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You can...
Purchase it from Martin's Magical Menagerie.
Yodel atop a mountain.
Kill its mom. "It was coming right for me!"
Say it's your sister from another litter.
Whatever you come up with.
As long as there's no mechanical advantage, you can make up whatever story you want. It's your character (and it's your class feature).
In home games past I've had characters encounter their companions, purchase them, and one inherit one (it was immortal) from his father.
Be creative =)
I'm not seeing anything in the books (or my searching) about where a ranger's animal companion comes from. If they want a wolf, do they have to wait until they come across one and then convince it to join up? Do they cast some magical spell to summon one? Do they to to a big city and buy one in a market? I know, some of those are ridiculous. I'm guessing it's going to be dependent on the DM, but I'm curious how y'all handle it.
Thanks
If a druid releases her companion from service, she may gain a new one by performing a ceremony requiring 24 uninterrupted hours of prayer in the environment where the new companion typically lives. This ceremony can also replace an animal companion that has perished.
Seems to me that tells you all you need to know. In the case of a character who starts the game with one, assume it was done before game start.
Ugh, reminds me of a Ranger that played in a game alongside me. Didn't get his wolf companion til level 8 or so since we never ran across any animals in the forest.
If a druid releases her companion from service, she may gain a new one by performing a ceremony requiring 24 uninterrupted hours of prayer in the environment where the new companion typically lives. This ceremony can also replace an animal companion that has perished.Seems to me that tells you all you need to know. In the case of a character who starts the game with one, assume it was done before game start.Except a Ranger is going to be performing a ceremony and praying like a Druid would.
At this point, I'm thinking I might just have him track one down and capture it. Or maybe kill a mother and have him raise it from a pup.
This ability functions like the druid animal companion ability (which is part of the Nature Bond class feature)
Rules are the same. Fluff it how you like (ritual tracking and hunting, culminating in a capture and magical bonding, or whatever) but it's the same thing.
I couldn't help thinking that it probably has something to do with when a mommy companion and a daddy companion love each other very much.
The bit about "the environment where the new companion typically lives" seems like it could be problematic if you're got a picky DM. Depending on the campaign world it tough to come up with something exotic, at least at higher levels where you can't easily say, "A while back my PC went to Garundi/Vudra and befriended an elephant/tiger."
One of my PCs found his pet crocodile in the sewers and used Wild Empathy to befriend it. I think the local thieves guild had been feeding their prisoners to it.
I'm guessing it's going to be dependent on the DM, but I'm curious how y'all handle it.
Exactly. If the animal requested does not exist in the area, then the ranger/druid cannot have it. I remember being in a campaign a while back (I think 3.5) where the druid PC leveled up to the point where he could take a gorilla. So he basically killed off his old animal companion (By having it attack something far more powerful than it), and then expected to simply get his gorilla the next day.
The DM said no gorillas were available - this was in a game world where there were strict magical boundaries between areas that couldn't be crossed and such. Almost post-apocalyptic, devastation everywhere. It simply didn't make sense that a gorilla appeared out of no where.
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Like Tarzan, you yodel and they come, after you yodel for 24 hours.
If a druid releases her companion from service, she may gain a new one by performing a ceremony requiring 24 uninterrupted hours of prayer in the environment where the new companion typically lives. This ceremony can also replace an animal companion that has perished.Seems to me that tells you all you need to know. In the case of a character who starts the game with one, assume it was done before game start.Except a Ranger is going to be performing a ceremony and praying like a Druid would.
At this point, I'm thinking I might just have him track one down and capture it. Or maybe kill a mother and have him raise it from a pup.
This ability functions like the druid animal companion ability (which is part of the Nature Bond class feature)Rules are the same. Fluff it how you like (ritual tracking and hunting, culminating in a capture and magical bonding, or whatever) but it's the same thing.
Yeah, I would like to imagine that they would have something of a 'stake out' where they sit in a tree and watching an animal trail until they find something they like.
But, stoically sitting in the woods and not eating anything sound a bit like 'fasting', which is a part of many spiritual ceremonies around the world.
So basically, I am saying that the prayer might not necessarily have to be something so formal that one might even recognize it as prayer. And since nothing has been said by the rules, it seems to be more about mindset than anything. So that means that anything is valid, as long as you let it be.
There is also the bit about environments and such that has been mentioned though. While I vaguely remember druids as having a spell that can deal with that problem a bit, rangers are a bit stuck. And as Tormsskull brought up, that gorilla is not going to buy a plane ticket to answer the call of a Jersey Druid. Admittedly, with the dinosaurs running around, I somewhat doubt animals are entirely restricted to specific places/time periods, rather than biomes, but the point still stands that GM sets the limits.
Wouldn't a "Jersey Druid" call a "Jersey Devil"?
Is Guido a valid choice for an AC? Granted, not quite as smart as a Gorilla...
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The way I run it is that the PC chooses their animal companion at creation, but then they can dismiss it at any time.
Then when they want a new one, they perform the ritual and "nature" provides...basically at the end of the ritual an animal that is typical to the area they are in walks up to them (chosen by the GM), and is like, "Whatup? You needed help, well here I am. I'm your new companion for as long as you need me."
I like it because it allows the PC to vary their animal companion based on the terrain/environment they travel in.
However, if you are in a desert and you want a bear animal companion, you are going to be out of luck.