So, my character has a raven that hangs out with him and has since first level. The raven is simply a pet, not a familiar or an animal companion or anything special.
My character then decided that he wanted to have awaken cast on his raven friend and turn him into a cohort via Leadership. The problem is...what effective level is an awakened raven?
Normally a raven is CR 1/6. Awakening a critter turns it into a magical beast and gives it an addition 2 HD. This sort of makes an awakened raven have 3 magical beast HD. According to the Monster Creation guidelines, that should put the little guy around CR 2. The rules suggest that you should consider CR equal to ECL unless there is something particularly outstanding about the creature that might warrant it having a higher ECL.
So, my raven now takes some class levels. Do these simply stack on top of the ECL from the CR, or do they follow the Monsters with Class Levels rules? If the former, he can have 3 levels of [something] when my character takes Leadership at level 7. If the latter, he can have a few more. Since I intend for the raven to take levels in bard, which is an unassociated class for magical beasts, he can take 2 levels of bard for a single CR bump. Also, when he has taken 4 levels of bard, he gets a drop in his original CR, possibly allowing him another free level.
Essentially, assuming I have a high enough Leadership score to keep him within 2 levels of mine, how many levels of bard can my raven take when my character is level 10?
So, my character has a raven that hangs out with him and has since first level. The raven is simply a pet, not a familiar or an animal companion or anything special.
My character then decided that he wanted to have awaken cast on his raven friend and turn him into a cohort via Leadership. The problem is...what effective level is an awakened raven?
Normally a raven is CR 1/6. Awakening a critter turns it into a magical beast and gives it an addition 2 HD. This sort of makes an awakened raven have 3 magical beast HD. According to the Monster Creation guidelines, that should put the little guy around CR 2. The rules suggest that you should consider CR equal to ECL unless there is something particularly outstanding about the creature that might warrant it having a higher ECL.
So, my raven now takes some class levels. Do these simply stack on top of the ECL from the CR, or do they follow the Monsters with Class Levels rules? If the former, he can have 3 levels of [something] when my character takes Leadership at level 7. If the latter, he can have a few more. Since I intend for the raven to take levels in bard, which is an unassociated class for magical beasts, he can take 2 levels of bard for a single CR bump. Also, when he has taken 4 levels of bard, he gets a drop in his original CR, possibly allowing him another free level.
Essentially, assuming I have a high enough Leadership score to keep him within 2 levels of mine, how many levels of bard can my raven take when my character is level 10?
This is really, really, subjective, and I dont think there is a real 'good' or legitimate way to do this. HOWEVER, if you're good with this, and your DM is good with this, what I'd suggest is...
Just letting the Raven take a full allotment of levels as if it were a player race. It doesn't have any racial features to speak of past size and a fly speed, and by level 7 (when you can take Leadership) flight is becoming more and more attainable (Oracles and Witches for instance, should be flying a lot of the time), and the size is counted by the creatures lack of ability as a combatant.
So level -2 in Bard levels. Thats my opinion. Beyond opinion though... nothing really official here AFAIK.
No matter what, you are probably going to need some customizations. A raven has cha 7, and getting +d3 from awaken will not really get you into range of allowing spell casting. Or you might just accept this limitation, having to get it a magic item to boost cha.
Otherwise I think Krispy's suggestion of just using it as race, an adding the full bard levels would be appropriate. Just remember to remove the racial HDs then.
Actually I might be a little concerned that it actually was better than standard race cohort bard, as the size and flying is going to be nice benefit for an utility character.
So, just to confirm Krispy, you're suggesting that, at level 10, the raven would be bard 8? Effectively the limitations (tiny size carrying capacity, non-humanoid shape, no real hands) counter-balance the advantages (tiny sized AC and attack bonuses, unlimited flight).
The GM had me roll the stats for my raven when I mentioned that I might want to be doing this. Used the base statistics from the bestiary entry to determine modifiers and rolled 3d6 for each ability. I ended up with 2/18/11/2/15/9, with the +1d3 for CHA, it gets to 11. I'll just invest gold and level ups into CHA to keep casting useful. He'll focus on buffs and no save spells and using his bardic abilities to boost the party.
I don't see that Awaken itself would increase the Raven's CR any. It's a spell effect. Yeah, it's permanent, but that generally doesn't matter.
Since the raven's normal CR is less than one, his CR would be whatever his class levels are.
I don't see that Awaken itself would increase the Raven's CR any. It's a spell effect. Yeah, it's permanent, but that generally doesn't matter.
The raven's CR would be whatever his class levels are.
It depends on, whether you take the full effect of the spell or not. As the spell is written (without taking about cohorts or class levels), it grants the animal 2 extra HD, changes it to magical beast which means d10 hit dice and full BAB, darkvision, as well as grants an intellingence increase of + 1-16, and +1d3 cha.
In most cases applying these would certainly make the creature in question a higher CR.
It depends on, whether you take the full effect of the spell or not. As the spell is written (without taking about cohorts or class levels), it grants the animal 2 extra HD, changes it to magical beast which means d10 hit dice and full BAB, darkvision, as well as grants an intellingence increase of + 1-16, and +1d3 cha.
In most cases applying these would certainly make the creature in question a higher CR.As would the effects of a LOT of spells. Likewise, you could create a magic item that does most of those things, hang it a round a monsters neck, and it wouldn't effect his CR.
It's a magic spell, the cost of the spell is not applied to the monsters CR, it's simply applied to your wallet for having it cast.
