Hail Adventurers! I have a question to ask thee. ^.^
Mayella's Dog has been through many adventuers, and has accumulated quite a bit of experience. SO, where do I go to find out how to level her pup-up? Did I miss something?
If you're talking about an animal companion for a Ranger or Druid, it the rules for it will be with the Druid class description.
If, however, the dog is simply a trained pet, there isn't really any rules for letting it buy levels like another character.
However, if you want, you could treat it just like any other character. Start it at a level equal to its starting Hit Dice, then add the XP gained to the XP for its starting level to determine where it should be. You can find the info for Attack Bonus, skill points, and the like in the Monster Manual glossary under the 'animal' type. Just treat it like any other class, and apply all the bonuses as normal.
Umm...increase its HD for every level of XP it gets? A quick check on d20srd.org tells me there are no rules for advancement for a Dog, but increasing its HD seems to be the appropriate thing to do. I think advancing creatures is more thoroughly covered in one of the appendices of the Monster Manual.
To the best of my knowledge an companion or familiar does not receive xp, the characters do. As the character advances in level the comp/famil will gain added benefits. Now should the comp/famil become awakened then it is different and should be able to process and develop its skills. (An awakened animal cannot be a familiar, treat as an NPC)
Normal animals cannot take class levels in anything, except for maybe barbarian or warrior (logic must prevail). If the animal is an animal companion (3.5 version) or familiar the rules are already in place.
The previous writers have been correct in suggesting there are no rules for advancing common animals. It would actually be kinder silly if it did. Even advancing its hit dice is no good, because unless you break the rules guidelines a typical dog cannot advance in hit dice. Of course, you could use the wolf as your base for advancement, but even then you could only advance it a maximum of 4 HD (which would also make it large, by the way).
This is just one of those times when fantasy literature and D&D part company. In fantasy literature you can have a trained war dog who is as fearsome in battle as a dozen trolls, but in D&D this kind of scenario looks ridiculous unless the war dog is a nessian warhound or something similar. A trained war dog, no matter how good would get slaughtered by a troll, and that's just the way it is. Eventually, even the dog your'e talking about should die horribly (and it would be the player's fault if it did).
I mean, who as a responsible dog owner would send their dog into battle against a tiger or grizzly bear? No one.
I mean, who as a responsible dog owner would send their dog into battle against a tiger or grizzly bear? No one.
A single dog would be silly, but a pack of large dogs could easily be the equal of a bear or tiger.