Calculating Cohort Level for an Awakened Animal?

[darker_phoenix]

My druid recently awakened a roc that has been very helpful in my party's current adventure. I'd like to take Leadership and formalize the relationship between the two but I don't know how to calculate the cohort level for an awakened animal, and thus don't even know if this is possible.

I get that Leadership is a powerful feat, but that isn't an issue at the table. I also understand that simply due to the size of the bird it has certain advantages and disadvantages, and my group and I are fine with all of those. I am playing a storm druid, which means I could not choose an animal companion (if that matters for any reason).

Currently, I'm level 10, and thinking of taking Leadership as my next feat at level 11. What would my total leadership score need to be to have a roc for a cohort? Is it even possible to get a Leadership score high enough that I could take a roc for a cohort? Thanks!

[Bob Bob Bob]

So just to get this out of the way, the rules basically say nothing about how to do this. Everything from here on is going to be speculation (guessing) and you'll need to run the whole thing past your GM.

Now, that out of the way, I still basically can't help you. Leadership level adjustments are all over the place and there's no simple CR or HD conversion to use. A Blink Dog is CR 2, HD 3, and CL (cohort level) 4. Young dragons have a formula, but it's CR+8. Half-dragon as a template is CR+2, but their CL is CR+6 (which, even for a naked commoner, ends up level+3). The formula is all over the place and seems pretty much arbitrary. Generally more conservative (so stuff will be underpowered instead of over). The closest thing to a pattern I can find is that CL=CR*2. CL 8 stuff tends to fall between CR 3 and 5. CR 9 stuff (like the Roc) tends to fall between CL 16-18. Awaken would add to its stats further (at a bare minimum from HD) probably moving it even further out. Though it also doesn't have any SLAs or Su abilities, so that should put it further down. Long story short, I really have no clue how to place it. Maybe treat it like a Dragon Horse?

Honestly, probably the easiest way would be to just treat it like an animal companion two levels lower (to account for awaken). You'll lose size, HP, NA, some stats, and feats, but it won't be a complete crapshoot on where to put it. And actually, it might end up stronger (since animal companion adds Str/Dex and NA). It'll just never be as big as normal.