Do Druid Animal Companions die when their Druid does?

[happyninja42]

So I've never really seen this come up anywhere, but would the animal that a druid bonded with, and conveyed abilities/powers/stats to through their bond, survive if the druid died?

Mostly curious because I had this thought for a fun story element, where there is this group of forest dwellers, who basically worship this massive animal like a god, or at least a totem animal of their tribe, but the twist is that it really IS pretty bada$$ because it's the animal companion of a powerful druid who died years ago. And now the village the druid came from, revere it. And every year, they send youth to go before it, and see if any of them are worthy enough to bond with the animal again, and rekindle the druid link.

I just like the idea of using it as a setpiece for a party. They come across a village, leading a child in ritual garb down a procession, towards a glade. They follow, and after they get to the glade, the massive animal (wolf in my mind), shows up, and they think it's some sacrifice or something. But no, it's a sentient wolf with some powerful abilities, seeing if anyone has the druid bond strong enough to link with them again. So they act as a guardian of the village while they try and find another companion.

[Gortle]

There is no rule requiring Animal Companions to die when their master dies. If you want to do that it is purely a role playing choice.

Technically a Summoner and their Eidolon are linked in this manner, but I'd be very happy for a GM to take a story in a different direction postmortem even on their relationship.

[Mathmuse]

In my current campaign, the backstory of the fey-blooded leshy sorcerer Goldflame Honeysuckle Vine is that she had been the familiar of a traveling healer druid before bandits killed the druid. Honey continued as a healer on the druid's usual circuit without him, after studying the bandits in secret and murdering them one by one in bloody revenge. Honey's alignment is Chaotic Neutral, not Chaotic Good. A familiar is not quite an animal companion, but the bond is similar.

Later the party encountered a high-level bear wearing a Dancing Scarf magic item. The bear was a possible threat except that the party druid always prepares Speak with Animals. The bear had been the animal companion of a high-level ranger, who had been killed by giant beetles. The party escorted the bear to a village where several young rangers trained. Maybe one day the bear will find a new partner among those rangers.

[happyninja42]

Ok so both of you feel that the animal wouldn't die, cool, I felt the same. And I know I can always just GM fiat "because I say it's this way", but would you say that the animal companion would retain any powers/abilities they unlocked due to their bond? Characteristics are fine, they have a 4+ Int and thus are sentient, they have a 22 STR, sure, those make sense to keep. But what about any spells/supernatural traits and the like? It makes sense to me that they would keep these abilities, as they weren't specifically flowing FROM the druid in my reading. That it was more a mutual growth the two of them shared, by bonding, they were able to grow in these particular ways. But even if the bond is severed, the growth is still there you know?

[Mathmuse]

The Pathfinder rules are built for balance rather than plausibility. For example, the Animal Companion rules on page 214 of the Core Rulebook say, "If your companion dies, you can spend a week of downtime to replace it at no cost." This is because an animal companion is a major class feature for the champions, druids, rangers, animal trainers, and beastmasters that chose that feature, and characters are not balanced when missing a major class feature. Where the replacement companion comes from is glossed over out of necessity.

My current campaign involves the Chernasardo Rangers of Nirmathas. If a ranger with an animal companion dies, most of the time a surviving animal companion will return home to a ranger fort. If the companion is not elderly, then the rangers would try to team it up with a compatible young ranger. But the rules do not have the option of creating a 2nd-level ranger PC with a mature animal companion, because Mature Animal Companion (Ranger) is a 6th-level class feat.

But though the Pathfinder rules do not let players exploit unbalancing circumstances, we GMs have more flexibility in creating our NPCs. We could build a 2nd-level ranger NPC and give him Mature Animal Companion (Ranger) as his 2nd-level class feat. That would be slightly overpowered, so maybe we give the ranger less equipment to make up for that, "I couldn't afford armor because I gave my money to the widow and children of White Fang's previous owner." If the animal companion's backstory is that it used to serve as the companion of a 6th-level ranger, we lampshade (i.e., acknowledge it happened without making sense) that its hit points dropped from 54 to 22 in changing masters. Balance determines the details.

If an animal companion for an NPC is extremely advanced over its master, then a GM would best build the animal companion as an independent creature with a "human companion" feature. Building a masterless former animal companion is even simpler, "Greyfur had been the animal companion of Old Man Santiago, but now he just runs with the rest of us without a particular master." Rules for Building Creatures are in the Gamemastery Guide.