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How do the Automatic Bonus Progression rules work with a character that has a familiar or animal companion?
I haven't been able to find any information on this. Do the companions use the regular track for bonuses as well? Do you have to split your own bonuses with your companion somehow?
If there is no ruling on it, any suggestions as to how it should work would be appreciated.
EDIT: I just realized that you get half wealth, but items such as Belts and Headbands still exist under this ruling.
It seems like it'd be fair to just use that money to keep your furry buddy relevant, but I'm still open to suggestions.
I too am looking to have this question answered.
I am not sure if allowing attunement (from the potential reservoir of attunements you have) for equipment used by an animal companion or familiar is the best answer, but it surely might help. This complicates things a bit when you consider enhancement bonuses to stats. As a ruling you could determine that once you apply a bonus to STR on either your animal companion or character, that it stays with that creature. (Even if you were to replace your animal companion.) Again however, a druid that sees the campaign shifting geographically might release his STR bonus possessing horse animal companion, for a hawk animal companion who he might prefer to have a DEX bonus on.
Sorry to raise more questions, but I would really like some advice on this as well.
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Completely an unofficial rule but usually when I run ABP, it's to make up for the fact I am expanding an AP to run from level 17/18 to 20 which happens to mean that the wealth you are expected to have in the AP is usually around half what the level you will be at any given point is.
For my players, I give Animal Companions but not familiars ABP at effective druid level -2. The idea is that an animal companion is about the power level of a cohort NPC, who should have some wealth of their own. Obviously when the NPC comes in, they're coming in with gear, and then they start sucking party resources so the idea sorta loosely applies, if anything the NPC/AC equivalent is getting slightly more, but animal companions tend to fall off later anyway. Familiars of course do not deserve any of the free stuff because very rarely do you see them getting anything in the first place, but also if they were to get it, it can just come from the PC's. Additionally, Eidolons do not get their own ABP and similarly pull from the PC because they come with the restriction that a slot occupied by one is occupied for both (e.g. they can't both wear a belt of strength).
Additional modifications I make are that armor and weapon attunement doesn't get burned away by special abilities, but magic weapons cost twice as much (and can be enchanted with special abilities without a base +1 first, but it still must be masterwork), so for example a flaming longsword costs 4,000 for the flaming, 300 masterwork, and 20 base weapon for 4,320gp. Natural weapons/unarmed attacks are all attuned together by "attuning your body" much like a AoMF and wearing an actual AoMF just gives you special abilities like normal (note it is also doubled). Bracers of Armor is a special case where they work as normal buy cannot be combined with attunement if you buy it for actual armor instead of special abilities; this does make it the better option even after level 17+ if you just want a high AC for your monk/arcane caster with no special abilities but that is still paying 64k after wasting an entire attunement (or at the very least shifting your +5 to a buckler) which achieves the same effective "doubled cost" for that small AC boost since your WBL is halved.
Finally as a quality of life thing for some class choices/options where their unavoidable abilities would give you something occluded by ABP (e.g. protection domain giving +1+1/5levels resistance bonus to saves) and thus weakens a larger option as a whole, if the choice for such an ability cannot be individually taken/traded away, it simply stacks with ABP. An example of something that would not fit this bill, we have Hunter's nature bonds where you can just *not* take a physical enhancement if you already are attuned in that stat or paladin/magus where your attunement + divine bond/arcane strike total enhancement can add to +5, but anything over that you can put into special abilities.
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It is an argument more appropriate for "General discussion" as ABP is an optional rule and doesn't say anything about Animal Companions, so the replies are all about house rules. But it is still an interesting and useful discussion.
I want to raise a point of discussion: some animals lack the headband or belt slots.
A surprisingly large percentage of them has bot slots: ACs and Familiars body slots, but a few lacks one of the two.
What is the effect of that?
Plants ACs don't get an increase in their mental stats and serpentine ACs don't get an increase in their physical stats?
That or the animals spend a feat to get the benefit, or the druid just spends slots for a maximum +4 to any of the stats they prefer.
To quote my own suggesitons from a while back: let Summoners chose whether to apply any given bonus to the Summoner or the Eidolon, let players buy normal items at normal price for animal companions, and make an item costing 2k/8k/18k/32k/50k that can recieve weapon attunement up to a maximum of 1/2/3/4/5 and transfer it to all natural weapons.
At half money, it would keep them down
Unless you're spending half your WBL on your animal companion, this actually buffs pet classes.
it seems to defeat the point of "skip the basic stuff" that the system was inteneded to support.
It does, but I don't see a better alternative. The main effect of ABP is that you can't invest all your money into numeric boost items*, and that you get what you need to function in the game from a numerical standpoint, regardless of your magic item choices. Neither of these are really affected by making pet-big-6 buyable. Pet equipment really isn't that important.
