I've got a halfling barbarian/fighter in my Eberron game who rides a clawfoot dinosaur.
I'm thinking of tinkering around a bit with the barbarian class, retroactively tweaking it to let his mount be his animal companion. Later, he would likely take levels in the Wild Plans Outrider PrC, from Complete Adventurer.
What would be a good thing to remove from the barbarian's ability list to allow an animal companion, (specifically a CR2 animal companion?)
The simplest thing I can think of is removing the barbarian's Fast Movement ability from level 1, and scaling back the Clawfoot to CR 1, Savage Species-style, then letting the clawfoot advance as a normal animal companion.
A couple of class-altering guides I have read have equated a One Time Ability like Fast Movement with having an animal companion...It seems a little unbalanced to me.
I'd prefer to leave the clawfoot with its base CR2 stats, though.
I've got a halfling barbarian/fighter in my Eberron game who rides a clawfoot dinosaur.
I'm thinking of tinkering around a bit with the barbarian class, retroactively tweaking it to let his mount be his animal companion. Later, he would likely take levels in the Wild Plans Outrider PrC, from Complete Adventurer.
What would be a good thing to remove from the barbarian's ability list to allow an animal companion, (specifically a CR2 animal companion?)
The simplest thing I can think of is removing the barbarian's Fast Movement ability from level 1, and scaling back the Clawfoot to CR 1, Savage Species-style, then letting the clawfoot advance as a normal animal companion.
A couple of class-altering guides I have read have equated a One Time Ability like Fast Movement with having an animal companion...It seems a little unbalanced to me.
I'd prefer to leave the clawfoot with its base CR2 stats, though.
Remove Fast Movement, Uncanny Dodge, and Improved Uncanny Dodge; replace with Animal Affinity, Mounted Combat, and Special Mount (as a Paladin, substituting the clawfoot for a warhorse). This would probably suit the flavor of the concept better than using Animal Companion rules. Enter the Halfling Clawfoot Totem Barbarians (ref. Unearthed Arcana), terror of the Talenta Plains...
I've got a halfling barbarian/fighter in my Eberron game who rides a clawfoot dinosaur.
I'm thinking of tinkering around a bit with the barbarian class, retroactively tweaking it to let his mount be his animal companion.
Natural Bond
That is a feat from one of the Complete books that allows an Animal Companion at CharcacterLevel - X where X is like 4 or something.Then all you have to do is compare it to other animal companions to figure out what level is appropriate for it. Most likely 1st or 4th as a CR 2 creature.
Then all you have to do is retroactively change a feat to give him Nat Bond.
-c
Thanks for the ideas.
I'm not sure if these are what I'm looking for, though.
Natural Bond has a prerequisite of having an animal companion, and does not boost the effective druid level beyond the character's character level.
What I'm looking to create is a class feature which allows a CR2 Animal companion at level 1, so it's at least equal to the Fast Movement, as well as another feat, and a little bit more, I guess.
Any other theories on what that equates to in the Barbarian class?
I'd think removing Fast Movement and the Uncanny Dodges would be plenty if you replaced it with an Animal Companion as Druid. Because the Animal Companion improves with levels you have to lose afew things.
There's a feat that was on the wizards website a couple of years ago called Wild Cohort: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a
I'd say that subbing out fast movement for a wild cohort would be fair.
EL Skootro
A CR 2 Animal Companion at 1st level is a bit too much.
Even the druid (who should be the baseline), can only have a CR 1 companion at 1st level (that's heavy horse, NOT heavy warhorse). By the time the character reaches 2nd level, they'll be able to afford a standard CR 2 mount, so that should be the absolute earliest the ability should appear (which is still better than the druid, who gets improved HD, etc. for a companion at 3rd and can trade up at 4th). An early appearance in exchange for slower improvements (2nd-5th, 6th-9th, 10th-13th, 14th-17th, 18th-20th) could work. Give up Fast Movement for Animal Affinity at 1st and Uncanny Dodge/Improved Uncanny Dodge for Clawfoot Companion at 2nd (with slowed progression).
That should be roughly balanced.
Thanks, Dragonchess Player.
This is a bit more like what I was hoping for.
I'm thinking of scaling back the Clawfoot to CR1 using Savage Species, as a guide, and having it advance back to its CR2 normal self when the player reaches Barbarian level 3, then advancing it as a normal animal companion from there.
I'll have to check the feat EL Skootro suggested later.
wizards.com is blocked from my work...
If you want a barbarin with an animal companion. And it sounds like your using the animal for riding there is a perfect barbarian variant called horselord. You can find it in Dragon 338.
Basically the barbarian loses fast movement and trap sense. Instead gaining a small variant on the rage ability, but keep the normal once should be fine. But during rage you can use skills. You gain no penalty on Ride checks for riding bareback and gain +2 when using a saddle and +2 Handle Animal check when dealing with the kind of animal you select. At 4th level gain an Animal Companion as per the ranger ability of the same level. At 6th level gains Improved Mounted Archery as bonus feat, a DM might allow another feat the deal with mounted combat.
That’s all. I hope I didn’t do anything to get into trouble with Pazio. Please tell me if I do. So I don’t do it again.
If you're going to lose all those abilities anyway, why not just take 1 level of druid?
-The Gneech
If you're going to lose all those abilities anyway, why not just take 1 level of druid?
-The Gneech
Well for one thing to keep the animal companion up to spec you would have to keep taking the Druid levels.
Interestingly the idea of Barbarians with animal companions must be somewhat iconic - I have a version of the Barbarian with Animal Companions in my campaign though in my campaign its two huskies (wolves) though they don't start getting better until the player is 6th level and the ability one gives up is rage.