I have a 11th level Dwarf Ranger with a Leadership Score of 12, so by the book my cohort would be 8th level. Now im considering paying for an Awaken Spell to be cast on my tiger companion that has boon companion making it 9hd.. Now my question is how many pc levels should i give the cat to make it an 8th level cohort? I was thinkin monk levels for ultimate flavor..
Under monster creation it says a 9hd animal is a cr 6, so should i add 3 levels of monk for a total of cr8?
Any Opinions at all?
Why would your tiger suddenly gain enough monk levels to be suitable as your cohort?
You should have both a companion and a cohort.
|
The companion is a class feature that is not defined by its own levels. It would not work as a cohort
Once awakened, the creature can no longer serve as a viable animal companion (it says this explicitly in the spell).
I believe what would happen is that, post awakening, the creature would lose their animal companion modifications, becoming a normal animal of that type, but with the awakening modifiers on top of that. A tiger is normally a CR4 creature, so the extra +2 HD would probably add another +1 to the CR for CR5. The normal cohort would be an NPC with NPC gear but PC levels for a CR of level - 1, so the CR5 creature would likely be equivalent to a level 6 cohort, garnering them only two class levels, and only after they gained them through proper leveling. I could see an argument for raising the CR by a further 1 if the animal HD feats are chosen by the player rather than the default for the animal, which would leave them with only 1 class level of wiggle room.
Then the ranger would presumably grab a new animal companion.
As for *which* class levels, Barbarian is the obvious mechanical choice, while Druid would be the "Menagerie" choice. Monk would only work with the Martial Artist archetype as the animal would start off as true neutral (barring DM fiat, of course), and wouldn't be that great anyway (natural attacks would be better than flurry, only +1 wis mod). Personally, I'd go Fighter and have them wear heavy barding (full-plate equivalent) and utilize those bonus feats to work towards Rhino Charge (from the Sargava book). Eventually they'd be taking the Natural weapon group.
So, then, what does your GM say: is it okay with him/her if you add class levels to increase to cohort status or not?
Incidentally, in my games, I ignore the line that stipulates an awakened animal can't be an animal companion, but that's entirely homebrew.