*) Which is actually a sensible thing to do from the character's perspective. It's literally their life on the line. Not dying to a fireball is much more important than having a cloak that displays the night sky on your back.
For my players, I give Animal Companions but not familiars ABP at effective druid level -2. The idea is that an animal companion is about the power level of a cohort NPC, who should have some wealth of their own. Obviously when the NPC comes in, they're coming in with gear, and then they start sucking party resources so the idea sorta loosely applies, if anything the NPC/AC equivalent is getting slightly more, but animal companions tend to fall off later anyway. Familiars of course do not deserve any of the free stuff because very rarely do you see them getting anything in the first place, but also if they were to get it, it can just come from the PC's. Additionally, Eidolons do not get their own ABP and similarly pull from the PC because they come with the restriction that a slot occupied by one is occupied for both (e.g. they can't both wear a belt of strength).In most games I've played, cohorts take from the leadship character's money for gear, not an even share with the PCs.
It seems strange to treat the different kinds of personal allies differently. A guardian architype familiar or an improved familar could get good use of the ABP. An Eidolon sharing slots with the summoner doesn't seem to change the need for additional items or permanent spells. Even the animal companions that don't get all the slots get more out of the ABP than others. Why wouldn't it make more sense to to treat them all the same and share/split ABP like the eidolon?
In theory that is true, but whenever the player gets their frist/a new cohort, that cohort isn't coming in naked and unarmed; they will have some gear and the amount is as a heroic NPC of the PC's level -2 (assuming your GM isn't gimping you and giving you an even further reduced cohort). This would encourage high turn over of your cohorts or other immersion breaking chicanery to counter said turnover, and as the ABP system is designed to in a way simplify WBL and gear, making it more complicated seem counterintuitive.
As for the difference of Eidolons and AC/Familiars, the matter is mostly to do with power level and intended usefulness. A guardian familiar is at best just a HP sponge to distract a low intelligence enemy from the owner of said familiar; the remaining 99% of the time they just sit in your pocket and give you some minor stat boosts making ABP pointless. Animal Companions have a tendency to massively fall off in offensive capability, even with wealth investment (their AC usually is fine though), and while on one hand they can use the boost, on the other not giving them is a bit of a similar gimp to pet classes, as for example a druid likely would not buy a belt of phys perfection but they would buy a weaker one themselves and another for the pet (which is also more cost efficient). Eidolons on the other hand need no help being viable at all levels. You have to try to build an ineffective eidolon, and that's on top of the hinderances that they can't wear armor at all and can't use slots taken by the PC; my method tries to preserve that, even if you can have ABP's physical prowess on either the PC/eidolon and also a belt on top of that.
I find letting animal companions use HD in place of level is a nice way to work it, so its behind PCs at later levels, but still useful
I guess I should have also added that I keep the "level 17" cap on cohorts for what Animal companions get as well, so they never reach level 18, and the difference between them hitting ABP 16 when the PC is level 20 and ABP 17 is fairly minimal for an Animal Companion. If anything, they just get more AC, which is not their weak point.
I think we play in different syles of games. Leadership is already the strongest feat in the game, just to have a spellcaster in the back to help out. My tables have always played cohorts with NPC wealth to start, not heroic and there has never been a replacement because that would strike us as wrong.
No NPC (friendly or enemy) that is meant for combat is built with non-heroic NPC wealth (which is only a level delayed from heroic NPC wealth btw). That is reserved for things like a random diplomat that may be in a scene but is not intended to pose a serious threat to the PCs or to significantly aid them in a fight. It would seem odd to classify a cohort as such, but even if you did, you only need to adjust the rest by making "cohort equivalents" get ABP at PC level -3 instead of 2.
It sounds as if you are trying to balance different followers based on their utility as you see them. That isn't exactly my experience, I've made some nearly game-breaking animal companions with just buff spells and selective items in the middle levels. I've also seen players with relatively useless eidolons but that was at least partially on purpose.
Not utility so much as overall centers of offensive capability. Familiars are high in utility which only marginally benefits from ABP anyway; animal companion do have some exceptionally powerful options (ones that perhaps should have never been an option compared to the rest of the list, e.g. warcat, most of the dinosaurs, and the roc) but for the most part not only fall off because their HD, BAB, and progression is in most every way worse than eidolons but also because they usually only ever get one (maybe two) abilities on top of that lackluster scaling. (Come on, 16d8 HD and +12 BAB at level 20, isn't even a threat to a wizard with a dagger who has used all his spells.) Eidolons *can* be built poorly but the most common way to build them is an easy autopilot pounce+max natural attacks build. Sure, it may seem obvious I have my gripes with the system, but that is why I selectively limit ABP when I do my own special variation of it anyway. I only offer my perception so you can understand it and adjust it to your liking.
(I will also add that while yes druid-2 does help at later levels, the reason I go with that method is also more to simulate the delay at early levels before when most player will start to kit out their companions with the basics.)