Animal Companion

[captnchuck67]

I am using Hero Lab for the first time I just leveled up and added the feat:Boon Companion.
My Companion(Dog) jumped from Level 3 to 6.
His STR wound up being a 20 when I added the bonus.
Is that about right?

[Chess Pwn]

yes sounds about right

[Hendelbolaf]

We would need a lot more information than just that to help.

Class, level, etc.

If you were a straight druid, then nothing should change. If you were a ranger, then you would see a significant change in your companion. It all depends on the details as to how much Boon Companion helps you.

[Jodokai]

captnchuck67 wrote:

I am using Hero Lab for the first time I just leveled up and added the feat:Boon Companion.

My Companion(Dog) jumped from Level 3 to 6.
His STR wound up being a 20 when I added the bonus.
Is that about right?

At level 4 your dog gets his stat jump (as opposed to say a Wolf who gets it at level 7) so yes this is correct.

A lot of people down Hero Labs saying "it has errors", I've been using it since 2012 and I've seen it mess up maybe twice on the official stuff and maybe a couple more times on the community stuff. Go to any convention and audit people who do it by hand, and people who do it with Hero Lab, and I would bet you'd find TONS of errors in the by hand crowd, and very few in the Hero Lab crowd.

[Driver_325yards]

You should know the rules either way. I recently played and noticed that Hero Lab allowed people to stack some archetypes that the rules do not allow.

I say don't let the computer act as a substitute for your brain and double check your own brain when doing it by hand.

[Nefreet]

Jodokai wrote:

Go to any convention and audit people who do it by hand, and people who do it with Hero Lab, and I would bet you'd find TONS of errors in the by hand crowd, and very few in the Hero Lab crowd.

Off topic tangent:

As a very active PFS GM who regularly attends Conventions and audits players, my experience is the opposite. In addition, HeroLab users were often incapable of quickly calculating bonuses and penalties on the fly, and suffered from rules atrophy that often led to arguments at the table. It eventually got so bad that it led me to disallowing HeroLab at my tables.

Errors made by people using pen and paper never leads to pens or paper being banned.

[xebeche]

@captnchuck67: As was pointed out, we'd need more information about your character to give you solid advice. I'm under the assumption that this character is multi-classed, otherwise the Boon Companion feat would likely offer no benefit.

A dog animal companion's base Str is 13. This increases to a base of 17 after 4th-level advancement. When your character counts as 6th-level in the class that grants the animal companion the dog would receive a +2 Str/Dex increase in addition to this. The most likely reason that the dog has a Str 20 is that it was awarded a point of Strength at 4th-level for its ability score increase.

Also, if you are playing with an animal companion, I strongly recommend checking out Flutter's Druid's Log: Animal Companions. It's excellent in compiling the various rules and FAQ posts into one easy to read source.

Continuing the off topic trend:

I play with several people in our PFS community who use Hero Lab and several more who don't. I've not noticed anything that suggests one way or another who has a better understanding of mechanics and can calculate this or that on the fly. Hero Lab is an effective tool in a toolbox of other tools.