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"If your assertion is that AC's are characters, then you cannot have an AC. PFS rules strictly forbid any player from playing two characters at the same table."
A creature is a character. If it is alive, it is a character. If it is being played by someone... it's a character. They just don't always have character levels, which is a different type of character. Yes, it is confusing. But that's how it is.
There are two different types of basic characters, based on who is playing the character. PC and NPC.When speaking on the topic of controlling companions, they are directly referred to as characters.
"Conversely, giving a player full control over the actions of two characters can slow down the game. If you're prone to choice paralysis, playing two turns every round can drag the game to a halt. If this is a problem, the GM should suggest that another player help run the companion or ask you to give up the companion and alter yourself to compensate (such as by choosing a different feat in place of Leadership, taking a domain instead of a druid animal companion, or selecting the "companions" option for a ranger's hunter's bond ability instead of an animal)."
"Actually, the whole point of the CFE threads was to make CFEs work more like characters, both opening them up to retraining, and letting them trigger positive and negative boons."
The whole CFE thing was for clarity's sake. Yes, I'm aware of it and was following that thread as it was happening. The thread, on the other hand, ended up allowing you to treat them as a class feature(not a character) which is retrain-able naturally as part of the retraining system. A simple and elegant solution. But to take that as redefining what a companion is... well...
"Actually it doesn't. It falls under the same rule set as summoned creatures. A temporary ally creature that goes away at the end of the scenario, if not sooner. It cannot be retrained using the rules in Ultimate Campaign, like a CFE could, for example."
They can not be retrained... of course. I never said they could. But they are characters. Though, unless you gained one as a companion granted by a feat or feature, then they are not companions(if they were, they would be retrainable).
You can't take leadership in PFS and CFE is a PFS specific term, so I don't really see how this is relevant.
It is relevant because it is just as silly as any of the other assertions I put forth in the same format. You are correct that leadership is not PFS legal.
No, because the feat in question grants you the animal companion as "as per the druid class feature" thus it is granting you the animal companion class feature.
Unless you are saying that if you take the Animal Ally Feat, you cannot improve it's level with Boon Companion, which requires the Animal Companion Class Feature.
Of course, Animal Ally does not grant you an animal companion "as per the druid class feature". Animal ally grants you an animal companion, "as if you were a druid of your character level –3". Druids do not gain an Animal Companion class feature, they gain the Nature's Bond class feature, which gives them an animal companion when they select that option.
How strict RAW do you want this discussion to be? Because it could be argued that a Druid wouldn't qualify, nor would a ranger. But a hunter would. As only the hunter has a class feature named "Animal Companion". Or, it could be said that when you have a creature referred to as an "animal companion" you have the animal companion class feature.
I would say that Boon Companion would work with a druid and thus with Animal Ally. As that allows the boon companion feat to actually function without being hyper limited.
But of course, I wasn't talking about animal ally in my post. I was speaking to any possible feat that could grant an animal companion.
Or, really, the whole point is any event, activity or ability which grants a companion is granting a 'character which is a companion which is also sometimes a CFE'.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Umm... you are making up definitions that are no where in the rules.
You cannot take character levels. You can only take class levels. There are PC classes and NPC classes. Your character level is the total of all the class levels you have. Thus every creature has a character level, though in many cases it is 0. A creature is a creature. That is why a lot of spells say "target creature" not "target character" If you need this confirmed go back to the core book glossary
"Creature: A creature is an active participant in the story
or world. This includes PCs, NPCs, and monsters."
There is no definition in their for a character.
Re: CFE.
No. You need to go back and reread the thread.
You do not retrain them as a class feature. If that were the case, you could spend 5 days and 5 pp and trade out all the feats and skills you chose for one level. Instead it lets you use the retraining rules on the CFE "as if the PC were the one retraining."
Re: animal companion. Natures bond gives you a choice of two class features, a domain, or an AC. They are still class features. Just like Arcane bond gives you a choice of the familiar class feature or the bonded object class feature. And the Divine Bond gives paladins the choice of two class features.
If you are going to argue that "Animal Companion" is not a class feature because it is not in bold, then you are arguing that several dozen feats were pointless when they were written, because no class at the time had that class feature.
Re: "as if you were a druid of your character level –3".
Yes, if you were a druid at your level -3, you would have an animal companion class feature.
You are making up definitions to try to make the arguement as absurd as possible to make your assertion look reasonable by comparison. But all you are doing is demonstrating your ignorance.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Or, really, the whole point is any event, activity or ability which grants a companion is granting a 'character which is a companion which is also sometimes a CFE'.
No. You have that backward. Anything that grants an Eidolon, an animal companion, a familiar, an elemental (Stonelord paladin), a specter, a shadow, or *any other entity* grants a "creature" which is by definition a CFE. That CFE may be an animal companion.
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I would call that implying an animal companion is a character. It really isn't directly stated. So what is the issue exactly with meeting the requirements of the FAQ even if it was a character? Obedience requires ranks in knowledge religion. Animals can't even put ranks into that skill by default.
An animal who gets 3+ int can now put ranks in any skill. 3 ranks of religion is a deeper understanding of religion than most PC characters.
