Animal companions: do you know of it works in ToEE?

I was looking at the animal companions and I noticed some error as well. More, since the game doesn't share any stat value of them, it is impossible to understand if they effectively gain the benefits of being an high-level druid animal companion, with increased stats, natural armor, hit dices, size adjustment and feats (evasion). For me, it is not like that. What do you think? Did you note any clue about that?
And I think that polar bear and attack dog are outpowered. But let it be.....

 

I had Meleny and the attackdog in a game but the dog didn't live long enough to see what happens. That is one MEAN dog. It can kill a bugbear by its self. I think they gain hp as the druid levels up. I don't know if you could take a polar bear into the Inn.

 

The inn certainly stocks bamboo for my panda...

 

Well, the attack dog is stronger than a wolf, the point is that the wolf in the monster manual may joins bigger packs and may "grow" to more Hit Dices than a dog. Effectively, no dog may be strong enough like a north american wolf that attacks bisons! Anyway, the polar bear is missing 2 more HD, I'll fix many things now that I have time!

 

On the contrary, english mastiffs, which are the war dogs that the D&D attack dog is most likely based upon, are much more formidable than a typical wolf. the record for the heaviest mastiff is 343 lbs, while they generally range from 160 to 230 lbs. A north american wolf will max out at about 175 lbs. In terms of speed there is a law (or there was) in England that required non-noble owners of mastiffs to cut off the second toe of the dog so that they would be incapable of running down deer (and deer are both fleet of foot and enduring runners.) It also seems that mastiffs (before the breed was standarized in England) were pitted against such foes as bears, lions, tigers, bulls, boars, other dogs, and humans in the Roman Coliseum. Armies throughout the ages have used these dogs. As far as attacking canadian bison there is no way to know if they are the equivalent of the wolf. But remember that wolves hunt in packs and you will simply not find an actual account of a wolf taking down a healthy, adult, non-pregnant bison on its own. The Canadian (and American, if you must) lone wolf seems to be mythological. Wolves are pack animals period. A wolf that lives outside of the pack structure is: a) a male trying to attract females to start a new pack; b) an outcast (keep in mind that an outcast was made so because some other, tougher wolf drove it away,) c) sick and soon to die; d) old and soon to die; e) an individual all of whom's pack has died (in which case they are probably soon to die because pack extinction is usually through disease or a true rarity, an unsocial wolf. In all of these cases the individual subsists on a diet of rodents, insects, carrion and weak/immature prey (maybe a deer of 3 years or less, but not an elk, moose nor especially a bison of that age, heck, they would have trouble with a yearling bull in good shape.) Given all of these sources of food, except in some truly rare act of desperation, no sane "lone" wolf would ever dare attack a healthy, adult bison on its own anyway. And if it did, except by some almost unique stroke of luck, would it survive the encounter. I can't say whether an english mastiff would survive the same encounter but I am willing to bet that it would have a much better chance. Oh and, even in packs, wolves will generally not attack a healthy adult bison. They are just too big and deadly. A healthy adult bison, male or female (not pregnant) can generally do enough damage (death or serious injury) to a wolf pack that they won't even try. If you have been watching documentaries about this please bear in mind that: a) the documentary maker has no mandate to present the truth, he/ she is only trying to attract an audience to either sell commercial time or justify a cable network carrying his/her channel; b) they have managed to capture on film severely atypical behaviour (unlikely....see c); they are passing off an attack upon a weak member as something else ( see a). Finally, I have had encounters with both creatures. A friend of one of my cousins had a full blood wolf as a pet (totally illegal of course.) A more surly incorrigable thing you could not conceive of. I remember petting it and that it would always put its paw up to my face as though trying to overcome me. Eventually I just grabbed its paw and placed it firmly on the ground and stared it in the eye until it stopped. It was my friend after that. The mastiff, however, was friendly from the start (it was the pet of my ex-wifes brothers friend) but petting the thing was an intimidation. The dog weighed more than I do and,when it wanted attention, it would push its full weight against you, tongue hanging out, looking up at you with those eyes. Friendly as all heck but there was something else there.... Yeah I would gladly tackle the wolf before the mastiff any day. Maybe it is just because the mastiff was bred to kill and the wolf just does it because it has to. Maybe it is because the wolf will kill you if it must in order to eat but the mastiff will, if trained, simply kill you. Hmm....

Darmagon

 

You also have the Rhodesian Ridgeback. Bred for lion hunting IIRC.

 

Trained or not...

...the mastiff will also eat you if it must.

BTW, Canadian is American. Specifically, North American. Wolves know nothing of borders.

 

I agree, the wolf is a pack animal and hunts by instinct, where as the term attack dog tells me that it's been trained to fight etc. I had a Bull mastiff cross and he was awesome, and big, and looked a lot like the attack dog in the game.

