3HD.

Animals gain 2 skill ranks/level modified by it's intelligence (usually 2 for a -4 modifier) You always gain a minimum of 1 skill rank. In practice, unless you really push really hard to increase you ACs intelligence, this means your AC will have 1 skill rank/HD.


Ok so basically he gets 1 skill rank every level i can put in any skill he has and not to exceed his HD.

Silver Crusade

Their are a few ways to get around this. Humans using their favored classes bonus on hunters can grant their animal companion and extra skill point. You can equip a headband of Int +2, and buy it with a skill you want your animal companion to have. Granting your animal companion ranks in that skill equal to their HD.

For example my human hunter 6. Favored class bonus +6 skill ranks to animal companion. Just equipped his bear animal companion with a headband of int +2 (Stealth).
Tricks known: 12
Perception Ranks 5 Total 9
Linguistics Ranks 1(Common)
Stealth Ranks 6 Total 8
Survival Ranks 6 Total 10

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