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Post by EDM Neo on Aug 26, 2010 13:09:06 GMT -5
What the Masters of the Wild excerpt (admittedly, a 3.0 source material, not 3.5) leads me to believe is that the awakened "animal companion" would effectively be an NPC party member, and indeed no longer technically an animal companion. However, this doesn't mean they can't be awakened at all.
My interpertation of the spell's description is that it doesn't say that animal companions can't be targeted with the spell, only that once targeted with it, they can no longer be classified as an animal companion.
This means that they can still of their own volition continue to assist the druid, they just won't have the same benefits as an actual animal companion would, in that it wouldn't benefit from Share Spells, it'd no longer have Evasion, etc.
Of course, NWN's mechanics make this difficult to represent, but, meh.
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Post by soulfien on Aug 26, 2010 16:18:08 GMT -5
Awaken is different here in that it does not give a bonus to intelligence as it does in PnP.
Thus, an awakened companion is still just an animal.
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Post by 828stingstingneo on Aug 27, 2010 13:35:54 GMT -5
This means that they can still of their own volition continue to assist the druid, they just won't have the same benefits as an actual animal companion would, in that it wouldn't benefit from Share Spells, it'd no longer have Evasion, etc. Isn't this a familiar feature, not an animal companion feature? I could be wrong. I don't play casters much in PnP. However, as far as I can tell from the Animal Friendship spell entry in the 3.0 Players' Handbook, the one that gives you an animal companion, the animal remains just a regular animal which just acquires loyalty to you if you really mean to be its friend. In the Players' Handbook, the Awaken entry also says nothing about not being able to use it on animal companions. It says nothing specifically about not being able to target familars or paladin mounts either, but those are considered magical beasts instead of animals which would mean they shouldn't be targetable by Awaken which only affects animals or trees. Of course, this all refers to the PnP versions of the spells and may or may not be the same as NWN versions. |
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Post by EDM Neo on Aug 27, 2010 14:37:38 GMT -5
This means that they can still of their own volition continue to assist the druid, they just won't have the same benefits as an actual animal companion would, in that it wouldn't benefit from Share Spells, it'd no longer have Evasion, etc. Isn't this a familiar feature, not an animal companion feature? I could be wrong. I don't play casters much in PnP. However, as far as I can tell from the Animal Friendship spell entry in the 3.0 Players' Handbook, the one that gives you an animal companion, the animal remains just a regular animal which just acquires loyalty to you if you really mean to be its friend. In the Players' Handbook, the Awaken entry also says nothing about not being able to use it on animal companions. It says nothing specifically about not being able to target familars or paladin mounts either, but those are considered magical beasts instead of animals which would mean they shouldn't be targetable by Awaken which only affects animals or trees. Of course, this all refers to the PnP versions of the spells and may or may not be the same as NWN versions. Right, we were mostly discussing the 3.5 versions, not 3.0 (NWN is based on 3.0). Have a peek at the 3.5 entries for Druid (scroll down for the section on animal companions) and for Awaken. The Masters of the Wild sourcebook I quoted was similarly 3.0 material. In response to Soulfien's post, yes, I'm aware that the NWN version doesn't actually give a bonus to intelligence. I don't know, however, if that's explicitly because Bioware meant for druids on roleplaying servers to be unable to roleplay using it as if it did, or if it was just a Bioware thinking "okay, people roleplaying this spell as it works in PnP doesn't require the mechanics we implement to be exactly the same, I'm sure they can figure it out for themselves." |
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Post by Munroe on Aug 27, 2010 15:09:51 GMT -5
In response to Soulfien's post, yes, I'm aware that the NWN version doesn't actually give a bonus to intelligence. I don't know, however, if that's explicitly because Bioware meant for druids on roleplaying servers to be unable to roleplay using it as if it did, or if it was just a Bioware thinking "okay, people roleplaying this spell as it works in PnP doesn't require the mechanics we implement to be exactly the same, I'm sure they can figure it out for themselves." Bioware included no means for animal companions to talk. They did include the ability for wizards and sorcerers to possess their familiars and speak through them, but it's not Bioware that allows for animal companions to talk on FRC, it's the DMFI tools, which are a set of scripts that FRC runs that allow for people to talk through their familiars, animal companions, and summons without regard to what those familiars, animal companions, and summons actually are. (They also allow for many other things like dice bags and language widgets, and a number of things DMs do.) Not that Bioware's intent matters much since we'd be playing a very different game if we went by Bioware's intent. |
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