"The Mastiff was bred to be a war dog, which is hard to believe if you are the beloved parent to a Mastiff! History shows Mastiffs hunting lions, fighting bulls, and even driving an elephant to its knees. Mastiffs were also known to be led into war by the thousands and being fierce fighters! There are even records of them being fought in the Roman Coliseum against bears, lions, tigers, bulls, boars, other dogs, and humans."

 

Ok, I agree, and I really enjoyed so many new informations about wolves and dogs. Still, I ment that a wolf is stonger than any dog of the same size and still, looking at some naturalistic site on the web,

"The gray wolf (Canis lupus). They range in size from 26" to 38" shoulder height, 39" to 80" in length (tip of nose to end of tail), and vary in weight from 57 to 130 pounds. Diet: deer, caribou, elk, and moose" so 96,52 cm x 203 cm x 58 kg
and
"...musk oxen and caribou.
The shoulder height of the arctic wolf varies from 25 to 31 inches. On average, they are about 3 feet tall from head to toe. Their body length may vary from 3 to 5 feet (nose to tail). Their colors may range from red, gray, white and black. The approximate weight of a full grown male is 175 pounds." so 91,2 cm x 152 cm x 76,75 kg if I did the correct operations.

So, effectively the mastiff is bigger than the biggest wolf, even if you are talking about the biggest mastiff against average wolves, but I can't think to any dog of the same size of a wold that may effectively win against the wolf. So, the mastiff should have maybe more HD, different challenge rating, maybe non being available for a druid at the same level of a wolf or better, not being available at all. Why a druid that lives all the time in nature, should have a breeded animal trained by men and civilization as animal companion? And anyway they should be more different: I dare a mastiff to have the same resistance of a wolf while running back to prays, to resis cold or to have the same survival skills of the wolf itself, all things that in D&D and ToEE pass unfortunately unnoticed or unused.

 

Yeah Malamutes and Huskies are the closest dog to a wolf anyway and probably able to with stand cold and endurence alot more than other dog breeds, and what would a Druid be doing with a highly trained attack dog anyway (a war dog seems to complement the fight more)? Wolves work best in packs, so it would be cool if a high level druid could have a wolf pack or just one strong animal like a bear.
and also wouldn't having a dog, wolf or bear add to your survival skills, like track or sniff to see whats behind that door...

 

take a look !

Malamutes and Huskies are indeed able to with stand cold and endurence alot more than other dog breeds, but I don't see them as proficient as a german herder or a dobermann in a fight 8even if I'm sure they can defend themselves as well).
I agree too that a wardog is a better companion for a fighter that has many skill points in training animals and I think that a druid may choose to take more animal companions if he doesn't make his one to evolve (go, Pikachu! I choose you! .. ops ^_^) but a druid already may have a strong animal likea bear. Actually, he may have his animal companion to gain several benefits or to take one stronger according to the level. Actually, a druidi approaching adventurers on a T-rex would be quite impressive.
And, more, actually it is possible on paper D&D to get benefits from the animal companion skills. Just wolves should be stonger than a dog, weaker than a fighting dog but in all conditions with more skill points in survival and any other ability correlated with wild life. Don't forget that dogs are like huge puppies except few ones, like american or australian dingos that are completely wild again, infact they keep their hears up and not down like puppies.
About animal companions, look here: http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=174
Do you already know it?

 

Maybe someone could figure out how to remove the Attack Dog and add some other animal from the game to the initial list. How about a Sheep to go along with the Chicken?

Seriously, it would be nice if you could buy an Attack Dog, among other animals. I would hope the game could be modded to allow for horses, mules and other riding/pack animals to better get the feel of D&D. I don't like the inventory system as its set up, too much like EverQuest for me, being able to lug around suits of armour in my backpack. There was also the fact that Nulb is about 15 leagues from Hommlet (aprox 51 miles). A two day journey even on horseback.

 

Theorically, everything is possible, but I guess that it would really take months of hard work.
More, an attack dog would proof to be useless after some hours of gameplay. Soon the player would feel the need to replace it with something stronger or you would see it dieing all the time because it would attack even too stronger enemies like the balor. Animal companions AI is quite low: they are kamikaze.
instead it would be nicer to add some more animal for over 10th level druids, but I can't think to any in the game, except owlbears that are magic beasts and not animals, I guess, or maybe recicling some weaker animal and adding the "feral" or "legendary" attribute to it, accordingly to the archetips chapter of Monster Manual. But still, I wonder how difficult it is and how sense it may have except if looked as part of a new adventure for 10th-20th characters.

 

It's a good Ranger companion as well.

Horses/riding animal and such would be cool but i think they left them out because the animation for them is quite difficult.

 

Can anyone please tell me the differences between the animal companions??? I cannot seem to find any info about them in the manual...