I'm soon starting a space-based campaign and I've been trying to work around divine magic. I think there's a place for it but it requires tweaking. I do have a one obstacle I'm looking at third party to see if there's anything that can help. My scifi Pathfinder collection is pretty broad but oddly I have not seen solutions to this issue.
Any material out there with strange or alien animal companions and familiars? The game takes place in a setting that spans 1/6 of a galaxy. That's hundreds of M class planets and hundreds of places for druids to get power from and hundreds of sets of wildlife that a druid could get their hands on. Bonus for variable alien Summon lists.
Nature magic is just weird to work with in games like this. Like entangle on a space ship. obviously it wouldn't. What does a druid do? What does it revere? What happens when it's in alien nature? does their magic not work when there is no nature or can there be a void druid? I'm still working on those questions but for now I'm just trying to find animal companions for weird worlds.
You could just reflavor existing ones. The stats for a tiger could just as easily be a Zorgoth from planet Zargleflue.
You could just reflavor existing ones. The stats for a tiger could just as easily be a Zorgoth from planet Zargleflue.
Thought of that but would miss out on wacky abilities for alien critters.
Can hit a middle ground between this idea and your comment. Use existing AC stat/size arrays, and swap out the given 'powers' for other ones to give the alien infusion you want.
This critter doesn't have a climb speed, but its tentacles give it reach.
Can hit a middle ground between this idea and your comment. Use existing AC stat/size arrays, and swap out the given 'powers' for other ones to give the alien infusion you want.
This critter doesn't have a climb speed, but its tentacles give it reach.
I had thought of making 'alien' templates for familiars and animal companions or letting them lose abilities for eidolon evolutions but realized that was work and was hoping someone else had gone somewhere along those lines already. A number of sourcebooks that deal with space just ditches divine casters altogether, which is what I've been mostly doing up until now, but I was hoping to get them functioning in my game.
Oh hey- I'm not saying it was aliens but....
As far as Druid animal companions go, I second the suggestion to just reflavor existing creatures. My home campaign setting has a few different planets, and I just got done making some wildlife for it. Evolution likes to recycle similar designs for similar environments, so it's not that far-fetched that a tiger-like predator would evolve in an alien forest, or a large herd animal could be found on some gas-giant orbiting plains.
Our "tiger" is just a tiger who swapped out its grab on its bite for some venom, and I reflavored a couple of dinosaurs and megafauna to make them into animals that suited the setting.
You could just reflavor existing ones. The stats for a tiger could just as easily be a Zorgoth from planet Zargleflue.Thought of that but would miss out on wacky abilities for alien critters.
The problem with wacky abilities is that they are usually on magical beasts. Animal companions are a little more mundane by default. If you want to alien up a normal animal just take one of its abilities or attacks and replace it with one taken from some other animal.
If an alien animal companion book ever were to be made, I would happily buy into it.
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Iron Gods has some options, the Petromin familiar and the Pilo and Sorico animal companions in Fires of Creation for the Kasatha.
Other than that, I support restatting.
Distant Worlds also has a list of creatures found on other planets that you can use. For NPCs you could just as wel pick any monster and increase the challenge rating accordingly. Don't limit yourself with classes. That hunter could easily be a slayer with an Akata following him around.
For Divine Magic, Amethyst (of which there is a PF compatible version available) has equivalent systems for both Cleric and Druid, but in the latter case (and in general) magic users have totem objects, rather than animal familiars.
In general however, I would combine re-statting with templates, and look for templates that don't change the CR.