Natural Bond:
Add 3 to your effective Druid level for Animal Companion stuff, but it can never make your effective Druid level higher than your character level.
Lizardfolk:
2 humanoid hit dice/levels (HD)
+1 effective character level (ECL)
So, assuming a Lizardfolk cohort of 4th level, so he has 1 level of Druid, with Natural Bond:
Druid 1 + 2 from HD + 1 from ECL, for Druid 4 for animal companion? Or just 2 from the hit dice, ignoring that he is 4th level from XP requirements, even though he only gets the racial stuff from it, not any hit dice, so only Druid 3 for animal companion?
Unlike Practiced Spellcaster, which explicitly mentions "not above your hit dice" in the feat description, this one refers to character level instead...
And the main thing I am thinking about is a 7th level Lizardfolk druid/beastmaster cohort, who would be:
2 humanoid HD
+1 ECL
Druid 3
Beastmaster 1
for either a 9th or 10th level animal companion...
Or should I just expect table variation? Also, note, that the same total, effective 10th level for the animal companion, can be achieved by using a "normal" PC race with 6 levels of Druid and 1 level of Beastmaster, so it is not "abnormal" cheese...
Effective level does not equal character level, I have never seen any ruling that equates to this.
Is it part of the character level if you are paying the normal experience for it?
Again, I could do the same thing, only, in some ways better, just by staying with a human cohort for this. He would be actual level 7th, have 6 Druid levels, 1 Beastmaster level, no need for Natural Bond or Practiced Spellcaster, so effectively 10th level Druid for his animal companion cheese, get spells as a 6th level Druid instead of a 3rd level Druid, and not only gets two feats back, but gets an extra feat and more skill points to boot. Oh, and get to Wild Shape twice a day, too.
So, it is mainly a flavor thing, rather than trying for some sort of unfair advantage.
Is it part of the character level if you are paying the normal experience for it?
Again, I could do the same thing, only, in some ways better, just by staying with a human cohort for this. He would be actual level 7th, have 6 Druid levels, 1 Beastmaster level, no need for Natural Bond or Practiced Spellcaster, so effectively 10th level Druid for his animal companion cheese, get spells as a 6th level Druid instead of a 3rd level Druid, and not only gets two feats back, but gets an extra feat and more skill points to boot. Oh, and get to Wild Shape twice a day, too.
So, it is mainly a flavor thing, rather than trying for some sort of unfair advantage.
Yeah, but unfortunately RAW I just don't think it works
Yeah, but unfortunately RAW I just don't think it works
Add three to your effective druid level for the purpose of determining the bonus Hit Dice, extra tricks, special abilities, and other bonuses that your animal companion receives (see page 36 of the Player’s Handbook). This bonus can never make your effective druid level exceed your character level.
Experience points (XP) measure how much your character has learned and how much he or she has grown in personal power. Your character earns XP by defeating monsters and other opponents. The DM assigns XP to the characters at the end of each adventure based on what they have accomplished. Characters accumulate XP from one adventure to another. When a character earns enough XP, he or she attains a new character level (see Table 3–2: Experience and Level-Dependent Benefits, page 22).
Level Adjustment
This line is included in the entries of creatures suitable for use as player characters or as cohorts (usually creatures with Intelligence scores of at least 3 and possessing opposable thumbs). Add this number to the creature’s total Hit Dice, including class levels, to get the creature’s effective character level (ECL). A character’s ECL affects the experience the character earns, the amount of experience the character must have before gaining a new level, and the character’s starting equipment. See pages 172, 199, and 209 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for more information.
Add a monster’s level adjustment to its Hit Dice and class levels to get the creature’s effective character level, or ECL. Add a monster’s level adjustment to its Hit Dice and class levels to get the creature’s effective character level, or ECL. Effectively, monsters with a level adjustment become multiclass characters when they take class levels.
So, given the above, what is the difference, for Natural Bond, between Character Level and Effective Character Level?
Natural bond says "effective Druid level" not "effective character level", so a 4th level lizardfolk druid cohort would be a 3rd level character with 1 druid, so with the it you are treated as a level 3 druid for companion adjustment.