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is there any way for a non-druid/ranger to advance an animal's HD?
I'm making a halfling ninja, and I'm going to start with a ninja-dog. Basically it's sneaky through the tricks it knows, and I took a feat (cosmopolitan) to get handle animal as a class skill and get +2 with it. I don't want it to be completely useless later on, or have it get dropped in one hit, but I also don't want to have to multiclass into druid for this one thing. Does anyone know of any kind of feat, or anything else that would help me here?
Within core rules? No.
Within expanded WotC rules? Maybe, but doubtful.
Within house rules? Certainly.
A common house rule I've seen is a 1 to 2 weeks of training, an expense of GP equal to the animal's new HD x 100 (for training tools, food, maybe even some quasi-magical food, "critter steroids" if you will) and a handle animal check of a DC equal to 10+the animal's new HD. Failure means time and GP is wasted, but you can try again. Trainers can not advance an animal to more HD than they have, due to risk of loosing control of the animal (DM discretion here, but it sets a reasonable limit, no 2nd level halfling experts with 16HD warbears). A similar limit may be placed on the total HD/number of animals a trainer can safely control at one time. 2xtrainer's HD is fair (and prevents excessive initiative bottlenecking and such). Success means the animal gains a new HD. Only one HD can be added per training period, so no spending two weeks to advance a wolf to 8 HD instantly.
Obviously, this works better in longer term and slower pace campaigns as opposed to the faster pace and semi-scheduled nature of adventure paths.
Regarding Cost Vrs. Profit, its still not very good. But it at least provides the option, which did not exist prior. An animal is still going to be weaker than the average monster of the same HD/CR, but allows a "pet" type animal to maintain some viability as the campaign progresses.
In my game, I extend this benefit even to druid and ranger animal companions (my players are fairly good about not being exploitative with rules). The bonus HD from druid levels goes on top of the normal advancement (and explicitly has been stated to not provide the benefits of normal advancement, like size increases), so the system actually works fairly well.
On the WotC site, in the archives is an article with a feat called Animal Cohort. It works like animal companion, but not as powerful.
I believe it was titled Random Encounters: Wild Life. It was in four parts, all having to do with animals and druids. Animal Cohort wa in the first part. By Jesse Decker I think.
On the WotC site, in the archives is an article with a feat called Animal Cohort. It works like animal companion, but not as powerful.
I believe it was titled Random Encounters: Wild Life. It was in four parts, all having to do with animals and druids. Animal Cohort wa in the first part. By Jesse Decker I think.
I can't view the site since I'm at work, but we have done in one of my games is a variation on Leadership. You run the animal as if you were a Druid two levels lower than your actual level. The animal gets the HD and stat bonuses from that but not of the special abilities that come from being a Druid or Ranger companion.
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On the WotC site, in the archives is an article with a feat called Animal Cohort. It works like animal companion, but not as powerful.
I believe it was titled Random Encounters: Wild Life. It was in four parts, all having to do with animals and druids. Animal Cohort wa in the first part. By Jesse Decker I think.
this looks like exactly what I was looking for, thank you