Animal Companion Ceremony [Archive] - Wizards Community

Animal Companion Ceremony [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
JadeSpider9643
07-02-05, 02:13 AM So Druids just spontaneously appear with an Animal Companion apon creation...but Rangers have to wait until level 4...How exactly does the Ranger aquire the Companion. Of course there is always the cheesy "~Poof~" and you have a companion...BLEH! a particularly cleaver DM will have you encounter and charm the approiate animal, but sometimes that just doesn't work inside the campaign. What I've used for myself(as the ranger, not the DM) is to sneak aside and perform the 24-hour replacement ceremony to aquire my first companion. So that's my question:

HOW does the Ranger aquire their first companion?
mhacdebhandia
07-02-05, 03:15 AM It's simplest to say that the animal companion finds the ranger. Mystic bond and all that.

Alternatively, you could say that the ranger now has enough skill/mojo/empathy to forge the bond, and that they have to find a suitable animal to make that connection with.
farfairer
07-02-05, 05:59 AM Its not quite the same thing, but I had a druid who went through 3 companions.

The character joined the game at level 5 (we were still playing 3.0 at the time), and since he is from an inuit/eskimo style culture I decided that his companion would be a malamute (I didn't want a wolf). And the dog had been his pet/companion for several years.

The dog died really fast (becasue 3.0 animal companions were easy to kill).

My character didn't get a new animal companion for a while. It wasn't until he was killed and reincarnated as a halfling that he found his new companion (we were playing 3.5 by this time). The characters went to Waterdeep (its Forgotten Realms), and my character got a trained riding dog. By the end of the week I had performed the ritual so he was my companion.

Almost a year later (having been changed back to a human only a few weeks after reincarnating), the riding dog died while we were fighting frost giants.

The caracters were in the Great Glacier at this point, weeks from any civilization in the barron tundra waists. We had no way to bring the dog back to life other than reincarnation, and I decided not to do it. Indead I had my character sit and meditate outside of the frost giants cave in the cold snow. I then rolled randomly on the cart for "apropirate animal companions for a frostfell" from the Frostburn book to see what would show up. It was my decision to do it this way and the DM aproved. My new animal companion was a gyrefalcon. And the character still has him

So basicly my character aquired his companions 3 different ways. Each one involvong RP based on the situation at hand.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JadeSpider9643 07-02-05, 02:13 AM	So Druids just spontaneously appear with an Animal Companion apon creation...but Rangers have to wait until level 4...How exactly does the Ranger aquire the Companion. Of course there is always the cheesy "~Poof~" and you have a companion...BLEH! a particularly cleaver DM will have you encounter and charm the approiate animal, but sometimes that just doesn't work inside the campaign. What I've used for myself(as the ranger, not the DM) is to sneak aside and perform the 24-hour replacement ceremony to aquire my first companion. So that's my question: HOW does the Ranger aquire their first companion?
mhacdebhandia 07-02-05, 03:15 AM	It's simplest to say that the animal companion finds the ranger. Mystic bond and all that. Alternatively, you could say that the ranger now has enough skill/mojo/empathy to forge the bond, and that they have to find a suitable animal to make that connection with.
farfairer 07-02-05, 05:59 AM	Its not quite the same thing, but I had a druid who went through 3 companions. The character joined the game at level 5 (we were still playing 3.0 at the time), and since he is from an inuit/eskimo style culture I decided that his companion would be a malamute (I didn't want a wolf). And the dog had been his pet/companion for several years. The dog died really fast (becasue 3.0 animal companions were easy to kill). My character didn't get a new animal companion for a while. It wasn't until he was killed and reincarnated as a halfling that he found his new companion (we were playing 3.5 by this time). The characters went to Waterdeep (its Forgotten Realms), and my character got a trained riding dog. By the end of the week I had performed the ritual so he was my companion. Almost a year later (having been changed back to a human only a few weeks after reincarnating), the riding dog died while we were fighting frost giants. The caracters were in the Great Glacier at this point, weeks from any civilization in the barron tundra waists. We had no way to bring the dog back to life other than reincarnation, and I decided not to do it. Indead I had my character sit and meditate outside of the frost giants cave in the cold snow. I then rolled randomly on the cart for "apropirate animal companions for a frostfell" from the Frostburn book to see what would show up. It was my decision to do it this way and the DM aproved. My new animal companion was a gyrefalcon. And the character still has him So basicly my character aquired his companions 3 different ways. Each one involvong RP based on the situation at hand.