Animal Companions & Classes

[Björn Renshai]

So I was wondering in PfO, what classes were going to have animal companions or familiars? Most often in MMO's it is only the Ranger/Hunter class that gets them, but with PfO I was wondering if that would be different. Considering the fact that druids, wizards, of coarse rangers all have them in Pathfinder.

[Cryptorus]

Goblinworks will most likely take it as it comes in the case of animal companions for PFO. If they can implement animal companions for all the classes from the core rulebook that have them, they most likely will. They want this to be like Pathfinder, but in online sandbox form. Until we start getting closer to launch and seeing the MMO itself in action, we as players don't really have an answer for that question and many others just yet.

[AvenaOats]

You'll likely be able to train up the skills you want to achieve animal companions. So it's not strictly "this class" uses animals/ monsters/ immaterial beings, although the actual skills will likely reside in those archetypes for you to pursue. I think that is the case.

A recent eg mentioned was training a Dragon for war eg. I think the Druid description (& potentially Ranger?) point o animal possibilities most overtly so far. And wizards may have "summon" spells?

Goblin Works blog wrote:

Druids—masters of nature empathy. Allies to beasts and manipulators of nature, these often misunderstood protectors of the wild strive to shield their lands from all who would threaten them.

But I'd like to see animals more utility than attack drones. Eg a warg usage for spying or surveying the land safely/undetected would be very visceral experience to enjoy for the experience let alone the function. :)

[Valkenr]

As said already, I would expect animal companions/farmiliars to be a skill arc if they do make it into the game. So you will have to give up a capstone if it is not within the bounds of your class.

[Hanz McBattle]

I really would love it if animal companions could be given to anyone who seeks to train one.

What I would love even more would be to see "pets" outside the typical animal companion fodder. Vermin would be welcome, and maybe even magical beasts. I would love to play a ranger with less of a goody goody nature flavor- maybe he runs around with a vicious spider, frost worm, gargoyle or bassalisk.

[Blaeringr]

I'd love to be able to capture and train other humanoids >8D

Ryan's already mentioned his desire to eventually see players able to capture, raise, and train dragons as a collective effort.

[Forencith]

I agree with Valkenr on this one...it should be a skill training tree. If they decide to make it archetype specific, and you belong to a different archetype, you can always decide to train it at the expense of your capstone. This essentially makes the skill available to anyone.

[Andius]

AvenaOats wrote:

But I'd like to see animals more utility than attack drones. Eg a warg usage for spying or surveying the land safely/undetected would be very visceral experience to enjoy for the experience let alone the function. :)

I agree. In Neverwinter Nights you could take control of your familiar and use it for scouting. Very useful and fun.

I know a lot of the time I like to use animal companions as mounts or pack animals. Especially pack animals since a mule is weak and easily spooked. It's very nice to throw some packs on your wolf/bear/something else that will be able to hold it's own, and come into dungeons with you.

[Björn Renshai]

Andius wrote:

AvenaOats wrote:

But I'd like to see animals more utility than attack drones. Eg a warg usage for spying or surveying the land safely/undetected would be very visceral experience to enjoy for the experience let alone the function. :)

I agree. In Neverwinter Nights you could take control of your familiar and use it for scouting. Very useful and fun.

I know a lot of the time I like to use animal companions as mounts or pack animals. Especially pack animals since a mule is weak and easily spooked. It's very nice to throw some packs on your wolf/bear/something else that will be able to hold it's own, and come into dungeons with you.

That would be awesome!

[AvenaOats]

Björn Renshai wrote:

Andius wrote:

AvenaOats wrote:

But I'd like to see animals more utility than attack drones. Eg a warg usage for spying or surveying the land safely/undetected would be very visceral experience to enjoy for the experience let alone the function. :)

I agree. In Neverwinter Nights you could take control of your familiar and use it for scouting. Very useful and fun.

I know a lot of the time I like to use animal companions as mounts or pack animals. Especially pack animals since a mule is weak and easily spooked. It's very nice to throw some packs on your wolf/bear/something else that will be able to hold it's own, and come into dungeons with you.

That would be awesome!

Great! Another use that makes them useful in different directions to combat.

For another tailoring of animal companions, I suppose canidae type creatures would be excellent for boosting tracking ability eg either speed of tracking, extending range of tracking etc. For the Felidae, these could improve your "ambush" skill and/or tree-climbing/lurking skill etc.

