Is there a spell to enlarge an animal companion?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


I know about Enlarge Person, but is there a comparable spell for enlarging an animal companion? I didn't realize Enlarge was for humanoids only, and let a player cast it and Permanency on his tiger animal buddy. I've already allowed it to happen, so I won't take it back, but was just curious.


That'd be animal growth.

It's a nasty spell for big beefy animal companions.


Aasimar's get a feat that allow them to cast "you" spells on their animals.

Animal growth <> permanent...


Wait...with animal companions, can't you share spells? Cast Enlarge Person on it?

EDIT: Nevermind, don't guess you can.


Why not simply use Enlarge Person? :)

The Share spell ability says:

Share Spell ability wrote:
The druid may cast a spell with a target of “You” on her animal companion (as a touch range spell) instead of on herself. A druid may cast spells on her animal companion even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the companion's type (animal). Spells cast in this way must come from a class that grants an animal companion. This ability does not allow the animal to share abilities that are not spells, even if they function like spells.

Emphasis by me.

So you the druid can cast spells with any creature type requirement on his own AC. Other players can't and the druid can't cast it on other ACs either.

Animal Growth then is the updated version of it, its bonuses are alot bigger


Because of:

"The druid may cast a spell with a target of 'You' on her animal companion"


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.
Mechanical Pear wrote:

Because of:

"The druid may cast a spell with a target of 'You' on her animal companion"

The problem is, it depends on how you parse the paragraph, it's not written clearly. It could be parsed as :

You may do A. You may do B.

Or, you can parse it as :

You may do A, and while doing A, you may ignore restriction B.

But as the paragraph is written, there's nothing to specify which parsing is correct.


That's two different things.

Druids may:
- Cast spells with "you" on animal companion as well (like "Longstrider")
- Cast spells with different type on AC. (like "Enlarge Person")


Thanks, all!


mdt wrote:


Or, you can parse it as :

You may do A, and while doing A, you may ignore restriction B.

If it was that it would read "A druid may cast these spells..." in the second sentence.

As it is written those two refer to different spells.

I don't even think there are spells out there that have "Target you" and then "Target humanoid" ... because well they both use the Target line to make those restrictions.


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Mechanical Pear wrote:

Because of:

"The druid may cast a spell with a target of 'You' on her animal companion"

I thought that meant if the druid is on her animal companion she can only cast spells with a target of "you". To cast any other spell, she has to get off. (No that's not a druid/succubus joke...)


Holy crap. Rereading it, and thinking about it, yeah, it seems right. And even though "Enlarge Person" isn't on the druid list (the spell has to be from the spell list of the class that grants you the animal companion), it IS on a Sorcerer's; say, one with the Sylvan gig going on. True that.

Sovereign Court

Yeah, you were missing a period there Pear. A druid can totally hit up their personal animal companion with all kinds of fun things.

That said, Animal Growth is a way better spell then Enlarge Person when it comes to what you get out of it.

Cal, that shouldn't be overpowered at all given they just tossed a huge chunk of change into something you could defeat with Dispel Magic by accident.


Animal Growth is also 5th level compared to 1st.

But you're right, Druids and Rangers don't get Enlarge Person, I didn't even notice that.
Of course Druids could take a domain to get it but then they'd lose their AC so that doesn't really help.

Could UMD be used to fake it?

However, tbh I don't see a reason why a druid shouldn't just research an "Enlarge Animal" spell.

Silver Crusade

Aren't animal companions considered Magical Beasts and doesn't Animal Growth only work on animals?


shallowsoul wrote:
Aren't animal companions considered Magical Beasts and doesn't Animal Growth only work on animals?

Yea but you can cast spells on your AC that would normally don't work on their creature type.


PRD - Animal Companions wrote:
An animal companion's abilities are determined by the druid's level and its animal racial traits. Table: Animal Companion Base Statistics determines many of the base statistics of the animal companion. They remain creatures of the animal type for purposes of determining which spells can affect them.

Nope, they're effectively animals through and through. They even have animal hit dice (d8, 3/4 BAB, etc).

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Quatar wrote:

Animal Growth is also 5th level compared to 1st.

But you're right, Druids and Rangers don't get Enlarge Person, I didn't even notice that.
Of course Druids could take a domain to get it but then they'd lose their AC so that doesn't really help.

Could UMD be used to fake it?

However, tbh I don't see a reason why a druid shouldn't just research an "Enlarge Animal" spell.

UMD can't be used to fake it because the Share Spells ability specifically says "Spells cast in this way must come from a class that grants an animal companion." You can use UMD to fake the item into thinking the spell is on your list, but you can't use UMD to fake your own class feature into thinking the spell is on your list.

Silver Crusade

Aratrok wrote:
PRD - Animal Companions wrote:
An animal companion's abilities are determined by the druid's level and its animal racial traits. Table: Animal Companion Base Statistics determines many of the base statistics of the animal companion. They remain creatures of the animal type for purposes of determining which spells can affect them.
Nope, they're effectively animals through and through. They even have animal hit dice (d8, 3/4 BAB, etc).

