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if i am a pack lord druid, level 2
i can have 2 animals, both of which are an animal using the table on the base rulebook page and each benefits from the animal companion table for the line "level 1" right ?
so for example, i take 2 wolves, both get:
2 hd, + 1 bab, same st (3/3/0), 2 skills, 1 feat, no other bonuses and link and share spell both
when i get to third level, i can raise one of them to the line 2 of the table (so he gets 3hd, +2 bab etcetera (The other stays as the line 1), or i can get another line 1 (2hd) animal that has the same characteristics of the first 2.
at fourth i can raise one up to line 3 and the second stays to 1, or both to 2 or get another at level 1, so i have effectively 4 at line 1 etcetc
each beast use the line 1 at start then adds the relevan animal abilities and then grows on it, minding that i can have a total number of LINE level equal to my druid level. (line level doesnt equate with HD levels of the animal)
i am right ?
thanks
It looks like you have it right.
I suggest NOT getting a whole bunch of low-level companions for 2 reasons:
1. They're weak. For example, a 10th level Pack Lord with 10 wolves sends them in to fight a CR 12 giant and they never hit him, never damage him, and a bunch of them just get one-shotted to death. A waste of time and a waste of wolves, turning your best class feature into a useless waste of space on your character sheet.
2. Running an actual "pack" of animals takes a lot of time. Moving them, making all their attacks, while making your own actions too, means you will be using 3 or 4 times as much time when it's your turn in combat as everyone else does. This will be boring and frustrating for the other players.
If you keep it down to just two, or at most three, then you can avoid most of these issues.
I think there's a general house rule for groups that use the Pack Lord Druid archetype...
On page 198 of the core rulebook, you'll see a Experience Point Awards table. I remember when the archetype came out we had some discussions on these boards that resulted in agreeing that it would be better to take your experience level as CR, lookup your XP worth (so 6th level is worth 2,400 XP), and split that XP amongst your companions using the same chart. So rather than having say, 3 companions that are all level 2, 2400/3 is 800, so they'd all be level 3 on that chart. Or by 12th level, rather than having 3 companions at level 4, the 19.200/3=6400, so they could all be 9th level.
And even then... I'd limit myself to about 3 or 4 companions.
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sphynx you mean so that if i am say, lvl 12, i have 19.200
so if i take 3 they are lined up at 6.400, so they are line 9
if i take 4 they are 4.800 so they are lined at 8
and if i take 6, they are 3.200 and lined up at 7 ?
so 3 x line 9, or 4 x line 8 and finally 6 x line 7 ?
and mixing those number eventually ?
Yes, that is what Sphynx is saying.
The benefit is that you can actually have a "pack" of companions that are strong enough to be useful without just dying any time they get in a fight.
The downsides are that it might overpower the Pack Lord and that it does encourage larger numbers of time-consuming companions that make the player spend a lot of time each turn of combat (and leave everyone else sitting around waiting for his long turn to end so they can do something too).
Side note to help with this problem: the player assigns one of his animal companions to each player and those players do everything for the AC so the Pack Lord player doesn't have to spend so much time doing it all by himself. The advantage is that the Pack Lord player's turn goes much faster AND the other players each have two things to do every round instead of one, so they do more and the Pack Lord does less - it balances nicely. It even gets more interesting if the other players run their (proxy) AC on their own turn instead of the Pack Lord's turn (not RAW, but why should all those animals always have exactly the same initiative other than a simplified game mechanic that is irrelevant when other players are running the AC anyway?).
Or just do what our pack lord does, instal hero lab on your ipad and let calculate for you. The tab will be red because there are too many levels on the companions, but the calculators will still work fine.