• Please note: In an effort to ensure that all of our users feel welcome on our forums, we’ve updated our forum rules. You can review the updated rules here: http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=5528.

    If a fellow Community member is not following the forum rules, please report the post by clicking the Report button (the red yield sign on the left) located on every post. This will notify the moderators directly. If you have any questions about these new rules, please contact support@wolflair.com.

    - The Lone Wolf Development Team

Problems with Animal Companion

H

Hexamony

Member
It's been a while since I've played D&D 3.5 and I'm also rather new to Pathfinder, so maybe I'm just missing something, but my GM has pointed out that Hero Lab is giving me the wrong numbers for things pertaining to my animal companion.

He also implemented some changes to my animal companion that differ from the stats in the book so I thought creating a custom entry would help me tackle both problems with one solution. Here're the problems I'm having right now.

1: I understand, I think, why my animal, when I'm level 1, is starting with 2 HD, however, I don't understand why his BAB seems to be one higher then it should be. According to the chart, at level 1, his BAB should be +1 but Hero Lab reports +2. My attempt to enter the data myself resulted in an even bigger number error.

2: When my animal makes a bite attack, my GM has been saying 1d4+Grab but I don't see how to have Hero Lab reflect that. My memory is spotty so I like having a program remember as much for me about the technical stuff as it can.

I think I have some other questions or concerns but they're more about the workings of the system itself and nothing to do with Hero Lab.

Thanks,
Hexamony
 
1. If your animal companion is size small (as many of them are), they gain a bonus to attack. The BAB is still +1 (which you can see when you look at the Statblock), but they get a size bonus to attack which is reflected in their various attack bonuses.

2. Generally speaking, I believe, HL only shows damage dice and not special attacks or abilities associated with the damage. If your animal companion has Improved Grab or something like that, it will show up in your specials tab and will indicate there which attack initiates the grapple.

If your GM is using house rules for your companion, I might suggest using a template to modify the animal companion depending on what all the changes are. If that doesn't work, then you may have to create a whole new animal companion race.
 
Sendric said:
If your GM is using house rules for your companion, I might suggest using a template to modify the animal companion depending on what all the changes are. If that doesn't work, then you may have to create a whole new animal companion race.
Click to expand...
Just to point out also their is a tab in HL called Adjust that allows for one to make adjustments for many house rules. Not saying it will cover everything, but it will cover many things.

Their is also a community created .user file add-on that has additional Adjustments. It does not have one for grab but that is a nice idea to add in. See THIS post for more info.
 
Ah, I didn't know Size affected BAB. Size is one of those things that I don't have a lot of experience with and never researched on my own so the ins and outs of different sizes tend to be lost on me still.

I found out that my GM has also been treating my animal companion as size Medium. He said that it's generally assumed Druids have younger animal companions when first level but my history included getting my companion years prior to adventuring. So he's grown into size Medium but he won't actually get the stat bumps with that till level 4 where he'll remain the same size. Which presents an odd problem. How do I make an animal companion size Medium and keep him Medium after the Druid class bonus kicks in at level 4?

Also, I understand how the things like Grab, Rake, and Pounce are shown in Hero Lab but got another question. According to the SRD, you can grab your same size-class or smaller, but without adjusting his size yet, it only says Grab (Tiny) in Hero Lab. Is that changeable? I know its just a word and doesn't provide any technical application to the program but for myself I'd like it to be accurate.
 
Size doesn't affect BAB.

The "Attack Bonus" listed on the basics summary is the adjusted attack bonus, not the BAB.

There's a size category adjustment available either on the other adjustments list on the Adjust tab, or the Permanent adjustments list on the Personal tab. You can use that to make it Size M.
 
Oh, right. There's BAB from class and race then other things that add to your overall Attack Bonus. Did I mention it'd been a while since I last played 3.5 then moving to Pathfinder only recently? So much to relearn.

Those adjustments are pretty handy, keep forgetting about them. That'll certainly help with the Size question for now.

But I'm still wondering if there is a way to change what size the Grab says on the Special Tab.
 
Hexamony said:
But I'm still wondering if there is a way to change what size the Grab says on the Special Tab.
Click to expand...
Grab is based off the size of the creature it is attached too. So once you use the adjustment to increase your Small minion to medium Grab should update to show Grab(small).
 
