Familiars are Tiny creatures and don’t have anything allowing growth. You could, of course, change that as you like. I figured the pups would be roughly Small size already anyway. Also, the Druid Familiar is supposed to be a Leshy.
@Mithinar
Given that the animal companion growth feats will come very late for you, and the highest ones won’t even be available, I kinda wonder if it’s even worth making either of them a companion. Their stats will be pretty bad for doing anything in combat, and Bonded Animal gives access to out-of-combat uses.
@ocelot
Mage Armor gives an Item bonus, the same as the runes, so they don’t stack.
Yeah that was what I started to think about after reading that article you linked me. Plus Rockie wouldn’t really want to separate the Pups. Being from a gnome clan he can understand clearly the idea of Pack that most canine’s have to their litter-mates and family group. And he would not want to rob either of the pups of that.
So I am back to either letting them wander off while we are inside doing the clearing. Or having a side quest (if everyone in the group wants to agree to do it) in Rockie finding a place where they can be steered away from their Hereditary tendency towards Neutral Evil and thereby be redeemed in his and his Goddesses eyes.
I’d be interested in taking on one of the pups with Huulm, but I just don’t think there’s much room in my build to take much if anything in the way of feats that would do the pups any good. The only scenario I can think of that would make use of the pups without putting them into combat would be acting as scouts.
I wonder if we’ll get an APG archetype giving normal Animal Companion progression instead of the stunted version Duid and Ranger multiclass Archetype’s offer. Wouldn’t surprise me, and I don’t think it would break anything.
So to expand on the message I sent in earlier from work via email.
From a players perspective, I don’t want to go the animal companion now that I know I can’t make full use of them due to being a druid multiclass. If it was just me I would not really care as it would only effect me. But because I am giving up feat slots to do this, in the end I will be affecting the group as a whole. Because The companion would end up taking extra healing from me during encounters because they will be under-leveled and under powered because they are being advance late compared to a what full druid or Ranger could do. And that they lose out on Specialization buffing up.
From Rockie’s point of view. What I said about not wanting to split the pups up is true as well. And there is multiple reasons for that. A canine does have an innate desire to be part of a pack. Like humanoids like being part of clans. It breeds a special closeness. And intentionally splitting up the pups would affect them long term. Knowing this and his hope to get them someplace where they can grow up to be raised and steered away from the warg’s tendency towards Neutral Evil, Rockie feels that where ever he finds to get them to have them be redeemed it will go much easier if they have each other and were both going through the same process. In effect they are starting out with a pack of two of them and whoever Rockie finds to raise them and steer them away from evil impulses will just expand their pack. Where as if it was just one that was forcibly separated from its sibling and their pack is shattered they might look at the person raising them as someone trying to make a slave of them. And suddenly the nurture concept is turned into an adversarial relationship.
Now I know as a player that @Rando wouldn’t likely play it this way (Unless someone starts doing emanations or something) It isn’t something Rockie would know. So he would not factor it into his view of what might happen with the possible paths extending from this point in time. And I am not thinking about the old yeller possibility as he wouldn’t know about that either.
So as a player I now have to look at the situation as it exists now. It doesn’t matter if there is a possible solution that might come out in the APG. Because until it comes out It cannot affect the current campaign until Rando says it is acceptable. And the decision point for Rockie will happen when he hits level 4 and has to choose the class feat. And given all the other possible downtime activities I don’t want to have to allow time to train out of something because I choose wrongly thinking there might be a fix in the APG.
So all that being said. At this point from Rockies and my point of view we are back to the original options Rando gave us all those many post ago.
The pups disappear while we are down here clearing the vaults out.
If the Party want to support Rockie in a side quest to find them a home where they can be raised and be allowed to choose their fate and how they interact with the world so that their actions will not be considered inherently evil just because they are wargs.
Ahhh but you are forgetting the third option (which I just thought of now), and I think it’s my favorite option!