Their alignment is neutral because they are an animal. They worship a god within 1 step from neutral. This all fits under the FAQ.
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I would call that implying an animal companion is a character. It really isn't directly stated. So what is the issue exactly with meeting the requirements of the FAQ even if it was a character? Obedience requires ranks in knowledge religion. Animals can't even put ranks into that skill by default.
An animal who gets 3+ int can now put ranks in any skill. 3 ranks of religion is a deeper understanding of religion than most PC characters.
Their alignment is neutral because they are an animal. They worship a god within 1 step from neutral. This all fits under the FAQ.
Animal companions with an Intelligence of 3 or higher can select any feat they are physically capable of using.
No because the word capable means whatever I want it to!
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Umm... you are making up definitions that are no where in the rules.
You cannot take character levels. You can only take class levels. There are PC classes and NPC classes. Your character level is the total of all the class levels you have. Thus every creature has a character level, though in many cases it is 0. A creature is a creature. That is why a lot of spells say "target creature" not "target character" If you need this confirmed go back to the core book glossary
"Creature: A creature is an active participant in the story
or world. This includes PCs, NPCs, and monsters."There is no definition in their for a character.
I did not say you take character levels. Please stop arguing against statements I do not make. It is pointless on your part and only makes more work for me to point it out. It does not benefit the conversation.
But, you do have character levels, which are a calculated. Which you agreed with me on while trying to refute something I did not say.---
I am not making up definitions. I am quoting where the words I am using are being used like I use them in official Pathfinder text. I am not making absurd arguments(other than a few, hopefully obvious, sarcastic comments).
I quoted an official, hard-backed Paizo Pathfinder book which called 'companions' 'characters'. So, are you saying I wrote that in the book just to 'win an argument or be absurd? No, I did not. I merely read it and then shared it. Though, I fear you may not have read it. And that was only the first and easiest place I found such text. Would you like more? Or would that be me making up definitions again?
Re: CFE.No. You need to go back and reread the thread.
You do not retrain them as a class feature. If that were the case, you could spend 5 days and 5 pp and trade out all the feats and skills you chose for one level. Instead it lets you use the retraining rules on the CFE "as if the PC were the one retraining."
True, I misspoke. You can retrain them, since they are a class feature and can treat them as an extension of your PC. Using the same system for retraining. Meaning retraining their feats.
Re: animal companion. Natures bond gives you a choice of two class features, a domain, or an AC. They are still class features. Just like Arcane bond gives you a choice of the familiar class feature or the bonded object class feature. And the Divine Bond gives paladins the choice of two class features.If you are going to argue that "Animal Companion" is not a class feature because it is not in bold, then you are arguing that several dozen feats were pointless when they were written, because no class at the time had that class feature.
Re: "as if you were a druid of your character level –3".
Yes, if you were a druid at your level -3, you would have an animal companion class feature.
You are making up definitions to try to make the arguement as absurd as possible to make your assertion look reasonable by comparison. But all you are doing is demonstrating your ignorance.
Can you quote me where it says that when an option in a Class Feature is picked you get the pick as a class feature? No? Should I say say your argument is absurd then and you are ignorant? No, I won't do that. We should be civil here, after all.
But, it is inferred that a druid gains an animal companions as a class feature as it is part of a class feature nature's bond. (Class features are defined and labeled) Otherwise parts of the game no longer make sense.
But, there are cases in the game where one CF works like another(even calling that CF out in its description) but with a different name and does not qualify as a prereq like the CF it functions like.
How does one know the difference? We ask the boards or we infer. Thus is born grey areas, the ones you and I both know exist all over Pathfinder.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I did not say you take character levels. Please stop arguing against statements I do not make. It is pointless on your part and only makes more work for me to point it out. It does not benefit the conversation.
But, you do have character levels, which are a calculated. Which you agreed with me on while trying to refute something I did not say.
Sure you did. You said it again. You do not have character levels. You have a character level which is a calculated number indicating how many class levels you have.
If you had character levels that would indicate that you have multiple of the things.
I quoted an official, hard-backed Paizo Pathfinder book which called 'companions' 'characters'. So, are you saying I wrote that in the book just to 'win an argument or be absurd? No, I did not. I merely read it and then shared it. Though, I fear you may not have read it. And that was only the first and easiest place I found such text. Would you like more? Or would that be me making up definitions again?
No, you keep saying characters is a thing defined by the text. It is a word they use almost as a pronoun to refer to other things, such as creatures, PCs, NPCs, Monsters, various other things that are *actually* defined in the text.
Can you quote me where it says that when an option in a Class Feature is picked you get the pick as a class feature? No? Should I say say your argument is absurd then and you are ignorant? No, I won't do that. We should be civil here, after all.
Actually I did.
At the time the Animal Archive book was released, there were were Druids with Nature Bond, Wizards with arcane bond, etc. There were no hunters.
Yet Animal archive refers several times to the Animal companion class feature and the familiar class feature.