[Björn Renshai]

AvenaOats wrote:

Björn Renshai wrote:

Andius wrote:

AvenaOats wrote:

But I'd like to see animals more utility than attack drones. Eg a warg usage for spying or surveying the land safely/undetected would be very visceral experience to enjoy for the experience let alone the function. :)

I agree. In Neverwinter Nights you could take control of your familiar and use it for scouting. Very useful and fun.

I know a lot of the time I like to use animal companions as mounts or pack animals. Especially pack animals since a mule is weak and easily spooked. It's very nice to throw some packs on your wolf/bear/something else that will be able to hold it's own, and come into dungeons with you.

That would be awesome!

Great! Another use that makes them useful in different directions to combat.

For another tailoring of animal companions, I suppose canidae type creatures would be excellent for boosting tracking ability eg either speed of tracking, extending range of tracking etc. For the Felidae, these could improve your "ambush" skill and/or tree-climbing/lurking skill etc.

I don't see why not... It is similar to what Familiars do for wizards...

[AvenaOats]

I notice in a Dishonored Review that a couple of abilities:

1) Summon pack of rats (to attack/eat an enemy)
2) Possess Rat and go 1st person at rat height scouting forwards.

The rat possess might be interesting for infiltrating an enemy settlement, scouting a dungeon or finding a small hole to crawl down and investigate. Additionally possessing a bird would provide valuable information during a battle.

[Southraven]

I agree with the gist of this thread, but would love it to be expanded to include other classic MMO "pet types".

I'm talking undead types, demons, assorted golems (a long ignored section of wizarding that I would dearly love to see more of), elementals and anything else that you can think of that falls under the 'companion, pet or servant' category.

[Mbando]

Southraven wrote:

I agree with the gist of this thread, but would love it to be expanded to include other classic MMO "pet types".

I'm talking undead types, demons, assorted golems (a long ignored section of wizarding that I would dearly love to see more of), elementals and anything else that you can think of that falls under the 'companion, pet or servant' category.

I would prefer a qualitative difference between one-off summoned creatures like demons, elementals, the undead, etc., and long term pets that a character has a relationship with, i.e. druid/ranger pets and arcane familiars. I think the former should be of lower utility, i.e. for combat or a simple task like breaking a door down (i.e. str check). I'd like the complexity of multiple roles to be reserved for pets/servants that are marked by an ongoing relationship.

[JakBlitz]

As long as my paladin gets his bonded mount i will be happy.

[AvenaOats]

I agree with Mbando, the generic category Pet (for AI side-kick) should have a sub-category between a mutual partnership and a summon/minion deal. Eg undead creatures can be sent first into a dungeon to spring mechanical traps/pits etc. That's a nice use for them aside from combat drone.

I was thinking some more on an animal companion that might boost tracking. And it ties in with maps. So if you have a wolf pet. And use it's tracking ability, perhaps it scoots off and then you look at your map and displayed in a radius are the "trails of recent/moving" entities be they other players or mobs and you can see where they've been and are currently moving (creating a trail). That would be quite useful possibly as well as atmospheric and succinct display of information.

[Mcduff]

It'd be cool to see some overlap between pets and mounts. A direbear for instance could have a travel mode where it essentially acts as a mount for a druid or whatever.

[Forencith]

Mcduff wrote:

It'd be cool to see some overlap between pets and mounts. A direbear for instance could have a travel mode where it essentially acts as a mount for a druid or whatever.

I am all for this, as long as someone has to keep that beast of a bear fed. Perhaps that can be a difference between summoned and non-summoned pets and companions; non-summoned ones can be maintained via an upkeep on par with its CR (perhaps with a WoW-ish happiness buffer), summoned creatures cannot.

But, I would limit places non-summoned allies can be "called". Since they are not summoned, they should only spawn and despawn in their home environment. If for instance your druid has that dire bear (and knowing GWs preference for entities not existing when not in use), she would not be able to call it while in town, or in a dungeon; nor would she be able to despawn it in those places. What the druid could do is "call" the bear while in the wilds and then enter the city/dungeon with the bear. Despawning the bear in those environments would result in a percent chance the bear will no longer be callable even in its natural environment.

Summoned allies on the otherhand, can be summoned anywhere, but disappear at the first normal upkeep period.

[AvenaOats]

^I like the idea of limits on animals that ties in with their home environment.

Another use for a pet could be to post on the map as an alarm/alert (a bit like the magical equivalent of cctv camera)? Might be useful in some contexts.