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I'm having some issues statting out a badger Animal Companion for a 6th level Ranger in D&D 3.5.

Can anyone provide step by step instructions that I can follow whenever I create an animal companion?

Specifically, I'm looking for things like:

  1. Take the HD from the basic animal in the Monster Manual, then add additional HD based on the half the Ranger's level. These HD also add to Str...

  2. Figure BAB based on....

For some reason, these rules always throw me for a loop and I always miss something.

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You're on the right track.

Steps in creating an animal companion could be as follows:

  1. Calculate your effective Druid level. (You: One-half your Ranger level, so 3.)
  2. Look through the list of companions available to an (effective) Druid of your (effective) level. (You: You found the Badger.)
  3. Look up the bonus HD your animal companion gets due to your effective Druid level on the animal companion bonus table. (You: Effective Druid level 3 grants 2 bonus HD)
  4. Find your companion's monster stat block. (You: You will be using this)
  5. Add the number of bonus hit die (see 3) to the base number of hit dice your animal has. (You: You end up with a 3 HD badger. 1 base + 2 bonus.)
  6. Recalculate the animal's base attack bonus, base saves, number of feats, and number of skill points, referring to the base statistics of the animal type. How the feats and skill points are selected (whether it's you, the DM, or what) is not well defined. (You: Your badger ends up with BAB 2, F/R/W saves of 3+Con/3+Dex/1+Will, as well as two more skill points and one more feat than the stat block indicates)
  7. Add other bonuses and special abilities indicated on the animal companion table. (You: Your badger gets the Link, Share Spells and Evasion special abilities, 2 bonus tricks, its Strength and Dexterity are increased by 1, and its natural armor is increased by 2).
  8. Recalculate affected derived stats: HP, attack bonus, saving throw modifiers, grapple checks, and so on. (You: I shall leave it as an exercise!)
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    \$\begingroup\$ Clear and step by step; nice one. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rob
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 15:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ can you explain a little more the 6 step i dont get how you figured the saves the skill points and feats. i'm a ranger lvl 10 and i took a leopard and trying to built it \$\endgroup\$
    – user9233
    Commented Sep 1, 2013 at 14:55
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    \$\begingroup\$ @user9233 Welcome to the site! Please take a look at the tour and the help; they're a useful introduction to the site. Please don't use answers to ask about other answers; at 50+ rep, you can leave comments, but until then you can just ask your own questions. Or, once you have 20+ rep, feel free to join the chat, we can always help you out there! \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Commented Sep 1, 2013 at 15:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user9233 And now that I've explained the rules: you're basically leveling up the animal based on the Animal Type, which says you get ¾ your level as BAB, good Fort and Ref saves, and 2+Int skills. In a happy coincidence, these numbers are identical to a cleric's, so you could always just use that table (other than the spells and turn undead) as a quick way to look up what the animal has. Just substitute total HD for level. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Commented Sep 1, 2013 at 15:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ In terms of feats, it says that the monster is typical for one of its kind (Badger has agile, track and weapon finesse) and gains additional ... feats for bonus HD as normal for advancing a monster’s Hit Dice. Normal is that the player controlling the character decides feats, so I see no reason to think the DM would have any say in the feats from bonus HD \$\endgroup\$
    – Scott
    Commented Jun 19, 2014 at 22:22

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