I seem to have conflicting information. I know this is crossing into Pathfinder rules questions but I do have another question about Hero Lab in a moment.

From the D20 Pathfinder SRD
Unless otherwise noted, grab works only against opponents no larger than the same size category as the creature.
Click to expand...
Unless this has been changed somewhere, this is why I'm wondering why Hero Lab is reporting the next smaller category next to Grab instead of same size category.

Also, what does changing size change? I made a Small Animal Companion entry with the correct attack damage but just noticed, after permanently changing his size to Medium with an adjustment, that all his attacks are stronger now. Was this from the size change? Maybe I'm going about this size thing the wrong way. Any ideas on how I can better handle it? Far as I know, him being Medium only changes how his Grab works in the game. Which I now feel I made need clarified.

Thanks so far for the help and advice, I'll figure all this out yet.
 
Hexamony said:
Unless this has been changed somewhere, this is why I'm wondering why Hero Lab is reporting the next smaller category next to Grab instead of same size category.
Click to expand...
Yep appears to be a bug in HL as it is set up to show one size smaller not the same size. The text of the ability in HL appears to show the same thing.

Hexamony said:
Also, what does changing size change? I made a Small Animal Companion entry with the correct attack damage but just noticed, after permanently changing his size to Medium with an adjustment, that all his attacks are stronger now. Was this from the size change? Maybe I'm going about this size thing the wrong way. Any ideas on how I can better handle it?
Click to expand...
Increasing a creatures Size will give a +1 to CMB/CMD do to size, -1 AC, -1 to hit, and increase the die size dmg of all attacks. That is what it means to be bigger. Bigger things hit harder. When a bear hits with its claw it does allot more damage than a common house cat would. :p

So you would need to create a custom Adjustment to adjust the size of Natural weapons back down. The tag to do this for Natural Weapons is Helper.DamageDown which has to be done in a Script in HL. Of course this is all due to your DM wanting house rules. :)
 
Bestiary, pg. 301: "...grab works only against opponents at least one size category smaller than the creature."

Bestiary 2, pg. 298: "...grab works only against opponents no larger than the same size category as the creature."

I missed that difference when I was looking for changes between the Bestiary and Bestiary 2. I'll put that on my to-do list.
 
Mathias said:
Bestiary, pg. 301: "...grab works only against opponents at least one size category smaller than the creature."

Bestiary 2, pg. 298: "...grab works only against opponents no larger than the same size category as the creature."
Click to expand...
Just looked also and the two books are different and I have the latest versions. I thought they had changed the Bestiary in the Errata to match the Bestiary 2. Guess not... :(

I am not sure the B2 is actually correct. B1 Errata document specifically calls out that the Barbed Devil can use its grab on a medium creature and it self is a medium creature:
Page 72
In the Devil, Barbed stat block, in the Special Abilities section, add the following paragraph:
Grab (Ex) A barbed devil can use its grab attack against a foe of up to Medium size.

Why do that if Grab was to be changed to be same size. Unless it was testing for the change they wanted to do in B2. It does seem weird about the wording difference as one would think they would have copied and pasted from B1 to B2 so thought was put in to change the wording.

Probably best to assume for now that B2 is correct and the next B1 errata will have the grab ability changed.

Sorry guess I am rambling about rules....
 
ShadowChemosh said:
Probably best to assume for now that B2 is correct and the next B1 errata will have the grab ability changed.
Click to expand...
So just found SKR's mention of this Grab issue and it is suppose to be the same size not one smaller. He of course mentions adding it to the FAQ but that could take years.

Grab Thread:
We deliberately changed it.

Basically, the smaller-only limitation really hosed a lot of monsters that traditionally are used to attack human-sized PCs, like constrictor snakes. And by "hosed" I mean "yeah you have this special ability but you can't use it most of the time and you have to use the regular grapple rules." It's self-defeating to give a monster a special ability and then take that monster away for most of the times the monster appears in combat. Like, "vampires are scary, they deal negative levels with their slam... oh, but only on Small characters."

I'm adding a note about this to the FAQ.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top