They must have changed it from 3.5.


Quote:
Quote:
Nope, they're effectively animals through and through. They even have animal hit dice (d8, 3/4 BAB, etc).
They must have changed it from 3.5.

No, no change. Animal companions were animals, not magical beasts, in 3.5 as well. It just wasn't explicitly said in the animal companion description.

It was mentioned in the 3.5 FAQ, though.

Quote:

If a druid casts awaken on her animal companion, can the awakened animal take levels in place of the Hit Dice it would normally gain when the druid then goes up in level?

Actually, if a druid casts awaken on her animal companion, the creature ceases to be an animal and becomes a magical beast. A druid cannot have a magical beast as an animal companion, so at this point the creature is freed of the bond and loses all benefits of being an animal companion. However, the druid could keep the awakened creature as a cohort if she takes the Leadership feat.


Great discussion, everyone. Now, riddle me this: Enlarge Person and Animal Growth essentially do the same thing, so why the wide discrepancy in their spell levels?

Grand Lodge

DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Great discussion, everyone. Now, riddle me this: Enlarge Person and Animal Growth essentially do the same thing, so why the wide discrepancy in their spell levels?

Enlarge Person is much more restricted on what you can target with it, basically only Humanoids, and at most you'll get a large Human. (corner cases like the Summoner(who doesn't get Animal Growth) being put aside for now.

But target something like a Dire Tiger with Animal Growth, and what you get is a truly frightening melee monster. AG is considered a more powerful spell because of what you can end up with it, and the wider target field.

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

LazarX wrote:
DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Great discussion, everyone. Now, riddle me this: Enlarge Person and Animal Growth essentially do the same thing, so why the wide discrepancy in their spell levels?

Enlarge Person is much more restricted on what you can target with it, basically only Humanoids, and at most you'll get a large Human. (corner cases like the Summoner(who doesn't get Animal Growth) being put aside for now.

But target something like a Dire Tiger with Animal Growth, and what you get is a truly frightening melee monster. AG is considered a more powerful spell because of what you can end up with it, and the wider target field.

Yeah, consider that the vast majority of humanoids are Small or Medium, whereas animals can vary in size much more, and so there's the potential for much more power gain there. If you were to cast Animal Growth on a Huge animal, it becomes Gargantuan. There are no Huge humanoids you could cast Enlarge Person on, AFAIK.

Grand Lodge

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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Great discussion, everyone. Now, riddle me this: Enlarge Person and Animal Growth essentially do the same thing, so why the wide discrepancy in their spell levels?

Because those spells are remnants of 3.0/3.5 and earlier D&D. The Share Spells changes for PF are what create this situation. Earlier editions, it just meant one casting of a spell would cover you and your companion, as long as you remained within 5 feet of each other. It didn't allow you to ignore the target type.

I have a Sylvan Sorcerer who just made level 7 in PFS and can have a huge pouncing tiger for the Season 4 meatgrinders.

Silver Crusade

Jeraa wrote:
Quote:
Quote:
Nope, they're effectively animals through and through. They even have animal hit dice (d8, 3/4 BAB, etc).
They must have changed it from 3.5.

No, no change. Animal companions were animals, not magical beasts, in 3.5 as well. It just wasn't explicitly said in the animal companion description.

It was mentioned in the 3.5 FAQ, though.

Quote:

If a druid casts awaken on her animal companion, can the awakened animal take levels in place of the Hit Dice it would normally gain when the druid then goes up in level?

Actually, if a druid casts awaken on her animal companion, the creature ceases to be an animal and becomes a magical beast. A druid cannot have a magical beast as an animal companion, so at this point the creature is freed of the bond and loses all benefits of being an animal companion. However, the druid could keep the awakened creature as a cohort if she takes the Leadership feat.

Actually I went back and checked my 3.5 PHB and it says their type changes to magical beast so Pathfinder did change it.


LazarX wrote:
DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Great discussion, everyone. Now, riddle me this: Enlarge Person and Animal Growth essentially do the same thing, so why the wide discrepancy in their spell levels?
Enlarge Person is much more restricted on what you can target with it, basically only Humanoids, and at most you'll get a large Human.

Well, since giants are now all humanoids, they can still get quite a bit larger via enlarge person...

Though its still only a +2 str increase I suppose, just lots more reach.


DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Great discussion, everyone. Now, riddle me this: Enlarge Person and Animal Growth essentially do the same thing, so why the wide discrepancy in their spell levels?

Enlarge Person gives: +1 size, +2 str, -2 Dex, -1 AC, -1 Attack

Animal Growth gives: +1 size, +8 str, +4 con, -2 dex, +2 AC (it doesn't mention the -1 AC and -1 attack due to increased size, but that might be implied - however it's magic so it might not be)

I wouldn't exactly call that "essentially the same thing"

Sovereign Court

Don't forget the 1 round casting time on Enlarge Person as well. You get bigger and take those penalties, but don't get all the bonuses from getting bigger unlike with Animal Growth.

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