Save the Raging Dire Badger Animal Companion!

[Magus Coeruleus]

So here's a challenge for you:

Let's say you're a 10th level druid with a dire badger animal companion that you like to open up on your foes like so many cans of whoop-ass. That rage ability sure is tasty, but the problem, of course, is that once it's triggered (by ol' badgy being hit), it can't end it voluntarily; it just keeps tearing away until it or its opponent is dead. Hmm, if you ever came upon a foe powerful enough that you decide that you should turn tail, this could be a serious problem. Or what if you get caught in a swarm of centipedes or something? Your Red Badger of Courage may quickly turn into an icky mustidae mess.

What strategies can you think of for dealing with this problem, short of keeping DB out of combat altogether? It would be great if there were a way to get badgy out of combat in a desperate situation, but it's not going to be especially cooperative.

As a 10th level character, you'd have around 49K worth of equipment and items, so maybe a magic item could help, although you sure wouldn't want to blast away all of it on a solution.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Saeviomagy]

So here's a challenge for you:

Let's say you're a 10th level druid with a dire badger animal companion that you like to open up on your foes like so many cans of whoop-ass. That rage ability sure is tasty, but the problem, of course, is that once it's triggered (by ol' badgy being hit), it can't end it voluntarily; it just keeps tearing away until it or its opponent is dead. Hmm, if you ever came upon a foe powerful enough that you decide that you should turn tail, this could be a serious problem. Or what if you get caught in a swarm of centipedes or something? Your Red Badger of Courage may quickly turn into an icky mustidae mess.

What strategies can you think of for dealing with this problem, short of keeping DB out of combat altogether? It would be great if there were a way to get badgy out of combat in a desperate situation, but it's not going to be especially cooperative.

As a 10th level character, you'd have around 49K worth of equipment and items, so maybe a magic item could help, although you sure wouldn't want to blast away all of it on a solution.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Calm animals is a 1st level spell. I doubt it would function differently to calm emotions in regards to rage-effects.
Regardless, your badger will stop it's assault if it fails it's save.

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Re: Re: Save the Raging Dire Badger Animal Companion!

Calm animals is a 1st level spell. I doubt it would function differently to calm emotions in regards to rage-effects.
Regardless, your badger will stop it's assault if it fails it's save.

Calm Animals seems a good starting place. Unfortunately "Any threat (such as fire, a hungry predator, or an imminent attack) breaks the spell on the threatened creatures" (PHB 207, emphasis mine). This suggests to me that even if the spell were successful, it would immediately end unless we're talking about a situation where the opponent backs off or surrenders and you want the badger to stop. If the opponent is still fighting, the spell will break immediately.

By the way, just for reference, a 10th level druid's dire badger companion would have a Will save bonus of +5. A level 10 druid with an 18 Wisdom and no other DC boosting bonuses would have a spell DC of 14 + 1 per spell level, or a DC of 15 in the case of a 1st level spell, meaning that the badger would make its save about 55% of the time.

Dominate Animal, a 3rd level spell, would seem to allow forcing the badger to withdraw. That would have a DC of 17 for a Wis 18 druid, for a 45% chance that the badger would make its save. It would be nice if that chance could be decreased more. If you have Heighten Spell you can cast it as a 5th level spell to bump up the DC by 1, but that's about all I can think of.

Actually, that badger gets an additional +4 to Will saves against all enchantment spells and effects due to the devotion special ability. That's ironic in this case since you wouldn't necessarily expect devotion to make it harder for a druid to calm, charm, or dominate his/her animal companion.

Perhaps it would be reasonable to rule that the animal companion doesn't get that bonus to spells cast by its druid companion. A more liberal house rule would be that devotion actually imposes a -4 to Will saves against enchantments cast by the druid, reflecting that the companion is not simply more resistant to enchantments in general, but rather is inclined to act according to the will of its druid companion and not anyone else. This seems in line with the +4 the druid gets to Wild Empathy and Handle Animal checks with his/her companion due to the link special ability.

 

[paulewaug]

Probably won't be much help but-
I would like to say-

If you are unable to come up with a viable solution and this actually Is becoming a Problem- it may be necessary to "let the badger go" and get a new pet.
I know players and their characters can be rahter attached to a certain idea or thing but if IMO this is not something worhty of being an issue. Yeah you don't to mess with a players concept of the pc and if the have this really great reason to have this particular animal around all the time the Dm could come up with something like a magic collar that acts as an "on off switch" for the rage.
But as I said it may be necessary to get a different pet.

I realise this is not what you were asking for but it is always necessary to keep the options open.
Good luck!

p.s. I had thought of Calm Emotions also but for one thing it is not even a Druid spell.

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Probably won't be much help but-
I would like to say-

If you are unable to come up with a viable solution and this actually Is becoming a Problem- it may be necessary to "let the badger go" and get a new pet.
I know players and their characters can be rahter attached to a certain idea or thing but if IMO this is not something worhty of being an issue. Yeah you don't to mess with a players concept of the pc and if the have this really great reason to have this particular animal around all the time the Dm could come up with something like a magic collar that acts as an "on off switch" for the rage.
But as I said it may be necessary to get a different pet.

I realise this is not what you were asking for but it is always necessary to keep the options open.
Good luck!

p.s. I had thought of Calm Emotions also but for one thing it is not even a Druid spell.

You're definitely right that some animals may not be worth the bother. I have to wonder, though, how any druid PC can have a badger companion with a reasonable life expectancy due to its fight-to-the-death-if-damaged behavior. It almost makes you wonder why it's even on the list of companion options. For animal or monster summoning spells, it makes sense, because if it dies no big deal, but for a companion, I'm not sure how any badger or wolverine type animal is feasible. It almost makes the assumption that you win every fight you get in!

Thanks,
MC

 

[paulewaug]

ahhh...my typing is so bad sometimes!...I would go back and edit it but it is immortalized in quotes now. oh well! I should be more careful! ha-ha

Well the up side is that now you can replace your trusty animal companion for the low low price of a 24 hour meditation period.
Although having the same one long term is much better for the story.
I guess this is one of the spots where the dungeon crawl adventure game conflicts with the story driven RPG

I had made a crack about adventurers "needing to know when to fall back" (sarcasm) and using the raged pet to cover their retreat but had an error and had to start over, it wasn't worth redoing so-


So I guess the rage pets are for the roll players and the others could be better suited to the role players?

 

[Terwox]

Small note/hijack:
I had a player play an awakened dire badger sorceror.
He was on his way to being taught how to conquer his instincts by the druid, but the campaign died first.
If you want to awaken it, you could always try and change its alignment to lawful or something. heh...

 

[Dinkeldog]

I awakened my dire badger companion and had him start taking levels in barbarian to simulate learning to control his rage. That won't work in 3.5, since an awakened companion is no longer a companion now, right?

My best advice is to get your wizard friend cast Resilient Sphere on the badger and get him out of the way. I think it's also not unreasonable to assume that a companion always accepts spells (voluntarily fails saves) from his druid buddy.

 

[Will]

Note that an animal companion is a magical beast, not an animal, so animal spells won't work on it.

 

[mmu1]

It's just a simple Handle Animal check to "get the animal to do something it naturally wouldn't - and that's assuming (well, by 3.5 rules) that the DM isn't letting you use your animal companion as written, train it for combat, and be able to order it to stop fighting and run. Who cares if it's raging? The whole "trick" system is to get the animal companions to automatically do things they otherwise wouldn't...