Druid - adding higher level animal companion

[edgelett]

Hi all,

My druid is lvl 8 and about to hit lvl 9 and sadly my wolf animal companion died due to a fireball and a failed saving throw.

I want to take a dire wolf companion and when I read the players handbook it says the dire wolf is effectively 6 levels lower (level -6)
I removed my old companion and added a dire wolf, and then levelled up to level 9. I should mention I have one level of Animal Lord (wolf) prestige class, and according to the Complete Adventurer, as I've taken a companion of the wolf class then my whole level (9) should count rather than my druid level (8) for determining my animal companion's levels.

But looking at my companion in hero lab, it's saying level 1-6 Dire Wolf and indicates it 'starts' with 6 hit die.
Shouldn't it be a 3rd level dire wolf since i'm level 9?
and therefore shouldn't it have an extra 2 hit die, higher AC etc?

is it an issue with the dire wolf or possibly an issue with Animal Lord?

Any input would be great thanks.

[Sendric]

Originally Posted by edgelett

Hi all,

My druid is lvl 8 and about to hit lvl 9 and sadly my wolf animal companion died due to a fireball and a failed saving throw.

I want to take a dire wolf companion and when I read the players handbook it says the dire wolf is effectively 6 levels lower (level -6)
I removed my old companion and added a dire wolf, and then levelled up to level 9. I should mention I have one level of Animal Lord (wolf) prestige class, and according to the Complete Adventurer, as I've taken a companion of the wolf class then my whole level (9) should count rather than my druid level (8) for determining my animal companion's levels.

But looking at my companion in hero lab, it's saying level 1-6 Dire Wolf and indicates it 'starts' with 6 hit die.
Shouldn't it be a 3rd level dire wolf since i'm level 9?
and therefore shouldn't it have an extra 2 hit die, higher AC etc?

is it an issue with the dire wolf or possibly an issue with Animal Lord?

Any input would be great thanks.

Two things:

1) The Animal Lord Class Special is not scripted correctly. This will need to be fixed. I'll make a note.

2) Where does it say you use all your Druid levels for your animal companion? What I'm seeing is that you add your AnimaL Lord level to your Druid level for any wolf or dire wolf companions. Granted, this still isn't working correctly as noted above.

Edit:
The Animal Lord classes are all going to need a bit of work to get them working properly. In the meantime, please change the script on Animal Bond - Wolf to the following:

if (hero.childlives[cAnimComp] <> 0) then
  hero.childfound[cAnimComp].field[CompLevAdj].value += X
  hero.childfound[cAnimClass].field[CompClLev].value += X
Endif

Where X = the number of class levels you have in Animal Lord (Wolf). I'll make changes so this updates automatically with the next release.

[edgelett]

Thank you for the quick response, I appreciate it.

Two things:

1) The Animal Lord Class Special is not scripted correctly. This will need to be fixed. I'll make a note.

thanks - that explains it.

2) Where does it say you use all your Druid levels for your animal companion? What I'm seeing is that you add your AnimaL Lord level to your Druid level for any wolf or dire wolf companions. Granted, this still isn't working correctly as noted above.

sorry I probably didn't explain myself properly.
Looking at page 36 of the PHB, my druid level determines the level of my animal companion. then pages 22-23 of the Complete Adventurer state that if an animal lord has the animal companion feature, they add the animal lord level to the effective druid level for determining the HD etc. as I have 8 levels of druid and 1 level of animal lord, this effectively makes me a lvl 9 druid for working out the HD of my companion. Dire wolf is level -6, so in terms of working out his HD I look at the level 3-5 class level on page 36 of the PHB.

Edit:
The Animal Lord classes are all going to need a bit of work to get them working properly. In the meantime, please change the script on Animal Bond - Wolf to the following:

if (hero.childlives[cAnimComp] <> 0) then
  hero.childfound[cAnimComp].field[CompLevAdj].value += X
  hero.childfound[cAnimClass].field[CompClLev].value += X
Endif

Where X = the number of class levels you have in Animal Lord (Wolf). I'll make changes so this updates automatically with the next release.

thanks - I've done a little scripting but not a lot so i'll try to work out where I change this script.
thank you again for your help!

[edgelett]

Once again thank you. edited the animal bond - wolf script and it's working perfectly now.
you're a champ!

[Sendric]

Originally Posted by edgelett

Once again thank you. edited the animal bond - wolf script and it's working perfectly now.
you're a champ!

No problem. Just remember that until I can get an official fix you may have to update this script if you add any more levels of Animal Lord - Wolf to your character.

[edgelett]

Originally Posted by Sendric

No problem. Just remember that until I can get an official fix you may have to update this script if you add any more levels of Animal Lord - Wolf to your character.

Will do