Since the only way (at that time) to have a familiar or an animal companion was to pick a an option, then clearly they are referring to the option you picked as one of your class features.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Class features are defined and labeled
Actually, this is not true. Everything that a class gives you, labeled or not, is a class feature. This came up during the development of the archive stacking FAQ where people were arguing that you could stack to archtypes that both changed the class skills list, because class skills were not labeled as a class feature and were not included in the "you cannot have two archtypes that alter the same class feature."
Otherwise, as you said, a bunch of parts of the game fall apart.
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Anyway, back on topic.
I have not seen any arguement that would convince me so far that Animal Companions can worship gods.
I think it is pretty clear that other CFEs who are sapient can.
So an AC can take ranks in Kn. religion and know all about gods. Although revering one they deeply know is not kosher?
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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So an AC can take ranks in Kn. religion and know all about gods. Although revering one they deeply know is not kosher?Anyway, back on topic.
I have not seen any arguement that would convince me so far that Animal Companions can worship gods.
I think it is pretty clear that other CFEs who are sapient can.
Seems so, of course you can still teach your snake to put her ranks into profession: basket weaving, or you could train your T-rex to put ranks into profession driver... or let your wolf become a professional shepherd... or your hippo to become a courtesan....
There are plenty of silly combinations, you can teach your animal companion to understand (but not read) thassilonian, and several other dead languages... and it won't do a thing to make those handle animal checks easier.
Even with 22 Int, you pet tiger will still not perform the action you command it to do, if you fail you handle animal check.
The animal companion rules aren't the best part of the CRB, they scale weirdly, and handle animal adds another layer of complexity.
That's just the way things are, and I suspect that a couple of PFS rules were intended to make them a little bit less useful (take up less time in the spotlight).
When it come back to the issue, expect table variation is still the current suggestion.
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Anyway, back on topic.
I have not seen any arguement that would convince me so far that Animal Companions can worship gods.
I think it is pretty clear that other CFEs who are sapient can.
I haven't seen a convincing argument that ACs can't worship gods.
There are no rules that state a minimum intelligence is required to worship. There are no rules at all to prevent it other than IRL prejudices near as I can tell.
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Anyway, back on topic.
I have not seen any arguement that would convince me so far that Animal Companions can worship gods.
I think it is pretty clear that other CFEs who are sapient can.
I believe that's the wrong standard of evidence.
You want to declare a good chunk of the characters build illegal and run into the timey whimey ball of what happens with it. I think that puts the burden of proof on you.
Unless of course the animal is a cat. Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods- hitchens.
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I don't think a GM ever completely agrees with himself from day to day :-(.
There are a LOT of rules in this game. I don't think any two DMs are going to agree on all of them.
Nor should a good GM be constantly agreeing with himself. No one knows all the rules, and a good GM should be open to being wrong and learning from session to session.
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Nor should a good GM be constantly agreeing with himself. No one knows all the rules, and a good GM should be open to being wrong and learning from session to session.I don't think a GM ever completely agrees with himself from day to day :-(.
There are a LOT of rules in this game. I don't think any two DMs are going to agree on all of them.
Absolutely. And everyone from rank newby players to experienced GMs, to five stars, to VC's even all the way to Designers should be allowed to change their mind. Holding folks to things they may have said on a certain topic from 2 years ago, or even 2 days ago (even in the same thread), is problematic. We have to allow for people to change their minds and have different opinions. Otherwise, why the heck are we even having a discussion? If I'm going to be held 100%, forever, to everything I've ever said, and a change in tone or opinion on a certain topic is not going to be allowed, then all these huge threads are pointless and feckless drivel that solves nothing.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I believe the same thing Monday that i believed on Wednesday regardless of what i learned on Tuesday!I don't think a GM ever completely agrees with himself from day to day :-(.
There are a LOT of rules in this game. I don't think any two DMs are going to agree on all of them.
And people ask why we don't have time machines yet, forum arguments would get quite confusing ^^
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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We’ve discussed this as a team, and we’re in agreement that allowing all animal companions to have divine patrons goes beyond what’s intended—just as an animal companion must still be be handled and commanded, even if it somehow acquires a 20 Intelligence. Nonetheless, there’s a case to be made for an animal companion sent by a divine patron to have that deity as its patron. Thus, the following:
An animal companion does not receive a divine patron except under the following exceptions, all but one of which require the animal companion to share the same patron deity as the PC. First, the mount provided by a paladin’s divine bond receives a patron. Second, the animal companion granted by the Animal domain’s animal companion power and Scalykind domain’s serpent companion (or Saurian subdomain’s saurian companion) receives a patron. Third, the animal companions granted by the following archetypes receive patron deities: the sacred huntsmaster (inquisitor), the the divine commander (warpriest), and the divine hunter (hunter) gain a patron. Finally, the imp companion of a diabolist—technically an animal companion—receives a divine patron, but it must be Asmodeus or one of the archdevils.
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So a Celestial Servant Animal Companion can select a Religion Trait via Additional Traits, since it's a Magical Beast, and not an Animal?
One other question: Beast Bonded Witches. They have a Patron, literally, but not a Deity. How should they be handled, in the rare example of a Chaldira-worshiping Pig Familiar?
This is more for sake of query, though I'm sure somebody has thought of it before.