We clear the keep and the vaults and finish the chapter. We gots our brand-new-kinda-old-run-down keep and we start getting some NPC’s in there. We get ourselves an animal handler NPC who can raise the puppies at the keep and they can become the guard dogs for the keep. Maybe that NPC is a ranger and occasionally he takes them out on adventures and levels them up.
C’moooooon DM, waddya say, it’s all in the name of RPG flavor!
My wild idea aside, if they don’t just disappear by the time we make it back topside (worst case scenario: the wargs came back and reclaimed them for the pack) I’m all for option #2.
Well I will be open to whatever Rando comes up with. All I wanted to make clear is that Rockie would not do anything that would split them from each other, which means no Animal Companion or Bonded option involving him. Beyond that I will go with whatever Rando decides to let happen or plans.
I know he was excited about Rockie going druid putting him in this situation which is why I embraced it and tried to make it work. But neither one of us counted on how limited it is from a Multiclass archetype and how far behind it would make the pups as we leveled. In essence it would make me like the Captain America from the early comics where he dragged his sidekick a kid named Bucky around. No help but gives the bad guys something they can threaten to try to force Cap to meet their demands.
Ah, the joys of being the GM, getting to deal with these annoying situations…
EDIT: note to self: stock up on some Owlbear Claws as soon as 3gp per use is economical
MORE EDIT: Got my Gods and Magic pdf. Lots of interesting stuff, though I question the balance of a couple of the weapons they added (like the Bladed Scarf - in exchange for being Advanced and requiring a STR user with 2 hands, it deals twice as much damage as a whip and has the same Reach + Disarm + Trip traits along with Sweep).
Well that was a quite a scare last night, being enveloped by a gelatinous cube. Rest assured Anna will be following both Valk and Huulm in the marching order from now on! Thank goodness everyone was their to bail her out of trouble.
Also, from the encounter with the kobolds Pib and Squib (or whatever their names were), I’m filing this under things I should’ve said:
After casting dragon claws and blood magic manifesting silver scales: “These are my worshipers and you can’t have them!”
(Anna has a sense of humor. Too bad my comedic timing is a day late and a dollar short )
There’s always time to go back and argue it out with them while Valk and Huulm drag ole Brumble outside, untie him and then send him on his way with a smack on the ass.
A large creature is 12 bulk, so we should be able to manage it between the two of us.
By the way, if anyone is interested in stuff from Gods & Magic before AoN gets it loaded, feel free to ask. There are some weapons, items, and spells in addition to the deities stuff. There are also fun boons you can seek even if you aren’t a Cleric or Champion.
In other news, Blistering Invective, the single best spell in all of 1e, is coming back in the APG. Because it appears in Gods and Magic. For some reason, Paizo made the kinda insulting decision to print Gods and Magic with some deities granting spells that aren’t available until the APG releases in half a year.
But Blistering Invective! You insult your enemies so hard they literally burst into flames!
This week’s theme: armor, armor, who’s got the armor?
@Rando - as you mentioned there being Hellknight Plate in here, could Valk undertake a Crafting activity (when we have downtime) to modify it so that it isn’t easily identifiable anymore (and change the motif to match his goddess’s symbols) but would still be recognizable as Hellknight Plate if inspected closely by someone familiar with their style of armor? Like the sort of thing where nobody, not even actual Hellknight, looks at it and immediately thinks he’s a Hellknight, but he could go up to a real Hellknight (dunno why he would, yet) and go “Hey, take a look at this… no, look closer… yeah, see that?” and have them realize what he’s done. No need to get trouble from every passing douchebag Hellknight we meet, but an option to piss one off if needed. Or just for fun.
EDIT: Extra question for the party, did we ever decide what to do with the two knocked out and tied up monkey cultists?
I think we were too busy trying to get the bear outta there to deal with the baboon boys yet. Huulm is neutral so he could go either way; they did surrender so killing them outright based on ideals only seems like straight up murder, but then again, they do follow the god of destruction and seek to destroy everything so the world wouldn’t be worse off minus two destructive monkey dudes.
Considering that the illusion of the distance back to town has worn off and we realize it is not so far away, wasn’t there talk of taking them back to town to be put on trial or let the town deal with them?
)