Use a feat to gain animal companion?

[Diskordant]

Do you think it'd be a balanced feat to allow a character to use a feat to gain an animal companion?

I think it would and here's why:

At character level 7 I could use a feat to gain a Druid companion, which would in turn come with an animal companion. Now the Druid would be two levels lower than I would, and consequently so would the animal comanion, but if we eliminate the followers and the Druid I think it's entirely equal in power.

I know this is a slippery slope though, because it opens up the whole "well if I can use a feat to gain an animal companion then why not use a feat to gain spell casting as a wizard of equal level by the same logic."

That being said I think I'd allow it for a 7th level character to gain an animal companion or a familiar, but only if they don't already have one or the other. No Druids with both animal companions and familiars.

What do you guys think?

[Deadmanwalking]

If Leadership is allowed, then yeah, a Feat to give you an Animal Companion using your Character Level as your Druid Level sounds fine, though if it were me, I'd note that you couldn't get Leadership if you had it, nor get it if you already had a Companion, to prevent stacking abuse.

[Diskordant]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

If Leadership is allowed, then yeah, a Feat to give you an Animal Companion using your Character Level as your Druid Level sounds fine, though if it were me, I'd note that you couldn't get Leadership if you had it, nor get it if you already had a Companion, to prevent stacking abuse.

That's true. In this particular campaign leadership is discourage not actually banned outright. I'm thinking my gm may allow it since my character has had a pet from the first session. I just wanted to perform a reasonability check before I ran it past him. If generally people are like that's a terribly broken and unbalanced idea I wouldn't even bring it up. But if everyone agrees with you I'll run it by our gm on Tuesday.

Oh yeah and thanks for the prompt response.

[edross]

I wouldn't presume to know if it's reasonable in the context of your GM's campaign. As a GM, I would probably allow it, but I would also allow other class features to be taken ala carte as feats. If you just do it for one class feature, you're taking away a lot of the appeal of that class. Also, I would make the feat version crappier, so that no one could out druid the druid. You'd probably get the animal companion benefits as if you were a ranger, which means level -3 and limited list of companions.

Also, you wouldn't have wild empathy, so you'd better hope that the animal's attitude stays 'helpful'.

To avoid additional cheese, like Mage's Transformation letting your Ape wield a Great Sword, I'd rule that only spells that are on the ranger or druid list can be used via 'share spells'.

Edit: The spell I was referring to is just called "Transformation" not "Mage's Transformation"

[Mauril]

Or you could, y'know, just use Leadership for a monster cohort instead of a humanoid one. There are lots of them listed in the back of both bestiaries and you can petition your GM for specific ones, if you don't like those lists.

[Mogre]

Mauril wrote:

Or you could, y'know, just use Leadership for a monster cohort instead of a humanoid one. There are lots of them listed in the back of both bestiaries and you can petition your GM for specific ones, if you don't like those lists.

This is what I was thinking and probably the easiest, as it's already in the Feat rules.

[Golden-Esque]

edross wrote:

I wouldn't presume to know if it's reasonable in the context of your GM's campaign. As a GM, I would probably allow it, but I would also allow other class features to be taken ala carte as feats. If you just do it for one class feature, you're taking away a lot of the appeal of that class. Also, I would make the feat version crappier, so that no one could out druid the druid. You'd probably get the animal companion benefits as if you were a ranger, which means level -3 and limited list of companions.

Also, you wouldn't have wild empathy, so you'd better hope that the animal's attitude stays 'helpful'.

To avoid additional cheese, like Mage's Transformation letting your Ape wield a Great Sword, I'd rule that only spells that are on the ranger or druid list can be used via 'share spells'.

Edit: The spell I was referring to is just called "Transformation" not "Mage's Transformation"

Your ape can already wield a Great Sword, as long as its Intelligence is 3 or higher and you take the appropriate Weapon Proficiency feat.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

There's a web-based option created in one of the really old Wizards site articles called Wild Cohort. You might see if your GM will let you take that.