Animal Lord? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Animal Lord? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Confusticated
01-13-04, 03:35 AM I've been contemplating the Animal Lord lately, and looking around here, it seems as if the Animal Lord gets no love on the optimization board.

Because of the spellcasting, skill, and animal defiance, and animal control prereqs, you virtually have to be a druid 5 or ranger 5 (with enough wisdom to cast 1st level spells).

A druid 1/barb 4 could get the required detect plants/animals spell to get animal defiance, to in turn get control animal - while also having the ability to place enough skill in the right places. He'd also have a mean rage in animal form...

I'm sure there are probably other builds that can work into animal lord, but probably very few who can do so at level 6.

In any case, I can't see there being much beyond Druid 5/Animal Lord 10/Druid 5 as a level progression. It'd probably be underpowered as well. The remaining 5 levels of druid could probably be replaced with something beefier as well, but nothing comes to mind that compliments what the druid 5/animal lord 10 already has.

So 3.0 or 3.5, what build would you use to make an optimized animal lord?
da chicken
01-13-04, 05:30 AM Animal Lord is broken (not overpowered -- the class doesn't work) in 3.5. Druid and ranger changed too much. Ditto for Tamer of Beasts. Both have a reliance on animal friendship, which no longer exists. Wild Shape is completely different, so Lesser Wild Shape is completely wonky now (Dire and Legendary limits instead of HD limits.. but it inherits HD limits from 3.5 Wild Shape). Not to mention unlimited Lesser Wild Shape = unlimited healing, which is clearly unintended since it extends to the whole party at 5th level.

The class is also hugely subjective and based on DM whim. "Nope, there are no wolves in this part of the forest. The unknown menace has scared them off."

Like a lot of PrC, this one is best suited to NPCs.
Confusticated
01-13-04, 01:23 PM I think you mean animal empathy, with it pretty much equivalent to handle animal now. Also... I don't see anything wrong with limiting the change to actual specific shapes in the animal family of that animal lord rather then HD.

As for unlimited healing, yeah... Should have limited it to once a day or something of that nature.

And if you have a GM who won't let you use any of your characters powers, on a whim, then I don't think it's the PrC that sucks...

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Confusticated 01-13-04, 03:35 AM	I've been contemplating the Animal Lord lately, and looking around here, it seems as if the Animal Lord gets no love on the optimization board. Because of the spellcasting, skill, and animal defiance, and animal control prereqs, you virtually have to be a druid 5 or ranger 5 (with enough wisdom to cast 1st level spells). A druid 1/barb 4 could get the required detect plants/animals spell to get animal defiance, to in turn get control animal - while also having the ability to place enough skill in the right places. He'd also have a mean rage in animal form... I'm sure there are probably other builds that can work into animal lord, but probably very few who can do so at level 6. In any case, I can't see there being much beyond Druid 5/Animal Lord 10/Druid 5 as a level progression. It'd probably be underpowered as well. The remaining 5 levels of druid could probably be replaced with something beefier as well, but nothing comes to mind that compliments what the druid 5/animal lord 10 already has. So 3.0 or 3.5, what build would you use to make an optimized animal lord?
da chicken 01-13-04, 05:30 AM	Animal Lord is broken (not overpowered -- the class doesn't work) in 3.5. Druid and ranger changed too much. Ditto for Tamer of Beasts. Both have a reliance on animal friendship, which no longer exists. Wild Shape is completely different, so Lesser Wild Shape is completely wonky now (Dire and Legendary limits instead of HD limits.. but it inherits HD limits from 3.5 Wild Shape). Not to mention unlimited Lesser Wild Shape = unlimited healing, which is clearly unintended since it extends to the whole party at 5th level. The class is also hugely subjective and based on DM whim. "Nope, there are no wolves in this part of the forest. The unknown menace has scared them off." Like a lot of PrC, this one is best suited to NPCs.
Confusticated 01-13-04, 01:23 PM	I think you mean animal empathy, with it pretty much equivalent to handle animal now. Also... I don't see anything wrong with limiting the change to actual specific shapes in the animal family of that animal lord rather then HD. As for unlimited healing, yeah... Should have limited it to once a day or something of that nature. And if you have a GM who won't let you use any of your characters powers, on a whim, then I don't think it's the PrC that sucks...