I am creating a Druid and I am a little confused by a couple things.
1) Animal Shaman
In the Core Rulebook it describes setting up an animal companion. In the Advanced Players guide it talks about Animal Shamans. Are these the same thing or something completely different?
2) Animal Companion Hit Points
The first level animal companion gets 2d8 hit die. So to calculate the HP for it, do I roll both hit die and then add the Con modifier?
As an aside, calculating initial hit points has always confused me. For first level is it the max of your hit die plus the con modifier or do I still have to roll? And then at each level when I do roll for additional hit points, do I again add the con modifier?
Thanks
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The various "Shamans" are Druid archetypes. You can be an Aquatic Shaman, or an Eagle Shaman, etc. Each Shaman focuses on one aspect of the natural world, or favors one type of creature over another, and eschews the others. A Saurian Shaman, for example, gets powerful summoning abilities when summoning dinosaurs and using Handle Animal with reptiles, but loses some of the versatilitiy of the base Druid. Shamans are limited in their selection of Animal Companions.
When it comes to determining hit points, if you're playing in Pathfinder Society, your animal companion will only ever receive average hit points for each hit dice. That means, as a first level Druid, your animal companion will have 9 hit points, plus whatever its Constitution modifier is per hit die.
If you're playing in a home game, most GMs I've had let you have max hit points for the first hit die, and either roll or do whatever for the rest of its hit points. Ask you GM, or if you're the GM, do whatever feels best to you. The average hit point rule is fairly balancing.
This character is going to be for Pathfinder Society. I will use the average for the HP.
I think I see what the Shamans are now. So instead of choosing, say, Mountain Druid, I could choose to be a Bear Shaman and I would get those features. Yes?
Assuming that is right I see now how I was misreading the book.
Thanks
Just be sure you look over the Additional Resources page to see if the options you are looking at going with are legal for Society (I know the Bear Shaman is legal). And be sure you own the source you're using, and not just relying on online references.
Actually I believe a photo copy/pdf print of the original relevant pages is enough (to keep from having to lug around 5+ books due to archtypes, feat choices, etc).
A watermarked PDF or the book is required.
In order to utilize content from an Additional Resource, a player must have a physical copy of the Additional Resource in question, a name-watermarked Paizo PDF of it, or a printout of the relevant pages from it, as well as a copy of the current version of the Additional Resources list.
I just downloaded again to make sure it hadn't changed. I don't 'do' PFS but it comes up often enough on the forums that I've looked into it in attempt to be moderately helpful in a discussion.
In essence they want a ready reference from a legitimate source, not some webpage online that could have been altered or changed either intentionally or unintentionally, which is understandable. It is also why you must tell the GM that you'll be using something before play so they can get up to speed if needed on the subject matter. This is also a good chance for you as a player to ask how they will be running things, as not everyone runs the same even in organized play.