It should have been an undead wolf, but with the HD (and thus extra HP, BaB, saves, etc.) and size (thus stat adjustments from size and extra natural armor from both the undead template used and size) your AC had when it died, unless I'm mistaken.
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BY the rules, the wolf looses all benefits from your class feature as an animal companion when it dies.
however, having it shrink wouldnt make sense, i would do a normal wolf with the giant and zombie templates. But it isnt a dire wolf.
I might be inclined to interpret
Drop HD gained from class levels
quite literally in this case. It doesn't say whose. Technically I think they would still retain their size, abilities, natural armor bonus, attacks, and so forth.
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There is actually no ambiguity about what happens to the animal companion when the animal dies the master dies or the animal is released from service. It looses all benefits of being an animal companion.
Put it another way a 15th level human bbarbarian comes back as a 2hd zombie loosing all benehits of class levels. The ac is no different.
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Where does it state that when an animal ceases to be a Companion, it looses all of it's accumulated benefits? It is not mentioned in the Awaken spell, which directly mentions them no longer being an Animal Companion. Also, ACs gain hit dice, not levels. The creature gets more physically powerful and larger in many cases, I am doubtful that that just goes away. If the AC becomes a zombie it would lose all of it's skills, feats and special abilities, however, it would still be the same size and base HD it was at the time of it's raising.
When animal companions stop being animal companions they lose all benefits of having been an animal companion. Whether from being dismissed or dying this is the case.
The former animal companion should be a base wolf that is the reanimated.
Please review the zombie template. You will see that all ability scores and base stats remain, while all skills, feats, special attacks, etc. are lost. Hit dice and natural armor are now based on size, which depending on the companion's level, is the only thing in question. Having the wolf shrink makes no sense whatsoever, but watch out for some rule lawyers calling for it anyway.
I'd call it a large zombie wolf with whatever ability scores (and increases) you gave him, but near to nothing else. Also, he's mindless, and therefore unsuitable for you now, but you can slay him and bring him back, can't you?
An animal companion is a class feature and only has different stats because of its connection to the druid. Now since this thing is under the control of Team Evil it is actually beneficial for it to return to a normal wolf, even though it does not make sense outside of the rules.
Once the animal has been reclaimed by the druid I would say it gets the benefits.
Going back to my first paragraph when the a druid calls a new animal he calls one with the AC stats. That is because the ritual bonds him with the animal, other wise animals with AC stats would just be able to be found normally.
In fact, it is not based on a normal wolf. It's a creature that is treated as an animal for spell purposes and has certain characteristics. As I said, it appears to me that its base statistics would be unchanged. However, I don't think it would retain its HD and the attendant benefits. I don't think it would shrink; that is triggered by the druid's level and not its HD, actually. Natural armor bonus increases are iffy, but fortunately in this case, irrelevant. The template already tells you what to do about ability scores.
There is no template. There is only a chart, and it is only not a normal wolf for the same reason a familiar's wizard is an magical creature, and that is the connection to the class. The creature on its own, is not special.
The zombie template. But again, an animal companion is not, never was, a normal animal.
An animal companion is just an imitation of the animal, not the real one.
The animal companion can't exist without the connection to the druid.
Where do you get this idea from? Because it's blatantly untrue. The AC doesn't cease to exist when dismissed, killed, or Awakened.
So, by raw, when an AC dies, he shrinks in size? Thats some weird thing to roleplay...
When we did rise of the runelords my rogue set off a trap rolled a 1 on the save the died. The rogues brownie familiar made the save and took half damage.... then died because it was suddenly a normal brownie with 40 damage.
Everything about tge wolf above normal is due to its master if that bond is cut everything is gone
When we did rise of the runelords my rogue set off a trap rolled a 1 on the save the died. The rogues brownie familiar made the save and took half damage.... then died because it was suddenly a normal brownie with 40 damage.
Everything about tge wolf above normal is due to its master if that bond is cut everything is gone
There is no "normal." The statistics of the animal companion are based on animal companions, not an existing creature writeup.
There is no template. There is only a chart, and it is only not a normal wolf for the same reason a familiar's wizard is an magical creature, and that is the connection to the class. The creature on its own, is not special.That is not true. A familiar uses the base stats of the animal. An animal companion is just an imitation of the animal, not the real one.
The animal companion can't exist without the connection to the druid.
That is untrue. You even have to be in an area where the animal lives to select the animal. The animal is not created for the druid. It is changed by the druid.
Where do you get this idea from? Because it's blatantly untrue. The AC doesn't cease to exist when dismissed, killed, or Awakened.An animal companion is just an imitation of the animal, not the real one.
The animal companion can't exist without the connection to the druid.From here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2k45b?Animal-Companion-Racial-skill-bonus
Where James Jacobs explains that animal companions are different creatures than the creatures they are based off.
He never said it was a different animal. He is saying they use different rules from the exact animal in the book, and they do for balance reasons. It would be a bad idea to gives players a Roc as an animal companion or have a tiger start off with the normal stats and then scale like they do according to the chart.
When you cast animate dead, it says what to do with the stats of the affected creature. It doesn't say to look up a similar entry in the bestiary and guess. It's not clear what to do with the HD although I say delete them; even if they are a class feature of the druid, not the animal's own class levels, I think the same logic applies, and this has the advantage of following the template literally.
Saying you should look up a normal dire wolf and extrapolate is like saying when you animate a barbarian's skeleton, it should turn into a 1st level warrior with Strength 15. That's not how animate dead works. And, as noted above, good luck figuring out a triply size decreased T-rex.
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Since undead are not allowed as animal companions, the undead creature is *not* and animal companion. As all improvements to the base animal is based on class level, becoming undead removes that.
/cevah