As would the effects of a LOT of spells. Likewise, you could create a magic item that does most of those things, hang it a round a monsters neck, and it wouldn't effect his CR.
It's a magic spell, the cost of the spell is not applied to the monsters CR, it's simply applied to your wallet for having it cast.
I respectfully disagree, as awaken isn't just a permanent magical effect. It is an instaneous spell, that transform an animal into something entirely different, namely a magical beast with higher ability scores. The CR of a mundane raven is no longer relevant, as the creature is different.
Consider the other use of the spell. Awakening a tree, most surely changes its CR to something higher than 0 when it becomes a animated object instead of just being a tree.I think we have rather different conceptions of Challenge Ratings. CR are affected by items, spells and whatever ability the creature has at its disposal. Thus if a standard human fighter NPC with CR 1 get 1.000.000 gp worth magical item, he suddenly becomes a much higher challenge.
In case of the raven cohort, you might argue, that you are able to grant it certain bonusses through spells or items, without it having any effect on which abilities.
But this isn't similar to the awakening, which in the case we are discussing, are a requisite for the becoming a cohort with character levels.
You might make the argument that the raven becomes your cohort and gains bard levels, after which you apply the awakening. I find this problematic at many levels. Firstly we are in the GM-call territory, since the rules doesn't tell us what a raven is equivalent of as a cohort (which isn't based directly on CR). Secondly I find the notion of a mundane raven getting Bard levels rather absurd. How does the animal get all those abilities, which it is unable to use due to lack of both intelligence, speech and hands?
Well, it basically boils down to the fact that Awaken basically applies a template to the creature. It tells you exactly which abilities and qualities the spell changes, and in what ways, and makes no mention of changing the creatures CR.
So RAW, since the spell doesn't tell you to increase the target creature's CR, his CR remains the same.
So, just to confirm Krispy, you're suggesting that, at level 10, the raven would be bard 8? Effectively the limitations (tiny size carrying capacity, non-humanoid shape, no real hands) counter-balance the advantages (tiny sized AC and attack bonuses, unlimited flight).
The GM had me roll the stats for my raven when I mentioned that I might want to be doing this. Used the base statistics from the bestiary entry to determine modifiers and rolled 3d6 for each ability. I ended up with 2/18/11/2/15/9, with the +1d3 for CHA, it gets to 11. I'll just invest gold and level ups into CHA to keep casting useful. He'll focus on buffs and no save spells and using his bardic abilities to boost the party.
He's got a high wisdom. Make him a cleric.
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Hey Mauril,
A few months ago we were posting in the same thread about this very issue. Shortly after that I went to the lengths to compare a human to an awakened animal cohort with disappointing results. I did take the Leadership feet, but did not awaken an animal.
The problem lies with GM interpretation and balancing. A GM that isn't as interested in the process as the player is likely to setup guidelines that are stacked against the awakened animal. My GM considered the awakened animal's hit dice as his character level before class levels. At the time, I was mainly looking at a Leopard Monk. He would have been awakened with 5 hit dice after the +2HD from the Awaken spell. Meaning that my druid at seventh level would have had an intelligent Leopard with a few more hit points.
From the point of view of a seventh level player taking Leadership: Even if we take away the +2HD effect from the Awaken spell, an awakened leopard with two levels in monk is still inferior in almost every way to a fifth level human monk.
So, my ultimate suggestion: Draw up a max level bard allowed for your character under Leadership as a typical race (human, halfling, etc.) and draw up two or three versions (maybe considering its "animal levels" as zero, one and three before adding bard levels) of your awakened raven bard. Show the differences between them to your GM and let him decide what he is comfortable with. You're likely to have a feat tax of Natural Spell, the expense of casting the spell in the first place and other deficits that will result in a net loss over a "normal" race, but the cohort will be unique.
Best wishes!
I knew I posted about this a while back but, for whatever reason, I couldn't seem to find it. I thought I would just post again as I had basically forgotten what the consensus was from that thread.
The consensus from the group is that the 2 magical beast HD don't alter the overall ECL, letting my cohort have class levels equal to the limit due to Leadership. It was just called into question again recently, so I thought I would pose the question to the board to get a different set of opinions on it.
Well, it basically boils down to the fact that Awaken basically applies a template to the creature. It tells you exactly which abilities and qualities the spell changes, and in what ways, and makes no mention of changing the creatures CR.
So RAW, since the spell doesn't tell you to increase the target creature's CR, his CR remains the same.
Apart from the fact that it isn't a template at all, and the CR is not a concept that figures anywhere in the rules other than the GM-parts and Bestiaries.
What you suggest is that the awakened raven is a lower CR than a raven that is normally advanced by 2 HD, although the awakened version is by all respects superior.
The CR system are just guidelines, which is also why the game mechanics (apart from XP progression) does not relate to them in any way. Spells and effects are based on hit dice.
This is especially obvious concerning the leadership feat, where the 'monsters and cohorts' doesn't include a linear relationship between CR and their effective cohort level. In this way you have a pegasus (CR 3) that counts as level 6 while a unicorn (also CR 3). There is even bigger difference between a Blink Dog (CR 2) which counts as level 4, while a ghoul (only CR 1) counts as level 5.
I wouldn't disagree that some of these effective cohort levels might be a bit too high, making monster cohorts quite pointless to a normal humanoid character, but it does show that the cohort level is based on usefulness of the monsters abilities and their synergy with class levels.