Does an animal companion get an ability increase every 4th hit die like any other creature?
Nothing in the animal companion sidebar says to do this, though base attack, base saves, and skill points are all covered in the description. The companion also gets two ability increases every other level which seems like more than enough. I am playing a druid for the first time and had never noticed this omission/vagueness in the rules before.
It is vague.
The SRD does say, though:
An animal companion gains additional skill points and feats for bonus HD as normal for advancing a monster’s Hit Dice.
I've taken that to imply by omission that it does not get ability increases.
Thanks
That is my take on it too. It would be nice if, in the Str/Dex adjustment section, there was something like. This increase replaces the ability increase every four HD.
Why don't you make that a feat for your houserules?
I've houseruled that as well. Animal companions get ability score increases the same way their partners do. Of course I've also altered ability score increases, but that's another story.
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If a creature got a stat boost and tossed it into intelligence then he suddenly becomes able to be a PC. By 12th level you could bump intelligence 3 times to a 5. Not really an animal now.
I don't know what is the right answer, maybe animal companions are supposed to eventually gain a higher level of intelligence or other ability increases besides just the standard AniComp increases.
The way I houseruled it would totally depend on the campaign.
[quote=]If a creature got a stat boost and tossed it into intelligence then he suddenly becomes able to be a PC. By 12th level you could bump intelligence 3 times to a 5. Not really an animal now.
I don't know what is the right answer, maybe animal companions are supposed to eventually gain a higher level of intelligence or other ability increases besides just the standard AniComp increases.
The way I houseruled it would totally depend on the campaign.
If an animal companion got an intelligence of 3, it would no longer be an animal, but instead a magic beast, and thus not be acceptable as an animal companion.
If a creature got a stat boost and tossed it into intelligence then he suddenly becomes able to be a PC. By 12th level you could bump intelligence 3 times to a 5. Not really an animal now.
I don't know what is the right answer, maybe animal companions are supposed to eventually gain a higher level of intelligence or other ability increases besides just the standard AniComp increases.
The way I houseruled it would totally depend on the campaign.
I don't know about this. As one of many animal lovers/owners on the board, I've got a bunch of stories that brought my cat's surprisingly high level of intelligence to light, and I'm sure others do too. Just because an animal has a high intelligence score doesn't mean it's ready to take a level of rogue or druid, it could just be an unusually intelligent(or strong or hearty or quick or sagacious) creature of it's breed. Let's thank god they don't have opposable thumbs.
My roommate's cat spoke english before he died.
As with all other races, once an animal gains HD sufficient enough to give it a stat boost it may put that stat boost into any of its stats except for Int(because animals can not have an Int score over 2). It is the same as if you had a construct taht a wizard created and than later improved, no Con score means that you cannot dump a stat increase into it. So the cardinal rule is that a stat increase happens every 4 HD, no matter the creature, but there are certain restrictions depending on the creature.
I would say the animal companion doesn't get the stat boost since it already gets increases in STR and DEX as an animal companion.
I also would allow a character to retain an animal companion that became awakened or otherwise becomes unable to be an animal companion. I wouldn't want to penalize a player because something happened in the game to change the nature of his/her animal companion.
Ability Score Increase (Ex): The animal companion adds +1 to one of its ability scores.
Its specifically something that they get. Its on the chart, and referenced as a method for raising the critters int above 2. (it still stays an animal though when you do this, as per the class description, the description in the feats, and the blog post on animal companions)
Ability Score Increase (Ex): The animal companion adds +1 to one of its ability scores.
Its specifically something that they get. Its on the chart, and referenced as a method for raising the critters int above 2. (it still stays an animal though when you do this, as per the class description, the description in the feats, and the blog post on animal companions)
This is a resurrected thread in the 3.5 section, you are thinking of the PF rules.