Animal Companions
Animal Companions in CoA have been altered from the traditional Animal Companion system NwN uses. The Animal Companion Summon button will no longer do anything, instead the system uses a series of dot commands that you can use via chat (or set in your quickbar using macros).
These commands allow you to tame many animals/vermin you might find in the wilderness, provided their HD is equal or lower than your druid's level and you succeed an Animal Empathy check.
Disclaimer: While you can acquire companions in this way, if they die in combat they are gone for good and you'll need to find and tame a new companion.
Other disclaimer: Not every animal/vermin found in coa is tamable, for balance reasons. Also if you have less than 10 charisma your companion will receive penalties to its stats.
-- SPIFFY NOTE: Some animal companions are nerfed. They will not scale as described below. Others will scale better. It depends on what you find.
The dot commands are as follows
".compantame" Will tame the animal or vermin nearest to your druid, if the creature is non hostile the DC to tame it will be lower, you can use Animal Empathy to make animals non hostile and increase your chances of taming them.
".compansum" Will summon and unsummon your animal companion, keep in mind that you can not immediately resummon a companion after unsummoning it, or after it's been dismissed using the dismissal spell. You'll have to wait a certain time before being able to resummon it (even longer if it's been dismissed). The exception is the first time you unsummon a companion after taming it (allowing you to rename it).
".companname" Will set a new name for your companion, the next time you resummon them, their name will be whatever you set it to.
Additional Animal Companion Info
Taming Levels
Druids can tame companions equal or lower than their total druid levels.
Rangers can tame companions equal or lower than their ranger levels -2 levels (since they obtain the ability to tame at level 3).
Ranger and druid levels will combine when determining your ability to tame companions (the ranger's -2 level penalty still applies to ranger levels)
For every level a druid exceeds that of their Animal Companions HD, the companion will receive a +1 bonus to Str, Con, and Wisdom.
For every 2 levels a druid exceeds that of their Animal Companions HD, the companion will receive a +1 bonus to Dex and dodge AC
Charisma Bonuses
Charisma will give benefits to an Animal Companions stats if it's higher than 10, up to a maximum of 14 charisma.
11 Charisma: Gives the companion +2 Wis
12 Charisma: Gives the Companion +1 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Con, +1 Wis, +1 Dodge AC
13 Charisma: Gives the Companion +2 Str
14 Charisma: Gives the Companion +1 Str, +1 Dex, +3 Con, +1 Wis, +1 Dodge AC
